Prestige Consumer Healthcare Inc (PBH) 2022 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Third Quarter 2022 Prestige Consumer Healthcare Inc. Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions)

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker host, Phil Terpolilli, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasury. Please go ahead.

Thanks, operator, and thank you, everyone, for joining today. On the call with me are Ron Lombardi, our Chairman, President and CEO; and Christine Sacco, our CFO.

On today's call, we're going to review the results of the third quarter fiscal 2022, provide an update on our full year outlook and then take questions from analysts. There's a slide presentation, which accompanies today's call, can be accessed by visiting prestigeconsumerhealthcare.com, clicking on the Investors link and then on today's webcast and presentation. Remember, some of the information contained in the presentation today include non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the nearest GAAP financial measure are included in today's earnings release and slide presentation.

On today's call, management will make forward-looking statements around risks and uncertainties, which are detailed in a complete safe harbor disclosure on Page 2 of the slide presentation that accompanies the call. These are important to review and contemplate. As everyone on the call today is well aware, business environment uncertainty remains heightened due to COVID-19 and continues to have numerous potential impacts. This means the results could change at any time, and the forecasted impact of risk considerations is the best estimate based on the information available as of today's date. Further information concerning risk factors and cautionary statements are available in our most recent SEC filings and most recent company's 10-K.

I'll now hand it over to our CEO, Ron Lombardi. Ron?

Thanks, Phil. Let's begin on Slide 5. We are very pleased with our Q3 results, which exceeded our expectations and continued the strong business momentum we experienced in the first half. Revenues of $275 million in Q3 grew 15% versus the prior year, a consistent performance with trends experienced year-to-date. Our base business trends remain robust across the majority of our portfolio, aided by strong consumer demand and our time-tested brand building.

Additionally, the quarter experienced sales and consumption rebounds in certain categories that have been impacted by COVID-19, most notably cough and cold. This fueled incremental Q3 sales versus our prior expectation discussed in November. And our International segment also increased double digits to record quarterly revenues, driven by broad-based strength for the segment's flagship brand, Hydralyte.

Solid sales growth continues to translate into strong earnings and free cash flow. We generated about $1 of EPS and free cash flow of about $65 million, both up double digits versus prior year. Lastly, we continue to be disciplined around use of cash generated by the business. The acquisition of Akorn Consumer brands completed earlier in the year continues to perform well and aligned to our expectations. We finished the quarter at 3.9x net leverage, ahead of our previous guidance to be below 4x by year-end, which further enables future capital allocation optionality.

Now let's turn to Page 6 for a deeper dive into Q3 performance. Our solid Q3 sales and profit performance was achieved against a macro backdrop of a new variant of COVID-19 during the quarter as well as the dynamic cost in supply chain environment. This is a testament to the execution of our proven business strategy that continues to allow us to navigate challenges like these successfully.

Three major attributes shown on the page helped enable this during the quarter. At left, we have a reminder of the power of our portfolio's diversification. Our brands are trusted by consumers and are wide ranging across categories. This has allowed us to be agile and opportunistic around marketing opportunities as they have occurred throughout the pandemic. In the middle of the page is a reminder of the COVID-19 rebound we'd experienced. This broadened out again in Q3 with accelerating cough and cold demand versus prior year.

Furthermore, consumers proactively sought hydration products during Q3, which benefited Hydralyte in Australia. Finally, on the right side of the page is supply chain. Like others, we are experiencing the headwinds associated with supply chain constraints and inflationary pressures. Fortunately, we are well positioned to navigate this dynamic environment. The diversification of our supplier base gives us the agility to adjust to a volatile supply environment helping to ensure continuity in our supply chain and support growing sales.

So to summarize, we are leveraging our portfolio's attributes, including its broad diversification across categories to drive long-term growth. We are experiencing a solid rebound in multiple COVID impacted categories and while experiencing macro headwinds, we believe we are well positioned to navigate supply chain challenges.

Now I'll turn it over to Chris to walk through the financials.

Thanks, Ron. Good morning, everyone. Let's turn to Slide 8 and review our third quarter fiscal '22 financial results. As a reminder, the information in today's presentation includes certain non-GAAP information that is reconciled to the closest GAAP measure in our earnings release. Q3 revenue of $274.5 million increased 14.9% and 8.8% on an organic basis versus the prior year. The latter, excluding the acquisition of Akorn, which added $13.7 million in the quarter.

By segment, North America revenues were up about 14%. Nearly all product categories grew with the largest organic increases in GI, ear and eye care and especially, cough and cold, where we experienced favorable sales trends versus the prior year for both Luden's and Chloraseptic. The International segment increased approximately 18% in Q3 after excluding the effects of foreign currency. As Ron highlighted earlier, Q3 was a record international performance. This segment continued to benefit from favorable consumer trends in many of our categories previously impacted by COVID-19, including strong sales for the Hydralyte brand.

EBITDA increased in Q3 approximately 11% and EBITDA margins remained consistent with our long-term expectations in the mid-30s. Diluted earnings per share for the quarter was $0.99, up 22% versus the prior year, driven primarily by higher sales and lower interest expense.

Let's turn to Slide 9 for more detail around consolidated results for the first 9 months. Revenues for the first 9 months of fiscal '22 increased 16% versus the prior year and approximately 12% on an organic basis. This performance was driven by strength across segments and most brands along with accelerated performance in certain COVID impacted categories such as travel and cough and cold. We also continue to experience year-over-year double-digit consumption growth in the e-commerce channel, further building upon the sharply higher online purchasing shift that occurred throughout fiscal '21.

Total company adjusted gross margin of 57.7% year-to-date was comparable with last year's gross margin of 58.2%. We continue to anticipate a full year gross margin of approximately 57%, reflecting supply challenges and cost pressures we and others are experiencing. We have instituted pricing actions across our portfolio, and we'll continue to do so moving forward as necessary to continue to offset these inflationary headwinds.

Returning to year-to-date results. Advertising and marketing came in at 14.7% for the first 9 months, similar to the prior year as a percentage of sales and growing in dollars. For Q4, we'd anticipate an A&M rate of approximately 14%. Adjusted G&A expenses were just over 9% of sales year-to-date, and we continue to anticipate G&A of around 9.5% of sales for the full year. Adjusted diluted earnings per share for the first 9 months of $3.15 grew approximately 29% over the prior year. Higher sales and lower interest expense drove this growth. We still anticipate interest to approximate $63 million for the full year as well as an effective tax rate of around 24%.

Now let's turn to Slide 10. For the first 9 months, we generated $193.8 million in free cash flow, up about 22% versus the prior year due to the strong operating performance just discussed as well as lower CapEx in fiscal '22. We continue to maintain industry-leading free cash flow conversion based around our asset-light model. At December 31, our net debt was approximately $1.5 billion, and we finished the quarter with a covenant-defined leverage ratio of 3.9x.

Our strong operating performance and focus on debt reduction have allowed us to achieve a leverage ratio below that of when we acquired Akorn earlier in the year. We continue to operate with a disciplined capital allocation strategy that prioritizes debt reduction in the near term.

With that, I'll turn it back to Ron.

Thanks, Chris. Let's turn to Slide 12 to wrap up and discuss our increased outlook. Our proven business strategy and diversified portfolio have allowed us to successfully navigate the dynamic market and led to a record fiscal '22 performance thus far. For the full year, we now anticipate revenues of $1.075 billion to $1.080 billion. This includes an organic revenue growth expectation of about 9% as we anticipate a continued recovery in certain COVID impacted categories for the remainder of the year.

We are also raising our full year earnings and cash flow outlooks. We now anticipate adjusted EPS of $4 to $4.04 for fiscal '22, equating to an increase of about 23% to 25% versus the prior year. We anticipate adjusted free cash flow of $250 million or more as well.

Looking ahead to fiscal '23, we expect to face another year of unusual comparisons and quarterly volatility stemming from COVID disruptions as well as comping our fiscal '22 record results. Even with this, our business remains well positioned, and we expect our business attributes to enable both top and bottom line growth in the upcoming fiscal year.

We look forward to sharing a more detailed full year fiscal '23 outlook in May and remain confident we have the right business attributes and strategy to deliver superior results that reward our stakeholders over the long term.

With that, I'll open it up for questions.

(Operator Instructions)

And our first question coming from the line of Rupesh Parikh with Oppenheimer.

Congrats on another strong quarter. So I guess just -- Ron, just ending on -- you just talked about the forward outlook for next year that you guys expect top and bottom line growth. I know you can't provide specific guidance at this point, but maybe some more color in terms of the tailwinds and headwinds as you look to next year in terms of actually lapping such a strong year.

Yes. So just a couple of things. First is, we provided some outlook for next year just I think to reinforce the optimism that we have around the business right now. The business has a lot of momentum, and we're really firing on all cylinders. So we wanted to get that point across. And as we look into next year, we anticipate growth even stepping off of the record results that we have this year, including an expectation of organic growth.

Okay. Okay. Great. And then on the capital allocation front, at least based on our model, it looks like you guys can be even below the lower end of your targeted debt to EBITDA ranges. How do you -- if you guys do end up being below that range, like how do you guys think about just capital allocation into next year? Like does anything change from a prioritization standpoint, whether that's pay down, share buybacks or anything else?

Our capital allocation priorities will remain consistent even if we operate below the 3.5 floor that we've talked about. The first is continued delevering. Second would be thoughtful consideration of M&A opportunities as they pop up and third would be opportunistic stock buyback if we see opportunities to get good returns for the shareholders by buying stock back. So no change in that.

Okay. Great. And then just my final question, just on the cost backdrop. If you can remind us again, the magnitude of headwind that you're facing this year and then how your pricing has played out versus your expectations?

Sure, Rupesh. It's Chris. So we talked about $10 million or $15 million of inflationary pressure this year. That's contemplated in our guide, and there's no change to that on today's call. In November, we talked about 30% of the portfolio having taken price, and kind of the latest update is, and we've now either taken price or have initiated further pricing actions around the vast majority of our portfolio. So we remain confident in our ability to offset further pressures with pricing should the inflationary environment worsen.

Your next question coming from the line of Stephanie Wissink with Jefferies.

Just a follow-up on Rupesh's question on pricing. I'm wondering if you can give us some degree or a magnitude of the price increase you're seeing overall in the OTC category, and then how your pricing compares to that?

Yes, Steph, it's Chris. So pricing for us, and I think kind of consistent with what we're seeing out there, is mid- to high single digits in most of our categories for products where we've had significant cost inflation. It's worth about a point for us in this quarter, and obviously, we'll play out. Obviously, there's a timing factor to how that rolls out as we work through the rest of our fiscal '22 and into next year. But I think that's pretty consistent with what we're seeing out there across other brands.

That's very helpful. And then my second question is on the trade inventory levels. Just given there's been so much dynamicism in the mix of business and COVID impacted categories starting to see a recovery, how are you feeling about the trade inventory? How are you feeling about your own inventory? And do you anticipate having to recalibrate as we move through the next 6 to 12 months?

Sure. Steph, so for starters, I think we and the retailers would both like to see more inventory in place, right? There's a lot of peaks and valleys in terms of demand and quickly shifting consumer buying habits, that I think we'd all like to be a little bit better positioned to deal with. For example, our performance this quarter was large -- or the outperformance was largely concentrated in the last month of the quarter as the Omicron variant kind of chased shoppers into the stores. So we'd like to see a bit more inventory than the retailers would.

And then in terms of at shelf, for the most part, we're in pretty good shape. Although there are pockets where we are a bit more challenged in terms of presence at shelf and some stock outs, but supply chain has been able to keep up with record levels of shipments the last couple of quarters for us here.

That's great. My last question actually is a 2-part question on e-com. I think you mentioned it was up double digits, and you called out the online shift in 2021. But then, Ron, your comment just recently that you've seen more of a foot traffic in the store. Can you talk a little bit about e-com penetration? Where are you in that longer-term outlook? And then as you think about 2022, do you expect e-com to donate back to stores? Or do you expect there to be some neutralizing factor this year that kind of balances out?

Yes. So for fiscal '22, we continue to see e-commerce growth well above brick-and-mortar growth, and we would continue to expect that the online e-com growth will be above brick-and-mortar's. Tough to predict what consumer shopping habits will be going forward, but clearly, the trend seems to be sticking with convenience, the quick delivery of many products that are ordered online and shipped to home and then the growing aspect of order and pickup in the parking lot or order online and pickup as you enter the store. So all of those attributes, I think, are going to continue to help see it grow strongly.

So we're still in the early stages. Even though our business has gone from $15 million or $20 million to over $100 million in just a couple of years here, but it's something we continue to invest behind and work with our brick and retail -- brick-and-mortar retail partners to be successful in their e-com initiatives as well.

Your next question coming from the line of Jon Andersen with William Blair.

I wanted to start with the -- just the guidance on the top line. I think it implies a pretty meaningful deceleration in organic growth in the fourth quarter. And that would be, I think, on the easiest comparison of the year. And just given kind of the momentum in the business right now and the recovery in some of the COVID categories and perhaps, shipping ahead of consumption to restore some on-shelf in-stock levels. I'm trying to understand, is that just conservatism baked into that? And are there other kind of factors at work that we need to consider?

Jon, it's Chris. So a couple of things, I guess, to consider. As Ron just mentioned, we saw a pretty meaningful acceleration in our sales in the month of December. Obviously, a very dynamic environment. As we sit here today, as a reminder, we took a full year guide up this morning that included a call-up for Q4, which is essentially reflecting a continued rebound in cough/cold, and we are forecasting continued strong consumer demand across the markets. But obviously, we'll learn a lot more as we go, but in this environment, we thought that was prudent.

Okay. And then on the '23 -- broad commentary on '23, you mentioned an expectation for organic growth on top of the great results in 2022. Are you thinking about 2023 and kind of a long-term algorithm kind of growth, 3%, I think, was how you talked about, the top line growth organically over the longer period of time. Is that the way we should kind of think about it at a high level?

Yes. We'll provide more detail in May, Jon. A little bit early here for us to get into the details for next year. The quarter that ended December was hard to predict when we were talking in November. So tough to predict the particulars at this time, but today's comments were meant -- want to reinforce how we feel good about the business that our underlying categories, excluding the COVID categories that are certainly getting a tailwind this year, continue to be positioned well for continued organic growth. If you look into the queue, you'll see that the vast majority of our categories have grown nicely year-to-date, given the choppy environment we're in. So -- but yes, we would anticipate organic growth on top of the addition of the one quarter of the Akorn Consumer brands that we own for all of '23 versus just 3 quarters of '24.

Okay. And just one more kind of broader question on the market and consumer behavior. Are you -- do you see or perceive [some] more permanent changes in consumer behavior? Maybe some of it is brought on by longer-term factors, some brought on by the pandemic. And what I'm getting at here, is there a greater focus on prevention, preventative type of health care measures, self-care, maybe certain categories like weight management or vitamins. Or I guess, what's changed or changing with respect to consumer demand patterns? And do you see benefits in your portfolio today as a result of that? And would any of those changes inform what you might look at from an M&A perspective in the future?

Yes. So I think -- first of all, Jon, and we've talked about this for a very long time, which is why we've been concentrating our efforts in the consumer health care space, right? Is that -- there's been a long-term trend of consumers being more thoughtful of their health and wellness and taking care of it. And during the pandemic, I think it's been even more heightened around hygiene, for example and things that help strengthen the immunity system and cough/cold products and that kind of thing.

So as we've seen over the last 2 years, the spaces that we compete in are part of that environment as people think about taking care of themselves at home rather than going into the doctor's office. So we'll see whether those trends stick long term or whether their levels of growth will slow over time, but our diverse portfolio of trusted brands with long heritage with consumers, I think, has us very well positioned for continued long-term growth no matter how the consumer thinks about taking care of themselves over time.

Our next question coming from the line of Anthony Lebiedzinski from Sidoti & Company.

So in terms of advertising expenses, I mean, what are you guys seeing there in terms of just the advertising rates? I know you provided year-over-year -- guidance for the fourth quarter, but just broadly speaking, in terms of the rates across different media channels, I mean what are you seeing there? And how do you expect that to play out in fiscal '23, just broadly speaking?

So certainly, there's some inflationary pressures around A&M just as there are across so many factors right now, but we get smarter every day. How we spend our A&M dollars with the e-com channel, as an example, with key learnings, we're getting more efficient. And so we're able to offset a lot of that. It's not a big concern within the company when we just think about our overall spend. It's certainly there, but I think our efficiency is helping to offset the impact.

Got you. Okay. And then obviously, with the supply chain, there's still some gross margin pressure. As far as, I mean, that's concerned other than price increases, are you doing anything else as far as anything you could call out to try to offset some of those pressures?

Sure. So our operations team is always hard at work with multiyear projects for cost savings and that could include -- excuse me, co-packer consolidation, negotiating better rates with our transportation partners in terms of lanes and who we're using, partnering with. So a whole host of things folks are looking at, dual sourcing, looking at maybe APIs and how they can be sourced more efficiently. So no stone will go uncovered, but we, again, always have multiyear programs in place and always focused on it. In this environment, obviously, it's even more so.

Got you. Okay. And then last thing. As far as CapEx, what should we expect for fiscal '22?

Yes, we guided about $10 million, right? Generally speaking, we talk about pretty modest capital, obviously, with our asset-light model, 1% to 2% of sales on an annual basis. In this year just with timing, it will come in at the lower end of the range.

Our next question coming from the line of Linda Weiser with D.A. Davidson.

Yes. Could you just highlight, in the past, you've had some interesting innovations at certain points in certain products. Are there any innovations that you've had in the last year you'd like to highlight? And then maybe you could just comment on which products are kind of most strongly gaining share and then maybe ones that you would like even more share gain to occur?

New product and innovation launches are an important thought of how we build our brands and expand our sales and share every year. So for fiscal '22, it's been no exception. We've had a number of new products and innovation launched across a number of brands, including Summer's Eve, Compound W and a number of others. So it's going to continue to play a role going forward, but nothing that has been a significant contributor to the success this year. It's just in the base every year and a consistent contributor to (inaudible).

Any categories that you want to highlight where your share gains are particularly strong?

Sure. If you look at across our portfolio, Dramamine, even in this disrupted environment, and quick recovery has done well. And Clear Eyes, it's probably been the biggest share gainer and biggest success that we've had this year across the portfolio. So I think those are 2 call-out areas.

Okay. And then I was just curious on your e-commerce sales, I would expect that the vast majority comes through Amazon. Are you a first-party or third-party seller on Amazon or a combination, I guess? Can you just give a little more color on how you go about that business?

Yes. So we have been of both. And what we do is, we focus on how to win with the consumer and what product offering is working best through Amazon, and that will drive whether it's a 1P or 3P focus for us. And then obviously, Amazon is the big number for us and the big dollar of growth, but we do still focus on working with the dot-com arms of our brick-and-mortar partners to help them be successful as well. And again, our strategy is pretty simple, which is be available where the consumer chooses to buy the product and that can be amazon.com, walmart.com, target.com, et cetera. So we're really agnostic in terms of where or through what means the consumer chooses to buy the product.

Our next question coming from the line of Mitch Pinheiro with Sturdivant & Co.

Most of my questions have been asked, but I do have a couple on third tiers. First, I was looking in the statement of cash flows and I saw that the acquisition cash went up about $20 million from Q2 to Q3. I was curious just what that was.

Mitch, it's Chris. So during the quarter, we acquired the rights to a very small eye care brand in Australia. It's in the allergy category. It will complement what we have with our Murine brand in that market, and it will be folded into Australia. It's pretty similar to Hydralyte. If you recall, a couple of years ago, we acquired the rights to some additional Asian markets for the Hydralyte brand. I think it was back in 2019. It's about $1 million -- excuse me, not the Hydralyte brand, but this brand, which is called [Zaditen], is about $1 million a quarter. So it's pretty small, but we're looking forward to growing it in the future.

Okay. And then have you -- so you've had a couple of quarters now with TheraTears and it's been tracking in line with your expectations, but like you've had a couple quarters here to get your arms around it. What are you thinking about as you look forward here with TheraTears? Are we -- do you see any line extension possibilities? is there marketing changes? Is there packaging changes? I was just curious what you're going to -- it's going to look like because I imagine it's going to be a little bit of a driver for you next year.

Yes. Mitch, so really all of those things over time. We think there's distribution gain opportunities. We think there's product extension opportunities, new products and innovation. Maybe we'll even get to updating the packaging over time. Even though we've had it for 7 months or so now, we're still in the very early stages of it. We just recently launched an additional new product, [extra unit dose] that will be out at shelf now as you can find. So we continue to be very optimistic about the long-term growth opportunities for that brand and look forward to growing it over the long term.

Our next question coming from the line of Carla Casella with JPMorgan.

You guys mentioned an improvement in the cold and flu kind of drive some of the results this quarter. I was curious how that stacks up versus 2019 or pre-COVID? And the second part of that question is that given the rebound in that category specifically, have you guys seen any sort of changes in the promotional environment?

Okay. So for starters, we anticipate our sales for this year for our cough/cold products to still be below the 2019 and 2020, this is at fiscal year. At this point, as a reminder, the first 6-plus months of our fiscal year was still fairly slow for those categories. We saw this significant rebound largely beginning in December for us. We'll see how the rest of the year plays out. It looks like it's going to continue at least through this quarter for us. And then for next year, it's hard to predict what level of incidences that the season will start with and then what that will ultimately end up being in terms of a driver for both retailer orders and consumer takeaway at shelf. So still lots that's hard to predict about not only this quarter, but next year as well. But good help to growth this year.

And just a reminder, cough/cold is about 7% or 8% of our sales.

Great. And the second number question, because I think a couple of them have been answered so far, is you kind of called out Australia driving a lot of the international results. Can you kind of talk about where that market stands in your opinion also relative to pre-pandemic? Are we back to full? Are we a little bit below as well? I'm just kind of curious there and that should be it from us. Thank you.

Yes, sure. So not quite back to pre-pandemic levels, right? A big part of our business in the International segment is Hydralyte, the hydration brand, which benefited this quarter from increased cough/cold just as we did here in the U.S. incidences of flu. As vaccination rates were up, it drove consumers back out. It's always hard to predict the timing of orders in our International segment because it's a distributor model, but as we sit here today, we are anticipating a pretty strong Q4 above our long-term growth expectations, which is about 5% growth in our International segment. But just given the continued momentum, we think Q4 is likely to come in a bit stronger than that 5% as well.

Our next question coming from the line of William Reuter with Bank of America.

I just have two. So the first is, you mentioned that your supply chain has done pretty well, faired given all the challenges. Are there any inputs to some of your products that you have your eye on that you're concerned that potentially could be unavailable and could disrupt some of the availability of products to your customers?

So the short answer is, not really. As a reminder, we're starting with the benefit of a diverse brand portfolio, and that also helps to diversify our cost components. We have a number of suppliers and pretty broad-based co-manufacturing partners. So no, at this time, we're not focused on one particular thing that would be material to the company.

Good to hear. And then you guys went through your -- the ranking of capital allocation. You also mentioned in the prepared remarks having additional optionality based upon leverage being a little bit lower than you had expected it to be at this point. I guess what are you seeing in terms of valuations? Do you think that it's a relatively attractive market? Or do you think valuations are a little rich?

Yes. So for starters, when we evaluate M&A, that's certainly an important consideration valuation, but long-term brand building and the ability to get appropriate returns on the capital is very much where we start. So a multiple is kind of a math exercise. It's really about what we think we can do with the brand over the long term to create value. In terms of the current environment, certainly, there's a lot of headline news about super rich multiples, right? For example, GSK turning down 20x EBITDA from Unilever, giving an indication that valuations are really super rich.

For us, we tend to be competing against PE and other buyers who don't necessarily get the synergies or have the cost of capital that we have that allows us to be competitive out there. So for example, with TheraTears, we saw a valuation of around 10-ish or so. So for the things that we're competing for, we don't see the super high multiples that you're seeing in the press.

And I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Lombardi for any closing remarks.

Good. Thank you, operator, and thanks to everyone for joining us today, and we look forward to connecting again in May where we'll give an update on fiscal '23 and the finish to fiscal '22. Have a great day.

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.