Perrigo Company plc (NYSE:PRGO) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Perrigo Company plc (NYSE:PRGO) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript May 7, 2024

Perrigo Company plc isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).

Operator: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Perrigo First Quarter 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded on Tuesday, May 7, 2024. I would now like to turn the conference over to Brad Joseph, VP, Global Investor relations. Please go ahead.

Brad Joseph: Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Perrigo's first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. I hope you all had a chance to review our press release issued this morning. A copy of the releases and presentation for today's discussion are available within the Investors section of the perrigo.com website. Joining today's call are President and CEO, Patrick Lockwood-Taylor, and CFO, Eduardo Bezerra. I would like to remind everyone that during this call, participants will make certain forward-looking statements. Please refer to the important information for shareholders and investors and safe harbor language regarding these statements in our releases issued earlier today. A few items before we start. First, unless stated, all financial results discussed and presented are on a continuing operations basis.

Continuing operations for the quarter include the HRA Rare Diseases business, which was classified as held for sale after the quarter end and does not include any contributions from the divested RX business, which was accounted for as discontinued operations prior to its sale. Second, organic growth excludes acquisitions, divestitures, exited product lines and currency in both comparable periods. All comments related to constant currency removed the impact of currency translation versus the prior year by applying the exchange rates used in the comparable measurement in the prior year's financial statements. And third, Patrick's discussion will focus solely on non-GAAP results except as otherwise noted. See the appendix for additional details and reconciliations of all non-GAAP financial measures presented.

And with that, I'm pleased to turn the call to Patrick.

Patrick Lockwood-Taylor: Thank you, Brad. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to begin our call today by emphasizing the important strides we have made to further our One Perrigo strategy, deliver on our purpose to make lives better through trusted health and wellness solutions accessible to all. Let's start by recapping our quarter one results against the expectations that we discussed in our fourth quarter 2023 earnings call. First, we planned that actions to augment and strengthen our infant formula business would have an impact on our first quarter EPS and they did. While infant formula actions drove an EPS headwind of $0.30 versus the prior year, first quarter EPS was approximately $0.06 ahead of our projection due to timing of infant formula shipments to customers.

Actions taken in infant formula were impactful, but necessary. The significant progress we have made sets us up well to achieve a quality controlled, reliable manufacturing environment, though there is much more work to be done. I believe that the quality and compliance actions and investments we have taken will strengthen our competitive position in the industry over the long term. Also, as expected, SKU prioritization actions in CSCA weighed on quarter one organic net sales and EPS growth. However, these actions had multiple benefits, including gross margin expansion of 50 basis points across the enterprise in quarter one, greater focus on more profitable areas of our portfolio and provides additional production capacity as we build out our blended branded business.

Next, as highlighted on our last earnings call, US OTC retail inventories were above average entering quarter one. As expected, retailer inventory destocking led to lower shipments of product to customers compared to prior year. Encouragingly, consumption across Perrigo's US OTC business remained healthy at plus 1.9% over the last 13 weeks ending March '24. Based on current consumption trends, we believe that retail inventory levels should normalize during quarter two. Finally, CSCI continues to fire on all cylinders. Organic net sales in the quarter grew 7% and operating margin expanded 290 basis points versus last year to 19.7%. Collectively, the first quarter was a good start to the year as we delivered against our commitments and we remain on track to achieve our goals in 2024.

Turning to our first quarter financial highlights. As just discussed, first quarter net sales were heavily impacted by infant formula in addition to SKU prioritization actions to enhance margins as part of our supply chain reinvention program. These factors caused a decline in reported net sales of more than 8%. Organic net sales declined 7%, which comprised three major components, an impact of minus 4.3 percentage points from infant formula, an impact of minus 3.6 percentage points from SKU prioritization actions and organic net sales growth of plus 1 point from the rest of our business, driven by strong performance in CSCI and the launch of Opill. Quarter one gross margin declined 90 basis points to 36.5%, which comprised an unfavorable 280 basis points impact from infant formula, 50 basis points benefit from SKU prioritization actions and a 140 basis point benefit from the rest of the business led by gross margin expansion in US OTC and oral care.

As I said, first quarter EPS was ahead of projection, but was down $0.16 from a year ago to $0.29 per share. Infant formula had an unfavorable $0.30 per share impact and SKU prioritization actions had an additional $0.06 impact. These headwinds more than offset EPS growth of $0.20 per share in the rest of the business. Digging a bit deeper into net sales, we delivered solid performance in women's health which was led by the US launch of Opill. And in skincare, which benefited from robust growth in our Compeed and Mederma brands. Compeed achieved net sales growth of 56%, not incorporating distributor transitions that impacted sales in the prior year, driven by market share gains and the successful product line extension of Compeed Spots. Mederma net sales grew 51% in the quarter, driven by Mederma Cold Sore which added incremental sales to the brand and strong growth in e-commerce.

Net sales across most global categories was impacted by SKU prioritization actions in CSCA, which weighed most heavily on skincare, pain and sleep aids and digestive health. Inventory destocking at US retail customers also affected growth as I just discussed. This impact was most notable in cough-cold due to a lighter season than prior year and industry wide supply chain recoveries. Quick note on the US allergy season. There has been a recent uptick in incidence levels and consumption over the past 13 weeks. A strong and prolonged allergy season could drive the need for customer replenishment even as US retail inventories normalize. If a strong season does materialize, we're in a very good position to take advantage. Looking at our 2024 operational priorities, I'm pleased to say we remain well on track.

First, we are making good progress augmenting and strengthening our infant formula business and are working to recover manufacturing volumes. We also executed the nationwide launch of Opill in the US. More details on both of those in a few moments. We also continue to benefit from accretive priorities. First, we are on track to deliver a total of $25 million in incremental HRA synergies as we complete integration activities. Second, our supply chain reinvention program drove gross savings of $12 million in the quarter and gross margin expansion of 50 basis points from SKU prioritization actions. And third, Project Energize attained $17 million of cost savings in the quarter and we remain on target to deliver $140 million to $170 million in pre-tax annualized savings by 2026.

Turning to infant formula. As the leading US manufacturer of store brand formula, Perrigo plays a critical role in the health and wellness of hundreds of thousands of babies every year. Over the past few months, we have made significant progress to augment and strengthen our infant formula manufacturing network. This included, in some instances, pausing production for comprehensive cleaning and infrastructure improvements, in addition to enhancements of quality protocols and manufacturing processes. At this point, any planned large scale product resets have been completed and we are progressing to the next phase of our quality and operational enhancements. This next phase includes further policy and procedural enhancements at the site level.

In addition, we are making further investments in infrastructure and people as appropriate. Importantly, we do not expect this continuing body of work to result in extended shutdowns beyond normal maintenance activities. The recovery of manufacturing volumes is expected to continue to build throughout 2024, stemming from longer quality hold times and faster, shorter campaign-style production runs. Those volumes are expected to improve during the second half of this year followed by market share recovery. All of this is in line with our original outlook. Stabilization of infant formula will remain a journey and I'm pleased with the progress we have made. Maintaining quality compliance is core to Perrigo's business and culture. We will continue to invest in quality, capacity and other enhancements as we bolster quality-controlled, reliable manufacturing across our network.

With the launch of Opill, Perrigo has taken a historic step for women's health by creating an entirely new OTC category for oral contraceptives in the US. During the quarter, the Opill team executed the most revolutionary and holistic product launch in the history of Perrigo. The launch was broad and Opill can now be found at more than 65,000 retail locations across the US, in addition to major e-commerce retailers. The response to this launch has been truly amazing from customers to academics and now consumers. The Opill launch program encompassed a 360-degree approach to drive awareness. This began with a coordinated pre-launch campaign that drove highly positive sentiment. This resulted in high awareness for Opill even before our full media campaign ramps up over the coming weeks.

Through activation plans, strategic partnerships including a newly announced partnership with the WNBA and the increasing support of public and private healthcare plans, Opill is revolutionizing the landscape for women's health. Early Opill consumption and conversion metrics are encouraging. Through the first few weeks of activation, consumer time to conversion on opill.com has been impressive with limited touchpoints. The time to conversion demonstrates that our team has the right strategy in place to guide consumers through their decision journey and promote repeat usage, which will ultimately determine the long-term success of Opill. I'd like to congratulate our team, partners and supporters who played a vital role in the early success of Opill.

A doctor and a patient discussing the benefits of OTC health and wellness solutions.

Perrigo is committed to advancing women's health and will look to further innovate and provide accessible solutions that empower women to take charge of their own self-care journey. Now I would like to share an update on our blueprint for One Perrigo. The work we have conducted to identify our winning portfolio is clarifying how we will leverage our core competencies and strengths within our respective categories. Strategies within each category will depend on the long-term value creation potential and our right to win. These factors will shape various category management objectives including top line growth, profitability and cash generation. To grow across our portfolio, we must continue to invest in innovation, sourcing and new avenues of differentiation to deliver consumer preferred offerings.

Work to bolster our innovation pipeline is underway and will take time to fully develop, but we are approaching this objective from a position of strength and will work with our retail partners to lead category growth in the self-care aisle. Our US store brand business remains a cornerstone of the Perrigo portfolio and it's the furnace that will fuel our blended branded business. Given the continuous evolution of the self-care landscape, we are conducting a thorough analysis regarding the position of this business, including network design, capacity utilization and category penetration. Our priorities through fiscal 2025 include relentless execution in our core business to maximize free cash flow generation and de-lever. Key milestones are delivering margin expansion from Project Energize, returning our infant formula business to stable profitable operations, driving favorable outcomes with key customers in our US store brand business.

In parallel, we will continue to implement One Perrigo operating model enhancements to build a leaner, more efficient and agile global organization to enable our strategy. Our longer-term objective for 2026 and beyond is to realize our blended branded strategy, a model that delivers sustainable value accretive innovation. We'll have made targeted investments in our highest potential growth opportunities in the most attractive categories and built consumer good capabilities. This will enable a global branded growth with an eye towards accretive margins, cash flow and returns. We look forward to further articulating this strategy at our Investor Day later this year. As you may already seen, Svend Andersen, President of CSCI, will retire from Perrigo later this year.

During his seven years leading this business, Svend has played a pivotal role in the success of CSCI by focusing the portfolio, concentrating on innovation and brand extensions, all while making significant contributions to Perrigo's overall growth and development. On behalf of the Board of Directors, management team and everyone at Perrigo, we appreciate all that you have given, Svend, and all that you've done for Perrigo. Svend is handing over a business that has performed very well and I am confident that Roberto will continue to drive success. Roberto Khoury is joining Perrigo later this month and will officially lead CSCI in August. He joins Perrigo from Kenvue and has more than 20 years of experience in branded consumer products, including leadership of pan European brands, accelerating digital and e-commerce capabilities, reducing portfolio complexity and improving integrated planning accuracy.

I'm confident in Roberto and his ability to further our One Perrigo strategy. In summary, we remain highly focused on our priorities, including our One Perrigo strategy. We reported a good first quarter and will continue executing against our 2024 operational priorities. We are making great progress in strengthening and augmenting our infant formula network. Opill is off to a fast start and we are on track to deliver our accretive initiatives. We will do this while progressing our blueprint for One Perrego to consumerize, simplify and scale our business, all while focusing on cash returns and deleveraging. With that, I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Eduardo to cover the financials.

Eduardo Bezerra: Thank you, Patrick. Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. Looking at the first quarter financials, starting with the GAAP to non-GAAP summary. Company reported GAAP net income of $4 million or $0.03 per diluted share. Adjusted net income was $40 million and adjusted diluted earnings per share was $0.29 versus $0.45 in the prior year. Primary adjustments to our first quarter non-GAAP P&L were, first, the removal of $113 million tax benefit, primarily driven by an $84 million benefit related to the planned intercompany sale of intellectual property. Two, amortization expenses of $59 million. And three, restructuring charges of $44 million primarily related to our Project Energize and supply chain reinvention programs.

Full details can be found in the non-GAAP reconciliation table attached to today's press release. From this point forward, all financial results discussed will be on an adjusted basis unless otherwise noted. As highlighted, first quarter results were heavily impacted by the actions we're taking to strengthen and augment our infant formula business and SKU prioritization actions to enhance margins. This led to an operating income decline of 22%, excluding the impact of infant formula, adjusted operating income from the rest of the business grew mid teens percent. Let's dig into additional details. Looking at our segment performance during the quarter, CSCI continues to perform well, highlighted by plus 7% organic net sales growth. The strong top line performance was driven by growth in compete and the absence of distributor transitions that unfavorably impacted the prior year.

CSCI gross margin was impacted by lower volumes partially in the cough cold category due to supply constraints and lower seasonal incidents across Europe. However, operating margin expanded 290 basis points to 19.7% driven by expense reductions resulting from HRA synergies and ROI focused advertising and promotion spend as part of Project Energize. I too would like to thank Svend for his tremendous efforts and leadership over the years while also welcoming Roberto to the Perrigo team. In CSCA, infant formula and SKU prioritization actions weighted on Q1 performance with net sales down 15.7% and organic net sales down 14.6%. Organic net sales from the rest of the CSCA business declined 2.3% due primarily to US retail inventory destocking across most categories.

As Patrick noted, we believe retail inventories should normalize in Q2. First quarter CSCA gross margin declined 280 basis points versus last year, including minus 520 basis points driven by infant formula. The infant formula impact was partially offset by gross margin improvement of plus 10 basis points from SKU prioritization actions and plus 230 basis points expansion from the rest of the business, driven by favorable product mix in US OTC and oral care. Continuing with margins, Perrigo's first quarter gross margin declined 90 basis points, including an impact of minus 280 basis points from infant formula. When excluding these impacts from infant formula, Perrigo achieved a meaningful year-over-year gross margin expansion of plus 190 basis points.

All of these translated into operating margin expansion of plus 260 basis points excluding the impact from infant formula. Two central takeaways here. First, the importance of augmenting and strengthening infant formula cannot be overstated. And second, margin across the rest of the business continue to recover and expand. Now to EPS. Infant formula, as expected, had an unfavorable $0.30 per share impact and SKU prioritization actions had an additional $0.06 impact year-over-year. These headwinds more than offset a benefit of $0.20 per share from the rest of the business, which included a reduction of $0.02 from the impact of exited products. Before turning to the balance sheet, a few comments on the proposed divestment of HRA Rare Disease business, which has been a key component of our 2024 deleveraging plan.

This proposed divestment further supports our focused consumer self-care portfolio and the business will best flourish as part of ESTEVE Group. We plan to redeploy the upfront proceeds of EUR190 million later this year for debt repayment. Importantly, the financial impact of this proposed divestment was included in our regional 2024 outlook. I would like to thank the HRA Rare Disease’s team for their dedication and focus as they continue improving the lives of patients with rare disease. Cash on the balance sheet at the end of the first quarter was $659 million. First quarter operating cash outflow was $1 million due to infant formula and restructuring costs primarily related to Project Energize. During the quarter, we also invested $25 million in capital expenditures and returned $38 million to shareholders through dividends.

Sources and uses of cash for 2024 remain largely intact from our initial outlook, apart from upcoming cash tax payments related to the planned intercompany sale of intellectual property that will benefit the company over the long term. We continue to anticipate operating cash flow conversions for the full year of 90% to 100% of adjusted net income. Looking at the balance of the year, we expect Q2 to be our lowest operating cash flow quarter due to restructuring costs related to Project Energize. In addition, you may have seen that Perrigo recently settled a shareholder lawsuit for $97 million without any concession of liability or wrongdoing. We expect to pay the settlement in the second quarter using cash on hand and are seeking a full recovery from insurance providers this year.

In total, we now estimate end cash balance for 2024 of between $500 million and $550 million. Importantly, we continue to expect a net leverage ratio of approximately 3.8 times to 4 times at year-end. Looking at EPS phasing for the year, our expected weighting between the first and second half remains unchanged. As discussed, timing of infant formula shipments realized in the first quarter, which were originally expected in the second quarter are driving a change in our first half phasing. Outside of these, there are no updates to our previous phasing assumptions. Our 2024 outlook for total Perrigo also remains unchanged. Organic net sales growth of 1% to 3% is expected to be driven by new products including Opill, pricing actions and the absence of the HRA distributor transition impacts.

These drivers are expected to more than offset volume declines primarily in infant formula and a negative impact of one percentage point to organic growth from SKU prioritization actions. All in, net sales growth is expected to be flat compared to 2023 as organic growth is offset by divested and exited business and products. Excluding infant formula from both years, we continue to expect gross margin expansion in 2024. We are reaffirming our full-year EPS range of $2.50 to $2.65 equating to meetings percentage growth excluding infant formula. In closing, I would like to thank our Perrigo colleagues for their commitment to advancing our One Perego vision and for their continued focus on achieving our 2024 priorities. Now, I will turn the call back to Brad.

Brad?

Brad Joseph: Thanks, Eduardo. Operator, can you please open the call for questions?

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