Brown Forman Corp (BF-B) September 2026 Conference Transcript

We're going to get started. So, it's great to have Brown Forman CEO Lawson Whiting back at our conference. We were counting, we think, the ninth time. We think. Seven times, okay. And joined by the company's new CFO, Jim Peters, who joined the company at the end of March. Lawson, I first want to congratulate you on your planned retirement. It's been a pleasure working with you, and thank you for being such a great supporter of our conference over these years. um so back to business um you guys reported earnings last week you reiterated fiscal 27 guidance conveyed confidence and a profit outlook toward the high end of the range which is great news um so a bunch of stuff we can talk about yeah great um so lawson let's start with the broader kind of setup if you will um over the last year the company has navigated softer developed market, spirits trends, rising cost pressure, M&A speculation, CFO succession, considerable changes at the distributor level, and now your planned retirement. So as you think about the next chapter for the company and what's ahead for your successor, what are the two or three strategic priorities that you think matter most for restoring confidence in the medium-term growth algorithm or opportunity, I should say?

Yeah, look, I mean, it always, with Brown-Forman, starts with the geographic expansion, really of our portfolio, but obviously Jack Daniels-led. And just to sort of put some context around that, so I started almost 30 years ago. When I started, we were 80% U.S., 20% international. Ten years later, we were 60% U.S., 40% international. Today, we are 40% U.S. and 60% international. So it's been a massive movement in terms of where we generate our sales and our business, where our people are. I mean, we are now spread out all over the world. We have many more employees outside of the U.S. than we have inside the U.S. So a lot of people think of Brown Forman as this sort of U.S.-centric company from Kentucky, and it is much broader than that at this point. So, look, I mean, the geographic expansion on Jack is, over my career, is where the value creation has really come from. and as the brand has gotten bigger and bigger around the world, but it's created enormous amounts of shareholder value. So that is going to continue to be priority one for the company. We will continue to do that, although the rest of our portfolio, which I'll talk about in a second, also has a big place in that strategic plan too. Another topic I think that is increasingly important, not only to Brown Forum, but the industry in whole, and especially in the United States, is innovation. So innovation, particularly when I started, really wasn't that quite honestly important. It was a handful of core brands that continued to grow around the world. Innovation has become immensely more important, whether different categories play well in the world of innovation. It just happens, I think, that American whiskey and scotch would be in there too, but American whiskey and tequila are the two categories that play in innovation the best. A lot of that's because you use barrels to age, And there's different things that you can do to create super premium, ultra premium line extensions off of that. And so innovation within the Jack Daniels trademark ranges everything from what we did last year with Jack Daniels Blackberry, which has been a great success. In the same year, we did something called Jack Daniels Heritage Barrel, which is really an ultra premium line extension that we sold out of. We sold every bottle we could make, and it's quite substantial, and it was a really great product. So I say all that because I find the Jack Daniels franchise or the Jack Daniels family of brands has the ability to do a BlackBerry and then an ultra premium in the same year. It's the broad shoulders of the brand that can help to do that. And so you've got Jack Daniels first. You've got innovation and making sure you do things there. And then a lot of the brands that we've not only just purchased in the last couple of years, the Ginmares and Diplomaticos, but certainly I go back to Woodford. Woodford is now a big brand in the United States, very small outside of the United States, so that's another international opportunity. But in general, we call them emerging brands, so the brands that are relatively small outside of the United States but collectively are meaningful, excited about the opportunities there.

Okay, great. Let's talk a little bit about what I would describe as almost like the definition of self-help, and that's been the U.S. route to market changes. It's been about a year now. I think there were a couple control states where there were some further changes in June, but it feels like a reasonable time to reflect on how that's gone. So are you seeing the better execution? Let's actually back up. Maybe talk a little bit about what you were hoping to see in deciding to make these changes, offer some context for people who might be less familiar, and then are you seeing kind of better execution coming out of that? Because it's hard for us to really see that, particularly with the categorious challenges it is, to really see what the outcome has been.

Yeah, well, the first and most important reason that we made the changes was focus. So towards the end, I mean, it really started with leaving RNDC, and California was first, and then it spread to the rest of, you know, a lot of other brands. And one, we were the first ones out for the most part, which gave us an advantage in that we looked at the rest of the industry and had the ability to navigate without 100 other companies trying to do the same thing, which all accelerated as the year went on. But focus is so important, I believe, in our business. It's actually why I do believe Brown Forman has been successful and not necessarily lost share or underperformed the bigger competitors that we have out there because focus is that important. And towards the end of the RNDC days, I mean, they had huge portfolios. I mean, literally, you could have literally hundreds of brands in a salesman's book. and that just doesn't work. We're not getting the focus that we wanted and so we wanted to really, that was important. Better execution. We are getting better execution. Our trends have improved in the U.S. over the last year. It took some time. Some markets were easier to transition than others but we've pretty much got our feet under ourselves now. The result of that was, interestingly, was our biggest brands transitioned pretty quick. It was our smaller brands that just weren't top of mind, and the distributors themselves weren't really ready for the entire portfolio all at once. So that only took a few months to fix. But so that all, you know, that part is working right now. And then economics. We got better terms, allowing us to either drop some of that to the bottom line or reinvest a little bit more, and we did a little bit of both. Okay.

I'm also curious to get your read on the state of the distributor landscape as a whole. You know, there's been a large shakeup. There were catalysts along the way, but a very broad shakeup since we were last here a year ago. So, you know, how has that impacted the industry? Do you think we're through the worst of it from that standpoint? So let's talk a little bit about the impact of the distributor chain.

Yeah, I mean, it was earth-shaking for the industry in the United States. partners that we had, I mean, RNDC, I don't know when it started. I mean, decades and decades and decades of partnership, and all of a sudden it goes away. So, you know, that part was very, very difficult. I think another dynamic that we haven't talked as much about, but it's the blurring of the lines between really beer and spirits for the most part, and then who plays in there. So suppliers are starting to cross the lines a little bit, but the distributors, like take a raise i mean they've got a huge beer they've got huge non-alcoholic business and now they've gotten well they've already had wine but they're getting much bigger now in in spirits and have begun to expand and so what we need in distributors is a solid strong balance sheet that is extremely important when they weaken you know that becomes a problem for all the suppliers and so um you know i think that part is working well and um whether or not it's over or not that is a tough one to speculate. I think it largely is, but who knows? Who knows the way the world is going to go? It's tough being in a business that is capital-intensive as distribution is with low margins. When volumes decline, everyone hurts. It was a heck of a transition to watch. As I said, a lot of years of partnership went away, but at the end of the day, we're in a better place today than we were a year or a year and a half ago.

And so you think the shakeout from all of that, though, we're kind of through the...

Largely, yeah.

So I want to stay on the bigger picture, but, Jim, I'm going to turn to you now. You joined Brown-Forman from the more mature and cyclical consumer durables industry, which at least historically had very different growth dynamics and spirits. Could you share some of your bigger early observations about where Brown Forman has the opportunity perhaps to operate differently, and particularly when it comes to cost discipline.

Yeah, and I appreciate it. And, you know, to begin with, I'm very excited to be here, and obviously joining Brown Forman has been a great experience. Let's say it's, you know, it's a company that's in very good shape, obviously in a tough industry, which, you know, as you alluded to, I've spent some time in different cyclical industries. But, you know, we start off with a really strong portfolio of brands and products, as well as an incredibly strong balance sheet. And so, you know, I think that's something that kind of sets us out there and really sets us apart in terms of, you know, different consumer companies out there. Now, you know, as you alluded to, you know, things that I've started to notice and understand and all that within how we operate in the different models is the good thing is coming in, especially from a cost perspective, we were already taking a lot of the right actions. And we'd already done some of the restructuring and reorganization that many companies will do in these type of situations and had a lot of that behind us. We were already developing things within our pipeline around cost of sales and ideas to offset some of the increasing costs that we're seeing now. So, you know, what that did is this is now more about an operating system go forward where we've really got to have both discipline and we've got to have balance. And the discipline comes around that, you know, you're just constantly looking at your cost structure and constantly looking at things and saying, am I doing this in the most efficient way? Am I optimizing what I spent? The balance is that, listen, you can't cut or cost save your way to prosperity because it's really about growth. And it's about creating the opportunities and the fuel for that growth. And the business that I came from, we used to just use a term we called it productivity for growth. And that's, you've got to find ways to continue to fund the different things you want to invest in and that you want to grow. And so, you know, Lawson gave some examples earlier of the areas that we want to be able to reprioritize to our emerging markets and some of our innovation. And I think that's what it's, you know, now about now is making sure we have that discipline to ensure that balance.

So just building on that, you know, more rigorous cost mindset, don't want to compromise long-term brand equity, what has to happen culturally or organizationally to sort of enable what I think you're describing is a pretty big mindset shift, not that the company wasn't oriented towards growth, but now it's, we need to find the resources that we can invest in growth. So based on, I mean, it seems like some of the, you updated the guidance to say you're more confident toward the better end of the range, suggests maybe there's, you're, you kind of getting momentum on this front a little bit faster, but curious culturally, organizationally, how you bring this to bear.

Yeah, and I'd say here, I mean, to begin with, I think that a lot of the mentality is already there and the culture is already there. But this comes back to what I kind of mentioned earlier is really helping the organization to prioritize and to say, okay, where are really those true areas that we want to invest in? And, you know, how do we make sure that they have the right return? Because, listen, you can't get too focused on the short term. We've really got to keep our eye on the long term. A company that's over 150 years old doesn't get there by staying very focused on the short term. They focus on executing in the short term, but making sure you're investing more towards the growth as we go forward. And, you know, as I mentioned kind of previously and Lawson talked about, is really that's as we look to what are those areas where we see the growth opportunities coming and those areas such as the emerging markets, such as a lot of the innovation that we've brought to the market right now. And, you know, throughout the day we've talked a lot about how we've, whether, and Lawson even mentioned it now with things such as, you know, the Tennessee BlackBerry, Jack Daniel's Tennessee BlackBerry, the Heritage Barrel, many of our RTDs, these are all things that we're able to continuously fund internally by making sure we have that right balance. I mean, it's also within our brands. As we invest in our brands, it's making sure we have the right amount of investment, but it's also optimizing how we do that investment and being as efficient as possible. And I really truly believe, and I said that on the call, is that we are very good at that, and it's a discipline we'll just continue to focus on.

So, Lawson, talking about brand building a little bit in terms of the portfolio. So Jack Daniels, obviously, is central to the investment story. and the company's put a lot behind the new global brand campaign on-premise activation and innovation. What gives you confidence that the work underway is not just stabilizing the brands in a tough category but actually building better share-taking capacity for when the category improves?

Yeah, I mean, look, Jack Daniels, it's so big now that taking share in some of its big, big markets is difficult. I mean, just to be honest, in the United States in particular, it's such a massive brand. um that we've been pretty public not i mean over the last 10 years earlier saying this company can grow very nicely it doesn't need to take share in the u.s whiskey market but we do need to take share outside of the united states and we largely do even in some of the challenged markets really in europe uh right now which are in their war they're more difficult than even the u.s market is but we are taking share in a lot of those and so we feel pretty good that we've made the right changes in the in the brand building mix i mean they range it's a you know from sort of the classic things that you do in terms of consumer communications and where you do it and all of that but mclaren has been a great partnership we um that's a little bit less of a u.s thing and it's a little more of an international as the races are obviously so spread out around the world but gives us a unique and differentiated way of promoting the brand and so we like that and And then music. I mean, lots of brands try to do music, but I don't think there's any brand that owns music. It's probably an exaggeration maybe a little bit, but can certainly be successful in music. There's not many brands that do it better than Jack. And, you know, we will continue to do that. I mean, it ranges from Shibuzi and his song that we have, which was about a year ago now, maybe even two. But there was an interesting stat somebody told me in our marketing world the other day, which I actually didn't know, but they did a, I don't know how they did it, but they look at country music, which for you Northerners may not be huge, but I can tell you down in Kentucky and then really in the rest of the country has gotten so massive. But there is, we are the number one most often cited brand in country music. So I say all that just because it speaks to the relevance of the brand and, you know, people's just their love for the brand in aggregate and what it means to them, I think that's really, really important, and it just sends a good signal that we continue to have, the brand continues to have the DNA to really be important and relevant in today's world.

So when you think about, Jack, growing in the U.S., and your point that it's just tough at this point to gain share holistically, then is the key to growth in the U.S. really about category recovery?

It certainly helps a lot. I mean, if TDS in general, full-strength TDS, which is still sort of down four or five, it's hard for the really biggest brands in the market to really diverge a lot from TDS, and there's a long list of them that way. But we're certainly trying to do that, and getting the trends in the right direction ultimately is going to be one of the most important things that we can do for the company. Okay.

So the category in the U.S. has become more value conscious. You guys have been very clear that you don't intend to chase low-end volume. Last week on the call, you'd mentioned some new pack sizes. I'm just curious how you're thinking about affordability, price pack architecture in a way that keeps brands accessible while still protecting the premium positioning of these equities.

Yeah, so over the last really 10 years, really I could probably go back 20 and 30 years, but really intensely in the last 10, we have changed our portfolio up quite a bit. We got out of a lot of lower-end brands, honestly, that were declining, so the southern comforts of the world, everybody remembers that. But the list gets a little bit longer. I mean, it's Canadian mist in early times in Finlandia. More recently, Sonoma Gautier, which really wasn't a low-end brand, but it was the last entry we had in the wine business. So 20 years ago, we had a huge wine business, and we sold a lot of it out 15 years ago, held on to Sonoma Gautier because it was sort of just a different brand. It was a true brand in the world of wine, and we loved it. But ultimately, it's not very efficient to own one wine brand, and we got rid of that just basically at the right time. So we did all that and then purchased half a dozen different brands, but they were almost all very super premium, even in the ultra premium category. So we premiumized the portfolio. That's been difficult in this environment right now when some of the lower, you know, the brands that cost $25 are doing better than those, you know, that cost $45. But we're not going to change strategy based on that. What we want to be able to do is offer those super premium brands at a price point that's accessible for a lot more consumers. And so you all have probably heard, because this is not new news, but smaller sizes have done considerably better than larger sizes over the last couple of years. And I think that's just because consumers want their brand. If they are Woodford Reserve drinkers, and that's a $30 to $35 a bottle brand, And that's, you know, that's expensive for a lot of folks to go into a store. And if I only got a $20 bill, I can get a 375. I can still buy my Woodford. I can still have it be my brand and do well with it. And so that, the industry is taking, we're not the only ones doing that, obviously. But it has provided sort of a base of business for us in a time when consumers are truly pinched. And it's worked out pretty well.

How early are you in rolling out these smaller sizes, or is it good?

They're all, I mean, it depends on the brand. But, yeah, not every brand has them, certainly. And the smaller, ultra premiums, probably a little bit less. But across the core brands in our portfolio, they're all there.

And then particularly value conscious has really been very clear in tequila specifically. So we know there's, you know, major players, double-digit price deflation. Can you talk a little bit about your approach to tequila in the U.S. and your dual-brand portfolio and how you're dealing with that price competition?

Yeah, I mean, it's one brand that did a major price positioning. The rest of, we did a study, we said this last week on our conference call, if you just take the core 750s that are out there of the big brands, you're not seeing a lot of price deflation, like 1% to maybe 2% down, I think, is the current running number in Nielsen. So it's not a wholesale change, particularly, obviously, when the agave costs came down. I mean, they came down by 75%, something like that. So everyone was expecting the tequila category to show a lot more price competition, but it just hasn't really happened. The reality is, though, consumers seem to are gravitating towards those, I'll call it 20-plus price points, where the 40-plus price point was flying for the last bunch of years and really did well, and there's a few big brands that got much bigger. We were disappointed. Eridura, which is in the sort of low 40s, hasn't kept up market share-wise, but it's actually, depending on what time frame you use, but it has still grown kind of mid-single digits over, say, the last 10 years. And, you know, it's not great, but it's not bad either. So we feel okay about that, but certainly Eridur is challenged right now in this environment. El Hemador, on the other hand, in the U.S., is much bigger, and it is in the 20-something price point. But we just rolled out new packaging. We've got new communications. We've had some real nice national account wins that really help quite a bit, And I think also not only helped financially, but it also shows that the brand's gotten big enough and consumer awareness is enough that it deserves to be in a national account listing. So there are nuggets of good news in the tequila business for us right now, and we'll see where we go.

So affordability has definitely been a factor that supported the outsized growth of RTDs. RTDs, and you noted last week, RTDs contribute a point to overall U.S. scanner growth, which is really interesting, so big enough to matter now. You launched Numix in the U.S. late last year in some markets, and then El Himidor Spritz, and most recently JD, BlackBerry, and Lemonade. Can you talk a little bit about consumer reception to these entrants, the role you see them playing in the U.S., and how that compares to Jack and Coke, kind of in developed and international markets, how that brand started out?

Yes, the spirit-based RTDs, for those that haven't been following around as closely, have really boomed in the last, I don't know how long, maybe five years, five or six years, something like that, maybe a little longer. They used to be malt-based. So back in the days of White Claw and Truly and those brands, they look the same as a High Noon or a Jack and Coke or you name it brand. But it's actually malt versus spirit, which is different pricing, different lots of things, but they generally taste better. And I have been amazed at how quickly those spirit-based brands have grown. Led by High Noon is the biggest one. It's done amazingly well. It does so well in the world of convenience and flavor. Consumers are all over them. And so our portfolio, so we've got a brand called Numix that prior to the last year, no one in the United States had ever heard of. It is a massive, massive brand in Mexico. Very successful, been in double-digit growth mode. I mean, it's 13 million cases, which is very, very large for one country. So we're bringing it into the U.S. It's targeted at Mexican-Americans. Awareness is built in, like already high, because it is that big in Mexico. Off to an awesome start. Excited to see where that's going to go. El Jimidor Spritz just started a few months ago, But it's light and refreshing, which is the space you want to be in in the world of RTDs. That's where the vast, vast majority of the volumes are. Jack and Coke, which is Jack and Cola or Jack and Coke, depending on where you are, that's been around for 30-some-odd years, something like that. So not new. Lots of consumers know it. There's lots of people. That's how they've consumed Jack their whole life. We partnered up, I think everybody knows, with the Coca-Cola company. three years ago to get this started and it's done okay the reality is that cola is not anywhere near the size of the light and refreshing mixers so it's maybe not off to the to the start we wanted but we continue to make adjustments and work with them and partner with them to find you know it's not it's not declining a lot it's just declining a little bit but it's also bringing the jack daniels name to the world it's in 40 countries i think something around there. So, you know, that is important for building awareness for us, too, particularly in the emerging markets where Coke is so big. Okay, great.

So, sticking with emerging markets, Jim, so emerging markets are one of the clearest bright spots for Brown-Forman, growing high single to low double digits the last few years, with Mexico and Brazil leading that, and then India and parts of Asia still, you know, pretty much underdeveloped. As you go forward, How are you going to think about resource allocation, where to place the next dollar investment internationally as emerging markets present an opportunity?

Yeah, I mean, and you kind of hit the nail on the head there, as we do see emerging markets as a tremendous growth opportunity. And we do believe, especially with the Jack Daniels brand kind of leading the way into many of those, it's an opportunity for growth. And so, you know, as we look at the investment and what's needed in many of those markets, you know, we start off by saying, okay, where is the market today? What's the best way to enter it via partnership or via our own distribution? What do we think the return is going to be? What is the necessary level of investment? But you've got to think with more of a long-term mindset on this because, you know, if you use Brazil as an example, That's a market that we had to invest in for a period of years, but now has become a tremendous market for us, and the return is there. And we see places like India as having that same potential. And so, you know, when I talked about earlier the discipline and the balance and the prioritization, that's a big thing for us as we look at these emerging markets and saying that, listen, we can't increase our rate of spending, you know, extremely above where we are today, But what we can do is be very thoughtful and diligent about how we prioritize that spending, where we want to invest, what we think the growth rate, and then keep it balanced. Because you can't invest everything also on only long-term type of growth opportunities. And so we have to make sure we're also investing in innovation and investing in other things that may deliver in a shorter term. And I think we've got a very good balanced approach right now. And we've got a very good track record of growing because, you know, as we've said, I mean, you can see some of the markets that we do well in, especially in Latin America. You know, those are good examples of how we can do this.

Joe, I'm going to stick with you. I wanted to talk about the higher-cost whiskey inventory that's coming through. It's been a big investor focus. It's something you guys started to talk about with the market, I think, in May.

I'm getting my timeline right. can you just remind us you know how you're thinking about the the magnitude the duration and kind of manageability or controllability of this this headwind that's coming yeah i mean listen we're thinking about over the next couple of years is that you know we've talked about this that it's giving us a headwind of 100 to 150 basis points and that's coming from the whiskey that we laid down years ago during the higher cost era around covid however is i talked about that's only one part of what we look at within our gross margin because, you know, we're also looking at what are the opportunities within there that we have to identify costs, reduce costs, and offset a significant amount of that. And so while it is a headwind that we're dealing with right now, I think we've started to identify and we've actually been implementing a lot of different things to help offset it. You know, the other thing that will help with that, you know, over time is, listen, that's a reality. We've talked about our discipline and other cost areas is also growth. Because as we continue to grow, the gross margins on our product helps to, you know, at least bring in the overall operating income and bring that up and give us some leverage. So I think that's another important that, you know, we always talk about the cost side, but growth is one of the areas. And that's why we invest in innovation in emerging markets, because that will help offset some of these cost pressures.

Okay. So the guidance for fiscal 27 is based on roughly flat organic sales and organic operating income towards the more favorable end of the range. So it's down three to five, now more favorable end. So that implies limited near-term operating leverage. I guess number one would be what are the most important unlocks for Brown-Forman to return to more profit growth once we get that cost cycle to ease.

And I think that's back to kind of where I said, I think really driving that growth, driving innovation, driving our expansion in emerging markets, obviously looking at where the cost-saving opportunities continue to come. And that really helps us there to create that leverage further down the P&L because it's not just one lever. And, you know, I think if you step back and you look where we are, we really have done a good job in a tough environment of identifying those opportunities of where we can grow and where we can grow, you know, above and beyond where some of our competition does. So I think that's important. You know, the other thing that we continue to focus on in there, that was just operating discipline and making sure that, you know, from a working capital perspective that we really manage that well because that's another area that helps rather than having to take a significant amount of downtime in our distilleries. I think we've done a very good job of just trying to manage that more on what I'll call a smoothing type of basis. And I think that's more important than making those dramatic moves, which are significantly costly when you do them.

Yeah, okay. And between now and then, I mean, I think now being at the better end of the operating profit guide, Is that more about the estimate of the cost, or is it about your ability to come up with offsets? So just so we think, we don't, I don't know, it informs how I think about the next nine months.

Let's put it this way. I think it's a bit of both, but I think it's definitely our ability to offset it and many of the things that we have identified, but I think it's also coming with the confidence that we have in that ability to do that on a go-forward basis and the confidence in our ability to continue to grow and drive some of those top-line levers, because that's the biggest thing to make sure that we stay in that range or get to the high end of that range is hitting our top line. And I think we gained an increased level of confidence that we are going to deliver on that flat top line this year. And so, you know, and then we see the cost-savings projects we put in, and all those combined give us that strong confidence that we will be at the higher end of that range.

Okay. Let me just shift to cash flow. So free cash flow in 26 was a notable bright spot. And then fiscal 27's CapEx guidance is meaningfully lower than the last few years. So how should we think about the right steady state capital intensity of the business?

Yeah, I would say this. And to begin with, last year was a tremendous year from a cash perspective. And a billion dollars of cash from operations, just under $900 million free cash flow, I mean, that's, as I understand, a record year for the company. As we've said, we believe go forward we're going to have very strong free cash flow because, as I talked about, the discipline around working capital and especially around inventory, you know, we see as something that we've done a very good job with. And so we do, if you would have looked at our first quarter, we had very, very strong cash flows within our first quarter and significantly above where we were last year. So when you take all that in, we really feel confident, and to your point on the investment cycle, we did significant investments over the last few years within many of our facilities. That's behind us right now. So it puts us in a good position. And, yes, we may have some more capacity than we need based on where the industry is. But the good thing is, as the industry at some point begins to recover, we expand globally. It gives us the capacity we need, and we don't need to be investing. We've already got that behind us. So that's why we feel really good about our future free cash flow.

Okay, great. So just to wrap up, Lawson, there's been M&A news flow, and we'll call it, however we want to name it, I mean, news flow around future past the company in recent quarters in recent months and then CEO succession underway. So definitely investors have been asking about whether the company's strategic direction is evolving. How do you want the market to think about continuity versus change? And through this next chapter, what parts of strategy do you think will prove non-negotiable? And then where do you think there's room for a new leader to bring a fresh perspective?

Well, look, I mean, the company's strategic direction, I don't, you know, it may evolve a little bit, but I don't expect any dramatic changes in that. The first question of the day was more about the geographic expansion around Jack Daniels and innovation and the importance of emerging brands and emerging markets. That I don't really think will change no matter who the next leader is. You know, we still see that as a very big opportunity. Honestly, it's worked for 155 years. So some of the other more recent activities were more exploring, as we really do have a duty to explore potential transformational changes that create significant shareholder value, and we have an obligation to do that. At the end of the day, it didn't work, and we plow forward, and we continue doing what we, as I say, we've done for 150 years. I'm sure no year is the same, and the last few have been a lot of headwinds and a lot thrown at us. But this company is still really well positioned with a fantastic portfolio, with employees that love the portfolio, have strong values, and are the right people to lead this company into the next generation. And I'm sure that's going to happen.

Okay, great. All right, we're going to leave it there. Thank you so much for joining us again, Lawson. Congratulations, pending. And please join me in thanking Brown Foreman for being here.

Thank you.