Prestige Consumer Healthcare Inc. (PBH) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning. And welcome to the Prestige Consumer Healthcare Fiscal 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. After today’s presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Phil Terpolilli, Vice President of Investor Relations and Treasurer. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Operator. Thank you to everyone who joined today. On the call with me are Ron Lombardi, our Chairman, President and CEO; and Christine Sacco, our CFO. On today’s call, we will review our first quarter fiscal 2023 results, discuss our full year outlook and take questions from analysts. A slide presentation accompanies today’s call; we can access it 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 includes non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the nearest GAAP financial measures are included in the earnings release and slide presentation. Management will make forward-looking statements around risks and uncertainties, which are detailed in a complete Safe Harbor disclosure on page two of the slide presentation that accompanies the call. These are important to review and contemplate; business environment uncertainty remains heightened due to COVID-19 and various other geopolitical factors, which have numerous potential impacts. This means results could change at any time, and the forecasted impact of risk consideration is based on the information available as of today’s date. Further information concerning risk factors and cautionary statements is available on our most recent SEC filings and most recent company 10-K. I now hand it over to our CEO, Ron Lombardi. Ron?

Thanks, Phil. Let’s begin on slide five. We are pleased with our start to the year, which continues the momentum from our record fiscal 2022 that we completed back in March. This success is driven by the business attributes of our leading 100% consumer healthcare platform and the execution of our time-tested value creation strategy. Thanks to this strategy, we achieved net sales of $277 million in Q1, the highest level of quarterly sales in our company’s history, and slightly ahead of what we anticipated back in May. Our organic business trends were healthy throughout our portfolio, aided by consumer demand and our long-term brand building. This included a strong performance from our International segment and the Hydralyte brand, which I will touch on in a bit more detail momentarily. Our strong sales translated into strong profitability, generating $1.9 in diluted EPS and nearly $60 million in free cash flow. We also achieved an approximate 34% EBITDA margin, despite the volatile supply chain and inflationary environment affecting our industry. Our predictable and consistent cash flow profile continues to enable a disciplined capital allocation strategy. In Q1, we executed a portion of our share repurchase program while maintaining a leverage ratio of 3.8 times. Now let’s turn to page six and discuss Hydralyte in more detail. Hydralyte continues to lead the robust growth of our International segment, thanks to its leading number one share position and proven brand strategy. The Hydralyte brand defines oral hydration in Australia, representing over 90% of the category. The majority of Australians recognize the brand immediately, thanks to its great tasting profile, efficacy, and our proven brand building efforts. In Q1, all of Hydralyte's various form factors—liquids, powders, tablets, and more—grew consumption in the mid-double digits versus the prior year. As shown on the left side of the page, this impressive growth is the continuation of a much longer trend for the brand, driving both increased household penetration and usage over time. Our Hydralyte brand has been synonymous with oral hydration for Australians over the last 20 years, and we see continued opportunity ahead. We continue to use targeted messaging, extend usage occasions, and execute various other marketing tactics. This leaves us well-positioned to drive growth of the category and the Hydralyte brand into the future. Now let’s turn to slide seven. Our long-term sales growth is enabled by a very strong financial profile that allows us to invest behind our brand building, including innovation. Each of our brands operates with a multiyear product development pipeline designed to ensure that we continue to understand and meet the needs of consumers. When we introduce new products, they are typically designed using consumer insights to capitalize on market opportunities that drive brand and category growth. These products are designed in new and efficacious ways to help consumers take care of their health and ensure a superior experience. As the innovations come to market, we work with our retail partners to provide key channel support to drive consumer awareness of these new items. Featured on the left, our two recent examples of this strategy at work. The new Summer’s Eve Spa line expands the brand into the luxurious self-care category that consumers seek. Since launching, we have implemented an impressive omnichannel campaign to inform consumers of the spa difference, in both the traditional wash form and the serum designed for skin hydration. Clear Eyes Allergy is a new prescription strength once-a-day drop designed for relief from indoor and outdoor allergies. Leveraging our social media influencers such as Hilary Rhoda and John Pier, we are driving consumer awareness across TV and digital channels during the summer allergy season. So, in summary, the products shown here are just two recent examples of our time-tested innovation playbook, and we look forward to new products driving growth going forward. Now, I will pass it to Chris to walk through the financials.

Thanks, Ron. Good morning, everyone. Let’s turn to slide nine and review our first quarter fiscal 2023 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. Q1 revenue of $277.1 million increased 2.9% versus the prior year, but declined 1.2%, excluding the effects of foreign currency and our acquisition of Akorn. North America revenues were approximately flat versus the prior year and down mid-single digits excluding Akorn. As a reminder, Q1 faced the unique comparison from the prior year when we experienced dramatically higher sales as consumers shifted habits, most notably in travel with increased vaccination rates. Our International segment revenues of $34.5 million were up over 30% in Q1 excluding FX, led by the Hydralyte brand strength Ron discussed earlier. As expected, EBITDA and EPS both declined slightly in Q1 from the unusual prior year, but EBITDA margin remained consistent with our long-term expectations in the mid-30s. Let’s turn to slide 10 for more details around consolidated results. As I just highlighted, our Q1 fiscal 2023 revenues increased 2.9% versus the prior year. We experienced robust consumer demand across several categories including cough and cold, where our Chloraseptic, Luden’s, and Little Remedies brands all experienced growth. We also continue to experience double-digit year-over-year growth in the e-commerce channel, continuing the long-term trend of higher online purchasing. Total company gross margin of 57.8% in the quarter declined 130 basis points versus last year’s gross margin. This was as expected and attributable to the timing of cost increases and product mix. We continue to anticipate an approximate gross margin of 56% for both Q2 and fiscal 2023, and we continue to institute pricing actions across our portfolio to offset the dollar amount of inflationary headwinds. Advertising and marketing came in at 14.4% for the first fiscal quarter. For fiscal 2023, we still anticipate an A&M rate of just over 14% of sales. General and administrative expenses were 9.6% of sales in Q1, slightly higher than anticipated due to the timing of certain expenses, but we still anticipate full year G&A dollars to approximate the prior year at around 9% of sales. Finally, diluted EPS of $1.9 compared to $1.14 in the prior year, down from the factors previously discussed. Our Q1 tax rate of 22% was below prior periods due to the timing of certain discrete tax items, which generated a $0.03 EPS benefit. We still anticipate a full year fiscal 2023 tax rate of approximately 24%. Now let’s turn to slide 11 and discuss cash flow. In Q1, we generated $57.2 million in free cash flow, down versus the prior year due to the timing of working capital. We continue to maintain industry-leading free cash flow and are maintaining our outlook for the year. At June 30th, our net debt was approximately $1.5 billion, and we maintained our covenant-defined leverage ratio of 3.8 times. We still anticipate being below 3.5 times leverage by fiscal year-end and anticipate slightly higher interest expense versus the prior year. Lastly, in the quarter, we utilized approximately $38 million of the $50 million share repurchasing program authorized in May, repurchasing approximately 700,000 shares. With that, I will turn it back to Ron.

Thanks, Chris. Let’s turn to slide 13 to wrap up. Our business continues to have solid momentum, and we are reaffirming our full year outlook. Thanks to our solid start to the year. For fiscal 2023, we continue to anticipate revenue growth of approximately 3% to 4%, including organic revenue growth of 2% to 3%, consistent with our long-term target. Q2 revenues are anticipated to be approximately $283 million, an increase of about 2.5% versus the prior year. We also continue to anticipate EPS of $4.18 to $4.23 for fiscal 2023. For Q2, EPS is expected to be between $0.98 and $1. Our disciplined pricing actions and cost management are helping us offset inflationary headwinds, while the benefits of our strong free cash flow are expected to help offset the impact of higher interest rates. Lastly, we continue to anticipate free cash flow of $260 million or more. We still expect to be below 3.5 times leverage by fiscal year-end, as we continue to execute our disciplined capital deployment strategy that includes debt pay down. With that, I will open it up for questions.

The first question comes from Stephanie Wissink with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Hey. Thanks, everyone. It’s Chris Neamonitis on for Steph today. Just curious to understand a little bit more about the strength in International, particularly about channel rebuilding or a more sustainable uptick. I ask just because it would seem counter-seasonal to me, but I am wondering if you could provide maybe a bit more color on the dynamics there. I know you talked about your commentary being really suggestive of more trends sustainability, but any more color on how you are thinking about it would be helpful?

Sure. Good morning. So first of all, there is some usage for Hydralyte during the cough-cold season that Australia is in the middle of right now. So not all of its countercyclical. The second part of it is Australia still goes through a distributor model, so it can be tough to predict the timing of distributor orders. So at this point, we are attributing most of the gain to timing.

Got it. And then maybe just wanted to touch on really what’s embedded within the guidance as it relates to cough and cold, and the trends you are anticipating there. Any change in assumption from the previous guidance based on what you have seen year-to-date?

Yeah. Hi. This is Chris. Good morning. So no change really from our initial guide, just as Ron was just mentioning on the International business; we think there may have been some timing benefits on retail order patterns for cough-cold. As you can tell, it’s a very difficult environment to predict, particularly having a strong cough-cold rebound in the non-seasonal fiscal Q1 period for us, so we will watch it, but no change to the initial assumptions really.

Great. Thanks.

Next question is from Jon Andersen with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everybody. Thanks for the question.

Good morning, Jon.

First question is around really the recovery in— I guess recovery or improvement in organic growth that is implied by the guidance for the balance of the year and what you are seeing within the kind of consumer landscape, perhaps new products, just general business momentum that gives you confidence that we will see that recovery play out in the way that you have outlined for the cadence of the year?

Yeah. So—thanks, Jon. So first of all, the trends for our business have been pretty steady for quite a while now, and our outlook for the remainder of the year really is just a continuation of that, and the change in growth versus the prior year in upcoming quarters really is driven by the comp period. In the first quarter of last year, we benefited from a significant recovery in travel and other activities as people started to get out of the house again as they got comfortable with the COVID environment and that kind of thing. So it’s really just a comp rather than a change in the underlying trends of the business.

That’s helpful to understand. Are we reaching a point now where the variations that we have seen over the past couple of years related to the pandemic and the impact on the consumer going to be less of a discussion point, do you think going forward, now that, again it sounds like we have kind of lapped that comp at this point? What’s your sense of that?

Yeah. So if you look at our business's results last year after we got past the first quarter, it was pretty steady and the trends have really continued that as we have gotten into fiscal 2023 here. So it’s going to be a bit steadier. We continue to be in a hard to predict environment as we sit here today. COVID infection rates continue to peak from where they were even just a couple of months ago with the latest versions of COVID hitting us. I think the good news for us is that our business has proven to be fairly stable and doing well kind of no matter what kind of environment we are operating in. So, it’s tough to predict, but we continue to feel good that no matter what kind of environment we wake up into next quarter or next week, we are well-positioned to continue to do well?

We have recently heard about excess inventory levels among some retailers. I understand that this is mostly outside the categories in which you operate, but sometimes retailers will look to faster-turning categories to improve working capital productivity in the short term. Is there anything you are observing from a customer perspective that could potentially impact your shipments in relation to takeaway, which appears to remain consistent, as you mentioned?

There’s really no change in what we talked about back in May, which is in general, in our space, I think most players would like to see more inventory. We would like to have more inventory. We think our retail customers would like to have more inventory. This continues to be a very challenging supply chain environment. I think you are hearing many of the players in our space talk about a focus on service levels, and we would like to see improved service levels going forward, but it just continues to be a challenging supply environment where you address one issue that’s a challenge, and another one pops up. We are doing a good job managing through it, and I think a great example is our record level of sales this past quarter. So challenging environment, and I think there’s probably more upside opportunity to the supply chain and inventory levels than there is downside.

Okay. And you seem to be doing quite a good job of timing or matching price and cost; at least you are kind of maintaining your gross margin outlook where we have seen many companies adjust that lower. What do you think is helping you to accomplish that, whether it’s just less inflation because of the nature of your products, or perhaps your ability to get pricing into the market in relatively short order?

Yeah. Jon, hi. This is Chris. I think it’s both of those things. We think for the most part, we included the inflationary pressures we are seeing today in our initial guide back in May. It’s a very fluid environment, as Ron said. But there is nothing material that has popped up either on the pricing side, our ability to take price or on the inflationary side compared to our initial guide, so more of the same and consistent.

Okay. And the last one, I will pass it on. Your leverage ratio is quite reasonable by historical standards for your business, and you have been buying back some stock. What’s—I know you can’t talk specifically about M&A, but what’s kind of your posture right now towards capital allocation as we look forward over the next six months to 12 months? And if some of the changes in the consumer healthcare marketplace because of pharmaceuticals getting off and assets moving around might influence or change the outlook for M&A?

So first of all, the M&A pipeline and activity out there has been consistent for a long time, and we expect that it will continue to present opportunities like it has in the past for us. Our approach continues to be looking for the right kind of opportunities that fit with our long-term brand building focus. The TheraTears brand acquisition last year at a good value for our shareholders within our long-term focus of continuing to reduce leverage is a great example of how we would look to execute M&A opportunities into the future. So we are going to continue to pay down debt and be disciplined in how we think about using our capital allocation going forward.

Okay. Thanks so much.

Thank you, Jon.

The next question is from Mitch Pinheiro with Sturdivant. Please go ahead.

Yeah. Hi. Good morning.

Good morning, Mitch.

Hey. The question was—yes, it was in your press release, but you talked about dynamic supply chain and the inflationary environment that is causing obvious issues. But can you, I guess, talk about some specifics there; like what it is in the supply chain that’s causing that? You said things were changing around one thing one quarter, it’s another one the next quarter, so can we talk about that a little bit?

Sure. I think the factors that are causing the challenges in the supply chain for us are consistent with, I think, most CPG companies. The first thing, it starts with the suppliers having enough labor; I think we have all heard about companies struggling to hire. More recently, it’s been related to absenteeism from COVID infections disrupting the supply chain. As a result of those factors, it’s impacting deliveries of packaging materials, maybe trucking shortages, those kinds of things. So it’s these come and go disruptions in the supplier base or maybe a supplier’s supplier that is disrupting the predictable flow of product or expected flow of product from the suppliers.

Okay. And then, so how does that— you talk about retailers wanting more inventory? When you look at your finished goods, they are up in the current quarter, which is consistent with that. Are we going to see, where do you think your inventories go from here? Are you going to need more finished goods, or are you just having trouble getting the finished goods?

Let me try. It’s Chris. So one thing to note, as you are looking at our inventory levels, depends on what period you are comparing it to, right? If you are comparing it to last year at this time, remember, we have about $6 million of inventory from the Akorn acquisition this period. But as we expected, higher costs are flowing through our inventory, right? So when we think about units, it’s kind of similar, so most of the increase is really related to the expected inflationary measures. So that’s just something to think about when you are looking just at the dollar amount of inventory.

Okay. That’s helpful. And then with TheraTears, what—where—what’s happening with that? Are you—talk about any other marketing extensions, the performance service territories within your customer base, any color around that would be helpful?

Sure. In a lot of ways, it’s the typical playbook that we execute during the first year of ownership, right? So we have about a year in one month under our belt roughly, and we launched a new product, TheraTears extra preservative-free during the last year. So we are getting going on new products and innovation. We are looking for expanded distribution opportunities; regional food and drug in dollar are a couple of examples. The marketing team has spent a lot of time working to further develop the marketing and communication plans for the brand. So you will see updated marketing and TV advertising, for example. It’s no one thing, Mitch, a number of things from our playbook to get this thing going, and a year into it, we feel as good as we did day one or when we were doing diligence in terms of the long-term growth opportunities.

Okay. And just two more quickies; have your sales been affected at all by just out of stocks, the fact that there are some inventory challenges at the retail level?

Yeah. We have got pockets where we have had supply chain challenges that have caused out of stock at shelf that have come and gone over the last year or so. So we have had some pockets of it where it has impacted share in sales.

Is there an effect, I mean, does it have a material effect, I mean, did it represent a 1% drag, 5% drag? Is there any feel for that?

No. It hasn’t been material to our overall performance, and for the most part, they have been short-lived, and we found ways to recover and get back in stock. But it’s the kind of thing that, as I described earlier, they come and go as we chase them, and we fix one, and a new one will pop up for the most part.

Okay. And then just last, Chris, is the 22% tax rate, is that what we used for the year?

No. You should use 24% for each of the next three quarters in the full year. It was a one-time kind of discrete item in Q1.

Okay. All right. Thank you for taking the questions.

Sure.

Thanks, Mitch.

The next question comes from Rupesh Parikh with Oppenheimer. Please go ahead.

Good morning. This is actually Erica Eiler on for Rupesh. Thanks a lot for taking our question. So, I guess, first I wanted to maybe touch on price gaps, just curious how your price gaps look today versus private label and your other competition? And then as you look at your categories, any meaningful changes in private label penetration lately or is it more of the same there?

So first, starting with the price gaps. They continue to be consistent with historic differences, whether it’s between branded competitors or private label. And again, for the most part, pretty much everybody has taken prices up as we have all adjusted to the inflationary pressures. So, no real changes there. And in terms of private label share, we haven’t seen any changes in the private label share or penetration of distribution, and we really don’t expect any kind of change in the private label dynamic as we look forward.

Great. And then as you wrapped the prior year’s strong performance, has anything been surprising in terms of what you are seeing at different retailers? Are you seeing a shift to discount channels or anything like that? And then secondly, as we think kind of about channels, the pharmacy channel—I know we have asked this before, but the pharmacy channel clearly benefited last year from foot traffic related to COVID vaccinations and testing. Just latest thoughts maybe on how you are thinking about the pharmacy channel over the next few quarters?

Yeah. So if you look back over the last couple of years, we have seen some channel shift as consumers moved online, right? We have talked about how well we have done on Amazon and other dotcoms, and there has been a resurgence in the pharmacy—the drug channel—as consumers shift shopping there to get boosters or COVID testing and that kind of thing. So as we sit here today, it’s hard to predict and we fall back to our long-term strategy of being broadly available and having broad distribution so that no matter where the consumer chooses to buy the product, that will be there available for them as they look for their trusted brands. So, as you think and speculate about what a recession might do to channel shifting, although we think about it, we are prepared to be ready if consumers shift back from the channels I have just mentioned to some other channel as they look for better price-value propositions. We will be there ready for them.

Yeah.

We have been successful through the change, and we think we are well positioned to whatever happens.

I think to piggyback on that also, we talk about consistent profitability across channels, so should there be a shift like Ron just mentioned, we feel confident that our profitability will be sustained.

Okay. Great. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

The next question is from Linda Bolton Weiser with D.A. Davidson. Please go ahead.

Yes. Hi. Good morning. So I was wondering—I know that the IRI tracked channel data does not at all tell the whole story. But nevertheless, it looks like in the oral care category that you have been lagging the category a bit in your POS growth. I think that would be DenTek. Is there anything going on there, and would there be some reason why the share trends would be different in tracked channels versus non-tracked channels?

Yeah. Good morning. Good morning, Linda. So first of all, for our oral care products, where we have a big share of the dental guards, a lot of that does flow through the dotcom channels, including Amazon, where we have had high levels of growth, and it’s actually one of our top brands online. So there is, to your question, a big disconnect between IRI in the oral care, even more than our other categories, and we have continued to do well there.

So, like if you look at DenTek brand sales, like roughly what percent are the flosses and picks and things like that versus the dental guards roughly?

Yeah. It’s been a declining portion of our oral care business by design, as we have refocused on better value in getting away from commoditized picks sold at retail. So I don’t have the percentages off the top of my head, but it’s steadily declined based on our strategy of focusing on other products in that category over the past few years.

Okay. And then I was just curious with the acquisition. I think obviously, if they are appearing in the most important brand. But I thought there were a few other little tail brands that were part of that acquisition. Can you remind us what those were, and have you made any decisions about those are keepers or whether they might be divestiture candidates?

Yeah. Good morning, Linda. This is Chris. So there were five other small brands— excuse me, four other small brands, five in total that came with the acquisition. The most significant being Diabetic Tussin and Mag-Ox, which is the VMS supplement. When you think about those in the $4 million to $5 million range a year type of thing. So, not very large and performing generally as expected at this point.

And Linda, no different than any other brand in our non-core portfolio, they serve a purpose in the portfolio of generating cash, but the focus with the acquisition was concentrated in TheraTears.

Okay. And then I was just wondering, a lot of investors are thinking about different things that happened in a recession, and there is some idea that if unemployment rises and people lose their health insurance or something like that, that there is a trend toward more self-medication. Do you see that kind of trend being similar to other historic periods where you might see a bump in the category in a recession? Or do you think something has changed that would make the situation different this time around?

At this point, we think the trends and the things that we have seen kind of through 2008 and 2012 would be consistent if we enter into a recessionary period. One, in these categories, it’s kind of the last place people look to save money when you are taking care of your health or somebody in your family; you stick with the brand and the products that have proven to work for you over time. To your point, in the past, we have seen in an environment where people may lose health insurance that they are more likely to be proactive in treating on their own and actually start to treat ahead of things. So there was a bit of a boost from that in prior years. We would expect those same trends to be consistent if we enter into a recessionary period and consumers start to get pinched financially.

Okay. I guess that’s it from me. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Linda.

Our next question comes from Stephen Geyan with Sidoti. Please go ahead.

All right. Can you hear me?

Yeah. Good morning.

Good morning. This is Stephen Geyan for Anthony Levandowski. Are you seeing any meaningful changes lately to advertising and marketing rates?

Yeah. So they have been subject to inflationary pressures like most of the other input costs that we have seen. Our marketing group continues to look for ways to continue to be effective and efficient in their tactics in the marketing vehicles that they use. So it’s not unlike any other factor that we deal with in an inflationary environment. We look for ways to save money and continue to be effective in a rising cost environment.

Thank you. And what is your outlook for acquisitions?

Yeah. So we will continue to be consistent with past approaches of looking for opportunities that meet our long-term brand building criteria. So more of the same in that category.

All right. Thank you for taking my questions.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we have a follow-up question from Jon Andersen. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks for the follow-up. I am just hoping to get a sense for what you are thinking regarding interest expense for the year with this gets to kind of your plans for the free cash flow for the year obviously and also kind of rate outlook; any help there would be great? Thanks.

Yeah. Hi, Jon. So we did call interest up a bit from the initial guide based on the fluid environment, right? We think we have been prudent in factoring rate hikes throughout fiscal 2023, think of it north of 3% on a LIBOR basis. But it was essentially offset with the benefit of the share repurchase we did during the quarter.

Okay. Thanks.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Ron Lombardi for any closing remarks.

Thank you, Operator. Thanks again to everyone for joining us today. We are off to a nice start to the year and look forward to updating everyone again in November. Have a great day.

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.