The Clorox Company

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Clorox Company fourth quarter fiscal year 2024 earnings release conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. At the conclusion of our prepared remarks, we will conduct a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you may press star 1 on your touchstone pad at any time. If anyone should require assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your touchtone pad at any time. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would now like to introduce your host for today's conference call, Ms. Lisa Burhan, Vice President of Investor Relations for the Clorox Company. Ms. Burhan, you may begin your conference.

Thank you, Jen. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us. On the call with me today are Linda Rendell, our Chair and CEO, and Kevin Jacobson, our CFO. I hope everyone has had a chance to review our earnings release and prepared remarks, both of which are available on our website. In just a moment, Linda will share a few opening comments, and then we'll take your questions. During this call, we may make forward-looking statements, including about our fiscal 2025 outlook. These statements are based on management's current expectations but may differ from actual results or outcomes. In addition, we may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. please refer to the forward-looking statement section, which identifies various factors that could affect such forward-looking statements, which has been filed with the SEC. In addition, please refer to the non-GAAP financial information section of our earnings release and the supplemental financial schedules in the investor relations section of our website for reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. Now I'll turn it over to Linda.

Thank you for joining us today. Our fourth quarter and fiscal year 2024 results reflect the continued advancement of our strategy to strengthen our competitive advantage, accelerate profitable growth, and set up our company for long-term success, all while navigating a recovery from the cyber attack earlier in the year. Thanks to the team's execution, we ended fiscal year 2024 in a position of operational strength. We fully restored supply and distribution and recovered most of the market share that we lost. We closed out with flat organic sales for the full year, despite the significant disruption caused by the cyber attack, which drove an 18% organic sales decline in the first quarter. Importantly, we continue to deliver on our commitment to rebuild margin to fuel growth, delivering our seventh consecutive quarter of margin expansion. We're on track to return to our pre-pandemic gross margins in fiscal year 2025. We also achieved another year of double-digit adjusted EPS growth. As we look ahead to fiscal year 2025, Consumers will remain under pressure, which will continue to temporarily increase competitive activity and impact category growth. That said, we have a portfolio of strong brands in a set of categories that have shown resilience during challenging times. We have and will continue to invest strongly behind our brands to maintain value superiority. While we have more work to do, we are confident that we have the right plans and investment level to win with consumers and deliver strong financial performance in fiscal year 2025, supported by a return to volume-driven sales growth, pre-pandemic gross margin, and free cash flow in line with our long-term goals.