Helen of Troy Limited

Greetings. Welcome to Helen O'Troy Limited third quarter fiscal 23 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Jack Jansen, Senior Vice President of Corporate Business Development. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Helen Troy Third Quarter Fiscal 2023 Earnings Conference Call. The agenda for the call this morning is as follows. I'll begin with a brief discussion of forward looking statements. Mr. Julian Mindenberg, the company's CEO, and Noelle Shafla, the company's COO, will comment on business performance of the quarter, Project Pegasus and current trends. Then Mr. Matt Osberg, the company's CFO will review the financials in more detail and provide an update on our financial outlook for fiscal 2023. Following this, we will take questions you have for us today. This conference call may contain certain forward-looking statements that are based on management's current expectations with respect to future events or financial performance. Generally, the words anticipates, believes, expects, and other words similar are words identifying forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause anticipated results to differ materially from the actual results. This conference call may also include information that may be considered non-GAAP financial information. These non-GAAP measures are not an alternative to GAAP financial information and may be calculated differently than the non-GAAP financial information disclosed by other parties. The company costs its listeners not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements or non-GAAP information. Before I turn the call over to Mr. Minnenberg, I'd like to inform all interested parties that a copy of today's earnings release has been posted to the investor relations section of the company's website at www.HelenofTroy.com. The earnings release contains tables that reconcile non-GAAP financial measures to their corresponding GAAP-based measures. The release can be obtained by selecting the investor relations tab on the company's homepage and then the press releases tab. I will now turn the conference call over to Mr. Mendenberg.

Thank you, Jack. Good morning, and thanks to everyone for joining us. Today, I would like to provide you with an update on Project Pegasus, discuss our third quarter results, and the consumer and retail trends we saw during the quarter. As discussed in our October call, Pegasus is a comprehensive restructuring program launched this past summer with the goals of significantly strengthening and accelerating our platform for operating margin expansion, reducing inventory, improving ROIC, and improving cash flow. Pegasus is a multi-year initiative with a three-year arc designed not only to improve profitability but also provide additional investment fuel to more efficiently leverage our proven value creation flywheel as we return to growth. Pegasus goes well beyond the typical belt tightening exercise. With the macro environment not indicative of a rapid reacceleration due to higher inflation, higher interest rates, uncertainty about the future financial health of consumers, and foreign exchange headwinds, we used this summer to take a hard look at ourselves. We zeroed in on ways to accelerate efficiency projects already underway and identify a comprehensive set of new savings opportunities. The key initiatives in Pegasus include optimizing our brand portfolio, accelerating and amplifying cost of goods savings projects, enhancing the efficiency of our supply chain and distribution network, optimizing our indirect spending, streamlining and simplifying the organization, and reducing inventory. Pegasus also includes initiatives to return to operating margin expansion and improve our organic growth rates. Over the past few months, we have made significant progress. All work streams are underway, leaders and teams are in place, and they're focused on speed and on executional excellence. I have asked our Chief Operating Officer, Noël Geoffroy, to walk through that progress. Beyond Pegasus, Noelle is also working closely with the business segments and operations, so she will also join Matt and I in the question and answer section on both Pegasus and the business segments.