Acco Brands Corporation

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. And welcome to the 4Q and Full Year 2019 ACCO Brands Core Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star then 0. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Ms. Christine Hanneman. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Good morning. This is Christine Hanneman, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Welcome to ACCO Brands' fourth quarter and full year 2019 conference call. Speaking on the call today are Boris Ellisman, Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer of ACCO Brands Corporation, and Neil Fenwick, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Slides that accompany this call have been posted to the Investor Relations section of accobrands.com. When speaking about our results, we may refer to adjusted results. Adjusted results exclude transaction, integration, and restructuring costs and reflect an adjusted tax rate. Schedules of adjusted results and other non-GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are in the earnings release and slides that accompany this call. Due to the inherent difficulty in forecasting and quantifying certain amounts, We do not reconcile our forward-looking adjusted earnings per share, free cash flow, net leverage ratio, or adjusted tax rate guidance. Forward-looking statements made during the call are based on certain risks and uncertainties, and our actual results could differ materially. Please refer to our earnings release and SEC filings for an explanation of certain of these risk factors and assumptions. Our forward-looking statements are made as of today and and we assume no obligation to update them going forward. Following our prepared remarks, we will hold a Q&A session. Now I will turn the call over to Boris Ellisman. Good morning, everyone.

Thank you for joining us. I will spend the next few minutes reviewing the highlights of the 2019 results and commenting on the progress we're making against some of our strategic imperatives. Neil will follow me with more color and details on the full year and fourth quarter, and then we'll take your questions. I'm very pleased to say that we reported a record year in 2019 for net sales, which rose 1% to $1.96 billion. Our adjusted earnings per share were also a record, rising 5% to $1.20. And Free Cash Flow increased $11 million to $172 million, our second highest ever, allowing us to return $89 million to our shareholders. 65 from share repurchase program, and 24 in dividend payments. In addition, we reduced our debt, 71 million, and brought our net leverage ratio down to 2.7 times. Much of our success in 2019 was due to the strength and resilience of our geographically balanced business and our nimble responses to rapidly changing market conditions as we faced inflation from input costs, multiple rounds of tariffs, and changing circumstances with channels and customers. We addressed the higher cost of commodities, logistics, and tariffs in a few different ways. First, we pre-bought some of the 2019 inventory in the fourth quarter of 2018. That inventory was already priced for 2019 back to school shipments to our customers. We leveraged our balance sheet to avoid some of the impacts from tariffs and successfully brought down those high inventory levels as we sold through the goods in the second and third quarters of 2019. We also took several price increases throughout the year to offset inflation and tariffs. Our pricing lagged the cost increases by approximately one quarter, but we successfully implemented what we needed to offset the higher costs. Finally, We worked during the year to move a sizable part of our supply chain out of China and into Vietnam and Taiwan. It is very difficult to operate under continually changing external circumstances such as the ones we faced in 2019. And I would like to thank all of our employees whose hard work and diligence allowed us to overcome these challenges and post excellent results. To further strengthen our business, last August we purchased Feroni, the leading provider of branding notebooks and school and office products in Brazil. Feroni is the second largest player in the market after Talibra, which we already own. As a result, we're now a very significant participant in this growing product area in Brazil. The fourth quarter is the largest and most important quarter for us in Brazil, because it encompasses shipments for the back-to-school season, as well as calendars and other dated products. Both businesses in Brazil performed well, with Delibra growing 5% in the fourth quarter and Ferroni delivering better-than-expected profitability. Ferroni is our fourth strategic acquisition in four years, as we continue to focus on rebalancing our portfolio of brands, channels, and geographies to achieve faster, and more profitable growth. We will look for additional acquisitions that will provide profitable growth in geographic or category expansion at a reasonable price. Another critical component of our success in 2019 was our outstanding back to school performance in the US. Our five star brand led the way, allowing us to grow mid single digits and take share in a flat market. The new product ranges introduced in 2019, such as TruSense air purifiers, the GBC automatic laminator, a Kensington docking station for the Microsoft Surface Pro, and a full line of lights and Rexel manual shredders continue to perform very well as the year progressed. We will continue to focus on growing these lines and enhancing them in other categories with additional innovations in 2020. Moving to our productivity initiative, we'll continue to generate substantial savings from our programs. Each year, we target approximately 30 million in productivity improvements. In 2019, we achieved more than 40 million in productivity and integration savings. We have reinvested much of that into our business. I expect another year of solid productivity improvement in 2020. Overall, I am very happy with our results. our full-year performance manifests the fact that our strategy of focusing on growing channels, strong brands, innovative products, and productivity improvements complemented by accretive acquisitions and excellent execution is working. Looking at 2020, our guidance reflects the fact that we expect the environment to continue to be challenging, but we're looking for improved profitability and strong free cash flow. With that, I will turn the call over to Neil for a review of segments, our outlook, and other financial commentary, and then I'll join him in answering your questions. Neil?

Thank you, Boris, and good morning, everyone. I'm going to focus largely on our full-year results. For 2019, comparable sales increased almost 1% based on solid performance in North America. As Boris mentioned, it was critical that we raise prices throughout the year to offset higher input costs, including several rounds of tariff increases on Chinese imports. We were successful in doing so, and that is reflected in posting an increase for the full year in both reported net sales and comparable sales. This is the best growth in comparable sales that we have had in a decade. Adjusted net income of 122 million was even with 2018. Adjusted EPS was 120 versus 114 in 2018. Having deployed 65 million of our free cash flow to share repurchases, we benefited from fewer shares outstanding. Our gross margin was 32.4%, a bit above 2018's level. SG&A expenses as a percent of sales decreased slightly to 19.9% from 20.2%. We incurred 5.6 million of higher annual incentive expenses based on our performance in 2019. Very limited incentives were earned. Reported operating income increased to $196 million from $187 million, and operating margin rose to 10% from 9.6% in 2018. On a reported and adjusted basis, operating income increased due to acquisitions, higher net pricing, and cost savings, partially offset by higher incentive accruals. Our adjusted tax rate of 30.5% was higher than we estimated, as the various impacts from U.S. tax reform, and in particular the areas related to the impact of our foreign earnings, have proven more difficult to forecast, and those non-U.S. earnings have triggered higher U.S. taxes. For 2020, we expect our adjusted tax rate to be similar to the 2019 rate. Now let's turn to some details of our segment results. Net sales in North America rose 3%, with higher prices offsetting higher input costs, including tariffs and lower volume. Our back-to-school season was strong, with growth in note-taking and ring binders. Growth also continued in the Kensington brand, on the strength of new products in the notebook, docking, and security areas. Office supplies and calendar items declined. We saw growth in the independent and wholesale channels, which offset some declines at dollar and other regional retail stores. North America operating margin increased to 13.5% from 12.4% driven by pricing largely catching up with the cost inflation cycle that began in mid-2018. Pricing along with cost reductions were only partially offset by lower volume and higher incentive accruals. For the first quarter of 2020, we expect North America sales to continue to benefit from some of last year's price increases. But our pricing will follow changes in tariffs. For example, we will reflect tariff reductions to list items from May onward. For the full year, we anticipate North America sales to be down slightly. Now let's turn to EMEA. Full year sales decreased 6%, almost all of which was related to currency translation. Comparable sales were roughly flat, as we saw sequential demand improvement in the fourth quarter from the slower second and third quarters, primarily from gains in lever arch files, do-it-yourself tools, and computer accessories. As you have mentioned, EMEA had a very strong 2018 because of the new privacy law that increased demand for shredders. So the comparisons for 2019, particularly by quarter, were difficult. We were very pleased that we almost matched 2018 sales by replacing one-time shredder demand from the privacy law with ongoing demand from share gains and new products. EMEA gross profit and gross profit margin were negatively impacted by adverse foreign exchange and lower volume. EMEA's 2019 adjusted operating income of 61 million declined 10% due to lower sales, adverse foreign exchange, and higher input costs. The cost increase was largely due to weakness in the Euro and UK pound, which increased the local currency cost of U.S. dollar-sourced products that we purchase in Asia but sell in local currency. Looking at 2020, on a comparable basis, we expect EMEA's sales to be approximately flat for the year. Moving to the international segment, full-year comparable sales decreased almost 3% because of lower volume, partially offset by higher pricing. The Goba and Ferroni acquisitions added approximately 54 million to sales in 2019. Adverse foreign currency reduced sales approximately 19 million. Australia continues to be a difficult market with lost placements and an unfavorable mix, although we saw a slower rate of decline in the fourth quarter. In Asia, we are seeing the effects of exiting low margin product lines. For the year, Sales in Mexico, excluding the Gober acquisition, were down slightly. Moving on, Brazil had strong sales during its back-to-school sell-in. As Boris mentioned, the fourth quarter is the largest quarter seasonally for both Delibra and Ferroni, and both performed well. Keep in mind that because both Brazilian businesses are heavily skewed to the fourth quarter, almost all of the profits there are generated in the second half. As a result, in 2020, We expect full-year ownership of Ferroni to add approximately 30 million to sales, but add minimal incremental EPS. Full-year reported international operating income declined slightly because of higher restructuring and acquisition-related costs. Adjusted operating income of 53 million rose 4% because of the acquisitions, partially offset by continuing difficulties in Australia and Asia, along with adverse foreign exchange. For 2020, international sales are expected to be up by single digits with the benefit of full year for only growth in general in Brazil and Mexico and less of a drag from foreign exchange, Asia and Australia. Let's move now to our balance sheet and cash flow. In 2019, we generated 204 million in net cash from operating activities and free cash flow of 172 million. We repurchased 8.3 million shares for a net 65 million, and we also paid dividends of approximately 24 million, returning 89 million to shareholders. During the fourth quarter, we repurchased 800,000 shares for a net 7 million and paid 6 million in dividends. We also repaid 116 million of seasonal borrowings. At quarter end, Our net leverage ratio was 2.7 times. Now let's turn to our initial outlook for 2020. We estimate that sales will be in the range of negative 1% to positive 1%, including approximately 20 million from adverse foreign currency exchange and 30 million benefit from having full year for only results. Our outlook for adjusted EPS for the year is in the range of 120 to 130. which includes 3 cents negative impact from foreign exchange and minimal incremental impact from full year for only results. We anticipate normalization of incentives and our guidance includes a 14 million headwind as a result. In 2019, our sales seasonality for back to school was skewed towards the second quarter. In 2020, we expect back to school to be more balanced between the second and third quarters. similar to what we saw in 2018. The outlook for free cash flow is 165 to 175 million. We do not expect a repeat of the large cash outflow in the first quarter of 2020 that we experienced in 2019 because we have not pre-bought any inventory. The second quarter, therefore, will see a larger, more normal cash outflow as we build back-to-school inventory. Subject to any new acquisitions, we anticipate year-end net bank leverage will be at or below 2.5 times. We have included certain modeling assumptions in our slide deck on page 16. Now let's move on to Q&A, where Boris and I will be happy to take your questions. Operator?

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star then 1 on your touch-tone telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Brad Thomas with KeyBank Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Hi. Good morning, Boris and Neil, and congratulations on a strong fourth quarter and a strong year. Thank you, Brad. I want to ask a couple of questions. First was hoping – maybe for a little bit more color as we think about some of these margin puts and takes. And I recognize that it's noisy to figure them all out across your different channels and countries that you're in. But as we think about pricing and tariffs being behind us, as well as some of the cost opportunities that you still have ahead, how are you thinking about some of those margin puts and takes for 2020 as we think about it on an annual basis?

If you look at the gross margins, they should be up a little bit just due to the tariff and inflation pressures largely behind us. We will have some inflationary pressures from currency because the U.S. dollar is definitely stronger now than it was on average in 2019. We have... increased prices in our international regions on January 1st. So hopefully we will mitigate the dollar weakness, but it has been getting stronger, dollar strength, it has been getting stronger. So there will be that additional inflationary pressure. But with all of that, I do expect gross margins to be higher in 2020. And SG&A should be a little bit higher as well because, as Neil mentioned, we have $14 million in incremental incentives to absorb. So even though we do have a restructuring program in place and we will continue to drive on productivity, it probably will be a little bit higher as well. So if I look from an operating margin standpoint, it should be roughly similar to what we saw in 2019. But we do expect less interest, significantly less interest in 2020 than 2019. And we expect fewer outstanding shares as well. So that will drive EPS accretion in 2020.

That's very helpful, Boris. And if I could follow up on how you all are thinking about the U.S. channel, it seems to me that the U.S. consumer is relatively healthy. Clearly, some of the retailers that you're partnered with on the mass side have had some nice momentum. You know, on the other hand, that office super stores continue to shrink. How are you feeling about the setup here for 2020 in the U.S.?

You know, it's likely to follow a similar pattern. Brad, you know, we've seen that now for several years. And that's why our Q1 and Q4 are relatively weak, because we're more dependent on those challenge channels. And Q2 and Q3 are relatively strong, as long as we perform well and back to school, which we've done over the last few years. So, you know, things are kind of going the same way. I'm very confident in our team. I'm very confident in our ability to manage all the splits and takes. But the situation on the ground is, I don't think, really any different.

That's very helpful, and if I could squeeze in one more on sort of a topic du jour. As you all assess some of the sourcing that you do from China, can you give us an update on if you're seeing any issues or expecting issues given the coronavirus?

Well, as I'm sure you recognize, it's a very dynamic situation. There's new information that comes in daily and weekly. We don't sell in China, so the virus outbreak will have no impact on the sale side for us. But as you mentioned, some of our products are manufactured in China. We have not had any supply disruptions to date due to the coronavirus. Typically, we pre-buy additional inventory ahead of the Chinese New Year, which lasts us through the period of normal factory shutdowns. This year, the shutdowns were one week longer than usual. but now the factories have opened and workers are coming back to work. However, we believe the ramp-up period to get to the normal production output will take longer than usual. Luckily, we're entering our slow selling season from now through April, and we're expediting some shipments out of China to make sure that we continue to stay in stock. Our North American sales start ramping up for back-to-school in May. About 20% of our U.S. back-to-school products are manufactured in China. Based on all the information we have today and our projections for customer needs and ramp-ups, et cetera, we expect to have good supply for BTS. But as I said at the very beginning, the situation is dynamic, and this may change.

Thank you so much, and congratulations, Ken. Thank you, Brad.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Kevin Snacki with Barrington Research. Your line is now open.

Good morning.

Good morning, Kevin.

Hey, I wondered if you could touch a little bit more on the new product introductions that you mentioned. in terms of the shredders and the other things you're expanding into. I think, can you give us a sense for the size of those in terms of revenue in 2019? And, you know, what's the outlook for new product introductions in 2020? Will you accelerate that pace or will it stay about the same?

Thanks for the question, Kevin. We've launched several very exciting product lines in 2019. The ones I mentioned are the Halo products, the ones that are of significant value add, and that's TrueSense, that's the GBC Photon 30, that's the Kensington Notebook Dock, and the line of manual shredders under the Leitz and Rixell brands. They were launched throughout 2019. They were very successful. We recognize revenue around $13 million from those products through the partial year of 2019. Many of them are still ramping up because we're introducing them on a global basis. They're nice margin products, so we're very, very pleased with our innovations. This will continue to expand in 2020. We introduce thousands of new products every year. Most of them are seasonal that are either for back to school or back to business. But we will continue to introduce these Halo products. And I expect certainly all of the four lines that I mentioned in terms of air purifiers, automatic laminators, shredders, and notebook docks continue to expand in 2020.

Okay, that sounds great. And, you know, you continue to be really consistent with productivity improvements from year to year. It sounds like you're targeting more productivity gains in 2020. Can you just kind of give us a sense as to some of the areas where you expect to get those

productivity uh gains and you know maybe is it still 30 million kind of the ballpark range to think about for for this year yeah i think 30 million is a good number to think about um this this last year we delivered uh about 40 some of that was driven from the last year the last full year of the integration initiatives between echo brands and aselte um that that explains the um the additional, the incremental, roughly $10 million. This year, we're shooting for around 30 or so, and it's thousands of projects that are targeting both cost of goods, logistics, distribution centers, as well as all of the general administrative functions. We're also rolling out a or are consolidating on a single ERP in North America in April, and that should enable some additional productivity improvements in the second half of the year. We don't expect something in the summer, but as that ramps up, we should get incremental productivity improvements in the second half. You know, this is something that we live with and do every year. It's – focus of every organization. We are a low-growth business, so for us, really squeezing efficiency out of our operations is really important in order to drive improved profitability, so we're very focused on that.

Great. You mentioned ERP implementation. You haven't called anything out about it before, but has there been any meaningful incremental changes implementation costs in 2019 from that effort that would go away?

Over the last few years, our capital spend has been in the $32 to $34 million range, which is up from around $25 or so that we were spending before the last couple of years. That incremental capital has gone into our ERP, planning and development. You know, we've talked several times when we were given guidance, we're going to be at around $35 million, which should include all of capital needs. So that was part of it. The guidance that we provided today includes what we are planning to spend on the ARP, As we get closer to it, when I give you guys an update after Q1, I'll have more visibility about quarterly impacts because I do anticipate there may be some shifts from Q2 into Q1. But right now it's just too early to tell. So if we don't give quarterly guidance, we give annual guidance, it doesn't change our outlook for the year. But there could be color within quarters that we will provide you when we speak to you in April.

Okay, good. And then lastly, maybe an update on Australia in terms of the headwinds from customer consolidation that you've been experiencing there. Are we maybe getting towards the end of that, or is that kind of expected to be a continued headwind as we move through 2020? Okay.

You know, I certainly expect sales pressures to continue. There's a large customer there that's consolidating. I do expect us to do less business with that customer. And given that they're fairly large, it's difficult for Australia to grow if that customer is shrinking. We are managing Australia for improved profitability. Australia has taken a few restructuring actions last year, and we have a good plan in 2020 to improve our profitability. So I expect Australia to have a better year in 2020, but a better year for me is slightly lower sales and improved profitability.

Okay, thanks for taking all the questions.

Thank you, Kevin.

Thank you. And our next question comes from Joe Gomez with Noble Capital. Your line is now open.

Good morning. Good morning, Joe. So just real quick on North America, I know the overall year was really good, but the fourth quarter sales were down after two really good strong quarters in the second and third. I was just wondering if you could provide a little more detail and color of what was going on in North America in the fourth quarter and how you guys were responding to that.

Sure, Joe. This is something that we expect every year. As I mentioned on my previous answer, North America is really driven by Q2 and Q3 because the healthier channels, which are the mass and ETL channels, are more prevalent and represent a higher mix in the second and third quarters. In Q1 and Q4, It's less back to school, and it's more back to business. And there, the share of the business that is driven by more challenged resellers is higher. So, therefore, it has an impact on our business. Again, this is something that's normal. We'll plan for that. You know, overall, North America was up 3%. which is great, but it's really driven by the success in Q2 and Q3 and our increased share during back-to-school.

Okay, thanks for that, caller. And on your remarks, when you're talking about channels, you noted that the dollar store channel had declined. And I know a while back you guys had some, you know, positive hope, for that channel. I was just wondering what's going on there and where do you see that channel going?

You know, we continue to experiment with the dollar channels. We were pretty aggressive with them in 2018. So incremental sales but unacceptable profitability for us. So we pulled back in 2019 to try to strike a better balance between revenue growth and profitability. And We saw less revenue, but certainly improved profitability in 2019. It continues to be an important channel for us, but we have to get it right. We have to be able to drive profitable sales through that channel. I think we have a better view on how to do that. I expect that we will have incremental sales through the dollar market. stores in 2020, but it's not going to be a huge share of our business. It's a nice complement to our overall portfolio, but striking that balance between sales and profitability is important to us.

Okay. Thanks on that. And then you also mentioned that you guys are taking some price increases in the international markets. I'm just wondering, due to the strength of the dollar, how does that price your guys' products versus some of your competitors, and is that delta getting to a level where there might be some additional trade-off in product?

We compete against local competition all the time, so certainly the competitive environment is part of our consideration. We'll look at pricing. We pass pricing on products that are manufactured in Asia and costed in U.S. dollars. That affects most of our competitors as well. So they have to do similar pricing to us. All of our locally produced products, we priced differently because we don't have the same currency inflation going through them. So it certainly is part of the consideration and our local teams review that to make sure that in the market, at the end of the day, we're competitive, we can sell, we have a good value proposition to both our customers and the consumer. So I feel comfortable where we are throughout the year if we need to adjust things either up or down. We do that both based on cost of inflation as well as market conditions.

Okay. Thanks for the insight on that. And one last one for me real quick. What is the remaining authorization of the stock buyback program?

Neil, do you have that number?

Off the top of my head, it's north of $100 million. I can't remember off the top of my head the exact number, Joe. That's fine.

We have enough certainly for this year. Right. Okay. Great. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it. Thank you, Joe.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Bill Chappelle with Huntrust. Your line is now open.

Thanks. Good morning. Good morning, Bill. Just starting on the top line outlook for North America and then for Europe, on North America, I think you said it possibly goes backwards. Is that all on – I mean, it could be flat to down – Is that all on just the roll-off on price, or do you expect volume to be flattened down?

I certainly expect volume to be down. Price should be up a little bit. Overall, I mean, we had a great, great year in 2019 with North America. You know, I expect the back-to-school to be roughly similar. But then in Q1 and Q4, I do expect some fall-off, again, driven by the decline and more and more challenge with more challenging resellers. So I just, you know, expect it to be – we expect it to be slightly down versus our superb year of 2019.

And then on Europe, is it – currency is included in that, or do you expect sales to be just flat as is, and then currency, I guess anything you can give us on would be helpful?

No, that's right. Comparable sales should be roughly flat, and then currency will certainly take them down a little bit.

Okay. And then last one, I guess help me understand the $14 million of increased normalized comp in 2020, just coming off of what you're saying is a very good year. I didn't realize or didn't understand that. Maybe if accruals stopped sometime in 2019 and why they weren't fully paid out and then why there's such a big jump, because I guess it's about 10 cents the EPS headwind on variable comp or on normalized comp in 2020. So maybe a little more color there would be helpful.

Yeah, it's an unfortunate dilemma, Bill. We did have a great year, but some of our incentive objectives were not met. during 2019, so hence we did not earn our target bonus. So for 2020, as we plan 2020, we're assuming we're going to earn that in 2020, and that's the $14 million. Most of that is driven by annual incentives that were not met for 2019. So it's unfortunate, but you know, facts are facts, so that's what we are.

Well, I guess I'm just trying to understand, I mean, you had a 1% overall growth or almost 1% organic growth in 2019. You're looking for flat to that, you know, roughly that in 2020. Maybe help me understand where you would have missed or where you fell below your expectations.

Well, if you look at the year, Bill, it was fairly uneven between regions, right? So the The overall company is a consolidation of all the regions. North America certainly did better than international or EMEA. So EMEA and international have not met many of their objectives for 2019, which rolls into the enterprise. And then the other one that we missed, you know, even though we certainly met our free cash flow objectives, that is not a metric in our annual plan. Our annual incentives are based on working capital efficiency. And we set ourselves a pretty high goal in 2019. And we haven't met that as an enterprise as well. And that's about 20% of our total annual incentives. So as a company, we haven't met that either. So it's more of a, I think, a goal setting issue other than a company performance issue. Because I think we can all recognize that we did as an enterprise very well in 2019. But, you know, goal setting is a challenge. We do that early in the year when we don't have visibility to the full year. And, unfortunately, we haven't met some of our short-term targets in 2019 that hopefully we will get a chance to meet in 2020.

Okay. I'll leave it at that. Thanks so much. Thank you, Bill.

Thank you. Our next question comes from William Reuter with Bank of America. Your line is now open.

Good morning. Hey, previously you had said that the impact of tariffs in 2020 was going to be $7 million. Is that still the number that you expect or has the list for and for a decrease in percentage lowered that number?

It's going to be a little bit lower than that because of exactly because the 4B is no longer there, and 4A is down from 15% to 7.5%. So it will be a little bit lower than that.

Okay. And then earlier you mentioned that you expected a little bit of gross margin expansion based upon some price increases that will more than offset the tariffs. Will this be evenly spread throughout the year, or based upon the timing of implementation of those and the tariffs, will we see a little pressure in the beginning of the year that will be offset by expansion later on?

Yeah, the gross margin expansion is driven really by international and productivity. There's not going to be so much due to tariffs anniversary. And, you know, I don't want to provide any color by quarter bill because it's so difficult to predict. So I think overall for the year, we're looking at a little bit of an expansion, but exactly where it's going to come throughout the year, it's hard to tell.

Okay, and then just lastly, you're near your target leverage ratio. I guess as you look at the M&A pipeline at this point, how do you view it? Do you think you'll be active during 2020? Do you think valuations are attractive at these points?

Anything has to do with acquisitions is very difficult to predict. I can't really comment anything more specifically. Acquisitions are core to our strategy. We like what we've done, and we like the incremental results that we've delivered to our shareholders due to acquisitions. But we are patient and prudent buyers. We want to make sure that we don't overpay. Whether something's going to happen in 2020, I don't know. I can't tell you that.

All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Bill.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Hale Holden with Park Place. Your line is now open.

Hi. Thanks for taking the call. I was wondering, just to follow up on Bill's tariff question, the commentary that for 4A, when you step down in, I guess, in the second quarter for pricing, when you give that back or adjust back with your customers, is that sort of one-to-one on margins, or is there a lag time on how that works? And it sounds like 7.5% of just the 20% from China is a relatively small top line number. I just want to make sure I have the thinking correctly.

Yeah, I think you have to understand, first of all, the actual tariff reduction didn't happen until February, and then we have to work it through our purchase inventory cycle. And so that's the lag to May. And we do that in the same way when we raise prices. You know, when tariffs go up, we don't raise prices straight away. There's a three-month lag. And so we try and match our cost with our selling price. That's fundamentally what we're trying to do. It'll be margin neutral, therefore.

Okay, great. Thank you. And then the only other question I had was I was just wondering if you could give us sort of an update on what you were seeing in EMEA, one of the few regions you haven't talked about in the call yet. In detail.

You know, EMEA had overall a good year in 2019. It came on the back of a record year in 2018. We had really a phenomenal year. So, you know, as Neil mentioned, we had similar sales, comparable sales to 2018. We were hurt by currency in EMEA. Sales in actual... U.S. dollars were down 6% because of currency. And then EMEA had a kind of an unusual year. We had a strong Q1, relatively weak Q2 and Q3, and then a strong Q4. So, you know, we expect a flat business in EMEA. We have a very strong business there, but the economy is there slowing down a little bit. So we don't have you know, expectations for significant growth in the median 2020.

There's no shredder impact 19 to 20 like there was in 18 to 19, right?

That's right. The privacy laws in Europe came out in the second quarter of 18, so you saw a surge in sales in Q2 and Q3, and that's what made it such a difficult comp in 19.

Great. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Hale.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Carter Mortensen with Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Good morning. Just for back to school, as those super stores continue to shrink and consolidate, where do you see that U.S. consumer going? Where are the channels of growth that you're seeing?

Super stores are very, very small for back to school. Back to school is really made by three primary players, and that's Walmart, Target, and Amazon. That's really been the case for the last couple of years, and I Expect that to continue to be the case. We are very strong with all three of them. They drive back to school. You know, that's the reason why we were successful the last few years. And, again, my expectation is that this will continue. You know, super stores are a bigger player on the business side, you know, in Q1 and Q4, but really, you know, marginal for back to school.

Okay. And then on the business side, are you seeing expansion from other players, or is it still being dominated by Staples and Office Depot?

You know, I mean, back to business side, Amazon is certainly making inroads, especially with small and medium business. And independents are doing a great job. So, you know, the last few years we've seen independents take share. On the business side, they're focused. on that small and medium customer, and they do a great job servicing those customers. So, you know, one of the reasons we did well in 2019 in North America is because independents have done well in North America in 2019. So, you know, that channel is certainly something that we support and pay attention to and we expect further growth from.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Appreciate it, guys.

Thank you, Kirill.

Thank you. And our next question comes from Havad Khorasan with BWS Financial. Your line is now open.

Hi. Good morning. So the first question I had was, what are your capital allocation plans for 2020? Because your presentation slides assumed very small, almost zero share buybacks.

Yeah, we don't really – forecast share buybacks in our future plans, Hamed. So, you know the history. We purchased $75 million in 2018 and $65 million in 2019. We certainly have the free cash flow to do more in 2020 by exactly how and when. We don't give guidance on that.

Is there any indication that you're going to do more of the store brand sales this year?

Can you elaborate a little bit? What do you mean by store brand?

Oh, private label? Got it. Yeah, the private label.

Got it. Private label is about 6% or 7% of our sales. We will continue to do private label, I expect that to be a little bit less in 2020 than 2019. In 2019, we want some incremental private label business, seasonal private label business for back to school, which I don't expect to repeat. But other than that, the steady state private label business, I expect us to continue to participate. But it will be in that, you know, 6% range. It shouldn't be, you know, higher or significantly lower than that.

And are you assuming that some of your input costs stay the same, even though there's been some deflationary pressures lately?

We certainly work very hard, Ahmed, to – capture all of the savings from lower input costs and whatever we can achieve and consolidate, we will take into either incremental profit or into our demand generation programs. As I mentioned in my prepared remarks, the $40 million of productivity that we achieved in 2019, most of that we reinvest back in the business to drive demand. I mean, it's really important for us to continue to feature our brands, to continue to feature our products. So we will capture the lower input costs, but a lot of that will go back and drive demand.

You remember another thing. Okay. At the end of 2018, we forward bought an awful lot of inventory to avoid tariff cost increases. That obviously can't be done again. And so in 2020, what we've had to do is either work on resourcing those items to different areas, or we will be receiving cost increases.

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.

Thank you, Hanan.

Thank you. And I'm showing no further questions in the queue at this time. I'd like to turn the call back to Boris Ellsman for any closing remarks.

Thank you, Jimmy. In closing, to summarize, we're very pleased with how the business performed. In 2019, we remain confident about our future and continue to position the company for growth and strong returns to our shareholders. I look forward to speaking with you again after we report our first quarter earnings. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation on today's conference. This does conclude your program, and you may now disconnect.