Avery Dennison Corporation

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Avery Dennison's earnings conference call for the first quarter ended on April 2nd, 2022. During the presentation, all participants will be in the listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question and answer session. At that time, if you have a question, please press the 1 followed by the 4 on your telephone. If at any time during the conference you need to reach an operator, please press star 0. This call is being recorded and will be available for replay from 3 p.m. Eastern Time today through midnight Eastern Time April 29th. To access the replay, please dial 1-800-633-8284 or for international callers, please dial 1-402-977-9140. The conference ID number is 219-979-65. I'd now like to turn the conference over to John Eble, Avery Dennison's Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Sylvana. Please note that throughout today's discussion, we'll be making references to non-GAAP financial measures. The non-GAAP measures that we use are defined qualified and reconciled with GAAP on Schedules A4 to A9 of the financial statements accompanying today's earnings release. We remind you that we'll make certain predictive statements that reflect our current views and estimates about our future performance and financial results. These forward-looking statements are made subject to the safe harbor statement included in today's earnings release. On the call today are Mitch Butier, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Greg Lovins, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. I'll now turn the call over to Mitch.

Thanks, John, and hello, everyone. We are off to a strong start to the year, with revenue up 18 percent and earnings per share of $2.40, above our expectations from a quarter ago driven largely by an acceleration in pricing actions in LGM and strong volume growth in RBIS. These strong results come at a time of increasing challenges, from the continuing impact of COVID-19 and supply chain constraints to the highest levels of inflation we have seen in decades and now Russia's war in Ukraine. All of these challenges reinforce our determination to remain vigilant in protecting the health and welfare of our team and agile to ensure we continue to meet our customers' needs. Our team continues to do a phenomenal job in managing a very dynamic environment and we remain confident in our ability to continue delivering superior value creation for all of our stakeholders across a wide variety of macro environments. Now, a quick update on the quarter by business. Label and graphic materials posted strong top line growth for the quarter in both label and packaging materials, as well as our graphic and reflective solutions business, largely driven by higher pricing. In labels, while demand for consumer packaged goods and e-commerce trends continued to drive strong orders, volumes were down as expected, due primarily to tough comps. As you recall, volumes were particularly high last year due to the combined impact of pre-buys and the COVID-related order patterns that we discussed last year. For context, volume in the quarter was up approximately 20% versus 2019, or more than 6% annually, well ahead of GDP growth over that period. Tough comps aside, supply chain constraints hampered our ability to meet demand in the quarter despite the tremendous job our team did to leverage our innovation capabilities and scale to offset a good portion of these raw material shortages. We expect that the recent resolution of the labor strike at a large global paper manufacturer will help ease supply chains across our industry beginning here in Q2. As for our own operations, they were minimally impacted by COVID restrictions in Q1. That said, the recent lockdowns in the greater Shanghai area constrained our materials businesses' ability to produce for much of April, reducing revenue by roughly $20 million for the month. Fortunately, these restrictions are now easing and we expect all plants will be operational imminently. LGM's margin was strong in the quarter, though down from prior year, as expected. Sequentially, margins expanded more than a point as we accelerated pricing actions to reduce the lead time between inflation and pricing. And while pricing is catching up with inflation relative to the beginning of the broader cycle, we continue to see further inflation as we move into Q2 and continue to raise prices accordingly. Importantly, we are on track to further increase our returns and EVA for this year in this already high return business. Retail branding information solutions delivered another exceptional quarter with significant top and bottom line growth. The strong revenue growth was broad-based, driven by both high-value product categories, particularly intelligent labels, and the core apparel business. Enterprise-wide, intelligent label sales were up more than 20% on an organic basis. The strong growth in the quarter was once again primarily driven by apparel. And while we continue to expect apparel to be the primary driver of dollar growth in the coming few years, we see even greater opportunity over the long run outside of apparel. For example, in the food segment, a number of quick service restaurants are piloting and in the early stages of rolling out intelligent label solutions to improve supply chain traceability and inventory accuracy. In logistics, We continue to work with several shipping and logistics players seeking further automation to drive speed and productivity. We are seeing retailers who initially implemented RFID and apparel expand programs to other categories such as home goods. And our Vescom acquisition is showing positive early signs and providing additional channel access to intelligent labels and grocery while continuing to achieve its overall performance goals. As the leader in ultra high frequency RFID, we are positioned extremely well to not only capture these new opportunities, but create them. As for the bottom line, RBS's EBITDA was up more than 60% in the quarter compared to prior year due to the contributions of Vescom and continued strong growth in the underlying business. Turning to industrial and healthcare materials, the segment delivered modest sales growth in the quarter as margins declined. This group of businesses continues to be impacted by soft automotive end markets as well as similar supply chain constraints and inflationary pressures as discussed in LGM. Turning to our outlook for the year. Given our strong performance in Q1 and our revised expectations for the rest of the year, we have raised our full year outlook and now anticipate top line growth of 15 to 17% X currency and EPS of $9.45 to $9.85. I'm pleased with the continued progress we are making towards the success of all of our stakeholders. Our consistent performance reflects the strength of our markets, our industry-leading positions, the strategic foundations we've laid, and our agile and talented team. We remain focused on the consistent execution of our five key strategies to drive outsized growth in high-value categories, grow profitably in our base businesses, focus relentlessly on productivity, effectively allocate capital, and lead in an environmentally and socially responsible manner. We are confident that the consistent execution of these strategies will enable us to achieve our long-term goals, including consistently delivering GDP plus growth and top quartile returns. And once again, I want to thank our entire team for their tireless efforts to keep one another safe while continuing to deliver for our customers during this challenging period. The team continues to raise their game each quarter to address the unique challenges at hand. Thank you. Now, before turning the call over to Greg, as I'm sure you all saw, we recently appointed Dion Stonder to President and Chief Operating Officer. Dion has done a tremendous job leading RBIS over the last seven years, and the team and I are excited to partner with him in this new capacity. Over to you, Greg.