Brown Forman Inc

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Brown Form and Fiscal Year 2020 earnings conference call. At this time all participants are on a listen-only mode. After the speakers' remarks there will be a question and answer session. To ask the question during the session you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. If you would like to withdraw your question press the pound key. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require further assistance please press star 0. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Leanne Cunningham, Senior Vice President, Shareholder Relations Officer. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, Dorothy. And good morning, everyone. I would like to thank each of you for joining us for Brown Form and Year End earnings call for fiscal 2020. Joining me today are Lawson Whiting, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Jay Moreau, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. This morning's conference call contains forward-looking statements based on our current expectations. Numerous risks and uncertainties may cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated or projected in these statements. Many of the factors that will determine future results are beyond the company's ability to control or predict. You should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements and the company undertakes no obligation to update any of these statements whether due to new information, future events or otherwise. This morning we issued a press release containing our results for the fourth quarter fiscal 2020 in addition to posting presentation materials that Lawson and Jay will walk through momentarily. Both the release and the presentation can be found on our website under section titled Investors, Events and Presentations. In the press release we have listed a number of risk factors that you should consider in conjunction with our forward-looking statements. Other significant risk factors are described in our Form 10-K and Form 10-Q reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. During this call we will be describing certain non-GAAP financial measures. These measures are reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures and the reasons management believes they provide useful information to investors regarding the company's financial conditions and results of operations are contained in the press release and investor presentation. As a reminder before I turn the call over to Lawson and Jay, in the interest of time and fairness we ask that you limit your questions to one per analyst. You are welcome to rejoin the queue and we'll take your follow-up questions as time permits. With that I would like to turn the call over to Lawson.

Thank you Leanne and good morning everyone. Our last investor call when we discussed third-core earnings was on March 4th just before the world went into lockdown. Since that call so much has changed around the world. So today while we will cover our full-year financial results we're really going to focus more of our time updating you on the impact of the pandemic on our business and share how we have and will continue to strategically navigate the volatility and uncertainty that we're facing. But before we do that let me say the events happening across America have highlighted yet again the disturbing and systemic racism that persists in the United States. I'm proud of the work Brown Forman and our employees have been doing in diversity and inclusion for nearly two decades which only accelerated when Ralph de Chavira our Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer joined the company in 2007. While we've been diligent in our diversity and inclusion work we all know that there's so much more to be done. These current events have sparked numerous conversations across the company about how we live our value of respect, about how we identify and eliminate bias within ourselves and how we continue to foster an environment and relationships where we can bring our best selves to work. At Brown Forman we're continually challenging ourselves to be better and to do better as individuals, as leaders and as teams. I do want to highlight a few initiatives at our company that not only promote diversity and inclusion within the company but also address racial inequality in Louisville, Kentucky where we have our corporate headquarters. Last fall we published our 2030 diversity and inclusion strategy where we set quantitative ambitions specifically for people of color and women. We've tied a portion of our executive compensation to make sure we can achieve these ambitions. We're also leading the new Racism and Business Council sponsored by Greater Louisville, Inc. This council will focus on racism and inequality and will lead efforts to cultivate minority businesses and new talent. Another effort is with our largest and most influential brand, Jack Daniels, which is committed to uplifting the important story of its first master distiller, Nearest Green. To help the life and legacy of Nearest, we're forming a partnership with Nearest Green, Inc. that will create developmental opportunities for African American talent, for senior distilling roles and support African American entrepreneurs in distilling startups. More information about this partnership will be shared in the coming weeks. In the California neighborhood, home to our Louisville corporate campus, we're committed to being better neighbors and over the past three years we've made local community investments of more than $6 million including supporting the nearby YMCA and Simmons College. In the coming months we'll commit to providing additional resources for the Invest California initiative. This initiative will focus on improving education, economic development and wealth building for our closest neighbors, the majority of whom are Black. In conclusion, I want to make it clear that we are committed as individuals and as an organization to continue to take action in order to address the racial and ethnic divides and inequalities in our local communities and our industry around the globe. Alright now, turning to the global COVID-19 pandemic. While a business challenge, above it all, we know it's a human tragedy. At Brown Foreman, as we always do, we took a people first approach to this crisis, which means the health and safety of our employees is our number one priority. In support of our colleagues, friends and partners facing hardship and loss, we've produced our own hand sanitizer to protect our workforce and community frontline workers. We've supplied and are continuing to supply high proof alcohol to manufacturers of hand sanitizer, which now is producing over 20,000 gallons per day. We've also donated in communities where we work and live around the world, from supporting bartender communities, restaurants, relief funds and community foundations to providing over 70,000 meals to soup kitchens and homeless shelters in Louisville, as well as countless hours of volunteerism. I really would like to thank all of our 4,800 employees around the world for their exceptional agility and creativity in quickly shifting and adapting to the recent challenges. From our quick and nearly seamless transition to working from home where it's possible, adjusting on how we work in our production facilities to ensure the health and safety of our employees, which resulted in almost no impact to our supply chain. With that, I'm going to turn the call over to Jane, who will walk us through how our business has been impacted by COVID-19, the adjustments we have made to the business and the strength of our balance sheet. Afterwards, I'll share our strategic priorities that will continue to guide us through the near term and which I believe will position our brands and our business to be even stronger in the long term. Jane.

Thank you, Lawson, and good morning, everyone. Before I get into the results, I would like to build on some of Lawson's comments and acknowledge that the last several weeks have required our entire organization to pivot quickly to the changing business environment. Brought on first by the global pandemic to now tremendously trying times, especially for our black colleagues, as recent events highlight the continued work still to do in the United States to close the racial inequities gap. I, too, would like to thank our entire employee population for our resilience and extra efforts during these trying times as we continue to work to grow our business. In these efforts, we understand that our diverse and inclusive culture is key to our continued success. And in these times, we are refocusing our efforts on deepening our understanding and acceptance of all of our differences. It was difficult to make a transition from these significant issues. Let's turn to our four year results. Fiscal 20 really was a year like no other. We began the year with a business environment in which our margins continue to be weighed down by tariffs, largely European tariffs and higher agave costs to end the year with global pandemic and as a resulting effect on the global economy that we are still facing today. Despite these challenges, we still achieve many significant accomplishments and milestones in fiscal 20, 20 that I'd like to take a moment and highlight. We saw Woodford Reserve exceed one million cases. We continue to innovate, developing and launching Jack Daniels, Tennessee Apple and depleting over 250,000 cases in just eight months. Our Jack Daniels flavored portfolio surpassed two and a half million cases. And to put that in perspective, none of our Jack Daniels flavors existed a short nine years ago, illustrating the importance that innovation has provided, including being a significant source of growth and bringing in numerous new consumers to the Jack Daniels franchise. Jack Daniels R2Ds reached a million and a half cases in Germany. Old Forrester, our founding brand, grew underlying net sales double digits and is now over 300,000 cases. Our business in the U.S. accelerated its top line compared to fiscal 2019 and outpaced TDS for the first time since the summer of 2018. We transitioned our UK and Thailand business to own distribution wrapped to consumer models, both launching on May 1, 2020. We welcome Ford's Gen to our family of brands and we close another chapter in our 150 year history of enduring and thriving. I'm not going to spend a lot of time going to the financial performance for fiscal 2020 as we typically do, but instead focus more on the last couple of months of the fiscal year where our results were significantly impacted by the global health pandemic. First, as a reminder, we completed our third quarter of the fiscal year on January 31, 2020, with year to date underlying net sales growth of 3%. This trend held up for us through February. We began to experience the effect of the pandemic on our results beginning in mid-March and it continued throughout April as many of our major markets went into country wide lockdowns, implemented significant stay at home restrictions and shut down or severely limited the on-premise business, which represents approximately 20% of our business globally. In addition, travel bans and other restrictions were implemented and these significantly affected the travel reach out channel. As a result, we estimate that the pandemic negatively affected our underlying net sales approximately 15% for the March-April period, with a greater negative effect occurring in April following some benefit we believe we experienced from pantry loading in March. As we look broadly across our geographic clusters, all were affected during this period, some more than others. I want to call your attention to this on slide seven of our presentation we uploaded to our investor relations website this morning. As you can see, the most notable decline occurred in our travel retail business where international travel and cruise channels essentially halted overnight. Additionally, our emerging markets were down significantly. Some markets such as Mexico went into the crisis with weak economic conditions. Further, history would suggest that it is coming for emerging market consumers to reduce spending on our category and focus on essential needs during challenging economic times. Our developed international markets experience underlying net sales declines similar to the company for the March-April period and worse than the U.S. While we saw strong off-premise consumer takeaway trends across many of these markets, these increases were not sufficient to offset the on-premise closures. And finally, while our business in the U.S. experienced a slowdown in performance over this two month period, it held up well and continued to grow. Since the pandemic began to affect the U.S., the off-premise takeaway trends for beverage alcohol significantly accelerated and have remained robust over the past 13 weeks with spirits growing the fastest. While we expect there was some early on pantry loading in mid to late March, overall consumption has clearly shifted from the on-premise to new at home occasions. Our blended takeaway trends over the period have outperformed TDS and importantly, the strong growth in the off-premise channel has offset the significant hit to the on-premise business. In many of our major markets around the world, consumer purchases have been patterns changed quickly as bars and restaurants essentially shut down. We saw impressive growth of our brands in the e-premise channel and significant acceleration in large off-premise accounts. We observed consumers moving toward trusted brands and seeking opportunities to indulge everyday luxuries. We know that the consumers are seeking convenience such as RCDs and flavored whiskeys and increased home consumption occasions, including virtual cocktail parties. And we ascertain that consumers were and are still making larger, less frequent shopping trips. We quickly made adjustments to our focus and resources based on these trends and applied on a market by market basis. For example, we reprioritized our portfolio and we shifted our focus to channels where the consumer was and continues to shop. We shifted advertising investments and teams to align with these reprioritized areas of focus, such as digital, as well as prioritize off-premise accounts such as classic versus convenience, large format versus independent. We reduced discretionary spending such as T&E. We stopped spending behind on-premise activities and various events and sponsorships that were canceled. And we accelerated and fueled our activities in the e-premise channel in several key markets globally. As the COVID-19 pandemic and its effect on the global economy continues to evolve, we are closely monitoring key indicators in each market, such as the stage of restrictions in a given market or country, consumer trends and behavioral insights and macroeconomic conditions. We believe this will aid us in our evaluation of the pace of recovery and appropriately identify opportunities. Now, given the high degree of uncertainty that we all face in these times, I'd like to take a few minutes to comment on our financial position and specifically to address the topic of liquidity. First of all, a few relevant facts. On April 30th, the end of our fiscal year 2020, we had six hundred seventy five million dollar in cash equivalents on hand. Our commercial paper balance was roughly three hundred thirty million with an average of over 70 days to maturity for paper outstanding. And we had approximately two point three billion of long term debt outstanding. Importantly, in our long term debt picture, we have no maturity scheduled until our fiscal twenty twenty three. Our eight hundred million dollar credit facility was and remains undrawn. So we believe our financial position remains strong and our continuing capacity to generate solid operating cash flows is sound. We believe our strengths will allow us to navigate this crisis as circumstances evolve. That said, we have taken and will continue to take additional steps to secure a strong financial position, managing both our uses and sources of cash. For example, while we continue to manage our use of cash stop fully, as we always have, we have turned up our focus in a few areas. Naturally, we are managing our operating expenses closely and have significantly curtailed discretionary spending, such as freezes for hiring and travel. On the capex front, we will continue to invest behind the business with an eye toward the future and not forgo important maintenance spending. However, we are reprioritizing and deferring certain spending where prudent. We're more actively managing our working capital, including monitoring credit closely while working constructively with our customers most affected by the crisis. In parallel to our management or cash use case, we have bolstered our cash balances and position Brown Form into access additional liquidity if needed. First, just a few comments on the short term debt markets and our recent experience. We're rounding to March despite extremely volatile conditions in the short term debt market then, which have improved markedly since then. We sustain our access to short term funding in the commercial paper market. Leading up to our fiscal year end, we added to our cash position by issuing commercial paper, more of it and with longer durations than usual, enabling us to fortify our cash position. Looking ahead, we expect to meet our short term liquidity needs through cash generated from operations and borrowings under our commercial paper program. However, as you know, well, these are dynamic times, so we are closely monitoring both our own liquidity outlook based on various scenarios and conditions in the debt capital markets. If our appraisal suggests a worsening situation, we won't hesitate to increase our margin of safety on the liquidity burden. Considering our history of strong operating cash flows, our excellent credit ratings and the resilience of our industry and our business in these turbulent times, we expect that if needed, we could access additional debt capital readily and with favorable terms. And finally, to our fiscal 21 outlook, as we indicated in our earnings release this morning, we face substantial uncertainty related to the evolving COVID-19 global pandemic and its effect on the global economy. As a result of this uncertainty, we are not able to provide quantitative guidance for fiscal 2021 at this time. We hope to have a better picture of how the recovery, including this economic effect on consumers, may unfold and affect our full year financial results when we report our Q1 performance later this summer. With that being said, based on our early read of our performance in May, we believe that our top line results will show some improvements to that we experienced in March, April, but still down relative to last year. Separately, given our strong balance sheet, solid cash flows and ample liquidity, we expect to fully fund ongoing investment in our business and continue to pay regular dividends. In summary, while fiscal 2020 was a year like no other in our 150 year history, and we expect to continue to face headwinds given the current environment, our view of the ultimate global opportunity for our brand is undiminished. We believe our talented, resilient and agile employees, our commitment to diversity inclusion, our attractive portfolio brands in growing categories, our resilient global supply chain and our strong balance sheet will allow us to merge an even stronger company with healthier brands that will drive our growth for the next generation. And with that, let me turn the call back over to Lawson to conclude our prepared remarks this morning.

Thank you, Jane. As we all know, there is substantial amount of uncertainty in the world and in the days ahead, but we do have 150 years of experience of successfully navigating many challenges. These include world wars, a prior pandemic, prohibition, a depression and recessions. Although this global pandemic and economic challenge is certainly different, I do believe we'll endure and we will reemerge even stronger. I'm optimistic about our future and confident we have the right strategy to guide us now and as we look ahead. We're well positioned in some of the best categories in the spirits industry, and we remain focused on developing a premium portfolio that we can develop around the world. In this current environment, we know the consumers are looking for both trusted brands and for opportunity to indulge in everyday luxuries. I might argue that Jack Daniels is actually the most trusted brand in the spirits industry. We continue to strive to deliver balanced geographic growth with competitive routes to consumer. Near term, we will be reallocating more towards the developed markets, including the United States, where spirits consumption has been relatively stronger. We'll also be allocating more resources towards channels like e-commerce to ensure we're utilizing the most competitive routes to consumer. A historically disciplined approach to capital deployment, including our commitment to return cash to shareholders in a prudent yet opportunistic manner. Additionally, we aspire to deliver top tier total shareholder returns over the long term. And finally, we'll continue to leverage our talent and agile workforce. Over the last few months, I've seen truly exceptional examples of adaptability and resilience in our people. People will continue to be our most important asset. As discussed and shared with you on many occasions in the past, we think about our future in generations. This crisis provides us with the opportunity to reimagine the next generation of growth for our brands, our geographies, our people, and our investments. At the end of the day, our goal is to ensure the long term health of our iconic brands. And finally, we'll continue to be guided by our values while working to preserve the resources of our planet, educating consumers on responsible consumption of our brands and ensuring the communities in which we live and work will provide social equities for all. With that, Dorothy, you may open up the call for questions.

At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. That is star one to ask a question. We will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Dara Monsignan from Morgan Stanley.

Hey, guys. Hope you're doing well. My question was on premiumization. Obviously, you've had a great track record of success in premiumizing your portfolio over time. A, just wanted to get a sense for your thoughts on the potential for continued consumer trade off longer term in this new environment as you look out over the next few years. And B, can you discuss how you might tweak your premiumization strategy a bit going forward in this new environment, you know, managing product affordability, et cetera, and how those strategies may change? Thanks.

Sure. Let me take a shot at it. I mean, one thing, the premiumization, as you know, over the last four months, really, over the last decade has been one of the biggest macro factors in our industry. And even over the last 12 months, if you look at the difference between premiumization and value and volume, you continue to see very strong premiumization trends in the industry. Now, if you look over what's happened over the last couple of months, those trends have continued. You haven't seen the trade down that, well, actually, some of us were worried about. Ultra premium is still going the fastest, then super, and then, you know, and work your way down the chain. So even in this environment, in this particular set of circumstances that we're in, the premiumization trends continue. So, you know, I think we feel good about that, and our portfolio does skew to that, and we continue to, you know, we want to continue to make that happen. So as far as looking out ahead, you know, over the next couple of years, I don't see us changing our portfolio strategy other than to focus on more super premium and above brands. I mean, that's where, not only where the growth has been, but I think it's where our, you know, where our company performs the best. It's one of the reasons we created that emerging brands group for the US, it's been, this has been two years now, has driven those very super premium brands that needed the focus, and they have had an outstanding run now for two years, you know, last two months accepted. But, you know, I really like that part of our portfolio, and I like that part of our strategy, and I think we're going to continue forward with it.

Okay, and are you expecting premiumization, that sort of trend we've seen in the last couple of months, to continue here? Just any thoughts on why we've seen such strong trends still on the higher end pieces of the portfolio, and if that sort of continues as you look out over the next few quarters here?

I mean, yeah,

I do think it will continue, unless, you know, that, and we're really talking mostly about the US, but, you know, we don't know where the economy is going, and so if you do see a pretty, you know, a dip in the fall and the winter, then, you know, that may change the equation a little bit. But for now, the US consumer has been extremely resilient, and even though it's moved from on to off, consumers are still loving their cocktails, and so that part of the business has, you know, has really remained strong, I think, you know, and I just don't see that really changing. And

just to, there, just to build on what Lawson was saying, and when we look back in time over periods where there have been recessions, we can go back to the financial crisis that happened in 2008, 2009, and we did see trading down, we did see some slowdown in premiumization, but they still, it still grew. And then it lasted, per se, a 12, 18 month period, and it came back with a vision. It grew double digits. And so if the past is any indication of the future, and nobody knows in this environment what this is totally different than anything before, but we have that optimism and those trends we've been looking at as well.

Your next question comes from the line of Peter Graum, JPMorgan.

Hey, good morning, everyone. Hope you all are doing well. Good morning. Jane, I appreciate the commentary on trends improving in May versus March and April, but could you maybe provide more color on what you are seeing in the U.S., internationally, global travel retail quarter to date, and maybe where you're seeing the biggest improvement? I would be curious to understand the channel dynamics across these markets, particularly with, you know, countries and states beginning to reopen, while, you know, others, the period is getting worse. Thanks.

Sure. Again, there's a lot of dynamics going on here, and as you said, you set it up perfectly. Countries are at different stages of the pandemic. Countries are at different stages of coming out of the pandemic, different stages of opening, different states, different, all kinds of different things that are affecting us. And so the answer is not a simple answer, as you can imagine. What we saw some improvement on in the month of May is what we're looking at current trends are places like the U.S. in certain channels, certain portfolios, I guess I should say. So our Jackie and Ms. C. Honey, our RCDs are doing quite well. Our global travel retail remains down still. So what we saw in the month of March, April, which was down around 65 percent, that's still holding the same. Some of our emerging markets have improved. So China, we see that early look. Looks like it's back to levels that was a year ago, May. Other parts of Southeast Asia have rebounded. But then you still have other parts of Latin America that are just other parts of emerging markets such as the Latin America that are just going into the pandemic. So there's not a one size fits all answer here, I hate to say. But I would like to build on some of the things that we are seeing that this might help you think about the on-premise and the business primarily in the developed markets. So if we think about Europe, it's a bit further behind than the U.S. For instance, our second largest market is the U.K. The loosening of the restrictions there for bars and restaurants is not going to be until July 4th. You probably know this. France just opened last week. Germany has been open since the middle of May and we've seen nice trends in Germany since it's reopened. In the U.S., the trends are, for the way we've been following it, those trends for the early openings, for those that opened prior to May 15th, where we saw the off-premise were down, say, in the 90% range. By the end of May, they had improved to down 70%. So we're seeing nice improvement, but slow improvement. Of course, this is all going to be dependent upon the consumer, the feelings of safety and when they feel like they can come back. So I wish there was an easier answer for you, but that's why it's so hard to also give any kind of forecast right now because there's so many scenarios and so many things at play that are impacting each and every market and one size does not fit in all. It's hard to generalize anything in this environment.

And let me add on a little bit to it, too, regarding the emerging markets because that's where we've seen the Delta, the biggest Delta within our portfolio. And that's where I have been most concerned about what the next year may look like. Our emerging markets, which over the last few years has been a very dynamic sort of double-digit growth area for many of the years, was already slowing a bit this fiscal year. It was still growing, but it was slowing. A lot of that was led by Mexico, which is our largest emerging market. And Mexico's had its own economic problems going back over the last 12 to 18 months. And so we saw some weakness there earlier on, and that was a big portion of the change in our sales. But if you look out at the rest of the emerging markets world, you know, I'm talking about South America, Africa, particularly South Africa, if you look across parts of Asia and India, a lot of those countries have gone into either a complete shutdown or something close to a complete shutdown. And those markets don't have the social safety net that you're seeing in the U.S. and most of Western Europe. And so those markets, when they go into shutdown, people don't have money for luxury at all. And they're really going to the basic goods and trying to just being able to try to survive. And so I do think you're going to see a deeper problem in those markets, and it's going to be tougher to come out of there. So, yeah, I would argue that emerging markets are the place that we were trying to figure out how that's going to go, but it does have a fair amount of concern.

And just as a reminder, the percentage of our business in emerging markets is about 18% now. And some of the emerging markets are doing okay. Like I said, China is already recovering. Poland is doing very nicely, which goes into our emerging markets too. So just as a reminder of some of the nice markets that are in there. But as Lawson said, that's also one reason, and he mentioned in the script, that we're doing some reallocation of spending this year as well toward more developed markets.

Your next question comes from the line of Vivian Azar with Cowin.

Hi, thank you. And good morning. I hope everyone is safe and healthy. I wanted to double back on the premiumization question, Lawson, and then a quick follow-up. What he said makes a ton of sense, given the high growth in Woodford. I just wanted to check in and see whether you guys were experiencing any supply constraints, given the growth that you've seen March and April for the U.S. net-net, I would think not. But can you just confirm that you're in a position to reallocate inventory deployment? I know Woodford had an international priority. Perhaps that's something you emphasize to make sure that you don't suffer out of stocks in the U.S. Thanks.

Yeah, no. That really is not a concern. I mean, for Woodford in particular, we've been planning for these very high growth rates now for as long as five or six years. And it continues for both parties. Did not see a substantial, I mean, one month isn't going to disrupt the long-term supply chain for it. And the international opportunity is still very significant, and it is one that, you know, pre-pandemic conversations, it was one of the biggest things that we were talking about at the company. And it's something structurally I want to see some changes in some of the big markets in Europe so that they can copy, even if in a smaller way, some of the emerging brands trends that we've learned and put together in the U.S. where we're sort of taking that model and exporting it into a lot of those markets. And so that's still going to be a priority going forward. Jack Daniels also is, you know, I mean, it is, it's not really, well, it's not supply constrained, you know, at least for now. You know, it's having a slowdown now. So really it's not a situation where we're worried about supply.

And just her slowdown that he's referring to, actually it's kind of fascinating. I've been studying the trends in the U.S. marketplace as it relates to all the syndicated data. And you really have to pull it apart to understand what it's really telling you. I'm sure you know this. But the slowdown he's referring to is really the on-premise of this market going away. And Jack Daniels and Brown Forming have a large percentage of our business that are at this premium. And so when you have, and you think about PDF, well, it's got value, it's got all kinds of things. So a lot of the value brands are not in on-premise locations and probably aren't down, like, aren't being pulled down because of that and you have to start understanding that. And as it comes back, I should have said this earlier too, as it comes back in the states that we've seen that opened early in May, where we've seen the drop from the on-premise declines of 90 down to 70, we've actually seen the trends hold up quite well in the off-premise over that period of time in the mid-20s. So that's very, excuse me, in the -30% growth range, which is still very encouraging.

That's very helpful and encouraging. Thank you both, Lawson and Jane. And a quick follow-up. I really applaud your corporate leadership in your home market of Louisville, which obviously has been front and center in terms of some of the civic concerns of your local population. You do have a coop ridge there and then downtown, I believe you have the old forester visitor center. Can you just confirm whether there was any disruption or has been recently given what's been going on in Louisville?

Thanks. No, we didn't. I mean, we related to the COVID crisis, we did have some issues at the coop ridge there, but it was minor and we only closed for a couple of days. And as far as what's going on over the last few weeks in Louisville, it has not had an impact on, I mean, we're closed, but there hasn't been any impact, physical impact on our facility. So

our closed, me and our home places have been closed. We do curb pickup and delivery now, but actually been keeping it closed, following along with the state and the governor's guidance, and we will slowly open as that comes about.

Perfect. Thank you so much. Your next question comes from the line of Kevin Grundy with Jefferies.

Hey, good morning, everyone. I hope you're all doing well. I have a question on the U.S. urban category. You know, as you look at this indicated data and there's been some discussion, it's just, it's hard to ascertain how much, there's the obvious channel shift. It's hard to ascertain how much pantry loading is going on. If you could comment on that. I'm not sure if there's a number that you guys track or how closely you look at it, but what I'm really looking for is the overall category growth rate in terms of what you're seeing more recently in May and June for the urban category. And then if you would indulge me, just a housekeeping question for Jane. Collection risk or bad debt risk in the on-premise channel, given that some of these bars and restaurants will not come out of this. Does that entirely reside with distributors or is there any risk sharing that's going to take place with Brown Forming? Thanks for that.

Yeah, so Kevin, I think you're asking about the trends, the urban trends in the U.S. business. And I can look at Nav cadet. And I can look at Nav cadet. And like I said to Vivian a few moments ago, really do have to start pulling it apart and understand what's going on there. And the actual overall urban trends in the off-premise have remained very strong. They're up about 36%. Now what you've got to do is you've got to pull out Pennsylvania, which shut down, and you've got to pull out the on-premise business. Once you've done that, again, we show growth of around 36%. Brown Forming is growing faster than that. Our bourbon and Tennessee whiskey is growing around 38%. This is for the most recent data through April. We did see a small, I guess a slowdown, if you will, that you're referring to in May, maybe, from the Nilsons in the category. But still up very strong. It's still up in the 30% range from an off-premise takeaway trend perspective. So we feel good about that. What you saw, though, in those trends is an acceleration in a couple of categories, a few categories. It was cordials, liqueurs, and tequilas. And of course our portfolio has some in it. We have wonderful tequilas. We have liqueurs. Think of honey and fire and apple. That's the extent of our portfolio in those categories. So I feel optimistic still that we're still seeing very strong trends from the syndicated data as it relates to bourbon and Tennessee whiskey. And then your question about our bad net. I thought it might be helpful just to talk about what we've done on that just for a moment. And then I can get specifically to your question. But since this pandemic started, we've really been working actively with customers around the globe and looking for ways to partner with them in credit issues in really productive ways. So not surprisingly, in March and April, customers cater into the on-premise and travel retail channels with much of additional credit due to the fall-offs in their business. And that's not surprising. And those comments are more outside the U.S. Yeah, I would...

Go ahead, Jane. I'm sorry.

Yeah, no problem. But as we looked at all these things, we went through each request on a -by-case basis. And we did grant some additional credit where it warrants it. And the good news that we've seen already is what we did do some of that, some of that relief that we provided in March and April, we've already started to see some collections on that. So you're not seeing any degradation in our credit picture, by the way. No change in our bank debt. So that's outside the U.S. As it relates to anything going on in the U.S., we sell to our distributors and those distributors sell on to the retailers. We have not had any of anybody... So that's really their, I guess, their risk at that point in time. Of course, I think with the openings of the on-premise, it's certain to happen. Hopefully some of those will get moving there. But to your point, there may be some bad debt or, excuse me, uncollectibility on the part that what they'll end up doing is probably just shifting it around and using it in other parts of their distributor houses. That could then affect, of course, our shipments in the short term, but not long

term.

Okay. Thanks for all the color.

Our next question comes from the line of Brian Spillane with Bank of America.

Hey, good morning, everyone. Good morning. So I guess I wanted to ask a question more about just the approach as we're kind of thinking about how to model with a really complicated situation. Does it make sense to assume in the U.S. and international developed markets per capita consumption stays the same? We have to make some assessments about channels and brands and price, but perhaps don't really change. It's just where people will consume. And then developing markets, especially if we're going to go into a recession, per capita consumption maybe goes down a bit, and then travel retail is obviously just sort of dependent on being open or not. Is that a basic framework? Is that a reasonable way to approach it?

I mean, one, we don't know. But I think your approach is pretty reasonable. Well, I do think one of the things that's happened over the last few months compared to what had been happening in the prior years before is whatever trends were happening seemed to be an exaggeration. So if you look at the U.S., spirits has been very healthy in the U.S. for 10 years or more, well, 20 years or more. The trend of spirits taking share from beer and wine has continued and has accelerated over the last few months. And so per capita in the U.S., I would say, is probably picking up a little bit. But you go to Europe and it's a bit of the opposite. It's not an extreme change. But beer has been healthier than spirits in Europe for the last few years. And even if you look at short-term trends now, you're seeing that same thing happen. So maybe there's a little bit of per capita going down. I don't think it's all that significant. And then emerging markets is kind of a unique bucket. I'm not sure how to even think about per capita there. But certainly that, you know, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, those markets are struggling.

Thanks. And if I could just sneak a follow-up. Is there anything we should be thinking about in terms of shipments versus depletions, especially I guess in these channels that are shut down? Is there inventory backed up there and potential that you'll shift less than what's depleted this year?

We did, if you saw in our financials at the table at the end, we did have an imbalance in our shipments versus depletions. Our shipments were a little bit higher than our depletions. And I think that was largely in the U.S. I don't see a big out of balance anyplace else around the world. But what we saw from building of inventories was in the U.S. Just because of the complete uncertainty around logistics and warehouse closures and production and all that. So what we have already seen in our May and I'm seeing our June shipments that you can see that come from a shipment perspective coming back in balance. So it wasn't large and I don't see that we were out of balance really anyplace else.

The inventory piece that I found interesting is really a U.S. thing is the consumer themselves and their pantries. Where we all looked at the March explosion and the Nielsen numbers and said, wow, there's pantry loading going on. Are we going to see a fall off in the off-premise in the upcoming months because of that? And it didn't happen.

13 straight weeks.

I mean, you've had accelerating Nielsen trends for some period of time. So it was true pull through where consumers were. I mean, they were actually drinking it and then going back to the store. So that was a piece of good news that I must admit we were a little bit cautious about say a month and a half ago. Like paper

towels and Jack Daniels, right? There you go. All right. Thanks, guys.

Your next question comes from the line of Bill Chappelle with SunTrust.

Hi, this is actually Grant for Bill. Thanks for taking the question. Just had one on cost in the quarter in any kind of one-time cost related to COVID. I know you guys had kind of supported bartenders in the area. I don't know if there are any other production costs that were one time in nature in the quarter or any cost that you see kind of carrying forward here. In the new normal environment. Thanks.

Yes, there definitely was some one-time donations and charitable contributions and so forth that were brought up into SG&A. And we did have a couple million bucks. And we did have some costs also going through our cost of goods for our early employees that are related to making them safe, whether with acquiring supplies like PPE equipment and things like that, which would have been another million or so bucks. But that's about it. Nothing huge in material.

Got it. Thank you.

Your next question comes from a line of Lauren Lieberman with Barclays. Great. Thanks.

Good morning. I was curious if you could talk a little bit about brand building. So, you know, in your industry, brands are, you know, are built in on premise. And Zoe's been the discussion in particular as you've been developing those, you know, premium, super premium brands in your portfolio and all the, you know, resource you've been allocating to on premise. So as you think forward, of course, not knowing how, you know, COVID unfolds, but, you know, just the notion of there being lower capacity at restaurants and bars and kind of give the consumer mobility and flow of people changes for the foreseeable future. How do you think about kind of building brands in what might be a sort of new world for quite a period of time? Thanks.

Yeah, I mean, I do think it's going to change over the next 12 months. You know, how it beyond the next 12 months, I think is a bit of a different answer. But as the on premise, the on premise is going to be down. I mean, there's almost no question about that over the next 12 months. And that has been an important brand building channel, you know, throughout, you know, literally throughout the decades, I guess. So what is the result of that? I do think it pushes towards the tried and true trusted brands that we talked about a little bit earlier. I mean, the bars themselves, one, you're not going to be running a lot of promotions in restaurants that are only a third full. I mean, it just doesn't make a lot of sense. And so we're reallocating dollars away from that channel, away from events and stadiums and things like that, and more into what we would call broad based media. So that is that is a brand building change happening there. But I also do think that it makes new brands. It's going to be more challenging for new tiny brands to dance into the big brands that are out there now. And that's a bit of a different trend compared to what has been happening. Craft brands have have not really made a meaningful impact on market share over the last few years. They sort of topped out around three or four percent. We're still growing, but it's nothing like beer. I think those brands are going to have a hard time because restaurants that are struggling, that are only half full, have to be careful with their inventories and have to rationalize the skews. And so you're going to see them gravitate towards brands that turn. And so that's a benefit for Jack Daniels. At the same time, it may make some of our other brands take a Ford's Gin as an example, which is much smaller. It makes it that much harder. And so I also think there's a dynamic where consumers are not you're not able to go up to a bar, look at 200 brands behind the bar and make a choice on a different something you want to try. You're sitting at a table. You have to be able to order something that you know. And so experimentation goes down a little bit. And we'll just have to see how that plays out over time. But I do think there is there will be a bias in the in the on-premise world for the big tried and trusted brands. And we'll just have to see how that plays out.

Hey, Lauren, just to build on what Lawson said, it's really an excellent question. And as you can imagine, we don't know how the future is going to look. So we are here at Brown Forming looking at what the future is going to look like. What's going to remain? Reimagine what it might be. It's not so much about predicting exactly what's going to happen, but what might happen. And so because this has been a large shock, if you will. So some things will continue. Some won't. Perhaps leveraging technology to the digital, how you talk to consumers. So things may become more important than we've done in the past. And so I think even with our e-commerce and e-premises, the contactless economy, but the digital everything is coming about. And so that's going to be areas that we look at, too. We're not sitting and saying, okay, we're planning on it. We do expect it to come back, but what if it doesn't? What are those other ways that consumers have changed and will permanently change through this? So just want you to know that we're looking at reimagining what things might be in the future.

Okay. Thanks so much. And your final question comes from the line of Chris Pitcher with Redburn.

Thanks so much. A couple of questions, please. Did you give us a bit more color on how the rollout of Apple has progressed in the COVID environment? You had some accelerating growth in the other Jack Daniels brands, which I assume was Apple. I just wanted to get a feel whether you think it played Apple's hand or it's hindered perhaps the rollout of that. And then secondly, in the UK, the investment you've put down in terms of sales and distribution over here, again, has the COVID environment meant that that rollout has slowed or do you expect as the on-trade opens up here that that organization is in a position to start fully delivering on the plans that you had in place?

Thanks. All right. I'll take the Apple one. I mean, in the US, that's 250,000 cases in eight months in the US. So that's a very solid intro and we're happy. That's around

10 in the US globally. Okay. Two

-ten in the US, which is essentially on plan, if you will. Now, the last couple of months, I'm actually not even sure what happened in the last couple of months of the year with Apple itself. But I mean, I think in general, the brand is on plan. It is being very well received. It has a great taste to it. And these flavors have done well in this COVID environment where consumers are staying home. The flavors are largely off-premise play anyway. And so they've benefited from that. Now, the international expansion on Apple has been hindered by this. It did launch in the UK and in Germany and France and a few others. But we've sort of pulled back a little bit, particularly in markets that have a high on-premise percentage as a business, so the Italy's and Spain's and places like that. We just said, you know what, let's not even launch right now. It just doesn't make any sense in that environment. So that has slowed the international rollout out. But that's a matter of timing. I expect that we will begin to bring that into the new markets as conditions open up in some of those places that are really locked down.

Yeah. And to answer your question, Chris, as it relates to the UK, it definitely has been turning times. We did not project a COVID environment bringing on the 100 new employees or so that we have there. So, but I will say that it showed a lot of agility by a lot of people around the world. We've set up our systems and processes. We train sales guys all remotely during this time. And I'm proud of everything that has happened with that team. The transition is going very well. We've got people in place. We're able to ship. So our supply chain and logistics are running. We've met with the off-trade. Now, what's different is the entree. As I said earlier, the entree is not projected to come back on until July 4th with significant restrictions. So that's a big percentage of our customer base. But in terms of the transition and shipping and selling and so forth with our off-premise trade, all is going well. And we're having direct conversations with our key trade stakeholders and getting a better understanding that we didn't have before when we didn't have the full insight into what was going into the marketplace. So all is going well in that front. Fabian?

I'll turn it back over to our speakers for closing remarks.

We'd just like to say thank you, Dorsey, and thank you to Lawson and Jane and to all of you for joining our call today for Brown Forman's year-end fiscal 2020. If you have any additional questions, please feel free to contact us. With that, we wish you a safe and healthy summer. Thank you.

Thank

you, ladies and gentlemen. That

does conclude today's conference call. You may now disconnect.