Dole plc

Welcome to the Dole PLC first quarter 2023 earnings conference call and webcast. Today's conference is being broadcast live over the internet and is also being recorded for playback purposes. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speaker's presentations, there will be a question and answer session. For opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to the head of investor relations with Dole PLC, James O'Regan.

Thank you, Rob. Welcome, everybody, and thank you for taking the time to join us on our first quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Joining me on the call today is our Chief Executive Officer, Rory Byrne, our Chief Operating Officer, Joanne Linden, and our Chief Financial Officer, Jacinta Devine. During this call, we'll be referring to the presentation slides and supplemental remarks, and these, along with our earnings release and other related materials, are available on the Investor Relations section of the Dole PLC website. Please note, our remarks today will include certain forward-looking statements within the provisions of the Federal Securities Safe Harbor Law. These reflect circumstances at the time they are made, and the company expressly disclaims any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. Actual results or outcomes may differ materially from those that may be expressed or implied due to a wide range of factors, including those set forth in our SEC filings and press releases. Information regarding the use of non-GAAP financial measures may be found in our press release, which also includes a reconciliation to the most comparable GAAP measures. Following the agreement to sell the fresh vegetables division, its results are reported separately in our financial statements as discontinued operations. Unless otherwise noted, our discussion of results and outlook in today's presentation are on a continuing operations basis. With that, I'm pleased to turn today's call over to Rory.

Thank you, James. A very warm welcome to everybody and thank you all for joining us. So today we're very, very pleased to report a strong start to the 23 financial year. While the focus of our remarks today will be on our continuing operations, we are also pleased to note that the Fresh Vegetables Division has shown an improved performance so far in 2023 as we work our way through the regulatory process for the planned sale of this business to Fresh Express. Now turning to slide six and the financial highlights for the quarter. Well, we delivered revenue and just to be with DAG growth, driven by strong performances in our fresh food and diversified fresh produce EMEA segments. Group revenue increased by 1% on the like for like basis, excluding the impact of foreign currency translation movements and M&A, it increased by just under 4%. These increases continue to be driven by higher pricing. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 9.3% to $100 million, while adjusted diluted earnings per share decreased primarily due to higher year-over-year interest expense. Moving on to our operational highlights, in our fresh fruit segment, we delivered very strong results in Q1, driven by an improved performance in our European operations. 2022 was a challenging year in Europe as we could not quickly pass on the significant cost increases in shipping, fuel and sourcing costs to customers, in part due to the instability in the marketplace following the start of the Ukraine war. While there remains a challenge to push through further price increases to offset some of the inflationary pressures we have faced, we are pleased to see results moving in a good direction in Q1. Our North American operations perform solidly with a healthy supply and demand balance and bananas aligned for continued good performance. As always, supply and demand dynamics in the banana market remain an important variable for the year ahead. Overall, we believe the industry remains in a good balance as we head into Q2 and with our diverse sourcing base, we believe we are well positioned. Our diversified fresh produce EMA segment has had a very strong start to 2023. Inflationary justified price increases flowing through from our dynamic pricing model have allowed for good revenue growth across our markets. Certain market volumes have been more challenging. However, overall, our businesses have performed well through proven cost management and continued expansion into growth products and markets. On an underlying local currency basis, we are very pleased with the performance of this segment. And now the more favorable FX comparative starting in Q2, we hope to see an improved performance on a reported US dollar basis also. Our diverse high pressure projects, Americas and rest of the world's segment has had a relatively slow start to the year. This is partly due to time differences in the important Chilean cherry season this year. and also due to the implementation of a more conservative strategy for the export of certain products following supply chain challenges in 2022. We also experienced some disruption as a result of a fire in one of our Chilean operations during the quarter, although this did not have a material impact on operations and the damage incurred was covered by insurance. Despite these impacts, the scale and range of activity in this segment still allowed us to maintain a solid level of performance overall in Q1. We continue to perform well in a number of our key product groups, such as Chilean Cherries and Potatoes in North America, and additionally began a number of important strategic initiatives to further accelerate growth in these products as we move forward. Looking ahead to the rest of the year, we are confident that the strategy we've taken will deliver results, particularly in the second half. Before I turn over to Jacinta, I also want to say a quick word on the ransomware attack we mentioned on our last call. Our efforts to quickly contain the threat and secure our systems results in our limited overall impact on group operations. Our continued operations incurred approximately $4.8 million of costs relating to the incident, and the fresh vegetable business incurred approximately $5.7 million of costs. Despite the complexity and cost of this issue, we are very pleased with the commitment of our people in ensuring that our systems recovery protocols worked as anticipated. And with that, I'll hand you over to Jacinta to give the financial review.