Energizer Holdings, Inc.

Good morning. My name is Sylvie, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Energizer's first quarter fiscal year 2025 conference call. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. During that time, you may press star 1 to queue up for questions. At this time, note that all lines are listed on the mode. And if at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star 0 for the operator. And we also ask that out of consideration to other callers on the call today, you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. Also note that this call is being recorded. And I would like to turn the conference over to John Polden, Vice President, Treasurer, and Industrial Relations. You may begin your conference.

Good morning, and welcome to Energizer's first quarter fiscal 2025 conference call. Joining me today are Mark Levine, President and Chief Executive Officer, and John Dravick, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. A replay of this call will be available on the investor relations section of our website, energizerholdings.com. In addition, the slide deck providing detailed financial results for the quarter is also posted on our website. During the call, we will make forward-looking statements about the company's future business and financial performance, among other matters. These statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. We do not undertake to update these forward-looking statements. Other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements are included in reports we file with the SEC. We also refer in our presentation to non-GAAP financial measures. The reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures to comparable GAAP measures is shown in our press release issued earlier today, which is available on our website. Information concerning our categories and estimated market share discussed in this call relates to the categories where we compete and is based on Energizer's internal data, data from industry analysis, and estimates we believe to be reasonable. The battery category information includes both brick-and-mortar and e-commerce retail sales. Unless otherwise noted, all comments regarding the quarter year pertain to Energizer's fiscal year, and all comparisons to prior year relate to the same period in fiscal 2024. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Mark.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We had a great start to the year and delivered strong results in our first quarter of fiscal 2025. Specifically, we delivered organic net sales growth of nearly 4%, We expanded adjusted gross margin by 50 basis points. We grew adjusted earnings per share by 14%, and we paid down $25 million of debt. We entered the year positioned to drive growth through our strategic initiatives, and our investments are paying off. We achieved organic growth in batteries of 4% and auto care of 2%. As John will discuss more in a moment, Our strong start to the year has given us the confidence to increase our organic sales outlook for the full year. We were able to achieve this growth while continuing to improve our adjusted gross margins, which reached 40% in the quarter. The top line growth and margin expansion have been enabled by Project Momentum, which reestablished our margins and provided us the flexibility to invest. With three quarters remaining in the program, we expect it to enable continued investment and growth, as well as margin improvement. The combination of our strong top-line performance and margin expansion drove meaningful earnings growth, enabling debt reduction for the 10th consecutive quarter. Our results are certainly bolstered by the health of our categories. Battery category volume remained positive both globally and in the U.S. Importantly, we are seeing improving value trends as well. This is resulting in volume and value converging in a manner consistent with our expectations. The auto category also continued to show growth. We are seeing strong category fundamentals, including a steady increase in the age of the car park and a continued consumer shift towards do-it-yourself car care activities. These category underpinnings, combined with international expansion, drove solid growth for our brands in the quarter. The first quarter highlighted how we are leveraging both project momentum and our strategic growth initiatives. And before turning it over to John, I would like to provide a forward look on how both of these areas look for the rest of the fiscal year. Let's start with project momentum. We generated significant savings over the life of this program, and this quarter was no exception. Project momentum generated nearly $20 million of savings in the quarter and helped to drive very strong earnings growth. There is more to come in the balance of the year, and we expect to finish fiscal 25 with roughly $60 million in total savings for the year and approximately $200 million for the program. We will capitalize on the success of Project Momentum and invest for consistent ongoing growth. We previously identified five areas where we expect to capture growth going forward. Distribution, pricing and revenue management, market expansion, innovation, and digital economy. This quarter demonstrates the progress in several of those areas with the biggest impact in Q1 coming from distribution. In the quarter, we expanded our business with existing customers and won new ones. These gains were broad-based across channels, both in the U.S. and in international markets. We expect distribution to be a tailwind for the balance of the year. Innovation will also play a big part for us in fiscal 25. On our call last November, we unveiled some of our newest and most innovative product lines, including the Armor All Podium series, developed in partnership with Oracle Red Bull Racing. We are pleased to report the early indicators are very positive. We have secure distribution at large retailers across the United States, Australia, UK, and more. In total, Podium Series will be on the shelves in more than 15,000 retail locations across the globe. We also expect areas like market expansion, pricing and revenue management, and our investments in expanding our digital economy business to drive growth in future quarters and fiscal years. The benefit of having this broad-based pipeline is that we can invest and build each of them out over time to generate the consistent growth our financial algorithm calls for. We are excited about what we have already seen, and the pipeline across each of these areas is very robust. I will wrap up and turn the call over to John. From a high level, we delivered a strong first quarter and entered the second quarter with even greater confidence in our strategic initiatives. Our strong start to the year adds to our confidence that we are executing the right strategies to deliver on our 2025 financial outlook. I will now turn it over to John for more details on the quarter and our outlook.