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Operator
Welcome to the Edgewell Personal Care Q4 2022 Earnings Call. All participants will be in mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Chris Goff, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Chris Goff
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us this morning for Edgewell's fourth quarter and fiscal year 2022 earnings call. With me this morning are Rod Little, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Dan Sullivan, our Chief Financial Officer. Rod will kick off the call, then hand it over to Dan to discuss our results and full year 23 outlook before we transition to Q&A. This call is being recorded and will be available for replay via our website, www.edgewell.com. During the call, we may make statements about our expectations for future plans and performance. This might include future sales, earnings, advertising and promotional spending, product launches, savings and costs related to restructurings, changes to our working capital metrics, currency fluctuations, commodity costs, category value, future plans for return of capital to shareholders, and more. Any such statements are forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which reflect our current views with respect to future events, plans, or prospects. These statements are based on assumptions and are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including those described under the caption risk factors, in our end report on Form 10-K for the year ended September 30th, 2021, as may be amended in our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, which is on file with the SEC. These risks may cause our actual results to be materially different from those expressed or implied by our forward-looking statements. We do not assume any obligation to update or revise any of these forward-looking statements to reflect new events or circumstances, except as required by law. During this call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures These non-GAAP measures are not prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. A reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is shown in our press release issued earlier today, which is available at the investor relations section of our website. Management believes these non-GAAP measures provide investors with valuable information on the underlying trends of our business. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Rod.
Rod Little
Rodney Ewing Thanks, Chris. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on our year-end earnings call. We were pleased with our results in the quarter, which came in largely in line with expectations, despite heightened currency headwinds and persistent cost inflation. For the second consecutive year, we grew organic net sales 4 percent, and we've now delivered organic growth for six consecutive quarters. Organic net sales increased in all segments of the business, and importantly, we had double-digit growth in our right to win businesses. which includes sun care, men's grooming, and skin care. A right-to-play portfolio of wet shave and feminine care also grew organically for the second consecutive year at just over 1%. Growth was broad-based, with North America increasing about 3% and international markets increasing nearly 6%, and reflective of a healthy combination of volume and pricing. And with the successful launch of Billy at Walmart, the Billy brand contributed 360 basis points to our reported top-line growth in the year. Despite ongoing macro market challenges, including supply chain disruption, heightened inflation, and the rapidly appreciating U.S. dollar, we continue to make significant progress in the transformation of Edgewell and achieve our objective of sustained top-line organic growth. I would like to personally thank our teams across the globe, as this progress is a result of their dedication, continued focus on the fundamentals, and good execution. Evidence of our transformation is seen in four specific ways. First, delivering meaningful consumer-centric innovation. This year, we successfully launched new products in sun care and feminine care. We re-architected the Schick brand in the United States broadened our women's branded shave range, including the introduction of Hydra Silk Touch-Up, the number one selling women's hair removal SKU on Amazon. And we added new products in men's grooming, including the new Cremo Razor, and launched our first new brand since the spinoff with Energizer, our new sustainable skincare brand, Field Trip. Second, we further strengthened our presence on shelf. led by our category-leading Sun portfolio of brands and aided by the successful rollout for the Billy brand at Walmart. Stronger brands, compelling innovation, and better retail execution all led to the best distribution outcomes we've seen since 2015 and helped deliver improved market share results. Third, we continue to improve our capabilities across the organizations. particularly in brand building, direct-to-consumer, and digital execution. E-commerce sales now account for approximately 13% of our top line, up six points from just two years ago, and evidence of our successful pivot to a broad, omnichannel approach to our categories. By in-housing critical capabilities related to site architecture, brand building, data and analytics, and performance marketing, We have built the required skills necessary to be successful across all e-commerce channels. And finally, we remain committed to driving costs out of the business and structurally simplifying and improving our operating model. On the heels of our three-year fuel effort, which concluded in 2021, we delivered an incremental $40 million in cost of goods savings in fiscal 22. helping to partially mitigate the broad inflationary headwinds seen across all businesses over the last 18 months. We further addressed overhead expenses in 2022, delivering approximately $15 million in gross savings while streamlining business decision-making and improving speed to market. Importantly, in the face of an increasingly challenging operating environment, We remain committed to investing in our brands, spending just under $240 million, or 11% of net sales, for the year in advertising and promotion, while improving the productivity of our spend, especially as we further shifted our focus to digital activation. Now, I would like to turn to the new fiscal year and provide some insight into our plans, and then Dan will take you through the detailed assumptions. While the external environment remains extremely challenging with continued year-over-year inflation, growing currency-related headwinds, and a likely increasingly cautious consumer, we believe that our results over the past two years demonstrate the benefits of our strategy and the underlying structural improvement in our business. This gives us confidence that we are taking the right actions to deliver sustained value creation over the long term. While we navigate this in increasingly challenging environment, our outlook for 2023 is solid with four core highlights. First, continued organic sales growth. Our outlook calls for organic growth of approximately 4%, largely driven by price execution and underpinned by Billy's retail expansion. Compelling innovation in sun and grooming, continued strong distribution outcomes that reinforce our brand's growing strength on shelf, and continued improvement in market share trends, most notably in wet shave, reflective of our leading portfolio of women's brands in the United States and strong performance in key international shave markets. Second, a return to gross margin accretion. Despite continued inflation and meaningful incremental currency headwinds, Through a combination of continued execution of our productivity initiatives across cost of goods and increased price realization across most of our portfolio, we will return to a core pillar of our business model, delivering 30 basis points of gross margin accretion for the year on a reported basis or 120 basis points of accretion on a constant currency basis. Third, We plan to continue to invest in our brands and organizational capabilities with advertising and promotion spending expected to increase in dollars and as a rate of sale with increased focus on top talent development across the organization. And lastly, we will continue to structurally address our cost base. Our plans include over $65 million in gross cost reductions across both cost of goods and overheads. as we focus on driving efficiency and simplification in how we operate the business. In addition to the gross margin accretion I just mentioned, the combination of growth-driven operating leverage and structural cost reductions also provide for another year of improved SG&A as a rate of sale. As we contemplate our plans for the year ahead and the choices we are making, we remain committed to executing our strategies and we are focusing on the operational fundamentals and health of the business for the long term. To help gauge the progress we are making on an operational basis, in addition to providing organic net sales results, we will provide a constant currency view of our results, including for adjusted earnings per share and adjusted EBITDA performance. We think that such a view is an important measure of our underlying performance. and points to the strength of our business model when we drive sustained organic sales growth. For 2023, on a constant currency basis, our outlook calls for adjusted EBITDA growth of 8% and adjusted earnings per share growth of 12%, both of which are well above our stated financial algorithm. Since our investor day in November of 2020, we have now delivered consecutive years of 4% organic growth meaningfully strengthened our portfolio with the additions of Cremo and Billy, improved our position on shelf, and stabilized or even grown market share across our key markets, all while operating in the most challenging macro environment many of us have ever seen. The underlying fundamentals of this business are far stronger today than they were two short years ago, and we are well positioned to continue our success in 2023 as our outlook reflects. And now I'd like to ask Dan to take you through our fourth quarter and full year results and to also provide additional details on our outlook for fiscal 2023. Dan?
Rodney Ewing Thanks
Thank you, Rod. Good morning, everyone. As Rod mentioned, our top line results and operational performance this quarter and this year point to fundamental improvements across the business. and give us confidence that the strategic priorities and choices we are making are driving the desired outcomes. In the quarter, our continued strong execution across markets delivered solid results that were largely in line with our expectations, despite the continued challenging operating environment, including the rapidly strengthening U.S. dollar against most major currencies. In fact, the U.S. dollar appreciated about 7% against both the euro and the yen in the quarter. Organic net sales grew 1.2 percent in the quarter, underpinned by about 3 percent growth due to price and promotions management. For the full year, we posted 4 percent organic net sales growth for the second consecutive year. Retail execution behind the Billy brand remains strong, with the brand now gaining momentum as it prepares for broader scale retail expansion in 2023. Adjusted earnings per share declined 22 percent in the quarter versus the prior year, largely reflecting the impact of heightened inflation, unfavorable currency movements, and a higher tax rate. Before reviewing our detailed results for the quarter, I would like to provide some additional color on our operations and the macro environment. Over the past fiscal year, our industry has been confronted by supply chain disruptions, unprecedented cost increases, and more recently, currency pressures, all of which created meaningful gross margin headwinds. As you saw this past year, we are confronting these challenges and taking proactive steps to mitigate their impact through a variety of levers, including further productivity savings, G&A efficiency programs, and broad-based price execution. And to further stabilize our supply chain, we took the necessary steps to secure additional raw materials through broader global sourcing efforts and strengthened our labor pool through a combination of enhanced recruitment and pay-for-performance programs. Despite these efforts, we continue to experience sporadic supply shortages in certain categories and therefore increased inventory levels in September to ensure product availability and improve service levels to our customers. This included an intentional effort to pre-build raw material and finished goods inventory across our Sun portfolio much earlier than in years past. As reflected in our 2022 operating cash flow performance, this resulted in a greater investment in working capital. and lower free cash flow in fiscal 2022. Given the importance of our sun care business, we felt as though this was the right tradeoff to make. Now we'll turn to the detailed results for the quarter and highlights for the fiscal year. As mentioned, organic net sales increased 1.2% or 2.7% excluding wet ones, while cycling about 8% organic growth last year, as price gains were partially offset by volume declines. most of the realized price increases were attributable to wet shave, grooming, and femcare. International organic net sales increased nearly 8%, driven by strong performance in sun care, women's shave, and grooming. North American organic net sales decreased just over 3%, as strong growth in men's grooming and shave preps and modest growth in sun care and femcare were offset by declines in wet ones, women's shave, and disposables. Looking deeper into our segments, wet shave organic net sales decreased just over 1%, reflecting the previously mentioned phasing of orders that benefited Q3, as well as cycling the strong growth from the fourth quarter last year. Significant shave prep growth of 14% was more than offset by mid-single-digit declines in women's systems and disposables. Organic net sales in international markets increased over 3%, with growth driven by private label, new product launches, and shave preps. While North America organic net sales decreased over 7%, as declines in women's systems and disposables were only partially offset by growth in shave preps and men's systems. For the sixth consecutive quarter, U.S. razors and blades category consumption increased, growing just under 2%. The category growth in the quarter was led by men's systems growing just under 3%, while both women's systems and disposables also saw modest growth. Bili Performance at Walmart remains strong, with the brand still holding the number two position in women's systems and a 17% share of the category. The Malibu handle is the top-selling system, and the brand holds three of the top six selling handles overall. Importantly, in the last 15 weeks, Bili is the number one wet shave refill brand. And for the total launch period, refill sales continue to outperform the previous Joy and Flamingo launches. These results provide compelling evidence of a strong conversion from trial users to loyal Billy customers. For the 13-week period, our manual shave market share decreased 60 basis points, while branded share decreased 40 basis points, as gains in women's branded shave were more than offset by share losses in disposables and men's systems. Disposable share performance in the quarter was impacted by lower promotion versus a year ago in drug and food, as well as the impact of recent price increases. Sun and skincare organic net sales increased about 8%, driven by strong global sun care results and double-digit men's grooming growth. Sun care organic net sales in North America increased nearly 2%, despite cycling 55% growth last year and the shift in certain orders into Q3. where we grew 14 percent. International sun care sales increased over 64 percent, as a return to travel and leisure activity drove demand recovery. In the U.S., the sun care category grew over 7 percent for the quarter. While our consumption grew from prior year, our sun care brands predictably lost market share, as last year we gained 180 basis points of share, in large part aided by competitor brand recalls. Over the last 52 weeks, our portfolio gained 60 basis points of share, and Banana Boat became the number one brand in the category in the U.S. Men's grooming organic net sales increased about 13 percent, despite cycling nearly 21 percent growth last year. Jack Black delivered over 26 percent growth, while Crema results remained strong, delivering nearly 8 percent growth and fueled by a healthy combination of new product growth, distribution gains, and pricing actions. Wet One's organic sales decreased about 24% in the quarter, providing 150 basis point headwind to total company organic sales. Category consumption declined 31% as the category further reset from the COVID-driven back-to-school demand spikes in the prior year. Wet One's consumption was down far less than the category, driving share gains of almost 17 points and a share position now over 67%. Femcare organic net sales increased 1.7%, largely driven by heightened category demands and improved product availability on shelf. Playtech Sport and Carefree continued to grow, offset by slight declines in stay-free. Our portfolio saw over 6% consumption growth, while share was effectively flat in both the quarter and latest 52-week period. Now, moving down the P&L. Gross margin rate on an adjusted basis decreased 450 basis points compared to the prior year. In the quarter, a 700 basis point gross impact from higher commodity, labor, and transportation-related costs and 100 basis point combined impact from negative mix and unfavorable currency was only partly offset by 350 basis points of offsets equally delivered from productivity savings and price and promotion management. A&P expense was 7.7% of net sales, with over 85% of the working dollars geared to digital execution. A&P spend in the quarter was in line with expectations and reflected the timing of new product launches and brand campaign execution. Adjusted SG&A decreased 70 basis points versus last year, as gains from operational efficiency programs and lower incentive compensation expense more than offset the impact of billy expenses, including higher amortizations. Adjusted operating income was $66.6 million compared to $80.1 million last year, a decline of 17%, reflecting the impact of higher costs and unfavorable currency movements. Apt diluted net earnings per share were $0.64 compared to $0.80 in the fourth quarter of fiscal 21. And adjusted earnings per share were $0.79 compared to $1.01 in the prior year period, including a $0.20 combined negative impact from currency and tax and a four-cent benefit from share repurchases. Adjusted EBITDA was $94.7 million compared to $102.3 million in the prior year. Net cash from operating activities for the year-ended September 30th was $102 million compared to $229 million over the same period last year. Intentional efforts to pre-build SunCare inventory for the 23 season and to invest in higher stocks to improve service levels across categories for fiscal 23 have resulted in the increased working capital outflow versus a year ago. We ended the quarter with $189 million in cash on hand, access to the $264 million undrawn portion of our credit facility, and a net debt leverage ratio of about 3.6 times. In the quarter, our share repurchases totaled over $15 million, bringing our year-to-date repurchases to $125 million. In addition, we continued our quarterly dividend payout and declared another cash dividend of 15 cents per share for the fourth quarter. In total, we returned nearly $158 million to shareholders during the fiscal year. Now, let me turn briefly to a review of our full-year results. Organic net sales for the year increased 3.9 percent. Our right-to-win portfolio grew almost 11% organically, fueled by strong sun performance across both North America and key international markets, and our grooming brands, which grew about 9% for the year. Our right-to-play portfolio delivered its second consecutive year of about 1% organic growth. Organic net sales increased in North America by 2.6%, and in international markets by 5.9%. Importantly, our market share performance across key markets strengthened in fiscal 22. In the U.S., our aggregate branded business saw slight share gains reflective of gains across women's shave, preps, and sun care, and underpinned by meaningful better performance on shelf and strong retail execution. Globally, we also drove healthy wet shave share gains in Japan, Germany, and Mexico. And finally, our Suncare portfolio also performed well outside of the U.S., realizing share gains in Canada, the U.K., and parts of Latin America. Adjusted gross margin rate decreased 400 basis points year-on-year, reflective of higher commodity, labor, and transportation-related costs and net of productivity savings. The positive impact from pricing was largely offset by negative mix and unfavorable currency. A&P expense was down $3 million from prior year, or 60 basis points as a percentage of sales. Adjusted operating profit decreased $48 million, or 17%. And operating margin for the year was 10.6%, down from 13.3% in the prior year, as we navigated a challenging inflationary environment and absorbed the impact of increased amortization costs associated with the Billy acquisition. Turning to our outlook for fiscal 2023, As Rod mentioned earlier, we are confident that the strategic choices and actions taken over the past several years have put us in a better position to drive sustained top-line growth. And we've strengthened our underlying business model by driving better commercial execution and increased focus on productivity and efficiency across the business. As a result, we are better prepared for the challenges we will continue to face in the coming year. Operationally, on a constant currency basis, which excludes both the translational and transactional impacts from currency, and out of any hedge gains or losses, our adjusted EPS and adjusted EBITDA growth outlook for fiscal 2023 is expected to be well above our previously stated financial algorithm. Before getting into details, I would bring your attention to the supplemental slides that are posted on our website. These slides include additional detail on our outlook assumptions and will be helpful as you model the business, given the complexity related to inflation and currency movements and the commensurate impact on phasing across the year. For the fiscal year, we anticipate organic net sales growth to be 3% to 5%, with similar growth rates in half 1% and half 2%. Growth is expected to be largely driven by price, with flat to slightly negative volume results in aggregate, although this will vary by segment. We anticipate net sales to be flat to up 2% as compared to 2022, inclusive of about 360 basis points of currency headwinds and a 50 basis point benefit from billing. As we look to gross margin, we anticipate about 30 basis points of year-over-year rate accretion with declines in the first half of the year driven by continued inflation and negative currency, partly mitigated by price realization and productivity savings. In the second half of the year, we anticipate that gross margins will meaningfully improve both sequentially and year-over-year, as inflation headwinds moderate versus the prior year, while price and productivity offsets continue to be realized. For the full year, our gross margin outlook calls for approximately 350 basis points of inflationary headwinds, including approximately 500 basis points in half-month. and 90 basis points of combined translation and transactional currency headwinds. These collective margin headwinds are expected to be more than offset by about 275 basis points of price and revenue management gains and 225 basis points in productivity savings. We remain committed to investing in our brands through AMP to support our growth outlook, with AMP expected to increase both in dollars and rate of sales, to approximately 11.6 percent. As a result, adjusted operating profit margin is expected to be about 30 basis points below 2022 levels on a full-year basis. We expect significant operating margin rate contraction in the first half of the year before we see moderation and improvement in the latter half of the year, largely a result of the gross margin profile just discussed. The impact of currency on a pre-tax income basis is expected to be approximately $33 million headwinds, inclusive of hedging offsets. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in the range of $320 to $335 million. On a constant currency basis, adjusted EBITDA growth at the midpoint of the range is expected to be approximately 8%. Adjusted EPS is expected to be in the range of $2.30 to $2.50. inclusive of approximately 48 cents per share of currency headwinds. Constant currency adjusted EPS growth at the midpoint of the range is expected to be approximately 12 percent. Additionally, we expect that the benefit from share repurchases, which is reflected in our outlook, will largely be offset by the impact from a higher tax rate. We expect to generate about three-fourths of our full-year adjusted EPS in half two of the fiscal year. with Q1 adjusted EPS meaningfully below prior year results. And finally, free cash flow for the year is expected to be approximately $140 million. The expected improvement in free cash flow will be driven by improved working capital as the year progresses. For more information related to our fiscal 2023 outlook, I would refer you to the press release and supplemental slides that we issued earlier this morning. And now I'd like to return the call to the operator for the Q&A session.
Operator
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then 1 on your touch-tone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the key. To withdraw your question, please press star, then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Chris Carey with Wells Fargo Securities. Please go ahead.
Chris Carey
Good morning. Dan, can you just comment on the complexion of organic sales growth for next year? Obviously, you've already given expectations for pricing and volume, but I think you also noted in your prepared remarks that some divisions would deliver different growth than others. I'm specifically interested in your expectations for Sun after strong results recently and the potential share performance go forward. So any thoughts there would be helpful. And if I could just, as a connected, just from a pricing standpoint, it does feel like based on your gross margin outlook that you expect to achieve more realization of that pricing benefit into the gross margin line. Is that a fair assumption, and what's driving that? Are you doing less promotions? Is there a little bit more pricing than prior plans? So I'd love any thoughts there as well.
Rodney Ewing Thanks
Yeah, hey, good morning, Chris. I'll take them in reverse order, and then Rod can certainly jump in for what I missed. On the margin piece and the contribution from price, you're absolutely right. We do anticipate – more tailwind into margin from price in 23 than we saw in 22. In fact, you actually saw that in Q4 versus Q3, right? Sequentially, price, particularly in North America, as we took price sort of in that late Q2 period, was scaling up, hitting the shelf, and then running through. So, we did see that back half of the year. We do expect that to continue, and that's why you know, we flag about 275 basis points of gains from price next year in margin, which is, you know, obviously more than what we saw this year by more than 2x. In terms of your first question on organic sales performance, let me just make sure, let me hit the headlines and get the bigger picture right. We are anticipating somewhere between 4% and 5% growth through price and somewhere flat to minus one in terms of volume. And that obviously varies by category. And, you know, we've done quite a bit of work, obviously, on sensitivity and elasticities and how we thought about the price we're taking, the price that's been put into the category by others. And we think we've come to a really thoughtful place around the impact that price will have, again, with a bit of an unknown around where the consumer will be. As we think about that by across our portfolio, you know, I think we're certainly looking for healthy growth across all the segments. I think we said that in the prepared remarks that we anticipate growth will come across all of our segments. As you look at it in our right to win versus right to play portfolios, probably more about, you know, 5%, 6% in right to win. and about 3% in right-to-play. And obviously, right-to-play gets aided by the Billy expansion, which we get 10 months of organic growth in. We didn't see that in organics this year. So healthy growth across the categories, in part based on price and volume, playing out differently by category, and growth profiles, like I mentioned, about 5% and 3%, respectively, across our right-to-win, right-to-play. Rod, anything you would add to that?
Rod Little
Just one point I would add is Dan mentioned the billy growth organically that comes in for 10 months. But ex-billy, so the balance of the SHAPE portfolio, we also expect to have organic growth in the year ahead. Okay.
Dan
Thanks so much. Thank you. Next question, please.
Operator
Our next question comes from Kevin Grundy with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Kevin Grundy
Great. Thanks. Good morning, everyone. First, Rod, just to zoom out a little bit, you know, Dan alluded to a moment ago just sort of the uncertain macro. Can you just comment on broadly what you're seeing across your geographies, any signs of consumer weakness that's evident at all in what you're seeing, whether this be by pack size, by channel, you know, consumers extending the life of razors and grooming, and then just sort of broader macro assumptions, maybe, that are underpinning your outlook? And then I have a follow-up for Dan. Thanks.
Rod Little
Yeah, thanks, Kevin. Good morning. Let's start here domestically in the U.S., North America. Consumers have been resilient for the most part, I would say. We're not seeing any meaningful change in consumer behavior. For example, we're not seeing any material trade down on price points or to our private label. portion of shave portfolios. So consumers have been fairly resilient here domestically. Categories are holding up well domestically. I think we referenced the wet shave category grew two points in the quarter just finished. So categories holding up. When you move outside the U.S. into the European, and that applies to Latin America as well. I think the categories in Latin America are healthy and most fully recovered from COVID-19. Europe is lagging a little bit. I think we see continued recovery in the European markets that began in 22. We expect to continue to see that in 23, albeit there may be some pressure on consumers in Europe, given what's happening in the eastern part of that continent and some of the pressures around energy. And then as we get into Asia, that's the part of the world that's lagging on reopening. We are starting to see some progress in some of the Asian markets with some of the markets outside of China opening up, being more friendly for international travelers coming in to those markets. And again, I expect that to continue to be a help to our business over 23 and 24 and beyond. So markets relatively good, continuing to recover overall. Consumer stable would be the summary.
Kevin Grundy
Thanks, Rod. And then the follow-up, Dan, just pivoting to currency, because my sense is probably the shortfall against where consensus numbers sort of were going into the quarter is probably largely tethered to currency, to a lesser extent the tax rate. Why don't you just spend a moment, Dan, if you wouldn't mind, just on some of the transactional impacts driving that, And specifically, the call in your guidance is a three and a half impact to sales, but something much worse to profit and EBITDA. Maybe just spend a moment on the factors driving that. And relatedly, was there any thought you could perhaps lean in a bit more, whether this is around pricing, productivity, to try to offset some of that? And I'll pass it on. Thank you very much.
Rodney Ewing Thanks
Yeah, thanks, Kevin. I do agree with your thought. I think The difference we see in how we've thought about 23 and some of the models that exist is largely around the size of FX. And we've put that in our outlook and in our supplemental slides to try to be really clear about how we thought about it. And that's the 48 cents headwind to EPS that we have projected. Look, I think the main driver here around transactional FX is tied to three markets. They're Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. And there are three common elements in these markets. One, you've seen massive dollar appreciation against the local currency. Two, we have little to no natural cost offset in the market. And three, where we do have a cost profile, it's largely denominated in USDs. So, you've got kind of the perfect storm here of appreciation You know, with the dollar, no natural offsets and limited local currency cost transactions. And so, you know, as we've sized it up based on that, those three markets that I mentioned account for, you know, about 85% of the transactional headwinds that we're projecting. Europe, you'll see a bit as well. We obviously have a large sales footprint there. We have a meaningful cost base. We manufacture, obviously, in Germany, in the Czech. And in many places, we transact largely in local currency. So, you don't see as big an impact there, even though you've seen movements, euro and pound. So, again, the driver here is those three markets that I mentioned. You know, on your second question around pricing, I think it's good to just talk about what we have done in pricing, because we're actually quite bullish around the stance that we've taken across the business. You know, I would think about pricing on three levels, right? The first is there is new price coming into the fiscal year from day one of the fiscal year. And you've heard us talk about Suncare, Femcare in the U.S. Those are both, you know, mid to high single-digit price increases. They've been communicated and worked through and essentially on shelf. So those are done. That's the first tier. You know, the second tier is there's wraparound pricing benefits from 2022. That's largely our branded shave, disposable, grooming businesses, and a bit of international shave. And then thirdly, there's new pricing that gets phased into the year over time, so it doesn't come day one. That's largely international business sun care wet shaves. You put all of that together, you know, we're looking for about twice the impact in organic sales that we saw this year from price, right? We're about 1.5 to 2 points of growth from pricing in 22. And as you've heard us say, we think that'll be about 4 points in 23. So we think we've taken a pretty healthy stance there. Obviously, we monitor it. Obviously, we will be on top of it. as the year plays out, and if we think we have the opportunity to take additional price or need to based on conditions, we will. And then, you know, to your point on productivity, again, productivity savings for the year, 225 basis points, which is even more than we saw in 2022. So we really feel like we're pulling on the right levers, both price and productivity, You're seeing the benefit of that now in margin accretion, 30 basis points. And that's just core to our business model. We fully expect to get this business back to the margin profile we saw pre-COVID. And I think 2023 is a good demonstration of year one of that, despite meaningful currency headwinds.
Rod Little
Kevin, I would just add, if you step all the way back on this currency thing, We recognize and own the fact that investors are counting on us to deliver earnings and cash flow in U.S. dollars. We've got to do that. And so the reported numbers are the reported numbers. But I don't want people to lose sight of the fact that we have 48 cents per share of currency impact embedded into this forward-looking forecast year over year. And if not for the currency move, we'd be talking about 120 basis point gross margin accretion in the year. We'd be talking about bringing a bottom line margin forward 100 basis points and increasing A&P spend. I do not want to change our posture on A&P. We like the brand building activities we have, and I don't want to price to a point where we're uncompetitive in market. So we're going to stay after this. But I do expect foreign exchange to moderate over time. I don't know when. We can't control central bank policy, so we're very aware of it. But equally, we're investing in the business to get to the other side of that and really have our operational results show through in a way that they're just being masked with this guy due to the foreign exchange.
Kevin Grundy
That's helpful. Thank you both. Good luck.
Dan
Yeah, thank you. Thanks, Kevin. Operator, next question, please.
Operator
Our next question comes from Nick Mody with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Nick Mody
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, Nick. Good morning. Maybe if you just provide a little bit of clarity. I mean, obviously, the top line track record has improved, but we live in interesting and volatile times, to say the least. So how much visibility do you have? Certainly, the pricing component is one area, but Even from the volume side, the flat to slightly down, can you just provide any context around the kind of visibility you have around that? And then just kind of piggybacking on that, a few companies that deal in more commoditized categories are starting to talk about elasticity as being a little bit worse than expected. And I'm just curious, like when you and Dan were kind of going through the budget and thinking about elasticities, maybe you could provide some context around how much flex you have and some of your assumptions.
Rod Little
Sure. I'll start high level. by saying we're very confident in our top-line growth projections at that three to five range, or let's call it four percent midpoint. We have a very good line of sight to that. We know the pricing we've put in on that. We've made assumptions around elasticity. If you look at those two elements around pricing and volume, in fiscal 22, we did about two points of growth on pricing and about two points of growth on volume. As we pivot to 23 and you take that 4% midpoint on organic sales, we have most of that coming through pricing on a flat volume assumption. And so at a macro level, there's your elasticity. There's a little more pricing and a little less volume as we expect consumers to react to that. We may be wrong in some areas. We'll adjust accordingly. But between the pricing assumptions we've made, the elasticity assumptions around volume that we think are very realistic, those we feel good about. The other thing we feel good about is we're close to the category evolution. We think we've got category assumptions in a good place moving forward. And we have a very clear line of sight to distribution outcomes year over year, which continue to be positive.
Dan
Great. Thanks. Operator, next question, please.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from Bill Chappell with Jewish Securities. Please go ahead.
Bill Chappell
Thanks. Good morning. I just want to follow up kind of on the thought on Billy. Obviously, phenomenal test at Walmart, but didn't know where you might expect to see it expanded to. in 2023 if that kind of expanded distribution will match, you know, what you saw out of Walmart in terms of kind of total contribution or if it will be smaller. And, you know, any thoughts of as you're adding the space, I can't quite understand, like, are you getting incremental space everywhere as you move into the spring or is it taking away from some of your other women's systems space? Thanks.
Rodney Ewing Thanks
Yeah, Bill, good morning. So, look, first of all, let's just quickly recap the billy performance at Walmart because it absolutely exceeded our expectations. You've heard us talk about the 17 share of the category, the number one wet shave system in the category, which is the Malibu Starter, the number two refill SKU in the category, And number one, actually, in the last 15 weeks, which just speaks to a consumer that was on a trial with the brand that has now become loyal. So we were really focused on execution at Walmart because we knew that would be the catalyst for retail expansion year two. And that's exactly what we are seeing. I would call the retail expansion national. I'm not going to name names. There are a few I's to dot and T's to cross, but the demand and the desire of retail has been significant. And we really like, you know, what we are seeing that our team now has done being involved in this negotiation on shelf that they weren't a year ago. I think importantly, as a result of that last point, you are also seeing better outcomes on shelf for our women's core branded business, non-billy. We are not losing business. shelf space, and in fact, geography-wise, we actually like some of the outcomes that we are seeing. So, we expect women's branded non-billy to essentially hold space, and we've actually seen really good buy-in of some of the NPDs within our women's portfolio as well. So, that's why we are certainly looking for a strong performance next year in women's and continued meaningful share gains. Let me stay on that. Rod talked about distribution outcomes because, you know, we're really bullish on women's shave, as I just mentioned. We're actually quite positive on men's branded in the U.S., where we expect to essentially hold, which is a really good outcome as we continue to re-architect the brand. And, you know, in sun care, what I would say is we are clearly carrying the momentum and we're being rewarded by retail. for being both a great supply chain partner and obviously having really strong brands. We're gaining facings at Walmart. We are getting better outcomes in the Islander program. We've seen really good initial selling of our innovation behind Banana Bow. So, you know, we're quite encouraged right now, which underpins, obviously, our outlook. We're quite encouraged with what we're seeing on shelf. Billy, a great enabler to that, but our core brands also are. getting some really good outcomes.
Bill Chappell
Thank you. I think it's for the color. Just a follow-up question. I didn't fully understand kind of your commentary about end-of-the-season working capital for SunCare and I guess how it affected cash flow because I guess the question is, would you now be seeing the cash flow or higher cash flow in the first quarter of 2023 as that kind of works through the system?
Rodney Ewing Thanks
Yeah, not necessarily in the first quarter. Look, we bought heavy late in the quarter while we anticipated we would. Quite candidly, the inventory build was even more than we expected, obviously. A lot of that, not all of that, but a lot of that was sun season and sun chemicals. and we essentially saw about twice the day's inventory build that we had anticipated. We did it for all the right reasons. It was good global procurement and thoughtful, you know, finished good build ahead of the year, but more than we thought, to be quite honest. You'll see much better working capital management across 2023. That's why you'll see a much different free cash flow outcome. I wouldn't necessarily suggest it's in Q1 because you still are subject to the seasonality of the business for us. But again, I think it points back to the structural free cash flow of business remains strong.
Dan
Great. Thank you. Thanks, Bill. Operator, next question, please.
Operator
Our next question comes from Olivia Tong with Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Raymond James
Great. Thanks. I just had a question on wet shave. Obviously, with respect to the macros, I know like many others, you aren't really seeing any signs of trade down yet. But As you think about the potential for that to happen in fiscal 23, you know, what are you preparing for with respect to your private label franchise in particular? And can you talk a little bit about how you manage your portfolio specifically for wet shaving to optimize not just sales but profit as well, especially considering what could potentially be a continuation of choppiness and possibly worsening choppiness as we look towards fiscal 23? Thank you.
Rod Little
Good morning, Olivia. As we've talked in the past, we have a diversified shape portfolio across men's, women's, disposables, and private label, which we call private brands group. And we're geographically diversified where the majority of our wet shape business is actually outside of the United States. And so with that diversification, we obviously within that look at each of those segments differently as we're building our plan and strategically. And in the year ahead, I think we've talked about we've got an emphasis and a priority on women's shave as a total company. And so, from an area of investment in our focus, women's shave is a disproportionate focus. Within there, though, I think we're feeling good about all segments of the business, as Dan mentioned earlier. We expect all parts of the Shave portfolio to contribute to growth next year. We're not expecting or planning for big shifts into private label out of branded product. If it happens, we're ready for that. We've got capacity to respond to that. But again, we see all parts of the Shave portfolio contributing to growth, both in terms of the segments and also geographically, the split between North America and international.
Dan
Great. Thank you. Thank you. Operator, next question, please.
Operator
So, enough of your questions. Let's conclude our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Rod Little for any closing remarks.
Rod Little
I'd like to thank everybody for your continued interest in Edgewell, and we'll have an update for you in three months as we get our year started. Take care.
Operator
The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.
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