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spk04: Thank you for standing by. My name is Dee and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Hamilton Beach Brands Holding Company First Quarter 2024 Earnings Call and Webcast. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star 1 again. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Louana Van, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
spk02: Thank you, Dee, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our first quarter 2024 earnings conference call and webcast. Yesterday, after the stock market closed, we filed with the SEC our Form 10-Q for the quarter ending March 31, 2024. and we issued our first quarter 2024 earnings release. Copies of both documents are available on our corporate website. Our speakers today are Greg Trepp, Chief Executive Officer, Scott Tidy, President, and Sally Cunningham, Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Treasurer. Our presentation today includes forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in either the prepared remarks or during the Q&A. Additional information regarding these risks and uncertainties is available in our 10Q, our earnings release, and our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2023. The company disclaims any obligation to update these forward-looking statements, which may not be updated until our next quarterly conference call, if at all. And now I will turn the call over to Greg.
spk00: Thank you, Luanne. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Our agenda today is that I will make some opening comments. Scott will report on our strategic initiatives. Sally will discuss our first quarter financial results. After that, we will take your questions. We were pleased with our first quarter results, which were in line with our expectations. We are off to a solid start in 2024. after we delivered a strong performance in the second half of 2023 and built momentum that carried into this year. We are affirming our outlook for the full year 2024, and we believe there could be upside if consumer spending and retail sales continue to be as strong as they have been. While Sally will discuss our first quarter financial results in detail, I would like to make a few high-level comments. As we have reported on February 2nd of this year, Our Hamilton Beach Health subsidiary acquired a company called HealthBeacon, which is a medical technology company and a strategic partner of ours since 2021. Our first quarter includes two months of HealthBeacon results. We are very excited about this acquisition. Let me provide some brief context regarding our enthusiasm. Three years ago, we determined that the large and fast-growing home health and wellness market was an attractive opportunity for our company. We took particular note of our emerging growth categories for home healthcare management. Forming a partnership with HealthBeacon was our first venture into that space. HealthBeacon needed a partner to help it gain visibility and distribution in the U.S. market for its pioneering product. We worked together to launch a healthcare solution that enables patients to effectively manage at-home chronic conditions that require the use of injectable medications. In the U.S., the system is sold principally through specialty pharmacies. These healthcare providers appreciate that our system supports patient adherence to their prescribed treatments, which in turn improves health outcomes. The revenue model is subscription-based. When HealthBeacon became available for purchase, we saw the opportunity to invest in a business that we believe has great potential to increase shareholder value over time. We are working to scale and expand the business. As we discussed in our last earnings call in March, our Hamilton Beach Health business, which includes HealthBeacon, is expected to have a modest operating loss in 2024 due to planned investments in the business and as HealthBeacon continues in the startup phase. Hamilton Beach Health is expected to contribute to operating profit in 2025 and beyond. In the first quarter, HealthBeacon had $600,000 in revenue and $1.1 million in operating loss. In addition, we incurred transaction costs of approximately $1 million, which were included in our SG&A expenses and which will not recur. While our new revenue stream from HealthBeacon is small now, we expect it to increase steadily as this year unfolds and then more rapidly in future years. Looking at our total company results, revenue was flat to the same period last year, which was favorable compared to overall softness in the small kitchen appliance industry. Our gross profit margin increased significantly compared to a year ago, as our team has done an effective job keeping our gross margins strong while remaining competitive in the marketplace. SG&A was higher than a year ago. The increase was driven in part by the inclusion of HealthBeak as expenses and the transaction costs I mentioned. The other primary driver was an increase in employee-related costs, including higher non-cash stock incentive compensation which was related to the increase in our stock price. Operating loss for the company as a whole was $900,000, a significant improvement compared to a loss of $5.1 million a year ago. The improvement primarily reflected our gross profit margin expansion. Including the health beacon results that I mentioned, as well as the non-cash lease impairment related to the consolidation of warehouses, operating profit was $1.9 million, or $7 million improvement compared to the first quarter of 2023, which underscores the underlying strength of our core Hamilton Beach Brands business. Also in the first quarter, we continued to deliver improvement in our networking capital position. Cash from operations was nearly $20 million, and we further reduced net debt. Before I turn the call over to Scott, let me say that we are very excited to have him in his new role as president of the company. As we've announced, Our board of directors appointed Scott to his position effective February 19th of this year. Scott's appointment is part of a longstanding succession plan. He brings to his role more than 30 years of leadership experience with the company. Most recently, Scott was senior vice president global sales with oversight of all of our retail and commercial sales worldwide. While Scott's main responsibilities over the years have been in sales and marketing, he has been involved in most aspects of our business, including partnerships, sourcing, supply chain, engineering, quality, and more. He has been instrumental in the development and successful execution of our strategic initiatives to expand, diversify, and grow our business. In addition to Scott being the right person for the job of president, the time was right for Scott to be elevated to this role. Our company is on very solid footing and well positioned for future success. Over the past several years, even during challenging times, we have invested team and company resources in innovation, new product development, and our six strategic initiatives. Our team has always been laser-focused on keeping our pipeline freshened and all new products flowing. As a result, we have been able to build our business across a wide range of categories and a broad group of retail and commercial customers. A number of incremental placements that we secured last year and this year will benefit us throughout 2024. We look for Hamilton Beach Health to add further momentum over time. Presently, Scott and I are engaged in a thoughtful and smooth transition of the duties of president while I continue in my role as CEO. A significant recent accomplishment was organizational changes in the leadership of our sales and marketing teams. These changes were also part of a longstanding succession plan. We had experienced senior leaders, we had experienced leaders, in place ready to move up and assume broader responsibilities, enabling us to provide continuity, outstanding leadership for our sales and marketing teams. With these changes in place, Scott is starting to turn his attention to all aspects of our operations. Our company is fortunate to have an extraordinary team in place at all levels, starting with our functional leaders who serve on our executive committee. Combined with Scott's depth of experience, We are well positioned to pursue our growth strategies and build long-term shareholder value. Now I will turn the call over to Scott.
spk01: Thank you, Greg. I appreciate your comments. Good morning, everyone. It is a great honor to be appointed president of our company. I am delighted to have the opportunity to collaborate with our outstanding global team to build on the successes we have achieved. The promotions in our sales and marketing groups that Greg mentioned were important steps. It was very gratifying to see senior leaders with whom I have worked with for years assume greater responsibility. Aaron Israel, who has been with the company since 2000 and who has been serving as Senior Vice President of Strategy and Marketing, now also has oversight of our global commercial business. Wayne Albrecht, who joined the company in 2003 and has been serving as Vice President is now Senior Vice President of Global Consumer Sales. Aaron and Wayne are both very strong leaders. I have the utmost confidence in their ability to quickly settle into their new roles and do a fantastic job for us. I, too, was pleased with our first quarter performance in getting 2014 off to a good start. Our results reflected progress of our six strategic initiatives. Our initiatives are designed to enable us to increase revenue margins and slow over time and build value for all of our stakeholders. Let me briefly discuss each of our strategic initiatives. what they are, the plans for growth, and how each initiative is performing. I will first continue the discussion Greg began with respect to strategic initiative to accelerate the growth of our new Hamilton Beach Health business. We are very excited to have become a participant in the home healthcare management business. Rapid growth is being driven by technology, innovation, and a growing shortage of medical staff that formerly treated certain conditions in office settings. These solutions improve accessibility to healthcare services for many people. They enable providers to identify changes in the patient's status and facilitate faster interventions. Most importantly, they enable patients to participate more actively in their healthcare journeys, leading to more favorable outcomes. Our strategy is to combine our strengths, including our trusted brand name and our leadership in innovative product development, engineering, sourcing, marketing, sales, and distribution with partner companies that have strengths in areas such as digital capabilities and patented technologies. HealthBeacon brings a number of these strengths, including strong specialty pharmacy relationships, along with the know-how, software, patents, and IP that are needed to support the system we provide to patients who are managing chronic diseases. The primary system we currently provide is called the SmartSharps bin from Hamilton Beach Health. Patients receive a countertop device that we help design, source, and distribute. This device is connected to an app that uses patented technology to provide medication reminders, tracking, and 24-7 patient support. The countertop device has a protected container inside that serves as a receptacle for used sharps. Once the bin begins to fill up, Technology provides an alert for a new one to be sent automatically, and the patient returns the container with the used sharps and prepaid package for safe disposal. While we've been working with the HealthBeacon team for the past three years, we are further integrating our team and resources, and that process is going very well. We are optimistic about expanding this business over time. We are working with existing specialty pharmacy customers to add patients to the roster of subscribers who use our systems. We are also working to secure business with additional specialty pharmacies. Further, we are working to add new treatments to the program, thereby increasing the number of chronic conditions that are managed using our system. We see the acquisition of HealthBeacon as the first step in increasing our participation in the home health care management business. We are in discussions with other prospective partners, particularly ones with unique technological capabilities who could significantly benefit from collaborating with partners like us with our broad commercialization. Next, I will discuss our strategic initiative for Hamilton Beach and Proctor Salix brands. Our two core brands have served the needs of consumers for over 100 years. These two brands are known for quality, durability, and innovation. We participate in more than 50 categories. In the US, Hamilton Beach is the number one selling brand based on units sold in the small appliance and garment care industry. In the e-commerce channel, Hamilton Beach and Proctosolix both have 4.4 average star ratings and favorable reviews. In recent years, we rebranded Proctosolix as Simply Better. This product line is targeted to consumers who desire attractive but practical product design and essential functionality without a lot of options and extras at the accessible price. In the first quarter of this year, unit volume for our core consumer brands increased 9.5%, and dollar sales were up nearly 2% compared to a year ago. This followed an impressive performance in 2003 when sales of these brands were flat with 2022, outperforming the industry by the industry's more than 5% decline. Our goal for the Hamilton Beach and Procter & Sells brands is to further increase our growing share. We devote significant resources to investing in our core competencies that are critical to creating a competitive advantage and driving share. These include innovation, new product development, and digital marketing. We refresh existing products and develop new ones based on consumer-driven research. Let me mention a few of the new product innovations we are launching this year. We have further evolved our popular line of Flex Brew coffee makers. We pioneered the concept of a multi-use machine that brews a single cup or a carafe of coffee. Our latest model provides a faster brewing time. It can make hot or iced coffee using either pods or ground coffee. It is programmable and provides a removable reservoir that fits on the side or the back to enhance counter space. We expect this new line to be a strong contributor as we already have broad support from major retailers. Also in the coffee category, we have added several new espresso machines, increasing our participation in a category that is fast growing. In the slow cooker category, we have answered the consumer's desire to start recipes using frozen foods, with new models that defrost first and then cook, saving cooks a lot of time. We have also further evolved our extensive line of air fry toaster ovens, regular and personal blenders, and hand and stand mixers, all of which are particularly good sellers for us. Next, I will discuss our progress to gain share in the premium market. The premium part of small appliance market accounts for more than 40% of the total industry dollars. We have been increasing our participation in the premium market by developing, licensing, and acquiring new brands. Our own premium brands include Westin and Hamilton Beach Professional. We license the brands for CHI premium garment care products, Clorox True HEPA air purifiers, and Brita Hub countertop electric water filtration appliances. We have an exclusive multi-year agreement to design, sell, market, and distribute Artesian premium cocktail delivery machines. In March of last year, we announced a similar agreement with a company by the name of New Milk to provide the next generation of specialty appliances to create a variety of fresh plant-based milk products in the home and in commercial establishments. The New Milk home machine is available for purchase on newmilk.com and will soon be available on Amazon. We are incredibly pleased with the sales of our CHI Garment Care products. We recently introduced three new irons and a garment steamer featuring CHI's LAVA technology, which they use in their curling and hairstyling irons. LAVA is a great heat conductor, and we're excited to deploy this innovative technology in our products. Based on several new placements we have secured, We look for Qi to be a meaningful contributor to our sales of premium products this year. We're experiencing great momentum and significant point of sales gains with our line of Clorox air purifiers. We also plan to launch a Clorox humidifier this summer. We believe we are well positioned to drive our Clorox brand business going forward. In 2023, the premium market accounted for 15% of our total revenue. Last year, while sales of premium products overall decreased compared to 22, They increased 10% in the fourth quarter. Sales were down in the first quarter of this year, which we attribute to seasonality following our strong holiday selling period, and to a certain extent, the impact of inflationary pressures on consumer spending. We remain confident in the opportunity to increase our partnership in the premium market and its potential to contribute to our revenue growth and margin expansion over time. Our growth plans include leveraging our current stable of brands, new product development, digital marketing, and adding new brands through additional partnerships and acquisitions. Next, I will discuss our strategic initiative to develop a leadership position in the global commercial market. This market has been up and down over the past few years due to the significant unfavorable impact of the pandemic. In 2020-23, our revenue from commercial products decreased 15% compared to 2022, when revenue grew 50% and reached the highest level in our history. This extraordinary growth was driven by a rebound in demand in the food service and hospitality industries following demand softness during the pandemic when many restaurants and hotels were closed. In 2023, sales of our commercial products accounted for 8% of our total revenue. We are working hard to exceed our all-time high over the next few years. We were pleased to see the sales of our commercial products increase slightly in the first quarter of this year compared to a year For this market, we provide commercial-grade countertop equipment to the food, service, and hospitality industries worldwide. Food service customers include traditional and fast food restaurants, as well as bars and cocktail lounges. For the hospitality industry, we provide small appliances to be used as room amenities and in breakfast bars. Geographically, we prioritize North America, Europe, and Asia. We currently do business with many of the leading food service and hotel chains. We are working to expand our business with existing customers and add new chains to our customer base. More recently, we have identified new opportunities with convenience stores and cruise lines. In food service, which is a more developed business for us, our core strength going back for many decades has been the mixing and blending categories. This year we have launched a new blender called the Summit Edge. It is powerful, providing excellent performance for ingredients that are difficult to blend. It is quiet and easy to use. Our company is known for our high-quality blenders. We believe the Summit Edge is our best blender yet. This product is shipping into several chains now and has received favorable reviews from customers across the globe. In recent years, we've been expanding into the back of the house with several new food processing products, including our line of Big Rig immersion blenders, rice cookers, and stand mixers. Some of the partners I mentioned in the discussion of the premium consumer products also have application in our commercial business. For example, we have created a commercial-grade version of the Bartesian cocktail maker and the New Milk plant-based milk maker. The Bartesian professional cocktail machine is selling well with both food service and hospitality customers. The New Milk commercial machine will become available later this year and has garnered particularly strong interest from coffee shops. We remain extremely optimistic about the potential for the global commercial market to provide significant opportunities for us in terms of revenue growth and margin expansion in the future years. Next, I will discuss our initiative to accelerate our digital transformation. The e-commerce channel represents a strong and growing part of our business. Brand reputation, product features, innovation, and star ratings all play a critical role in driving online sales. These all are areas where we excel. We are investing and gaining share in the e-commerce channel in North America for retail products and globally for commercial products. This includes investing in marketing tools to drive online visibility and sell-through for our brands and products, as well as implementing best practices for content, advertising, and fulfillment strategies. In 2023, our total e-commerce sales, which includes both consumer and commercial products, represented 39% of our total revenue. The e-commerce channel is developed in the U.S. and Canada. The e-commerce is becoming increasingly important to the sales of commercial products, but they're still insignificant compared to the consumer products. If we consider only the sales of our U.S. consumer products, e-commerce sales in 2023 represented 48% of our total revenue. Our brands earned star ratings of 4.3 or better, and four of our brands earned 4.5 stars or better. Our products receive favorable reviews from customers, experts, and influencers. High star ratings are a result of our commitment to designing and engineering consumer preferred products and implementing leading quality control standards. Given the role the internet plays in influencing consumers' brand preferences and purchasing decisions, we are committed to allocating significant resources to growing online sales and share. Finally, I will discuss our strategic initiative to leverage partnerships and acquisitions. Identifying and securing businesses with a strategic fit to our portfolio is an important aspect of our growth strategy. We are actively engaged in the pursuit of additional trademark license agreements, strategic alliances, and acquisitions to drive growth in the markets. As we have previously reported, our acquisitions include Westin and HealthBeacon. We have entered into several exclusive agreements with outstanding business partners that combine our strengths with advantages provided by other companies. As a result, we have entered new large and fast-growing markets and in some cases created new categories. Many of our collaborations serve both retail and commercial customers. In closing, it has been rewarding to see our team accomplish so much over the past few years. We are well positioned for success over the long term. We expect to benefit from the many strengths which include our good thinking culture, our leadership in the small kitchen appliance industry, our portfolio of leading trusted brands, our proven customer-driven innovation capabilities, and our strong relationships with all leading retailers. We are encouraged that consumer spending for the small kitchen appliances remains resilient. We believe we are well positioned to build upon the momentum we carried into 2024 and deliver a solid performance for the year. And now I will turn our discussion over to Sally.
spk03: Thank you, Scott. Good morning, everyone. I will start with our first quarter 2024 results compared to the first quarter of 2023. As you have heard this morning, we were pleased with our results and they are in line with our expectations. Total revenue was $128.3 million flat to last year's first quarter. Revenue overall benefited from an 8% increase in unit volume and a favorable product mix. These benefits were offset by decreased selling prices versus a year ago. In our consumer market, revenue increased in our Mexican and Latin American markets where our teams have added incremental placements and new business. Revenue decreased in our U.S. and Canadian markets. For the U.S. market, volume increased 5.7% and we expect improvement in our U.S. market this year as the year unfolds and as we benefit from incremental placement. The market in Canada is experiencing some overall weakness that may continue for a while. Our global commercial market revenue increased slightly in the first quarter and we look for this business to enjoy a strong year. Also included in the first quarter was new revenue from our acquisition of HealthBeacon, which was immaterial. Our gross profit margin expanded by 710 basis points, reflecting lower product costs and a favorable mix, partially offset by the impact of a $700,000 non-cash lease impairment related to the consolidation of warehouses. Gross profit totaled $30.1 million, or 23.4% of total revenue, compared to $20.9 million, or 16.3% in the prior year. Selling, general, and administrative expenses increased to $30.9 million compared to $25.9 million in the first quarter of 2023. Approximately one-half of the increase was driven by the inclusion of HealthBeacon's SG&A expenses, along with associated M&A expenses. The other half of the increase was primarily due to higher employer-related expenses, including non-cash stock incentive compensation due to stock price appreciation. Operating loss was 0.9 million compared to an operating loss of 5.1 million a year ago. Included in the current quarter operating loss was HealthBeacon's operating loss of 1.1 million, HealthBeacon transaction costs of 1.0 million, and the non-cash lease impairment of 0.7 million. Net interest expense decreased by $1.1 million compared to a year ago. First quarter 2024 interest expense was $200,000 versus $1.3 million. This decrease primarily reflects lower average borrowings outstanding under our revolving credit facility. Income tax benefit was $100,000 compared to a benefit of $1.6 million a year ago, commiserate with the change in operating loss. Net loss was $1.2 million, or $0.08 per diluted share, a significant improvement compared to a net loss of $4.8 million, or $0.34 per diluted share, a year ago. Now turning to our balance sheet and cash flows. In 2023, we delivered significant improvement in our net working capital and cash flow and ended the year with the highest level of cash from operating activities in our company's history. This achievement was due to our focus on networking capital improvement as we work through the remnants of the 2022 global supply chain challenges. We have now returned to more normalized positions for working capital and cash flow generation. Net cash provided by operating activities in the first quarter of 2024 was $19.7 million compared to $34.9 million provided for the same period last year. The decrease was primarily due to the timing of incentive compensation payments during the first quarter of 2024 that were paid in the second quarter of 2023. In addition, net working capital provided cash of 33.5 million compared to cash provided of 39.9 million in the last year's first quarter. With respect to investing activities, capital expenditures were 900,000 compared to 500,000 a year ago. We invested $7.5 million in the acquisition of HealthBeacon using cash on hand. This amount was partially offset by the repayment of a secured loan we provided to HealthBeacon during their examinership process, decreasing our net investment to $5.8 million. We allocated our strong cash flow primarily to reduce net debt and return value to shareholders through the quarterly dividend, which paid a total of $1.5 million. On March 31st, 2024, net debt or debt minus cash and cash equivalents was $23.7 million compared to $77.1 million on March 31st, 2023. In November 2023, our board approved a stock repurchase program for the purchase of up to $25 million of the company's Class A common stock outstanding as of January 1st, 2024 and ending on December 31st, 2025. There were no share repurchases during the three months ended March 31st, 2024, leaving the full $25 million authorized for repurchase. Now turning to our outlook, we are affirming our expectations for the full year 2024. The retail marketplace for small kitchen appliances is expected to be modestly below 2023 and still higher than pre-pandemic sales levels. We believe that progress with our strategic initiatives will enable us to deliver above market revenue performance just as we did last year. For the full year 2024, we expect our total revenue to increase modestly compared to full year 2023. As Greg said, we believe there could be an upside to our revenue results depending on consumer spending and retail sales remaining as strong as they have been so far this year. Operating profit for the full year 2024 is expected to increase moderately compared to 2023 based on the expansion of gross profit margin. Our outlook includes our previously reported expectation that Hamilton Beach Health will have a modest operating loss in 2024. That concludes our prepared remarks. We will now turn the line back to the operator for Q&A.
spk04: Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star 1 again. If you are called upon to ask your question or are listening via loudspeaker on your device, please pick up your handset and ensure that your phone is not on mute when asking questions. Again, it is star 1 to ask for a question. Again, to those who would like to ask questions, you may press star 1 on your telephone and wait for a name to be announced. There are no questions at this time. I would now like to turn the conference back to Greg Truss for closing remarks.
spk00: Thank you. Today we welcome Scott's participation on our call as our new company president. We are excited about the many opportunities we believe we have to increase revenue, expand margins, and deliver strong cash flow over the long term. We have 2024 off to a good start and continue to build on that momentum as we carry into this year and see upside potential to our current outlook. That concludes our report for today. Thank you again for joining our call.
spk04: Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.
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