Perrigo Company plc

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Perigo Second Quarter 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press the star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Friday, August 2, 2024. I would now like to turn the conference over to Radley Joseph. Vice President of Global Investor Relations, please go ahead.

Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Parago's second quarter 2024 earnings conference call. I hope you all had a chance to review our press release issued today. A copy of the release and presentation for today's discussion are available within the investor section of the Parago.com website. Joining today's call are President and CEO Patrick Lockwood-Taylor and CFO Eduardo Bezerra. I would like to remind everyone that during this call, participants will make certain forward-looking statements. Please refer to the important information for shareholders and investors and safe harbor language regarding these statements in our release issued earlier today. A few items before we start. First, unless otherwise stated, all financial results discussed and presented are on a continuing operations basis. Continuing operations include the HRA rare diseases business, which is classified as help for sale after the first quarter end and does not include any contributions from the divested RX business, which was accounted for as discontinued operations prior to its sale. Second, organic growth excludes acquisitions, divestitures, exited product lines, and currency in both comparable periods. All comments related to constant currency remove the impact of currency translation versus the prior year by applying the exchange rates used in the comparable measurement in the prior year's financial statements. And third, Patrick's discussion will focus solely on non-GAAP results, except as otherwise noted. See the appendix for additional details and reconciliations of all non-GAAP financial measures presented. And with that, I'm pleased to turn the call over to Patrick.

Thank you, Brad. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone. So to begin today's call, I'd like to briefly reflect on my first 12 months as CEO and the significant strides our team has made to advance our OnePerego vision. As we are building out critical capabilities needed to win in self-care, we've also faced challenges, notably in the infant formula regulatory environment in the U.S. as we work together to ensure the supply of this critical product for caregivers and babies. I've been especially proud to work alongside my team as we have addressed these issues head on and with a spirit of resiliency. We're emerging as a stronger company as a result of these efforts. I've spent considerable time assessing our organization, portfolio, and the competitive landscape. This body of work has only reinforced my original thesis that Perigo has a strong foundation with a robust asset base. I believe we are poised for greater scale across multiple fronts and have the capacity to drive value-accretive growth through consumer-led innovation. This work has also identified the highest potential growth opportunities within our company today and will inform our strategic go-forward portfolio, which we look forward to discussing early next year. We have also executed key cost savings and efficiency initiatives with excellence. Some of these savings will be reinvested to fund both near and long-term priorities, including brand building capabilities in the US and provide greater scale for our identified growth opportunities. Additionally, we have made significant progress in strengthening infant formula and are working through long-term sustainable growth plans for our US store brand business. Finally, When I started at Perigo, I was excited to encounter an organization comprised of dedicated and talented individuals who are committed to excellence and achieving top-tier performance. Over the past 12 months, we have further built on this foundation, welcoming additional world-class talent to the company in such areas as quality, brand building, and other leadership, which has strengthened our consumer focus and overall capabilities. In summary, we have completed a great deal of strategic work, all while driving execution across our business. I'm energized by the passion and commitment of my colleagues. I remain enthusiastic about the opportunities Perigo has to create value. Year to date, we have delivered on our commitments while managing certain challenges. We discussed at the start of the year that efforts to enhance our quality-assured infant formula network would have a meaningful impact on first-half results, and they did, impacting organic net sales by 5.3 percentage points and earnings per share by 43 cents versus the prior year. After committing intense energy and resources to strengthening infant formula, This business is now poised to deliver ahead of our original expectations for the year. More on this in a few moments. We also said that we expect to deliver 24 gross margin of approximately 40%, excluding the infant formula impact. And in the first half of the year, we did just that. This performance reflects the positive impacts of product mix driven by growth in our branded portfolio. and our supply chain and projects energized efficiency programs. Finally, we delivered on our first half EPS and continued to expect sizable earnings uplift in the second half. While there were headwinds to our top line, a diversified portfolio, accretive initiatives, and relentless execution enabled us to deliver on our bottom line expectations. Overall, I'm pleased with our first half performance and particularly in how we have addressed challenges in infant formula. At the same time, however, there are business dynamics that have changed during the quarter and these merit discussion. First, we are confident in the recovery of our infant formula business and expect profitability to recover faster than originally expected for the year. Second, Perigo's global diversified business insulates us from major seasonal impacts. During the second quarter, cough, cold, and allergy volume consumption in geographies where we compete declined mid to high single digits, stemming from much lower seasonal incidences and net changes in inventory levels at U.S. retail customers. These factors led to lower net sales of our cough, cold, and allergy products in the second quarter. The results of these dynamics is an unfavorable impact to our 24 net sales outlook of approximately two and a half percentage points. A diversified business model, however, helps us to absorb these sales impacts further down our P&L. Third, turning to our U.S. store brand, Perigo has a rich history as a market leader in this space, and we're confident in the value we bring to customers and consumers. At the same time, we continue to focus on improving margins to deliver value to shareholders. This can lead to certain instances where we make the strategic and economic decision to walk away from business. And in the second quarter, we did just that. During negotiations with one customer, we tactically walked away from a portion of our business that was becoming too dilutive to our margins. This loss distribution is resulting in one and a half percentage point headwind to our 24 net sales outlook. However, as the current net value of contracts awarded and lost in 24 is positive, we expect this net sales headwind to be fully offset in 2025. The culmination of these three business updates is anticipated to enhance our four-year gross margin, now expected to approach 40%. Previously, we'd expected four-year gross margin of approximately 40%, but excluding the impact from infant formula. Summing this up, our lower net sales outlook for 24 is expected to be offset by improved gross margin expansion due to faster than expected recovery of infant formula profitability and improved mix in the rest of the business, as well as lower variable expenses this year. This gives us the confidence to reaffirm our full year EPS outlook. Now, let's dig into our second quarter results. Organic net sales declined 9.1%, which included an expected impact of minus almost 7 percentage points from infant formula and an impact of 4 percentage points from lower sales in the upper respiratory and pain and sleep AIDS categories. partially offset by a growth of 1.7 percentage points from the rest of the business. Growth and operating margins expanded meaningfully year over year, plus 190 basis points and 160 basis points respectively. Sequentially, the expansion was even more pronounced as both growth and operating margins expanded more than 400 basis points compared to quarter one 2024. Operating income in the quarter was up 1.5%, or 16.7%, excluding the year-over-year impact from infant formula. Second quarter EPS was 53 cents, which whilst down 10 cents from a year ago, this is due primarily to a 9 cents per share discrete tax benefit in the prior year, and the year-over-year impact from infant formula, or 14 cents. which was mostly offset by performance across the rest of the business. Looking at the components of organic net sales now in further detail. As just discussed, the nutrition category was the largest headwind, stemming from actions we had taken to strengthen our quality assured infant formula network. The net sales impact of minus 4 percentage points from the upper respiratory and pain and sleep aids category was due to, one, lower seasonal demand in the current year, two, net change in inventory levels at U.S. retail customers, where we experienced restocking of inventory in the prior quarter and destocking in the second quarter of 2024. These inventory dynamics and the lower seasonal demand I just mentioned accounted for approximately three points of the four points decline. And lastly, skew prioritization actions to enhance margin accounted for the remaining one point. As a side note, this now completes the America's skew prioritization actions under our supply chain reinvention program. These impacts more than offset the positive 1.7 percentage points of growth across the rest of the business, driven primarily by our global branded portfolio. This branded growth included the recent launch of Opal, which along with Ella One, drove growth in the women's health category. Additionally, share gains in Compede and Jungle Formula led growth in skin care. Looking at our 24 operational priorities, I'm pleased to say we remain well on track. We've made significant progress augmenting and strengthening our infant formula business and are increasingly confident in our second half recovery as production volumes return. Opioid sales continue to grow in the U.S., and our team is actively monitoring and analyzing consumer awareness, trial, conversion, and repeat usage through our real-time technology stacks. This analysis allows us to make swift and informed decisions, leveraging instantaneous insights to optimize our strategy. We are learning what sticks with consumers and will continue working with customers to enhance consumer interest for the product. We are confident that Opel will be an important reproductive health product for women in the U.S. for many years to come. We also continue to benefit from our accretive initiatives. First, we're on track to deliver a total of $25 million in incremental HRA synergies this year. Second, our supply chain reinvention program achieved gross savings of $23 million and a gross margin of expansion of 40 basis points from the skew prioritization actions year to date. And finally, Project Energize achieved $53 million of gross savings in the first half of the year, and we remain well on target to deliver $140 to $170 million and pre-tax annualized gross savings by 2026. Now to infant formula. All sites are up and running, producing reliable, quality-assured infant formula. Our focus now lies on rebuilding customer service levels and swiftly getting these critical products back on the shelves to serve consumers who need high-quality, affordable infant formula. We're currently making significant progress in quality control, production, packaging, and release attainment. On a weekly basis, production volumes through the first four months of this year were approximately half of 2023's average weekly levels. During May and June, as we ramped up production following the remediation efforts with our new protocols in place, we immediately achieved production volumes of 90% of the prior year levels. And our latest data available for July reveals that production is on a path to return fully to prior year levels. Furthermore, manufacturing efficiencies are recovering faster than expected, stemming from reductions in production stoppages and product scrapping, giving us confidence in the recovery of our second-half profitability. I want to relay my thanks to the entire team on achieving this outstanding progress and their dedication to getting this business back on track. Progress made against our self-imposed remediation plans have been impactful both to our financial results, but also to the health of our business. But this business is not without other known challenges. As you may recall, the genesis behind Perigo acquiring its Wisconsin facility from Nestle in 2022 was to bolster our network and eventually replace an aging facility through this cost-effective acquisition. Now that we are producing reliable, quality-assured infant formula across the network, we will now start the work on optimizing our production footprint over time. So, in summary, our business is strong. We remain on track to deliver our critical accretive initiatives, and margins are anticipated to continue to expand. We've made significant progress in infant formula and are very focused now on driving performance in U.S. store brand. We are successfully consumerizing, simplifying, and scaling OnePerego. Our investments in brand building capabilities are starting to pay off, and we have tremendous growth opportunities ahead of us. The strategic work on how to win continues, and we expect the outcomes from this important initiative will pay dividends in 25, 26, and beyond. Critically, our team remains focused on delivering on our commitments and delivering the balance sheet. Perigo plays a vital role in a sizable and growing self-care market by delivering value to consumers and society. I want to thank, of course, my 9,000-plus Perigo colleagues for their commitment to increasing access for consumers around the world. And with that, I will now turn the call to our CFO, Eduardo Bezerra, to cover the financials. Eduardo.

Thank you, Patrick. Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. Look at the second quarter financials, starting with the gap to non-gap summary. Primary adjustments to our second quarter non-gap P&L were First, amortization expenses of $58 million, restructuring charges of $37 million, primarily related to Project Energize, and a $34 million impairment charge related to the divested HRA Pharma rare disease business. Full details can be found in the non-GAAP reconciliation tables attached to today's press release. From this point forward, all financial results discussed will be on an adjusted basis unless otherwise noted. Since Patrick already discussed second quarter consolidated top line results, I will fast forward to operating results. Operating income of $139 million grew 1.5% versus a year ago, as benefits from accretive initiatives, including our supply chain reinvention and project energized programs, more than offset the impact from lower net sales and actions in infant formula. Excluding the year-over-year impact from infant formula, operating income grew plus almost 17%. EPS was 53 cents down 10 cents from a year ago due primarily to a 9 cents per share discrete tax benefit in the prior year and a year-over-year impact from infant formula of 14 cents, which was mostly offset by strong performance across the rest of our business. Year-to-date organic net sales declined 8.1%, including a known minus 5.3 percentage points impact from infant formula and minus 4.4 percentage points impact from the upper respiratory and pain sleep aids categories that Patrick just mentioned. These impacts more than offset plus 1.6 percentage points of growth across the rest of the business. Year-to-date adjusted operating income was down almost 10%, excluding the year-over-year impact from infant formula operating income grew almost 17%. Year-to-date earnings per share declined 25 cents or 23% including the impacts from infant formula of 43 cents and the prior year discrete tax benefits of 9 cents. Looking at organic top line performance by segment, starting with CSEI. Organic growth in the quarter was plus 1%. Lower seasonal demand and supply constraints in the upper respiratory and pain and sleep aid categories resulted in a 3.5 percentage points headwind versus the prior year. This was more than offset by strong growth of 4.5 percentage points across the rest of the segment. led by market share gains in key brands such as Compede, Ella One, and Paranix, in addition to high single-digit growth in our UK store brand business. In CSEA, organic net sales declined 15% due to minus 10.8 percentage points from infant formula and minus 4.4 percentage points from the upper respiratory and pain and sleep AIDS category. Organic net sales included a reduction of 1.8 percentage points from the final tranche of SKU prioritization actions to increase margins. Growth across the rest of this segment was flat, and importantly, our OTC brands grew more than 40% driven by Opioid, Nasonex, and Mederma. Margin expansion has been a top focus for our team. As you can see on this slide, this focus has translated into meaningful margin improvement over the past couple of years, and we remain on track to achieve our operating margin target of 14% to 16% by the end of 2020. In Q2, gross and operating margin expanded 190 and 160 basis points respectively. These were driven primarily by accretive benefits from our supply chain reinvention program, including the SQ prioritization action we just discussed and Project Energize. Also worth highlighting is the sequential progress of margins. Both gross and operating margins expanded more than 400 basis points quarter over quarter. As I just mentioned, second quarter earnings per share of 53 cents declined 10 cents versus prior year. This change included discrete tax benefits in the prior year quarter and the impact from infant formula. Moving to cash, our cash on the balance sheet at the end of the second quarter was $543 million, not including upfront proceeds of $205 million received from the divestiture of the rare disease business, completed on July 10, 2024. Year-to-date operating cash flow was $8 million, as cash generated from the business was mostly offset by, first, $40 million of restructuring costs primarily related to Project Energize, and second, $97 million from the shareholder lawsuit we settled last quarter. As a reminder, we expect a full recovery of these $97 million from insurance still during 2024. During this quarter, we invested $29 million in capital expenditures and returned $38 million to shareholders through dividends. We continue to anticipate operating cash flow conversion for the full year of 90% to 100% as a percentage of adjusted net income. In total, our estimated ending cash balance for 2024 remains between $500 to $550 million, including the expected recovery of the $97 million shareholder settlement. And as committed, we continue to expect a net leverage ratio of approximately 3.8 to 4 times at year-end. Turning to our 2024 outlook. We're increasingly optimistic about our infant formula business. Our global branded portfolio continues to perform well, and we expect a normal selling for the coming 24-25 cough and cold season. However, we updated our 2024 net sales growth outlook versus the prior year. While this does not impact our EPS outlook, we now expect organic net sales to decline in the range of 1% to 3% and all-in net sales to decline in the range of 3 to 5%. These updated net sales ranges imply a 4 percentage point change in the midpoint to our previous net sales outlook. This is due to two primary factors. First, 2.5 percentage points from our second quarter results stemming from lower global seasonal demand and U.S. retailer destocking. And second, 1.5 percentage points from U.S. store brand due primarily to the business we walked away from, which Patrick discussed. As a reminder, we expect these 1.5 percentage points net sales headwind to our 2024 outlook from U.S. store brand to be offset with new business wins, leading to no impact to top-line growth in 2025. Pulling this together, and as just noted, the P&L impact from the updated net sales outlook is expected to be offset by improved gross margin expansion and lower variable expenses this year. This gives us confidence to reaffirm our full year 2024 adjusted earnings per share outlook of $2.50 to $2.65. Interest expense, effective tax rate, and operating cash flow conversion remain unchanged. and we now expect lower cash spend related to infant formula remediation. Our second half earnings per share is expected to be more than double our first half. Let me provide some color here. There are three key drivers of this expected growth. First is the recovery of the infant formula business, starting with the absence of significant remediation costs, including extended planned shutdowns that took place in this first half of the year. Next, the phasing of sales has always been weighted heavily to the back half, which you see drives a meaningful contribution for the balance of the year. Second, timing of project energized savings, of which we have already made significant upfront investments and have achieved $53 million in gross savings year-to-date, is expected to result in lower operating expenses in the second half. And finally, the contribution from the rest of the business, which is expected to increase likely compared to the first half driven by the seasonal cost and cold selling. In conclusion, I would like to extend my gratitude to the entire Perigo team for their continued dedication. We remain confident in our ability to adapt, evolve, and deliver long-term value for our stakeholders. Thank you for your time and continued trust in Perigo. And now I will turn the call back to Brad. Brad?

Thank you, Eduardo.

Operator, can we please open the call for questions?

Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session.

If you would like to ask a question at this time, please do press the star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press the star followed by the number two.

One moment, please, for your first question. And your first question comes from the line of Chris Shaw with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks so much, and congrats on the progress here at Nutritionals. I just had a couple questions on this lost customer. So maybe just can you elaborate a little bit more what happened here? It sounds like this wasn't very profitable business you walked away from, but are there any particular segments within CHCA that we should be watching here? And maybe the second part of the question there was, I just want to make sure I caught the comment regarding the impact on 2025. It sounds like wins elsewhere will offset the business you lost. But just to talk a little bit about the margin profile of that new business versus what you lost. Just a little bit more color on that front, and then I'll just have one follow-up after that. Thank you.

Yeah. Hi, Chris. This is Patrick. I hope you're well. Thank you for the question. This was a margin diluted business. We looked at it very carefully. It was one customer. It was several molecules or subcategories. And we were reporting it because really it was a one-off. It was impactful in terms of revenue, but positive in terms of margin expansion. And then you're right to pick up on the other points. Our net gain, we have a net gain in contract one this year in our store brand business. And we'll start to see that revenue flowing in late quarter four, but more predominantly in 25. So net, it is, we're not seeing any change in revenue outlook as a result of a loss of that more unprofitable customer. And you're correct again to say that the business is won versus that business lost is more margin accretive, yes.

Okay, very helpful. And then just my last question was just on the nutritional business. It seems like you're making good progress here, but just at this stage, how confident are you that you're fully through this process and that there won't be any meaningful setbacks in terms of the recovery and nutritionals? I mean, at this point, are you confident to say that you know, the remediation that was put forth was successful and that this business is kind of in a good place going forward?

Yes, I've been very close to the remediation work. I, as you know, chair the steering committee. The remediation work has been executed extremely well across the three sites. All the key performance indicators show that we are fully quality compliant and I've not seen any backslide in terms of those KPIs as we've been through the remediation effort, and we're on the other side of that. So really now it is into normal manufacturing operations, but in a much more quality compliant way. Perfect.

And Chris, just to add a little bit color there, so the team now is 100% focused on recovering the share on our store brand business as well as growing the other pieces of the business that were impacted. So that's 100% now with the situation more under control from the production and release attainment side. It's the team 100% now focused on the market side to regain the business and working closely with our customers to get products back on shelf.

Perfect. And just as a follow-up on that one, In terms of the share regain, any pushback at all from customers, or so far is that product you're producing kind of finding a home, I guess, in terms of customers?

Yes. I mean, this continues to be a capacity-constrained industry generally, and we're not having any problem repipelining our business. Perfect.

Thank you. Thanks, Chris.

And your next question.

Yes, your next question comes from the line of Korean World Mayor with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question. First, I'd like to touch on the guidance reduction. If I understand correctly, it looks like to be solely coming from that skew rationalization and then the upper respiratory. So can you confirm those are the main things driving that guidance reduction? And then on the skew rationalization, can you comment on how quick of a decision that was? Because it obviously wasn't factored into expectations last quarter. And then what gives you confidence that, you know, we might not see another, might not have to have another guidance reduction for further skew rationalization this year, I think?

Yeah, so let me, Eduardo here, let me clarify. So the change in guidance that we talked at that midpoint is about 4% of points. Two and a half are related to mainly the impact that we saw in the second quarter, and that's mainly related to the lower global seasonal demand for cough and cold and allergy, and some impact related to the U.S. retailer stocking, while 1.5 comes from lower distribution in the U.S. store brand. So, when we talk about the SQ rationalization, that was already considered as part of our plan. The four percentage points, you know, reduction on our full year guidance are related to those two impacts, 2.5 and 1.5%, okay?

That's helpful.

And then can you touch on expectations into 2025? I know you're not guiding that far out, but you have previously laid out some commentary on how to think about 2025. With the top line impacts we're seeing but offset in the P&L, is there any reason that 2025 expectations wouldn't still be intact with the numbers you delivered today?

Yeah. So, again, it's still early in the process, you know, and we're seeing a lot of, you know, industry dynamics mainly on, you know, consumer demand being significantly impacted. But at this stage, remember, as we have positioned before, you know, we expect, of course, the significant impact we had in the first half of infant formula to not repeat. So, we expect a significant portion of that being recovered. And so, and at the same time, remember, we mentioned that we would recover that, but also we needed to build some finished goods safety stock. So I would say a significant portion of the impact that we mentioned that took place in the first half of 2024 should be recovered in 2025, which also implies, you know, that the product will benefit from the price increases that we had in 2023. That's number one. It's going to be very important to understand how consumption and also the upcoming coffin cold selling season takes place, right, because we saw a very significant impact to the whole industry in the first half, so that's going to be a very important item that we're going to be taking a look. And also, remember that we mentioned before, we continue to expect to appeal to the diluties for the next, you know, for the first, since the launch, until the next 18 months. So those are the three key factors that we're looking right now. But, you know, it's fair to assess right now that, you know, we mentioned in the previous quarter that would be $3 plus, and that's what we're looking right now.

Great. And then if I could squeeze in one more on OPIL, can you please provide a little bit of color around the sell-in versus sell-out differential that you're seeing? I mean, we're able to get some scanner data, and it doesn't fully align with your previous comments on the sales you've been recognizing. And I understand there's also a heavy DTC component that's not factored in the data we get, but any color you can provide on what you're seeing versus that sell-in and sell-out?

Yeah, hi, this is Patrick. So very good sell-in, very good distribution. Obviously, a new consumer, a new category. We're learning and refining the model. I would say 30% to 40% of our sales are on e-commerce. Obviously, that channel lends itself. to subscribe and save, and we're seeing that. Key learnings, probably shifting media more to awareness generation. How to operationalize the insurance support that we have with Caremark. We're working through that. That is significant additional volume opportunity for us. We're learning as well, sort of back to the future, that having retail distribution is not sufficient. Those retailers that are supporting the brand launch with incremental display, clear signage, are seeing a materially different sales-through rate, and we want to get that executed across all retailers. That's very important for the category and the consumer. And lastly, continuing to develop our social influencing, our HCP network. The role of HCPs in the conversion to this is extremely important given some of the broad considerations the consumer has in terms of safety, side effects, effectiveness, et cetera. And so we continue to see good awareness built. We continue to see sales growth. We've just gone through a critical milestone in terms of share. So we're learning and improving. This was never going to be optimized day one, but I'm actually quite pleased with our ability now to read and react and enhance our marketing execution.

Great. Thanks so much.

Thanks, Corinne.

Thank you, Andy. Your next question and last question comes from the line of Daniel Bielsi with HedgeEye. Please go ahead.

Thank you. So for the infant formula, my anecdotal evidence is your demand certainly exceeds your supply. Did you lose any shelf space and when do you plan on being able to build safety stock? Can you do that without losing shelf space?

Well, so we're looking to how much can we start doing in 2024, but You know, I think that's going to be very difficult, given that there's still a lot of demand for store brand products, you know, in the marketplace. So we're seeing that more to take place in the first half of 2025. Okay.

And then one other question. Do you have any plans to reduce your inventories of phenylephrine ahead of a possible FDA decision, like a competitor announced?

Sorry, could you repeat the inventories of what? Phenylephrine.

Phenylephrine. No. Understood what the FDA said. It's not enforced or a legal requirement, and there still continues to be demand for those products. So we continue to supply it, and no, we've not made a tactical decision to reduce that inventory whilst we continue to see good demand. And I would say that, you know, phenylephrine-based products, irrespective of what happens here, the great majority of consumers, of course, will use alternative products, and this tends to be a less profitable category for us anyway. So no plans, and we see it as potentially positive as people move to different formulations.

Okay. Thank you. For the retailer inventory levels for cough and cold, does that require you to carry more if they're carrying less, or do you think this is just sort of a one-time little reduction they've had in the last quarter or two?

Yeah, we're seeing that as more of a one-time, right? So, I think what we're seeing is after COVID situation, and now that the industry per se has been adjusting that, so that's getting more into normalized levels across the whole industry. And so it's going to be interesting, which on the other side means that probably for the coughing cold season, you know, depending how these start to shape up, there will be a need to, you know, replenish stocks, you know, in the third and the fourth quarter of the year.

Thank you.

And that is all the questions that we have at this time.

I would like to turn it back to our President and CEO, Patrick Blackwood-Taylor, for closing remarks.

Yeah, thank you very much. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for those questions. I know we have a number of calls later with you, which we look forward to. So really, from my vantage point, I think we're on track with our key reliability and our cost-saving initiatives. We are set for revenue recovery in the second half, accelerating particularly in quarter four. Our earnings per share adjusted for last year's tax benefit and infant formula are a healthy plus 24% versus quarter two a year ago. Our U.S. store brand business is a key focus for us, and we are forecasting growth for that driven by the volume share growth we're seeing in that category and net new contract wins that are realized, as I mentioned, in late 24 and 25. We are also accelerating the acquisition and development of world-class leadership and talent, which will also be a core driver for us going forward. So our business is stabilizing, and we can now turn more of our organizational capacity to accelerating more profitable growth being realized in 24 and, of course, through to 25. So net, it was a stabilizing six months for us, but now we're turned squarely back to growth. Thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect.