Spectrum Brands Holdings, Inc.

Q4 2024 Earnings Conference Call

11/15/2024

spk03: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to Quarter 4, 2024 Spectrum Brands Holdings, Inc. Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Joanne Chomak, Senior Vice President and Treasury. Please go ahead.
spk02: Thank you, Gigi. Welcome to Spectrum Brands Holdings Q4 and full year 2024 earnings conference call and webcast. I'm Joanne Chomak, Senior Vice President of Tax and Treasury, and I will moderate today's call. To help you follow our comments, we have placed a slide presentation on the event calendar page in the investor relations section of our website at www.spectrumbrands.com. This document will remain there following our call. Starting with slide two of the presentation, our call will be led by David Mora, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Jeremy Smeltzer, our Chief Financial Officer. After opening remarks, we will conduct the Q&A. Turning to slides three and four, our comments today include forward-looking statements which are based upon management's current expectations, projections, and assumptions, and are by nature uncertain. Actual results may differ materially. Due to that risk, Spectrum Brands encourages you to review the risk factors and cautionary statements outlined in our press release dated November 15, 2024, and our most recent SEC filings, and Spectrum Brands Holdings' most recent annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. Also, please note we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures in this call. Reconciliations on a GAAP basis for these measures are included in today's press release. and 8K filing, which are both available on our website in the investor relations section. In response to recent commentary and review, we have updated certain adjustments within our consolidated adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS performance metrics. As a result, prior year results have been recast from what was previously published. The updates only affected consolidated numbers and did not impact any business unit specific metrics. In providing comparisons to prior periods, we will use the recast numbers unless otherwise stated. Finally, we encourage you to listen to our remarks today alongside with reading Spectrum Brand's press release in 8K issued today and our annual report on Form 10K once it is filed with the SEC. Now I'll turn the call over to David. David?
spk00: Hey, thank you, Joanne. Good morning. Thank you, everybody, for joining us today. On behalf of our company, our management team, and our board of directors, we are really pleased to share with you our fiscal 24 accomplishments and successes. For fiscal 24, we kept the promises that we made to ourselves and to you, and we delivered and exceeded our annual operating plans on virtually every metric. We have restored operational momentum to our businesses with best-in-class operational efficiency fill rates being in the mid-90s now, and we have progressed from a weak working capital position to a company with best-in-class working capital management capabilities today. Our investments in our businesses have returned our company to revenue growth in the third and fourth quarters of fiscal 24 as we upgraded our capabilities in commercial operations, innovation, marketing, and advertising. Adjusted EBITDA grew by over 20% in fiscal 24, and we believe that is the best, if not one of the best, performances in our entire industry. Our 20% EBITDA growth was achieved despite an incremental $62 million that we invested into our brands through new R&D, marketing, and advertising initiatives. If we turn to our balance sheet, we actually have the strongest balance sheet in our peer group, and we ended fiscal 24 with net leverage below 0.6 turns. This balance sheet strength gives us tremendous operational flexibility and, frankly, strategic optionality. We intend to use it to continue to drive our organic operating performance and our shareholder value by buying back our shares. Free cash flow in fiscal 24 was $177 million, and that was despite over $100 million that we invested to unwind AR factoring across our entire company. I am also excited to share that our largest business unit, our North America Global Pet Care Company, is now running on our S4HANA ERP platform, which was implemented in the early part of October. We intend to continue to upgrade talent and build a higher performance culture at Spectrum Brands, which is the precursor to even better financial performance in the future. To summarize, in fiscal 24, we delivered on our promises, we have restored momentum to our operating businesses, we have set standards of excellence, and we have laid the foundation for an even more successful future. As I like to say to the troops internally, We got debt-free in 23, so we could achieve a lot more in 24, and now it's time to thrive in fiscal 25. Let's look at a few highlights in our business units. In GPC, our investments drove growth in adjacencies like cat treats, dog and cat food toppers, and a new species of glowfish. In spite of the approximate $20 million impact from SKU rationalization, GPC's fiscal 24 net sales grew by 1.1%, and adjusted EBITDA increased by a healthy 13.4%. In home and garden, we invested in telling consumers about our new innovation, including our Spectracide OneShot and Cutter Eclipse. And guess what? It paid off. Spectracide and HotShot took share this year, with net sales increasing 7.8%, and adjusted EBITDA grew by an amazing 25.2%. In HPC, we invested in our Remington One campaign and in new innovation for the upcoming holiday season and in driving e-commerce sales. Organic net sales were relatively flat, despite the challenging North America consumer demand in the first half of the year, and adjusted EBITDA increased an incredible 74.7%. I'm really pleased with the EBITDA growth that we experienced in our appliance unit this year. It's truly remarkable. We believe that inventory at retail is now generally back to normalized levels, and we're starting to see the replacement cycle build for small kitchen appliances. On a company-wide basis, growing EBITDA over 20%, while increasing investment in our brands by a further $62 million, as I think is a great testament to the quality of our EBITDA and earnings growth this year. Our investments paid off not only in fiscal 24, but we expect them to continue to pay off as we head into fiscal 25. Our internal teams and advisors continue to pursue the sale of our HPC business, and we are actively engaged with multiple interested parties on the M&A side. with geopolitical factors contributing to a longer timeframe than we originally anticipated. As a result, we continue to simultaneously pursue our dual track sales spend separation strategy, and both tracks remain in motion. As we do with all transactions, we will evaluate and consider what's in the best interest of our stakeholders at each step along the way. And as we have done throughout the year, we'll continue to provide updates on our earnings calls or sooner if there's news to share. As a further sign of confidence in the future performance of our company, we have just increased our quarterly dividend payout by 12% to $0.47 per share per quarter earlier this week. The new quarterly dividend rate represents an annualized dividend yield of 2% based on Wednesday's closing stock price. As the growth wheel gets in motion for our net sales, adjusted EBITDA and cash flow and gains momentum, We believe the time was right for us to increase our dividend payout and to share some of our success with our investors. If I could have you now turn to page seven and the strategic priorities we've set out for fiscal 25, we plan to continue to build on the strong fiscal 24 performance and continue to invest in the future of our businesses. We plan to invest in our brands to drive long-term growth, building on the confidence we've gained in fiscal 24, we will strategically continue our brand-focused investments in fiscal 25. Year on year, we expect to increase investments by a further $10 to $15 million. These investments will primarily be in R&D, marketing, and advertising to drive profitable top-line growth. As we did in fiscal 24, we'll also be prudent in making these investments and we'll gauge their effectiveness along the way. Investments will be made across all of our businesses, and we expect a more consistent rate of spend per quarter. We plan to invest in our inventory to support sales growth this year and further e-commerce expansion. E-commerce was a significant source of growth for us in fiscal 24 as we saw consumers switch to shifting their buying habits even more online. We want to win wherever consumers are buying and shopping. To further enable our success in serving our e-commerce retailers, we expect to make strategic investments to increase our inventory levels by approximately $20 to $25 million to capture incremental growth in sales and to maximize our fill rates. We plan to invest in innovation to expand in our core categories and to enter new adjacencies. We have a very strong portfolio of brands. We have a lot of number one positions in their respective categories. And through investing in these brands and expanding their reach into current and new adjacencies, we expect to drive top-line growth. Just picking one example is our recently launched national ad campaign for our Good & Fun brand. Good & Fun is the number one brand in dog chews, and we believe we can expand it now into treats, food toppers, and other adjacencies. We intend to continue to invest in our operations. We want to continue to drive cost improvement, quality, and safety. Our operational improvements this year have been one of the most important contributors to our success. Nothing runs well in a consumer products company if your operations aren't functioning at a very high level. So we will continue to support our ops teams to ensure they can deliver for the company maintaining a very strong S&OP process, and focusing more on quality and safety across the entire organization. We will continue to invest in our operations for further efficiencies also, wherever possible. We believe that staying lean and approaching every day with a lean mindset is imperative to sustaining the operational improvements we've worked so hard to achieve. In a few minutes, you'll hear from Jeremy about how the recent storms in the southeast have increased consumer demand for some of our H&G products, home and garden. And beyond that, as a home essentials company with a mission to make living better at home, I'm really proud to let you know that our teams jumped into action to help those most affected by these storms. Our donations to affected communities in the western North Carolina area included Spectracide Wasp and Hornet Spray, Repel Insect Repellent, Rejuvenate Mop Kits, Nature's Miracle Pet Products, and yes, our number one good and fun dog treats. I'm proud of our commitment to making a positive impact in the communities in which we serve. If we can now turn our attention to slide eight, and we'll talk about our earnings framework for fiscal 25, Sitting here today, we currently expect net sales to grow low single digits compared to fiscal 24 across all three of our business units. The investments in innovation and brand building we made in fiscal 24 will help drive this top-line growth in fiscal 25, but we continue to expect consumers to be cautious as they face an uncertain geopolitical and economic backdrop We expect the replacement cycle, however, for kitchen appliances to continue to build, driving our top line growth. We generally have assumed that retail inventory levels are healthy, and from an adjusted EBITDA standpoint, we expect adjusted EBITDA to grow mid to high single digits compared to fiscal 24's adjusted EBITDA, excluding investment income. The incremental EBITDA is coming from volume growth and cost improvements, and it'll be partially offset by incremental brand-focused investments and inflation, particularly from ocean freight and tariff exclusion and expiration headwinds. For adjusted free cash flow, we're now targeting another strong year with approximately 50% conversion of our adjusted EBITDA. Our winning playbook has not changed, and we continue to be keenly focused on our need to deliver on our commitments to our investors. Throughout the year, we'll be prudent in making investments and managing challenging economic conditions. We will control what we can control, and we'll continue to focus on earning and maintaining our investors' trust and confidence. You'll now hear more from Jeremy on the financials, and you'll hear updates on additional business unit insights, and then I'll join you back to close out and for Q&A. At this time, I'll turn the call over to you, Jeremy.
spk05: Thanks, David. Good morning, everyone. Let's turn to slide 10 for a review of our Q4 results. We'll start with net sales. Net sales increased 4.5%, and excluding the impact of $2.7 million of unfavorable foreign exchange, organic net sales increased 4.8%. Organic net sales were higher primarily due to growth in controls and repellents categories and normalized retailer inventory levels in home and garden. Strength in both home and personal care categories for HPC with new Black & Decker listings and continued growth in e-commerce. And a strategic pull forward of orders in GPC by retailers in preparation for our S4 HANA ERP implementation. Gross profit increased $43.6 million and gross margins of 37.2% increased 420 basis points. driven by the favorable impact of cost improvement actions, operational efficiencies, and inventory actions in the prior year, partially offset by inflation and ocean freight. SG&A expense of $263.9 million increased to 34.1% of net sales, driven by increased innovation, marketing, and advertising investments in the business. Operating income increased to $21.9 million. Our GAAP net income and diluted earnings per share decreased due to lower interest income and higher income tax expense offset by increased operating income and lower interest expense. Diluted EPS also benefited from the lower share count. Adjusted diluted EPS decreased 13.4% due to the lower adjusted EBITDA partially offset by lower interest expense, lower income tax expense, and lower share count. The effective tax rate for the quarter was 23.8%. Adjusted EBITDA decreased 38.2%. But excluding investment income, adjusted EBITDA declined $12.3 million to $68.9 million, driven by the increased brand investments of $26 million $12 million more than we initially planned in the beginning of the quarter. As our top line growth accelerated throughout the period, we made the decision to increase our investments and improve momentum heading into 2025. Let's turn now to slide 11. Q4 interest expense of $6.7 million decreased $14.2 million. Cash taxes during the quarter of $9.2 million were $5.3 million higher than last year. Depreciation and amortization of $25.6 million was $2.1 million higher than the prior year. And separately, share-based compensation decreased by $0.1 million. Cash payments toward restructuring, optimization, and strategic transaction costs were $8.4 million, down from $18.4 million last year. Moving now to the balance sheet, the company had a cash balance of $369 million and approximately $491 million available on our $500 million cash flow revolver. Debt outstanding was approximately $0.6 billion, consisting of approximately $0.5 billion of senior unsecured notes and $81.6 million of finance lease obligations. We ended the quarter with 0.56 turns of net leverage. Capital expenditures were $13 million in the quarter versus $14.7 million last year. Turning now to slide 12 and an overview of our full year results, net and organic sales increased 1.5%. The sales performance was driven by improved inventory health and favorable weather in our home and garden business as well as continued strength in the companion animal category in our global pet care business. While full-year home and personal care net sales were slightly down, driven by softness in North American small kitchen appliances, particularly in the first half, we did return to growth in the second half. Full-year gross profit increased by $185 million and gross margins of 37.4% increased 570 basis points, largely driven by lower cost inventory and inventory-related expenses, cost improvement initiatives, and our increased volume. Adjusted EBITDA increased to $371.8 million. And excluding investment income, adjusted EBITDA increased 20% to $319.2 million, primarily driven by the gross margin improvement, a reduction in operating expenses, increased volume, and favorable interest income. As David mentioned, adjusted free cash flow was $177 million in spite of headwinds from unwinding all of our global AR factoring programs. This represents a nearly 50% conversion of EBITDA. During the year, we were able to renegotiate terms with a number of significant suppliers to more closely align our payables and receivable terms. We maintained a healthy, inventory profile fueled by our S&OP process, and we actively manage our CapEx investments. Now let's get into the review of each business unit to provide detail on the underlying performance drivers of our operational results. I'll start with global pet care, which is on slide 13. Reported net sales increased 3.5%. Excluding the impact of favorable foreign currency, organic net sales increased 2.9%. Companion animal sales increased by mid single digits, offset somewhat by high single digit declines in aquatics hard goods. In North America, companion animal sales grew from strong e-commerce, dollar channel, and food and drug sales, offset by some softness in mass and pet specialty. On October 3rd, the GPC North American Business went live on S4 HANA, our new ERP system. In anticipation of a typical system transition, which includes ordering and shipping blackout periods during the days leading up to and after go-live, GPC partnered with our retail customers to accelerate certain purchases into the period before implementation to ensure the retailers had sufficient supply. This caused approximately $10 million of sales to be realized in the fourth quarter instead of the first quarter of fiscal 25. Our go-live was successful, and GPC resumed normal operations within days, in line with our expectations. In EMEA, companion animal sales grew this quarter, where we also saw strong e-commerce sales and higher sales for our Good Boy and dog and cat food products. In the aquatic segment, global sales of consumables were up low single digits, but were offset by double digit declines in non-consumables, such as tanks and filtration systems. We saw sequential softness in global sales compared to last quarter, when organic net sales were relatively flat the prior year. In addition to continued softening consumer demand, our B2B business is being impacted by changes in the commercial landscape. as businesses adjust their capital investment plans. Global e-commerce sales grew mid-single digits this quarter, coming in at close to 25% of global sales for the quarter and the full year. We continue to be excited about the innovation we launched in fiscal 24. As you may recall, we identified cat treats as an adjacent category that presented expansion opportunities for the business. We entered this emerging category with our Meowie and Good and Tasty brands during fiscal 24, and we continue to gain momentum in this space. Our cat treats have secured several listings at major national chains that will be on shelf and online in fiscal 25, and we are optimistic that we will see healthy, sustainable growth in cat treats with our robust innovation pipeline. Our Furminator consumables saw strong growth with the introduction of our new tub-free line of de-shedding sprays, wipes, and easy-to-use combs with foaming shampoo. Leveraging Good Boy's number one UK dog treat position, we entered the wet dog food category this quarter with consumer-influenced home faves formulas. And in the US, we are in the early stages of launching dog food toppers under the Good and Tasty and Good Boy brands. We believe we can penetrate this emerging adjacent category by leveraging our R&D capabilities, our supplier relationships, and our strong brands. We've been selling these items online for just a few weeks, and the early results are promising. In aquatics, we had our most successful launch of a glowfish new species in GPC history with the launch of our glowfish angelfish. The entire Glowfish brand grew this quarter from the halo effect of the Angelfish launch. We are confident that the innovation investments we made in fiscal 24 put us in a stronger position to start fiscal 25. Adjusted EBITDA of $44.3 million is $9.2 million less than last year. While GPC's Q4 gross margins improved by 70 basis points compared to last year, and we're up 460 basis points for the full year, we invested part of the gross margin improvement in driving growth in the quarter and for next year. Throughout the year, GPC has sequentially increased its brand-focused investments, ending with its highest investment level quarter. In Q4, GPC almost doubled its level of marketing, promotions, and brand-focused investments compared to last year, spending over $12 million more than in 23. These investments supported our recently launched and upcoming innovation, addressed competitive pressures given consumer dynamics, and created new assets to support national campaigns launching in fiscal 25. Adjusted EBITDA was also impacted by incremental volumes, operational productivity improvements, and incremental trade programming. For fiscal 25, we expect the positive trends and companion animal consumables categories to continue with pressure in the first quarter from the S4 HANA sales pull forward. For the year, we expect consumers to be cautious during challenging economic conditions. Many of GPC's brands are premium brands, and we are seeing the impact of a strained consumer on these brands more than our other businesses. We remain cautious about aquatics, especially in hard goods, where demand continues to be soft. In total, we expect fiscal 25 to grow at a lower rate than our long-term target. Moving now to home and garden, which is on slide 14, fourth quarter reported net sales increased 7.7%. Double digit sales growth in the controls and repellents categories and low single digit growth in households partially offset by a decline in the cleaning category most of our major retail partners stayed in the lawn and garden category longer this year to take advantage of the warmer weathers extended growing season continuing to allocate promotional space to our categories later into the quarter this drove higher sales volumes in the controls category including especially strong wasp and hornet sales and supported our area and personal repellent sales during this category's highest POS quarter. The storms in the southeast also drove higher consumer demand for personal and area repellents. While the warmer weather created a natural shift in consumer demand away from the household category, since insects remain outdoors longer, we were pleased that our sales in this category grew low single digits and continued to take share. In cleaning, trends have been improving throughout the year and we plan to continue investing in advertising and other brand activation to support this category. We continue to see a strong correlation between retailer orders and POS this quarter as retail inventory levels are substantially back to normal. E-commerce sales grew mid single digits this quarter and represented high single digit percent of sales for the full year. Throughout fiscal 24, Home and Garden increased its brand-building investments by over 75%, with a focus on advertising and marketing to support the rollout of our new innovations. We introduced Spectracide OneShot and the new Cutter Eclipse model, both of which were successful in driving top-line growth and expanding the reach of our brands. During this past quarter, we created programs targeted to the extended fall seasons. Our continued investments in brand-focused marketing and advertising helped drive demand toward our household products during an otherwise challenged fall season for the category, helping us take share in wasp and hornet and herbicides. We were proud to see Better Homes and Gardens Magazine recently recognize three Spectrum Brands products, Spectracide, Hotshot, and Ecologic, among its top roach killers of 2024. We are pleased with the top line growth our investments drove in fiscal 24 and are confident that these investments will set up home and garden for continued growth in fiscal 25. This quarter's adjusted EBITDA of $19 million is $2 million lower than last year. An adjusted EBITDA margin declined by 270 basis points. The lower EBITDA was driven by a greater than $5 million increase in brand building investments, shifts in variable operating costs and other items offset by higher volumes, positive pricing, and favorable mix. This has been a great year for Home and Garden. After a difficult fiscal 23, resulting from retailer inventory strategies and non-optimal weather conditions, the business improved dramatically in fiscal 24. Sales grew 7.8%, gross margins increased 530 basis points, and adjusted EBITDA increased 25.2%. We are particularly pleased with the consumer reaction to our new innovations and increased investments in advertising and marketing. With the exception of certain controls products, which have an early season demand, we believe most retailers end of the season with normalized inventory levels across most of our categories and expect POS and retailer orders to be relatively aligned in fiscal 25 building inventory later in the season with some softness early in the season due to inventory levels for certain controls products and an anticipated cooler start to the season. We continue to work closely with our retail partners to understand consumer demand expectations and how that translates into our production and shipment plans. And finally, home and personal care, which is on slide 15. Reported net sales increased 4.1%. Excluding some unfavorable foreign exchange, organic net sales increased 5.4%. The sales increase was driven primarily by higher sales volume, offset somewhat by promotional investments. Both home and personal care categories grew organic net sales by mid-single digits. Consistent with recent trends, e-commerce sales accounted for approximately 25% of HPC's global sales in the quarter and the full year, and we had another strong result from Amazon Prime Day in early October. Overall, North American sales declined mid-single digits, with slightly positive sales in home appliances offset by mid-single digit declines in personal care. In home appliances, new listings such as for our Black & Decker Ice Crush Blender and continued strong performance of the Emeril line offset sales declines from two retail bankruptcies. We are pleased with the low single-digit growth we are seeing in some of our home product categories, especially in coffee and garment, as consumer demand is improving and the replacement cycle for small kitchen appliances continues to build. This quarter's sales decline in personal care is primarily due to investments we made in transitioning our SKUs at major retailers, combined with a pull forward of some e-commerce sales from Q4 into Q3 for July's Prime Day. We have seen some recent softness in personal care, especially in hair care, which is an important category for Remington. As we head into the holiday season, we are generally pleased with retail inventory levels which are in a much better spot, especially from North American air fryers and toaster ovens, than they were last year at this time. Sales in EMEA grew low double digits in both the home appliance and personal care categories, led by growth in small kitchen appliances, garment care, hair care, and shave and groom. And sales in Latin America grew mid single digits in both categories. Adjusted EBITDA was $19 million this quarter, which is $1.3 million lower than last year, and adjusted EBITDA margin declined by 70 basis points, driven by additional brand-focused advertising and promotions, along with higher freight costs and unfavorable mix, partially offset by the higher sales volumes and cost improvement initiatives. Looking at full year results, we saw improving trends in the global business throughout the year, with second half sales growth almost fully offsetting declines in the first half. We were especially encouraged by the second half sales trends in North America with new SKUs and brick and mortar and outpaced growth in e-commerce sales. HPC's fiscal 24 gross margins improved 690 basis points over last year. An adjusted EBITDA increased by almost 75% compared to last year. The incremental brand building investments help communicate our innovation to retailers and consumers. From our Remington One launch early in the year and the success of our Remington Balder to the recent introduction of the PowerXL StirMax multi-cooker, a first-of-its-kind slow cooker with an automatic paddle to stir and shred on its own. The StirMax will be on shelves during this holiday season. Our Black & Decker Ice Crush Blender is one of our most successful blender launches in recent history, with wide-shell placement in both brick-and-mortar and e-commerce. As we look forward, we expect the second half global sales trends to continue into fiscal 25. We have new listings in both brick-and-mortar and e-commerce channels, and we expect the outpaced growth in e-commerce sales to continue. Let's turn now to slide 16 and our expectations for 2025. We expect net sales to grow low single digits across all three businesses, with our brand building investments fueling top line growth and offsetting expected pressures from current geopolitical and economic conditions. Adjusted EBITDA, excluding investment income, is expected to grow mid to high single digits driven primarily from increased volume and cost improvement initiatives, partially offset by an increase in brand building investments, ocean freight inflation, and tariff exclusion expiration headwinds. From a phasing perspective, we expect the impacts from increased investments to pressure comparisons to last year more heavily in the first half. Free cash flow conversion as a percent of adjusted EBITDA is expected to be around 50%. As David mentioned, a focus this year has been getting our operational house in order and increasing our working capital discipline. We expect to reach this milestone while increasing investments and inventory to support our e-commerce growth. We'll turn now to slide 17. Appreciation and amortization is expected to be between 115 and 125 million dollars, including stock-based compensation of approximately 20 to 25 million dollars. Cash payments towards restructuring, optimization, and strategic transaction costs are expected to be between 30 and 40 million dollars. Capital expenditures are expected to be between 50 and 60 million dollars, And cash taxes are expected to be between $40 and $45 million. Our estimated effective tax rate on continuing operations is 32%. This will be impacted by various quarterly discrete items. To end my section, I want to thank all of our global team members for their contributions in delivering a strong fiscal 24. I am confident we are set up well to have another successful year in fiscal 25. Now back to David.
spk00: Hey, thank you, Jeremy. And again, thanks, everybody, for joining us today. Happy Friday. Look, I'd like to take a few minutes here just to recap the key takeaways, and I think those are on slide 19. If you could turn to slide 19. As we close fiscal 24 and head into 25, I'm really proud of the year we've had. And I really do want to echo Jeremy and just thank all of our outstanding employees for their contributions over the last 12 months. This was a remarkable year. If you remember this time last year, we'd actually projected our sales would be down. But investing into our businesses, we actually delivered growth. And as we've talked about, we returned our company to strong sales growth, both in Q3 and Q4. as we ingested and upgraded talent, innovation, marketing, and advertising. After facing significant challenges for the years, we've leaned into our competitive advantages. We've invested in our brands, our businesses, and our teams to drive this growth. We've delivered on our promises. We've built momentum in all of the business units. We've set standards of operational excellence, and we've laid the foundation for the future. Most importantly, we did what we said we were going to do and we delivered on our commitments to all of our stakeholders. We made the important and significant decision to really step up and invest in our front office and our commercial capabilities with the $62 million increase in brand building investment initiatives. We expect to continue to realize the benefit of those investments in the coming year. And we anticipate growing our investment levels only as we see the incremental return. As Jeremy said, we expect net sales to grow low single digits this year, and we expect adjusted EBITDA to increase mid to high single digits over the prior year, excluding investment income. We expect fiscal 25 to again be a challenging environment, but we believe we actually have the right strategy to succeed. While we have some concerns about geopolitical unrest, macroeconomic uncertainty, and the overall consumer health, our balance sheet strength, our operational efficiency, and our regained sales momentum in all three businesses give us confidence as we face into the future. As I've said in my opening remarks, we believe fiscal 25 is our year to thrive, to accelerate, and to achieve further growth. I'll now turn the call back to Joanne, and we're really happy to take your questions.
spk02: Thank you, David. Operator, we can go to the question queue now.
spk03: Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Peter Grone from UBS.
spk06: Yeah, thanks, operator. Good morning, everyone.
spk03: Good morning, Peter.
spk06: Hey, Jeremy. So, David, just on the HBC transaction, you mentioned geopolitical events, you know, contributing to a longer timeframe. Maybe can you just unpack that a bit more and kind of what really changed between the or transpired since August? You sounded far more optimistic on kind of the timeframe. And then I guess just within that, has the outcome of the election, the potential for tariffs changed your view on that timeline or maybe the form of the HPC separation at all?
spk00: Look, I think, you know, first you got to zoom out. And, you know, a year ago, we had a business doing $40 million in EBITDA And, you know, it's tough to spin that business out or sell it, you know, with that type of lackluster performance. And so, you know, what we really wanted to do is get that company humming again with a do different strategy with a new leader with Tim Wright. And look, I'm sitting here thrilled today, you know, to say we grew that EBITDA to $75 million plus in the last 12 months. And we're forecasting increased sales and EBITDA growth, you know, for the next 12 months. So, Fundamentals always win. You got to get those fundamentals right. And I think, you know, a lot of heavy lifting, you know, under the surface here to deliver that. But we're on a good, good path. Yeah. Look, there's no question. You know, you know, you don't go through, you know, a U.S. election. um you know in that month of october and then you know you saw the middle east flare up i mean those things you know not just for us but i think across the mna specter uh spectrum you know actually puts people you know people put their pencils down they take their time to see hey what's going to happen um but we're updating you today we're in talks with with two of the of the buyers who want to continue with us and i'm getting on a plane to go meet one of them here in the next weeks and uh
spk06: know we'll let you know if we if we get through a good deal there but we're continuing to progress it and we're going to continue to manage the business for better fundamental performance going forward super helpful uh and then just maybe a follow-up maybe for jeremy i mean look last year um you took a relatively conservative stance as it relates to the guidance i just would be curious um if you're kind of embedding kind of some flexibility um given the uncertainty that you mentioned looking ahead and then Just maybe within that, you know, any expectations? It was really helpful to hear some views on top-line growth across the three segments. So, just would be curious if there's some things we should be anticipating in terms of EBITDA growth from the three segments as we think about our models for fiscal 20 guide.
spk00: Well, I'm going to start it, and then I'll give it to Jeremy. I mean, we tried to give a bunch of little breadcrumbs, you know, in this press release and the rest of it. The reality is we spend almost $26 million of incremental ad spend in Q4. You guys are looking at a $68.9 or $69 million EBITDA number for Q4. I think on the surface that disappoints you, but you've got to make these investments. If you want to take market share, if you want to reignite your sales growth, and you want to build terminal value in the future... we are seeing very fast returns on some of this investment, particularly the bottom funnel stuff. And we expect to get real market share, real sales growth, and create real shareholder value over the long term from them. But obviously, if you take that huge incremental advertising investment and add it back, you could argue we could have reported $94, $95 million in EBITDA in the quarter we just delivered. And so we're also trying to let you know You know, the health of the earnings here is pretty robust. You know, to think you grew EBITDA 20% in a year and yet you burdened it with that additional investment, you know, I think it speaks pretty highly to the quality of the earnings power in the underlying businesses. I'll turn it over to Jeremy, but, yeah, look, we – You know, last year, you're right. We had a conservative view. We obviously did a little bit better than that. And, you know, we want to continue that track record. So, Jeremy, over to you.
spk05: Yeah, I think that's a very fair point and good way to end your comments, David. You know, we do want to continue that track record. You guys know that. We know it's important to our shareholders. You know, that said, you've got to think about a lot of variables as we build a full-year model. You know, I think it starts with the top line. And what we've said is we expect to grow all three businesses low single digits, you know, that's pretty consistent with the last two quarters. So that should give some comfort and confidence. You know, why is that? I think, you know, it's a different story by each business, right? I said in my prepared remarks, GPC is predominantly premium brands, and it's a more difficult environment for premium brands in this economy, there's no doubt. So while we think we grow low single digits, it's not where we'd like to be. But that's what's happening. You think about aquatics, hard goods, those are high ticket, new entrance items. And in this economy, that's just difficult for consumers. So we're working on that with our retail partners to try to promote, to try to invest a little bit, to get more people to the category. But it's a hard decision for consumers right now. And we have to recognize that. In home and garden, we had an excellent year, 8% growth in 24. Value brands, right? So it's the right economic environment for those brands. It's the right environment for trade downs as our consumers, you know, bring things from third-party suppliers for their yards and homes and do it themselves. We're right there for them, and it's great, and so we expect to continue to grow, but we have a pretty difficult comp at 8% growth last year, so again, low single digits, and in the HPC business, historically, this has been a lower growth category, so the low single digits make sense to us. We do have you know, some opening price point brands in there, particularly Black & Decker in the U.S. that is doing well with new SKUs because of where it's positioned, and it fits well with many of our retail partners' strategies with their consumers as they focus on opening price points. So that's the thought process on the top line, and that's where we're headed. I think, you know, there was a lot of volatility in the spending and brand investments, so you heard David say we intend to even that out throughout the year to make it easier to model the business, and quite frankly, to keep the content we're creating in front of our consumers on a consistent basis, you know, every month, every quarter. And then, you know, what do we have to deal with from an expense perspective? We have some ocean freight headwind we talked about. We think the majority of that's behind us based on what we're seeing, and we have good contracts for 25, but Those dollars have basically already been spent, and they're in inventory, and they're going to hit us in Q1 and Q2. So we've got to face that on the bottom line. And then we mentioned there was a tariff exclusion exemption that expired in June, I believe, in the HPC business, and that's about an $8 million headwind for them. So we are taking, I think, a right prudent approach to the year. I think we're cautious on the economy, and I'll probably leave it at that as it relates to how we approach the forecast.
spk06: Awesome. Thank you both so much. I'll pass it on. Thanks, Peter. Have a good one. Thank you. Have a good weekend.
spk03: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Bob Lubick from CJS Securities.
spk04: Good morning. Thanks for taking our questions. Hey, Bob. Hi. So obviously a big theme has been the leaning in on investments to drive growth, current and future growth. And so I was hoping maybe you could dig down a little bit there and talk about, you know, take your words, you know, kind of where the investment is at the top of the funnel, where it is at the bottom of the funnel and how you, you know, how you're making those decisions and like where you stand now on that, that investment spending and how that will change in the future.
spk00: I mean, I can take a crack at it. I mean, you know, you clearly see, you know, the results coming in terms of, you know, restoring the sales growth. You know, the spend, you know, was big and lumpy and, you know, we don't want that in fiscal 25. So we want to be more consistent there, as Jeremy just commented. I think, you know, the early spend in the year, we're mostly bottom funneled, you know, really making sure that we got very high, very quick returns on capital. And we wanted to restore the earnings power of the business, right? I mean, so, you know, look, we just grew EBITDA from, I think, the 270s to three, you know, almost 320. We tend to grow that EBITDA level, you know, higher over the next 12 months. You know, but we are doing some, you know, heavier top funnel stuff now, which does have a longer term payback. But it is important to build that brand equity, to be able to take shelf space, to get our retail customers excited about the storytelling we're doing on some of our new product launches and new adjacencies. I mean, we just watched a pet asset trade 48 hours ago for 17 to 22 times EBITDA. Now, they happen to be more in the cat space than we are. They tend to be more food-related. But we see a fantastic opportunity in cats. And, you know, we want to take this good and fun brand. We want to really create a halo around good and tasty, doing a lot of test and learning with our digital, you know, counterparts, retail customers, and we're seeing some really exciting early returns there. You know, I want to get us to move bigger and faster so we can get more of an allocation of our businesses toward these higher growth markets, which are food, cat, and wellness. And so, you know, that's part of the calculus. Jeremy, you want to add to that?
spk05: Yeah, just maybe a little more color. So about 10% of that increase was in R&D itself, which is obviously a longer-term play, Bob. You know, over 50% was in bottom funnel with the vast majority of those dollars focused on e-commerce where we had, you know, an outstanding year. But part of that, frankly, is getting our fair share of where our consumers are going, particularly in the appliance business where, you know, the market has moved dramatically to online. And then in the second half of the year, it is more top of funnel and content creation. And, you know, that's really more at 2025, 2026. You're going to start seeing our brands more on streaming, some on actual cable and sports, et cetera, network. But yeah, we're going to be positioned very differently 12 months from now with these brands based on the dollars that we're spending now, and we're building the mechanisms to track returns on that, and we'll be nimble and adjust. I'll tell you that beyond that 10% that was in R&D, it was relatively split fairly equally between marketing and advertising, which is kind of an indicator of top of funnel versus bottom funnel.
spk04: Got it. Okay, great. Super helpful, Culler. Appreciate that. And then just quickly on HPC, obviously you've discussed the factors and whatnot. What will determine the timing right now? When would you expect to have greater clarity on the timing of the HPC separation, I should say? And is there a scenario where it's part of spectrum in fiscal 26?
spk00: You know, M&A is fluid, as you know, it's unpredictable. I mean, I, you know, there's no question, I kind of hope to have a deal done by now. And so we've told you in the release, you know, we do think that, you know, leading up to an election and the outcome of that election and Middle East stuff is definitely cost us 30 plus days, but, you know, we're actively pursuing it. And, you know, we'll update you when we can. It's kind of hard to comment beyond that. But Look, again, I think the key thing we're trying to tell you is we're working really hard to make that a much better business, you know, and we're getting a lot of good results. So, you know, we'll continue to look at ways to do the best we can to maximize shareholder value. You know, I think, look, I think, you know, really what you should look at, too, is, I mean, the fact that we're 0.5 turns levered and we're getting earnings growth really humming again in pet, home, and garden, We continue to trade at kind of, I think, a ridiculous multiple. So there's just lots of upside here still to be had, and the balance sheet gives us that optionality to make that happen. So I'm very bullish on the outlook for 25, and we'll do our best to optimize value for appliances.
spk04: Super. Thanks so much.
spk00: Thanks, Bob.
spk03: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Chris Carey from Wells Fargo Securities.
spk01: Hey, good morning, guys. Good morning, how are you? Good. I wanted to see if you could expand on the underlying, not health, but your performance of the pet business, the $10 million benefit in the quarter. Should we just reverse that out in Q1? And then just from a broader perspective, Jeremy has highlighted more premium offerings posing a challenge for consumers. I understand the retailers are also pushing private label. Maybe if you just take a step back on the performance and competitive nature in the pet segment and how much visibility you have this year and maybe over time, that'd be helpful just to get, you know, some broader thoughts on the business, given some of the moving pieces, you know, this year and going into next year.
spk05: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I'll start, and David could add any comments. The visibility is decent. You know, if you look at the top line, you know, in dollars, it's been relatively consistent over the last four quarters. Yeah, this... Timing of the S4 HANA situation does impact about $10 million. But visibility is decent. In brick and mortar, we're still seeing annual line reviews. You're right. We do have some retailers that are very focused on private label, and we're there to support them. Our brands are still in those brick and mortar channels. We're still important to them, but as they push forward, consumers or they believe their consumers are pushing themselves more towards private label it makes it more challenging us for us to reach that you know mid single digit top line growth that we'd like to be seeing out of the business that said it's pretty stable you know and again you know seeing growth in aquatics consumables the last two quarters is something that we you know are happy to see but it's just very difficult you know other than entry level it's very difficult for consumers right now to make that you know call it seven eight hundred dollar you know, ticket decision on a large new environment for their homes, you know, given the uncertainty that they're seeing in the higher interest rates. And I think we just have to bear with that as we go through 25. It's still an excellent business. You know, it is, while low growth, it's low capex and it generates very good margins for us. And it is a razor, razor blade model with the food and filtration additives. So, That's kind of the environment. I'm not surprised, based on the overall macro environment, that low single digit is where we're at. We're going to push hard to do more. All of David's commentary on what we're doing with marketing and advertising, including innovation with new listings in cat treats and dog and cat food toppers, I think we're moving all the levers that we need to. But we are facing a bit of an uphill grind with the economy right now.
spk00: Listen, let me chime in on, because you made a good observation on private label, et cetera. I mean, I think if you look at the last 12 months, we're telling you we still had some revenue in that division that we fired, basically with SKU exits and rationalization. And just because private label is doing a little bit better now, Look, you know, we told you earlier we have a national ad campaign for the first time on our Good & Fun business. Good & Fun was a brand we bought. It was like $50 million in revenue when we got it. You know, we're doing over a quarter billion dollars just under that brand alone now. You know, I want to grow that to a half a billion dollar business. and you know to do that you know you've got to advertise and so there is a decent trunk now top funnel advertising going there not just to defend that brand against private label but the storytelling and the content creation about why that product is better than private label and then the adjacencies we can go in uh that that's really exciting and look i'll lean in a little bit with you and help you out i mean we started fiscal 25 in good shape um you know, October, you know, which we just completed actually beat our expectation. And we see sales and EBITDA growth in pets this current quarter, you know, despite that pull forward. So we're in good shape and we're going to lean in.
spk01: Okay, great. One quick follow-up on Garden. I think one of your competitors was also talking about some lingering inventory exiting the season just because of how strong fall was and how long retailers stuck around. Did I hear you correctly that you're planning for, I guess, a bit more, I don't want to say cautious, but like perhaps some lower, you know, retail ordering in the front half of the fiscal year in Garden as they assess, as retailers assess the season. And so is that going to be more of a back half load of the year? I just wonder if you could dig a bit deeper into that comment around, you know, late season inventories and how it's going to impact the front half of your year in garden. Thanks so much.
spk05: Sure. Yeah, Chris. So, yeah, I mean, our comments are really around what we're hearing from our retail partners on their expectations for the coming season, which, you know, we're in constant communications with them on those things. And we seem to be hearing a bit of a consensus that they're expecting a cooler start to the spring next year, which, you know, I think it's pretty difficult to predict sitting here in mid-November, but that is a consensus we're hearing from them, and hence our comments that, hey, it may be a bit slower start to ordering from the retailers, and don't be surprised if you see that. From our perspective, I think we had a slightly favorable weather season in 2024 to what I'd call a normal weather season, and so I still think with a normal weather season, we still grow. low single digits, as we talked about on this call. But, you know, we just want to get that out there because we are hearing it from our three largest retailers, and they are obviously incredibly important to our overall sales and timing of sales.
spk01: Okay. Makes sense. Thanks.
spk05: Thank you.
spk06: Have a good day.
spk03: Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Joanne Chomak for closing remarks.
spk02: Thank you. And with that, we have reached the top of the hour, so we will conclude our conference call. Thank you to David and Jeremy. And on behalf of Spectrum Brands, thank you all for your participation.
spk03: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
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