Valvoline Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, hello and welcome to Velvoline's 2Q 2022 Earnings Conference Call webcast. My name is Maxine and I'll be coordinating the call today. If you would like to ask a question during the presentation, you may do so by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. I will now hand you to your host, Sean Cornett from Investor Relations to begin. Sean, please go ahead when you're ready.

Thanks, Maxine. Good morning and welcome to Valvoline's second quarter fiscal 2022 conference call and webcast. On May 9th at approximately 5 p.m. Eastern time, Valvoline released results for the second quarter ended March 31, 2022. This presentation should be viewed in conjunction with that earnings release, a copy of which is available on our investor relations website at investors.valvoline.com. Please note that these results are preliminary until we file our Form 10-Q with the Securities and Exchange Commission. On this morning's call is Sam Mitchell, our CEO, and Mary Michelsberger, our CFO. As shown on slide two, any of our remarks today that are not statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based on current assumptions as of the date of this presentation and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from such statements. Valvoline assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements unless required by law. In this presentation and in our remarks, we will be discussing our results on an adjusted non-GAAP basis, unless otherwise noted. Non-GAAP results are adjusted for key items, which are unusual, non-operational, or restructuring in nature. We believe this approach enhances the understanding of our ongoing business. A reconciliation of our adjusted non-GAAP results to amounts reported under GAAP and a discussion of management's use of non-GAAP and key business measures is included in the presentation appendix. The information provided is used by our management and may not be comparable to similar measures used by other companies. As we turn to slide three, I'd like to turn the call over to Sam.

Thanks, Sean, and thank you, everyone, for joining us this morning. The strength of our top line results continued in Q2, highlighted by a 26% increase in sales. Both segments contributed to the strong performance, with retail services sales growing 23% and global product sales up 29%, as demand for our products and services remains robust. Global products volume growth of 9%, and retail services same-store sales growth of 13%, led by an increase in transactions, demonstrate that we continue to gain share. Profitability in the quarter was impacted by an inflationary environment that remained challenging, with adjusted EBITDA increasing 1%. Our team is managing well through these supply chain and raw material cost challenges, positioning us for improved profit growth in the second half of the fiscal year. Let's turn to the next slide. Given our share gains and our pricing actions, we are raising our guidance for sales growth, and we are reaffirming our guidance for adjusted EBITDA, reflecting confidence in our business plans, margin recovery, and continued volume growth. Let's take a closer look at segment highlights, starting with retail services on slide six. The momentum in our retail services segment continues, with Q2 sales increasing 23%. System-wide store sales increased 19%, driven by 13% same-store sales growth and a 7% increase in units. For the fiscal year, we expect system-wide store sales in excess of $2.2 billion. We added 113 stores to the network year over year. Our system-wide store growth is accelerating, and we are raising our full-year guidance for store additions to 140 to 160 new units, driven by outperformance in our franchisee store growth. The partnership with our franchisees remains strong, and we're encouraged by their continued investment and growth. Our confidence in ongoing share gains combined with the pricing actions that we executed in April has led us to raise our same store sales growth guidance to 12 to 14%. Let's review our transaction growth across the system on the next slide. Our transactions are increasing faster than the broader do it for me oil change market. and growth continues to be broad-based. Our store-level car counts, measured as oil changes per day, are increasing across the system in company and franchise stores, across performance levels, and among mature and new stores. We are also seeing strength across geographies with all regions delivering growth in transactions year-to-date. Our quick, easy, trusted experience continues to win new customers. Given the competitive advantages of our model, we are confident that our momentum and transaction growth will continue. Let's turn to the next slide. We've taken action to improve profitability and margins in retail services. We have increased pricing to address inflationary pressures from both rising labor rates and higher product-related costs. Based on April's performance, our new pricing is already benefiting Q3, and we are seeing continued transaction growth. Optimizing our staffing levels is important to drive continued share gains and further penetration of non-old chain services, especially as we move into the summer driving season. We've pulled forward important labor investments to retain and attract key talent, and we've reinvigorated our training and onboarding programs for the post-COVID environment. These actions in combination will improve average ticket performance. While we focus on adding value for our customers, we anticipate our pricing power to enhance profitability in Q3 and Q4. Let's move to the next slide. Our confidence in our long-term margin outlook of 30% to 32% for retail services is based on the performance of our mature stores. which continue to drive strong margin leverage. Our mature stores have improved margins by nearly 300 basis points since 2018, and we expect further expansion going forward as we continue to grow share and average ticket. As a reminder, our total segment margins include the dilutive effects from new stores, as well as from price pass-through of product sales to our franchisees. In Q2, these effects combined were a nearly 300 basis point impact versus last year. Let's review global product on the next slide. Q2 demonstrated the ongoing top line strength in global products. Sales grew 29% year over year with all regions contributing to this impressive increase. Sales growth outpaced a strong volume increase of 9% highlighting our continued success in passing through cost increases with pricing. While price pass-through is currently dilutive to our margin rates, adjusted EBITDA grew modestly in the quarter versus last year, overcoming significantly higher raw material costs. Discretionary free cash flow generation remains steady and on track for roughly $200 million this fiscal year. Let's take a closer look at demand and cost recovery on the next slide. Demand signals for our products and solutions are robust, highlighting ongoing share gains across regions and channels. Performance in DIY, where we have increased our distribution, remains impressive, and the installer channel continues to recover from the impacts of COVID. International volume growth has been strong over the past few years as we focused on building our channels and brand. The current supply chain environment has created both challenges and opportunities. We believe that we are outperforming competition in our ability to supply customers, which is contributing to our volume growth and share gains, as our team continues to do an outstanding job of keeping up with demand. A core differentiator for our business is our ability to deliver added value for our customers while providing outstanding customer service. We believe this approach, coupled with our ability to meet demand, positions us well to continue to capture, share, and expand margins. As we anticipated, Q4 of last fiscal year and Q1 of this year were low points for unit margins. We saw a meaningful sequential impact in unit margins for Q2 as we continue to pass through raw material cost increases from 2021. While cost inflation has continued this year, we remain confident in our ability to recover costs as we have in previous inflationary periods. With that, I'll hand things to Mary to discuss our financial results in more detail.

Thanks, Sam. Our Q2 results are summarized on slide 13. We continue to see strong top line growth across both segments. Overall sales growth of 26% in the quarter was driven by 16 points of pricing and nearly 10 points from favorable volume and mix. Growth from acquisitions was largely offset by unfavorable year-over-year foreign exchange impacts. Flow through to profitability of significant volume mixed benefits, as well as pricing, was largely offset by higher raw material and labor costs, leading to a modest increase in adjusted EBITDA. Let's take a closer look at segment results on the next slide. Strong transaction growth in retail services and volume growth in global products are indicators of continued share gains and robust demand in both segments. Our two-year stack of system-wide same-store sales remained above 30% in Q2, and we expect this pace to continue in the second half of the fiscal year. 250 basis points of the year-over-year decline in margin rates in retail services was due to the dilutive effect that passed through pricing of higher raw material costs, with the remainder primarily driven by product and labor-related costs. We have executed incremental pricing actions that are anticipated to improve margins beginning in Q3. Sales growth and global products continue to run well ahead of strong volume increases, highlighting our ability to pass through inflationary costs with pricing. Our unit margins increased noticeably in Q2 versus Q1, and we expect to pass through recent raw material cost increases efficiently, driving unit margins back toward their pre-pandemic average. Let's review our updated guidance on the next slide. We are raising our top line guidance metrics, reflecting the benefits of share gains and pricing power in both segments. We now expect low 20% growth in total sales. System-wide, same-store sales are anticipated to grow in the low teens range, while we are raising our expectations for unit growth to 140 to 160 additions. We continue to expect overall adjusted EBITDA between $675 to $700 million, representing high single-digit year-over-year growth and adjusted EPS of $2.07 to $2.20. Excluding the impact of separation-related expenses, we anticipate strong free cash flow generation of $260 to $280 million. Now, as we turn to slide 16, I'll turn things back over to Sam to wrap up. Sam?

Thanks, Mary. Despite significant inflationary and supply chain related headwinds, our two businesses are performing well. We are addressing near term margin pressure from cost increases with pricing actions. Most importantly, demand for our preventive maintenance products and services continues to be very strong. We have confidence in our strategy, pricing power, and operational execution to drive margin normalization and ongoing profit growth. While we don't have any significant news to share today, we are making good progress on our separation process and will be announcing details at the appropriate time. Now I'll turn the call back to Sean to open the line for Q&A.

Thanks, Sam. Before we open the line for Q&A, I'd just like to remind everyone to limit your questions to one and a few follow-ups so that we can get to everyone. And with that, Maxine, please open the line.

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. If you do change your mind, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your line is unmuted. Our first question comes from Simeon Guttman from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. This is Michael Kessler on for Simeon. Thanks for taking our questions. First, I wanted to start with retail services. That raised same-store sales guidance implies a little more of an acceleration on the multi-year stacks. I assume most, if not all, of that is due to the price. Is that the case? the 2% to 3% you cited in the presentation, is that kind of roughly how we should be thinking about how much price is being taken? And then as you think about how you are now priced, I guess, versus the competition versus peers, is this kind of marketing to market? What are you seeing as far as responses from others? And would you kind of consider these investments you're making to be, I guess – Also, marketing to market, jumping ahead, catching up, I guess, kind of where we are in the state of play with these adjustments, both on cost and pricing.

Okay. Now, first, Michael, regarding the transaction growth and the guidance, the transaction growth has continued to be quite strong. So we saw that in Q1 and again in Q2. And so that is one of the drivers behind our guidance for the full fiscal year. because we're just continuing to see that broad-based strength that we pointed out in the presentation. Pricing certainly is going to have an impact on the back half of the year, so we'll see a nice benefit in ticket performance in the back half of the year. And so the combination of the continued growth in transactions, somewhat above expectations, and then the increased pricing is going to put us in that 12% to 14% range for the full fiscal year. That does imply that the growth that we saw in the first half will be lower in the second half because of the nature of the comps as we move past the COVID-19 comparisons. With regard to price increase, we have a very disciplined process for how we take pricing, and it involves measuring price increases and potential impacts on our on our volume and transaction performance. But as costs have moved up pretty significantly, both on the product side and on the labor side, these price increases are very important for us to take. As we've made these adjustments, and as noted earlier that we took these in April, we have also noted that our competitors have taken similar price increases. So when you take a look at Pricing across the do-it-for-me market, prices to consumers are up across the board.

And then, Michael, I would just add, if you look at the acceleration of the two-year stack that you asked about, for Q3, you almost have to look at a three-year stack because it was in Q3 of our fiscal 20 that we had a negative 8% comp. That was in the in the early you know the depths of the lockdown from coven when the coven first started so so yeah there is some. acceleration in the two year stack but that's primarily because you know the prior year was was copying up against that really deep co coven impact from the earlier period, so I would say you know the first the first half. two-year stack in the mid-30s that we're expecting to see a little bit stronger than that in the back half, primarily driven by the price changes.

Got it. Okay, that's all super helpful. Maybe just one follow-up, shifting to global products. I don't know if you can maybe dissect a little bit where the volume growth is coming from, I guess, where the most growth is coming from, whether it's We're seeing accelerations on the core North America side, the old core North America disclosure versus international. And then you mentioned the recovery on the installer side, still trailing a little bit the DIY international. I guess, you know, are we still in that recovery process? Does it feel like that segment is recovered? And this is, you know, we're kind of rebaselining where we are. Just, I guess, you know, the progress of that recovery relative to the other segments.

Yeah, first, where we're seeing the growth, the good news is that it is across regions. And yet, North America is particularly strong this fiscal year, and so that's contributing to the outperformance. We've seen some real strength in the DIY business, where we've picked up distribution in our product line at key retailers, also expanding into new channels. That has been a nice driver this year. On the installer, DIFM side of the business, we're also seeing good volume. And I'd say that's more the recovery picture. If you recall, the DIY business remained strong through the COVID impacts, whereas the installer business took a pretty significant volume hit. And so we're now seeing some pretty good recovery. I would say close to what I'd consider more normalized levels. So we're feeling really good about just the core strength of the North American business. And then on the international side, we're seeing growth in excess of 6% in total, excluding, we also have included in our totals, sales to China joint venture. But when we exclude that, so we look at apples to apples, just strength of the international business. We're seeing good growth across regions. The China business certainly is feeling the effects of the COVID lockdown right now. So we're seeing some softness there in the current performance. And so that is a bit of a risk in the back half of the year, but not a significant impact to profitability. But we look at strength in Latin America and parts of... Europe and Asia Pacific, it's really encouraging to see the momentum that we've got in international business across regions right now. I would note too that of course, Russia's a bit of an impact too, not significantly so. We had a small business in Russia, sales through distributors, and so we've suspended operations in Russia. We took close to a $5 million write-off, primarily accounts receivable, for that decision.

Thanks so much. You're welcome.

Thank you. As another reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. Our next question comes from Mike Harrison from Seaport Research Partners. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. In terms of the higher standards, that higher store additions guidance. First of all, that's great to see. Second, it seems like this is driven by franchisees. What is driving that additional momentum from your franchisees? Is this a handful of larger franchisees that's contributing to this growth or is it a broader group? How might this be changing how you're thinking about company store additions? as you think about the rest of this year and into fiscal 23?

Yeah, the franchise growth is being driven by our largest franchisees that are well capitalized. And we've worked really closely with them over the last couple of years in putting together strong development agreements where We've done analysis with them on the store growth opportunities in their markets and put incentives in place for them to build those markets out through a combination of store build and acquisition. And so we're beginning to see the fruits of that work. And so it is really encouraging, I would say, the confidence that we have in that franchise growth growing as we project out to the next number of years so the the company store growth continues to be quite strong too and as you know we had a number of successful acquisitions a year ago but our store build program has picked up steam and and so the combination of the two is helping us deliver another year you know in that 140 to 160 range so really encouraging and for us. And as far as the split between company and franchise, our focus right now is continuing to drive penetration in markets where we have presence and where there's opportunity. We have a robust real estate model. And so if we're best positioned for company growth in that market, that's our focus. Or if we have a strong franchise operator, we'll be working with them. We are working with them to drive their store growth to better penetrate markets. As we've shared in earlier presentations, our store base, we're roughly reaching 15% of households that are within a five-mile driving distance of a babbling location, and so we see significant opportunity for store growth, and we think that both company and franchise opportunities will continue to be in front of us in the years ahead. So we've got a good aggressive program that has got good momentum. I'm especially encouraged by the performance of these new stores, both acquisition and the ground ups. We're seeing really good performance and just moving up that maturity curve quite quickly. And you saw that in one of the presentations where we're seeing very strong growth in the newer stores.

All right, great. And then a question on the inflationary environment. As consumers are seeing more inflation at the gas pump, have you started to see any pressure on your non-oil change revenue or delaying vehicle maintenance or trading down from premium lubricants to conventional? Just trying to understand if there's any impact on demand from some of the inflationary pressure. Thank you.

That's a great question, and the answer is no, we have not seen any negative pressure, downward pressure on our performance with regard to our pricing. And so, again, as we study the business and we look at performance in higher-priced markets like California, we're seeing outstanding volume growth and ticket performance too. So far, the consumer is not resisting the cost increases, and the model is performing quite well. So we'll continue to watch it closely, but I think it really supports the superior customer experience that we're able to deliver across our system. And that gives us the pricing power to keep up with costs. Again, as we look at the performance of the last five, six weeks since we took price increases, we're really encouraged by that.

All right. Thanks very much.

As a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now.

We have no further questions, so we'll hand it back to the Velvoline team for closing remarks.

All right. Well, thank you. I appreciate everyone listening in today. But the good news is that the business is performing quite well for both retail services and global products. We're quite confident in our pricing actions, and we expect that to benefit the back half of the year. with steady improvements in Q3, and we'll see pretty significant increases in profitability, particularly in Q4. And so, again, I would point everyone's attention back to just the strong demand for our products and services and the ability to continue to drive that performance in our future. Thank you very much.

ladies and gentlemen at this concludes today's call thank you for joining you may now disconnect