5/9/2024

speaker
Joanna
Conference Operator

Good morning. My name is Joanna, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Prima Water Corporation's first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star, followed by two. Thank you. I'll now turn the call over to John Cattle, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

speaker
John Cattle
Vice President, Investor Relations

Welcome to Primo Water Corporation's first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. All participants are currently in listen-only mode. The call is being webcast live on Primo Water's website at primowatercorp.com and will be available there for playback. This conference call contains forward-looking statements, including statements concerning the company's future financial and operational performance. These statements should be considered in connection with the cautionary statements and disclaimers contained in the safe harbor statements in this morning's earnings press release and the company's annual report on Form 10-K and the quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and other filings with securities regulators. The company's actual performance could differ materially from these statements, and the company undertakes no duty to update these forward-looking statements, except as expressly required by applicable law. A reconciliation of any non-GAAP financial measures discussed during the call with the most comparable measures in accordance with GAAP, when the data is capable of being estimated, is included in the company's first quarter earnings announcement released earlier this morning or on the investor relations section of the company's website at PrimaWaterCorp.com. In addition to slides accompanying today's webcast to assist you throughout our discussion, we have included a copy of the presentation in a supplemental earnings deck on our website. I am accompanied by Robert Reetbroek, PrimaWater's Chief Executive Officer, and David Haas, Chief Financial Officer. With that, I will now turn the call over to Robert.

speaker
Robert Reetbroek
Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. I'm very pleased with our performance in the first quarter, where we showed strength across the business and organization, with balanced and broad-based growth across all channels. Total revenue of $452 million increased 9.6%, consisting of volume growth of 5.1% and pricing growth of 4.5%. Revenue gains were driven by organic growth of 8.3%, demonstrating the health of our consumer and category, as well as our leadership position across our portfolio. Adjusted EBITDA was $94 million, up 24% versus the prior year, and the resulting adjusted EBITDA margin was 20.8%, which gives us confidence in our full-year margin expansion. Both revenue and adjusted EBITDA exceeded the high end of our guidance issued last quarter. David will discuss more of the details of the quarter in a moment, but the results are a direct reflection of our associates and their commitment to our customers. We remain frontline focused with a clear eye to growing the business profitably. I would like to publicly recognize and thank them for embracing our must-win priorities and for their dedication. From a macro perspective, our consumer demand is strong. Persistent concerns of inflation and high interest rates have not slowed demand for our products, and we continue to see the growth potential as a pure play water company in the large, highly fragmented, and growing North America water category. As consumers continue to prioritize healthier lifestyles, we offer high-quality drinking water solutions to meet the consumer wherever, whenever, and however they choose to hydrate. Our split between residential and commercial customer base remains approximately 50-50, ensuring a healthy balance of revenue sources. When you look at the broader beverage category, we are pleased that we are growing revenue in both volume and price. This contrasts with beverage companies where growth has been driven by pricing with moderate or declining volume. Recently, you may have been hearing more about external contaminants and their impact on the US tap water supply, especially when sourced from surface water. Given an expansive and sometimes aging water infrastructure, many municipal solutions are likely years away from meaningful change. Our large format bulk water products provide an immediate path to ensuring high quality drinking water for consumers. The ongoing discussion about contaminants and the quality of the North American drinking water supply will likely make consumers more discerning in their hydration choices, presenting a clear opportunity for our water solutions. With that, Let's discuss the specific progress of each of our must-win priorities that I identified last quarter. The first must-win is to provide a superior customer experience with the goal to yield net organic growth and units or gallons consumed across our water portfolio. We are focused on acquiring and maintaining high-value customers and driving annual gallon growth. starts with the sale of water dispensers at retail, which drives our portfolio of water solutions, including water direct, exchange, refill, and filtration. We've begun enhancing many aspects of our consumer touchpoints in order to improve their experience. An important step is expanding our coverage in our customer experience center, where we are digitizing and empowering the center with a customer-centric approach. In Q1, we meaningfully increased the number of hours and days that we interacted with our valued customers through voice, social, and chat, and focused on our quality of service and rapid request resolution. Within our water.com website, we created more than 180 branch pages. with unique content and descriptions for improved search engine optimization and customer review interactions. Our mobile version called MyWater Plus has been upgraded with Spanish language capability with plans for an updated user interface experience and several more upgrades to come in the balance of the year. We take great pride in our brand portfolio that includes 14 regional and national brands. These brands offer a variety of price tiers and water source types. Whether it's Sparklets on the West Coast, Crystal Springs in the East, or Mountain Valley and Primo throughout the country, our consumers can expect high quality and great tasting water, sourced from one of our 70 domestic water sources. Consumers can select our products from multiple price tiers. from a value price of 50 cents per gallon for water sold at a refill station all the way up to our super premium Mountain Valley spring water delivered in multi-format glass bottles direct to their door or sold at retail and at various on-premise locations. Our increased focus on Mountain Valley, which I spoke about last quarter, is delivering results. During the first quarter, we increased our Mountain Valley retail revenue by approximately 57% over the prior year by expanding our glass production capacity. We have launched a convenient nine-pack single-serve aluminum bottle at Whole Foods stores throughout the country, and we'll begin shipping this product to our water direct customers later this month. Mountain Valley is already the number one brand of spring water sold in the natural foods channel. and is now available in more than 12,000 stores in the U.S., including conventional retail stores. We continue to see high levels of demand for our five-gallon, two-and-a-half-gallon retail and on-premise multi-serve and single-user glass products. The second must-win is to be the preferred water solutions partner. We meet the end consumer across numerous channels like direct-to-consumer delivery or through one of our retail partners with our exchange locations or refill stations. We have an offering to meet each of our customers' needs and budget for what we call Water Your Way. The concept of partnering stretches across all aspects of our business, including associates, suppliers, customers, and current and potential share owners. Starts with our associates. I am proud of the work they do and their commitment shows in every aspect of their efforts. Providing a safe environment is job one and is necessary for our associates to thrive. Additionally, we are investing in improvements that include workplace upgrades in offices, locker rooms, break room areas, parking lots, and production and distribution areas. Our associates live in the communities we serve and are passionate about the products and services we provide, and I want them to exhibit the pride in their company as they represent us in the community. As we conduct periodic surveys of our associates, we are noticing a positive shift in the culture and engagement, culminating with an improvement in retention rates. Community involvement includes providing support in times of need, like we did during the recent Texas wildfires. We embrace our partnerships and have been able to deepen our relationships as we span across all types of retail, including mass merchandisers, club stores, DIY, and e-commerce with top tier retailers like Walmart, Costco, Home Depot, Lowe's, and other prominent grocery chains throughout North America. I've had the opportunity to meet with several of these world-class retailers in top-to-top meetings, and I found a strong desire on their part to drive more traffic to their stores with our exchange and refill stations in Mountain Valley-Springwater. During the first quarter, we were able to secure additional display racks within certain retail stores to support capacity in our exchange channel. Our focus on filling wide space voids and increasing capacity and in stocks is having a noticeable effect by driving double digit revenue growth, as well as unit volume growth across the retail space. I have also been meeting with key members of our vendor community. As another area for growth, we've seen opportunity to evolve our relationships with vendors from transactional to strategic partnerships. and to help deliver innovation in our product offering. David and I had more than 50 interactions with investors and analysts in the first quarter. It has been enlightening and educational. These themes included positive feedback regarding our growth algorithm, the sale of our European assets, an appreciation for our strong balance sheet and low leverage, and how we plan to deploy capital in the coming quarters. I'd like to personally thank the investor base for the level of engagement as sustaining, deepening, and enriching these partnerships means we can win for the long haul. The third must-win is operational excellence, specifically ensuring that we have an optimized organizational structure and operating systems to guarantee our associates' safety and well-being delivering the highest quality products and service, and scale efficiently as we continue to grow organically and through acquisitions. During the first quarter, we began implementing some six- and seven-day delivery schedules as we prepare to head into our traditionally busy period of the summer. We were able to maintain our on time in full rate of 93% in our water direct channel for the first quarter. Our refill channel had machine uptime of 97%, ensuring product availability for our customer base. Throughout our operations, we are driving integrated business processes. Successful implementation will provide technology enabled solutions to increase customer satisfaction and reduce overall costs. The latest example of our technology upgrade is the current rollout of a new fleet transportation management system as part of what we call Automatic Route Optimization 2.0, which is driving even more efficiencies in water direct and exchange. During the first quarter, we increased our revenue per route by 8%, and units per route per day by 5%, an indication of improved asset utilization, route density, and volume and pricing improvements. The same principles are now being employed in the optimization of our refill routes, enabling us to extract more value from our team of technicians and service providers. We are focused on strategic CapEx investments that deliver high returns. The installation of the new high-efficiency production lines continues, and we expect our Ephrata, Pennsylvania production line to be complete in the second quarter and our Chicago facility later this year. The performances of the high-efficiency line installations are driving a reduction of water waste at the filler and can nearly double the output capacity of the bottling line. Advancements in robotics can be utilized to assist some of the more strenuous aspects of our plant and distribution functions, freeing up our associates to focus on the quality aspects of their roles. And quality remains at the forefront of what we do. The team remains focused on delivering the previously announced business optimization program that will enhance not only our productivity, but also lower our overall cost to serve while continuing to offer customers an exceptional experience. We remain committed to delivering the annual run rate savings of $20 million by year end 2024. From a sustainability perspective, we strive to source and process responsibly to protect the planet we inhabit. We will continue to implement an environmental strategy that is focused on sourcing water responsibly, converting our fleets to more eco-friendly propane, reusing, refilling, and recycling of our plastic bottles, and increasing the use of glass and aluminum as part of our product offering. We offer high-quality, healthy hydration solutions whether you're at home, work, are on the go with water delivery, exchange, and refill in our large format returnable, reusable, and refillable package that is 100% recyclable at the end of its life. I intend for us to remain a leader in this space, and I am proud of the results and improvements that will be contained in our 2023 sustainability report. which is expected later this quarter. I hope you can understand why I'm excited about the growth potential in front of us. We have a clear plan to deliver success with a good balance of volume and pricing. Our unique combination of associates, assets, and resources are capable of delivering results that benefit all our stakeholders. Before I turn the call over to David, to review our financial results in greater detail and provide our second quarter and full year 2024 outlook. I would like to once again thank all our Primo Water Associates for their support and contribution to the excellent performance of the business. With that, I'll turn the call over to David.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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