Church & Dwight Co. Inc (CHD) — Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Thank you all for joining us today. This is our 2024 Analyst Day, and we are excited to have our sell-side analyst friends and key shareholders with us. Let’s get started. We have a Safe Harbor statement that I encourage everyone to review later. Our management team is here, and I believe you will agree they are quite impressive. We have a busy agenda, with several speakers discussing financials, new products, digital initiatives, and our international strategy. Reflecting on 2023, we had a strong year with reported growth at 9% and organic growth at 5%, along with a gross margin expansion of 220 basis points. We achieved all-time high market shares in many major brands, and our marketing spending came close to 10.9%, down from our historical average of around 11%. Additionally, we generated $1 billion in cash from operations and continued our investments in capacity for laundry, litter, and vitamins. Our Total Shareholder Return (TSR) shows our performance over one, three, five, and ten years, which is important for our shareholders. After a tough year in 2022, we made a solid recovery in 2023, and we are confident about our growth in the US. We’ve revised our evergreen model to predict 3% growth in the US and expect 8% growth internationally. We have a fantastic lineup of new products coming in 2024, maintaining our long-standing commitment to innovation, and our online sales now account for 20%, exceeding $1 billion. We are a $6 billion company with a strong domestic focus, as 78% of our revenue is from the US. Our original business, Specialty Products, dates back to the 1840s. While we traditionally highlighted 14 power brands, we are now focusing our communications to investors on seven key brands that represent larger categories and significant potential for global growth. These brands—THERABREATH, VITAFUSION, HERO, ARM & HAMMER, WATERPIK, BATISTE, and OXICLEAN—make up 70% of our revenues and profits. Our success comes from having a well-balanced and diversified business model with a low exposure to private labels, robust innovation, and a history of successful acquisitions. Historically, our business has split roughly 50-50 between household and personal care products, and while we used to see a 40-60 split between value and premium segments, the growth of brands like THERABREATH and HERO has shifted this slightly. Looking back to 2004, when we were at $1.5 billion in sales, we have grown nearly fourfold to almost $6 billion in 2023. Our acquisition criteria are stringent, focusing on top-tier brands with strong growth, high margins, and significant competitive advantages. In summary, we have a balanced portfolio essential for our long-term success, low exposure to private labels, a commitment to innovation that bolsters brand equity, and a track record of successful acquisitions. Now, I’ll hand it over to Rick to delve into the financial details.

Thanks, Matt. I'll discuss the quarter, the full year, our strong finish, our outlook, and our updated evergreen model. First, for the quarter, our net sales growth outlook was 5%, with organic growth at 4%. We achieved 6.4% and 5.3%, so overall, our top line performed better than expected. Gross margin expanded by 260 basis points compared to last year, and EPS also increased, resulting in positive results across the board. For the full year, we anticipated a 9% growth for the top line and 5% for organic, and we exceeded those expectations with 9.2% and 5.3%. Gross margin was projected to increase by 210 basis points but outperformed at 220. Both reported and adjusted EPS came in better than expected. In terms of cash flow, we projected $1 billion but achieved $1.3 billion, demonstrating strong cash flow performance. Now regarding the evergreen model, I frequently reference this because it underpins our company. We expect 3% organic net sales growth, 25 basis points of gross margin expansion, flat marketing percentage with higher spending, and SG&A leveraged by 25, leading to 8% EPS growth. This model has remained consistent for years, and today, we're updating it to reflect a growth expectation of 4% moving forward, driven by confidence in our future performance. Looking at historical performance, we have consistently achieved 4% growth. We're optimistic about splitting this into 3% domestic, 8% international, and 5% for SPD. As for gross margin, we believe productivity improvement is accelerating with moderating inflation and supportive fast-growing acquisitions. Our marketing spending remains flat percentage-wise but involves increased investment to foster brand growth. Although we'll leverage SG&A, perhaps not as aggressively as before, we're focusing investments primarily on international markets and e-commerce. Operating margin is expected to expand by 50 basis points with industry-leading growth at 8%, which reflects our new model. When considering organic growth, we have strong confidence rooted in our presence in fast-growing categories. Our recent acquisitions like THERABREATH and HERO are performing well, and we see international growth at an accelerating rate of 8%. Productivity is currently outpacing inflation in regards to gross margins, with effective marketing ROI translating into increased spending. Moving into 2024, our outlook is promising. We anticipate top-line growth of 4% to 5%, organically the same, excluding MEGALAC and currency effects. We project gross margin improvements of 50 to 75 basis points, with SG&A leverage and operating profit expected to surpass prior figures, reaching an increase of 60 to 80 basis points. Our tax rate may rise slightly, while we estimate EPS growth at 7% to 9%, and we aim for over $1 billion in cash from operations. Our EPS projection shows stability in the first half, with growth occurring in the second half, influenced by a shift in our marketing strategy to support significant new product launches. The first half of 2023 was a strong comparison with an 11% EPS growth, and we're targeting 8% to 10% EPS growth excluding MEGALAC. The MEGALAC impact accounts for a 1% drag leading to a 7% to 9% growth forecast overall. Additionally, the tax rate presents a 2% headwind, but our operating performance remains strong.

Good afternoon, everybody. I think Rick likes when I go right after the dividend slide to remind me I've got an obligation to keep it going, so 123 years strong and some more good quarters ahead. So I'm Barry Bruno. I'm responsible for our US business. I'm going to talk a little bit about our categories, the US consumer and what I think is some really great innovation that we've got in our key categories going forward. I'm going to start with a slide I left you with last year, which was we've got great confidence in our future. If you look at the categories in which we compete, and I'll show you a look at the old power brand and the new power brand categories to break them out for you, we're not only leaders in those categories. We're driving growth in those categories. We thrive in difficult environments. You've seen our value percentage of our portfolio. I'll take you through how, on ARM & HAMMER in particular, we bring consumers in tough times, we keep them, we trade them up. And then acquisitions have a ton of room to run, HERO and THERABREATH have been absolutely home runs, and they're in the early innings of that story still, and I'll show you what that looks like. So this slide was getting a little complicated, right? This is our old 14 power brand prior look, 17 categories. As we got into new categories, the chart got longer and longer. You can see which in 2023 we're growing, mid-single-digit growth, high single-digit growth, pretty strong. But when you look at the new look of our seven power brands and these compete in eight categories, just as a reminder, ARM & HAMMER competes in laundry and litter, of course, seven brands, eight categories, incredibly strong growth, right? 11% in 2021, 18% in 2022 and then 16.9% on top of that. And we're driving a lot of that growth and I'll show you that in just a little bit. But these are exciting healthy categories to be in. Matt talked about these a little bit, too. So our portfolio has changed a little over time. So we're 63% premium, 37% value, still incredibly valuable to us in tough economic times as we bring consumers in and low private label exposure of 12%. And then the third reason for confidence is about these new acquisitions. When we met with you over the last two years talking about THERABREATH and HERO, it's been about our ability to build distribution to bring these to more and more consumers, and you can see the success that we're having. THERABREATH up 57% in terms of distribution last year and lots of room to run to catch up with the big guys, and HERO is another great story as well, up 200% last year and tons of room to keep growing. And that's just in MULO, that's in measured channels. If you look at it from a numerator standpoint, mouthwash is in 63% of US households today. THERABREATH is only in 7%. And you can see the growth we're making from 1% to 2% to 3% to 4% to 7%, great growth, but there's a ton of households where we're not in just yet. And so there's room to run there. And HERO is the same story. HERO almost didn't exist five years ago with a 0.2% household penetration, up to 6.4% today. You can see the rate of growth accelerating. So whether you measure MULO or you measure numerator households, tons of room to run on acquisitions. So let's look at some category and consumer dynamics. Now, we're going to start with our largest brand, ARM & HAMMER and one of our largest categories, Fabric Care. And the look back is a pretty compelling story of growth from a five share to an all-time share high, 14.4% last year on top of an all-time share high in the prior year. And all of that growth has been driven, as we've talked with you, about being anchored in the value tier of the laundry detergent category. That's about 30% of the category. But I'm happy to be talking today about ARM & HAMMER Deep Clean, our most powerful formula and our first entry into the mid-tier segment. And to give you some idea, that's about 27% of the category. The mid-tier, we haven't played there today. And we're thrilled about this new formula that's going to be launching in Q1 in 2024. And just to break it out for you, so you can see our architecture, we've got our core ARM & HAMMER products. Those are our better products, ARM & HAMMER Good, ARM & HAMMER plus OXICLEAN Better and now with Deep Clean, our best formula and the best anchor in our architecture. And we are telling consumers about this new formula starting very soon, and I'll play one of the spots.

I'm Surabhi Pokhriyal, the Chief Digital Growth Officer at Church & Dwight. To provide some quick context, while we all use consumer goods, we might not always delve into complex details. It’s important to clarify that we're not focused solely on driving online shopping, but rather on being present where consumers shop, which increasingly means online. In fact, 70% of purchases in the US are influenced by digital interactions. This indicates that when you use your smartphone or tablet, you’re not only making decisions to shop online but also influencing in-store purchases by looking up reviews. This illustrates what we mean by digitally influenced purchases. Moreover, we are in an age of channel-less commerce, where consumers fluidly switch between shopping at physical stores, online, or making late-night orders for delivery. Understanding the distinction between the physical shelf and the digital shelf is crucial. The physical shelf is typically set once or twice a year and remains the same, whereas the digital shelf constantly changes. Therefore, our strategies must be tailored for the online environment. In just under seven years, we've seen remarkable e-commerce penetration in our categories. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been sustained momentum in nearly all our categories, as consumers who have embraced convenience tend to stick with it. For example, consider the difference between subscribing and receiving a product at your door versus purchasing it in-store. We consistently strive for all-time high market shares, and we have turned to digital media for the majority of our advertising spending. This shift reflects the 80% of consumers who are now engaging more with digital content. Importantly, as we enhance our ability to measure the effectiveness of our media strategies, we're achieving better returns on our investments, allowing us to meet consumers at critical moments more successfully. We focus on creating content that feels authentic to its platform; whether it's a YouTube ad, a Pinterest post, or a TikTok, we design each piece specifically for that medium to foster engagement. The integration of AI in Marketing Technology has also accelerated our creative processes, enabling us to produce content much more rapidly. Furthermore, we aim to simplify the purchasing journey. We know that every additional click can lead to a significant drop in traffic, so we concentrate on streamlining the path from inspiration to purchase into a single click. Our approach has evolved, particularly in the past two years; instead of launching products exclusively in brick-and-mortar stores, we have started testing new products online first. This allows us to gather valuable insights and data before making a broader launch in physical stores. In summary, while we are not just about driving consumers to online shopping, we recognize that online represents substantial growth for us. Our focus remains on online sales and market share growth, measuring our online presence across major platforms like Amazon, Chewy, and others. Our technological advancements in Marketing and Advertising continue to guide our strategies, and we are committed to enhancing efficiency and profitability in our online offerings. We've progressed from digital enhancing capabilities to becoming a core growth driver for Church & Dwight. Now, I’ll hand it over to Mike Read, who will discuss international opportunities, which are also a significant growth area for us. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Mike Read, I lead our International and our SPD business. So, let me just start with the international story. As Rick mentioned earlier, we have upgraded our Evergreen model, so what used to be 6% organic growth we now moved to 8% organic each year. So, an exciting step for the division. If I break that down a bit, we're about $1 billion in size. There's kind of two parts to it. We have six subsidiary markets that go direct to retail. It's about 63% of our total business, Canada, UK, Mexico, Australia, France, and Germany. The remaining 37% is through our Global Markets Group. So, we operate in about 100 different countries. We partner with 400 value distributor partners around the world. So, our Global Markets business has been our fastest growing over the last few years and will continue to do so. And just to make that kind of point, if you go back to 2009, the international division has tripled in size. And during that time, the Global Markets Group has doubled in importance. So, we see that trend continuing well. While we've had strong growth in our subs, we do expect GMG to continue to outpace that. If I just give a summary of 2023, a very strong year. We had a breakout quarter in Q1, almost 12% growth, followed by 6.1% in Q2, 7.3% in Q3, and we finished strongly with 9.0% in Q4. So, a full year organic of 8.5%. We had strong growth across all our subsidiary markets and double-digit growth across our GMG region as well. So, across the board, really strong results. And that just shows the 6% to 8% Evergreen model change. If you look back over a number of years, other than the sort of setback from last year, we've had pretty consistent growth across a number of years and pitching above 8% in 2023 at 8.5%. I think the good news is relative to our peers, we're still very much underdeveloped. So, we have about 17% of our sales as a company comes from international. We are very much in growth mode. Many of our peers are in the 59% to 60% range, so a long runway ahead. But what's most encouraging about that runway is we've got a portfolio that travels extremely well as do our acquisitions. So, we've got a combination of US power brands like ARM & HAMMER, OXICLEAN, VITAFUSION that travel very well, and that's complemented with a strong personal care and OTC portfolio headlined by BATISTE, STERIMAR and FEMFRESH. So, brands that aren't necessarily commercialized in the US that are playing important roles for the International division. I think most notably though is acquisition has been a really big part of the growth story within International. If you go back to a few years back with the acquisition of WATERPIK, that's one of our biggest brands internationally. And we're thrilled with the addition of THERABREATH and HERO. So, just rolling both those brands out globally, both are on track and actually making a big splash already with lots to come. So, we're really excited about adding those two pieces to the portfolio. If I just sort of summarize sort of three key things to think about from an international perspective, Rick talked about some of the investments that we're making, particularly in our GMG group, but we are putting a lot of infrastructure process, IT to just shore up and be able to support the growth that's coming from our Global Markets Group. We've also added a lot of capabilities around portfolio strategy, revenue growth management, and as Surabhi mentioned, just really upskilling our digital e-commerce capability. And certainly, the acquisition additions and just getting on the front foot on both those acquisitions are the focus areas for international.

Long-term shareholders have a solid understanding of the brands, growth rates, and margins. They also appreciate the significance of the company culture. At Church & Dwight, we describe our culture in our Annual Report, noting that we consider ourselves a blue-collar organization. This doesn't refer to a dress code; it means we are hardworking and gritty individuals. Many new employees come from larger consumer packaged goods companies, seeking a more agile environment, and we see ourselves as underdogs compared to our much larger competitors. Over the past five years, we have invested in predictive analytics, emphasizing the importance of data in our meetings. Additionally, we have become more digitally savvy across the company and are committing to increased spending in e-commerce, both in hiring and technology. Our culture also embraces diversity and teamwork, and we are willing to take risks. Larger organizations often become risk-averse and slow in decision-making, which can hinder progress. These aspects of our culture may not be visible in typical analyst reports, but they are crucial to our investments and are what drive our company. Despite facing challenges in 2022, we demonstrated our creativity and resilience, turning things around in 2023. We focus on leveraging brands and addressing environmental concerns, which resonate particularly with younger consumers who value sustainability. Our laundry sheets are an example of our commitment to the environment, as they come in a cardboard box with no plastic. Historically, we have been environmentally conscious long before sustainability became a widespread topic. In 2021, we committed to science-based targets for reducing CO2 emissions, investing in capital programs aimed at sustainability. We pride ourselves on high productivity, generating over $1 million per employee, which is often a trait of startups. We intentionally maintain a lean workforce to focus on what truly matters. Our compensation structure is straightforward, comprising net revenue, gross margin, EPS, and also strategic initiatives that include environmental responsibility, diversity, equity and inclusion, and investments in international markets and e-commerce. When it comes to gross margin expansion, we've revamped our evergreen model to encourage faster growth, allowing us to reinvest in marketing and other areas. Our continuous improvement initiative, Good to Great, speaks to our ongoing development. We also optimize our supply chain by investing in automation and launching new products with higher margins. We pay close attention to leveraging our assets, aiming for a CapEx investment around 2% of sales, while being mindful of the relationship between our cash earnings and our assets. If executed well, these strategies will lead to strong returns. Our success in making strategic acquisitions further enhances our growth; we've grown substantially through these investments while remaining selective in our choices. In conclusion, we anticipate strong organic growth for both 2023 and 2024, with a continuous expansion in our gross margins. Our new product pipeline is robust, and international sales—which currently account for only 17% of our total—present significant opportunities for the future. E-commerce, currently at 20% of our sales, is expected to increase to 30% by the end of the decade. We generate significant cash flow, which positions us well for ongoing brand acquisitions. Now, I’d like to invite the team to join me for further discussion.

Yeah, Steve Powers from Deutsche Bank. Thank you. Two questions on laundry. The first one is just when we look at track data, market shares have been under some pressure across all formats for Church & Dwight of late. It looks like both sort of at the high-end of PNG and as well as the private label. Maybe just some perspective on what you see going on there, if that's emblematic of all channels or just sort of what we see in the track data. And then looking into 2024, specifically with Deep Clean, a little bit more details on the rollout there. Do you expect it to be incremental in terms of phasings for the ARM & HAMMER brand on the shelf, et cetera? Thank you.

Your first question pertains to the decline in the fourth quarter for ARM & HAMMER laundry. As we mentioned in our Q3 call, we identified several promotions from Q4 of 2022 that we decided not to repeat in Q4 of 2023 due to revenue growth management. This decision impacted our market share, but it was the right choice. In the recent weeks ending mid-January, we also reduced promotions, resulting in fewer deals early in January, which was anticipated internally. Regarding your second question about Deep Clean, we are entering the mid-tier market, moving beyond our historical focus on value, and we expect to gain additional market share in this area. We believe this will support our share growth in 2024. Barry, would you like to add anything?

Yeah, sure. Matt, I think you covered it largely, right? So we're going to support the launch of Deep Clean, as you'd expect, as well as fabric sheets. Part of that is going to be part of the share growth story that you're going to see in the months and weeks ahead. And if you look at the last week of track data, share's up in just the last week, if you're bored.

Dara Mohsenian, Morgan Stanley. So Matt, if you go back over time, there's a number of examples in the CPG industry of companies raising long-term top line guidance and then sort of disappointing, kind of analogous to the SI coverage inks, you get confident and unexpected things happen. So maybe in that vein, just obviously, numerically, you've answered the division's international higher growth, domestic a bit higher growth numerically. But what gives you the confidence behind raising the evergreen long-term top line growth target at this point? Maybe give us a little bit of detail within those divisions, what's giving you the confidence. And then also, Rick, margins didn't change in the evergreen target. Top line went up, earnings didn't go up. Is that just rounding? Do you have more confidence in the earnings growth and evergreen, but just that specific question would be helpful.

Past is prologue. So we had a slide up here that showed if you looked over the last 10 years, so what's been our organic growth rate average? It's been 4%. And almost every year, it's above 4%. And often at these meetings, we get the question, how come it's 3%? So we finally fessed up and said, yeah you know what, going forward it's going to be 4%. I mean, it's as simple as that. Now why would we have confidence there? Because we did change how we're going to get to 4%, right? So we said 3% US, 8% international, 5% Specialty Products. International is going to be a juggernaut for us. It's 8% growth. It's in our one big component is Global Markets Group, and that's been doubling every five years. So we do have such great brands. And what we're doing is what our competitors did 30, 40 years ago, is take your products on the road. So I think a lot of faith in the international number. And just international and US are going to benefit from our two most recent acquisitions, which is THERABREATH and HERO. And we're going to be launching HERO in 40 countries in 2024. And we just got so much runway there. So I got total confidence in our ability to grow the top line 4%. Yeah. I guess you can't rest on your laurels since you did 4% for the last 10 years. But given where I stand today and the innovation that we have, I think it's in the bag.

Yes. And then in terms of gross margin, really, you're talking about operating margin, right, 50 basis points didn't change from the prior evergreen model to the current evergreen model. Gross margin, we're raising a lot of confidence. We talked about productivity is offsetting moderate inflation, best productivity program that we've ever had. When Rick came in, our sites were too low on productivity. And so we've made a turn, and the ship has turned and so that's a great place to be in. Inflation is moderating, so good confidence there. But we're going to go spend some of that money back on SG&A for those growth investments to cement this higher evergreen model into the future. And so that's why operating margin doesn't change. But it helps give us more degrees of flexibility, which is great.

Hi, thank you. Anna Lizzul from Bank of America. I was wondering in your evergreen model with the recent revision today, how much is that driven by the success of your more recent acquisitions like HERO and THERABREATH versus the growth of the remainder of the portfolio?

Look, everybody is aware of the fact that we've got two fast-growing brands, but this is not just a one-year look. It's because we've grown 4% for 10 years in a row. And the stable of your portfolio can change over time. And obviously, we got two fast-moving ones. We'll have other ones in the future. So we need to see if it's sustainable and clearly sustainable for the next couple of years because of those two.