Constellation Brands Inc (STZ) — Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Thank you, Darryl. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Constellation Brands Q2 fiscal '24 conference call. I'm here this morning with Bill Newlands, our CEO; and Garth Hankinson, our CFO. As a reminder, reconciliations between the most directly comparable GAAP measures and any non-GAAP financial measures discussed on this call are included in our news release or otherwise available on the company's website. Please refer to the news release and Constellation's SEC filings for risk factors, which may impact forward-looking statements made on this call. Following the call, we'll also be making available in the Investors section of our company's website, a series of slides that highlight the prepared remarks shared by Bill and Garth in today's call. Before turning the call over to Bill, in line with prior quarters, I would like to ask that we limit everyone to one question per person, which will help us to end our call on time. Thanks in advance, and now here's Bill.

Thank you, Joe, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our Q2 fiscal '24 call. In terms of key headlines for the second quarter, I'm pleased to report that our team once again delivered solid overall performance. First of all, our beer business led the charge as the number one share gainer with accelerating shares across the key summer holiday. We continue to invest in growth for this business as our team looks to seize opportunities to gain incremental awareness and shelf space for our brands in the back half and beyond. Secondly, our Wine and Spirits Business continues to progress along its journey to realize the full benefits of its transformation. Prioritized investments in our largest Wine and Spirits higher-end brands are yielding outperformance in their respective categories, while partially offsetting and helping to reduce headwinds from our mainstream brands as they continue to shift the mix profile of our portfolio. And third, our continued discipline around capital allocation priorities contributed to a strong overall performance in the quarter and sets the stage for fiscal '24, being another solid year of profitable growth and shareholder returns. That said, let me provide a little more color around our key performance drivers in the quarter. As noted, our beer team once again delivered remarkable results. Not only did we remain the top share gainer over the entire critical summer season, we also extended our leading position from Cinco de Mayo to become the number one share gainer in tracked channels during the 4th of July holiday. I'm also pleased to report that we further accelerated our share gains during Labor Day. Modelo Especial remained the key driver of our strong performance, achieving double-digit volume growth in tracked channels and an 8.6% increase in depletions, ultimately strengthening its position as the top brand across the entire U.S. beer market and dollar sales fiscal year-to-date. The broader Modelo brand family also delivered phenomenal results, with Cheladas achieving 50% volume growth in tracked channels and an increase in depletions of over 40%, while Oro continues to build on a solid launch, increasing its share gains in the overall beer category and performing in line with our plans for the fiscal year. Beyond Modelo, our Corona Extra and Pacifico core beer brands also continued to perform strongly. Corona Extra delivered solid low single-digit growth in depletions and tracked channel volumes and was the number six share gainer in the category, while Pacifico achieved 15% depletion growth with tracked channel volume growth of approximately 27%, making it the number 11 top share gainer in tracked channels. Our beer brands continue to resonate strongly with the consumer, driving demand for our brands in the second quarter, which supported double-digit net sales and operating income growth in our beer business. This gives us confidence to shift our fiscal ‘24 net sales and operating income guidance for the beer business to the higher end of our initial ranges, that is 8% to 9% and 6% to 7% growth, respectively. It is important to remember that only 45% of total volume for the fiscal year will be shipped in the second half, aligning with the regular seasonality of beer demand in the U.S. and the timing of our brewery maintenance activities. Beyond fiscal ‘24, we continue to see significant opportunities to maintain the growth momentum of our beer business, particularly due to the resilience of key secular trends such as ongoing consumer-led premiumization across beverage alcohol and the continued outsized growth of the Hispanic population in the U.S., as well as the relentless focus of our beer business on closing the distribution and awareness gaps that still exist across our brands and developing and scaling new products aligned with consumer-led trends. We look forward to sharing more details on this compelling outlook at our upcoming Investor Day on November 2. Moving on to Wine and Spirits. Our Wine and Spirits business continues to make headway on its vision to become a bold and innovative higher-end market leader. In the second quarter, our largest premium wine brands, Meiomi and Kim Crawford, outperformed their corresponding category segments in U.S. tracked channels, increasing their respective shares in the overall wine category. Our largest Fine Wine & Craft Spirits brands, the Prisoner Wine Company and our Mi Campo tequila brand also outperformed their corresponding luxury wine and higher-end spirits category segments. Notably, all the individual brands mentioned delivered solid depletion growth rates in the second quarter. Our Wine and Spirits business also continues to advance the renovation of its mainstream brands to address the headwinds faced in the corresponding category segments over the past quarters. While there is certainly more work to be done here, in U.S. tracked channels, the year-over-year dollar sales decline for Woodbridge improved relative to the first quarter and SVEDKA's overall share remained relatively stable when compared to the first quarter. Nevertheless, we are reiterating guidance for the full year, continuing to expect fiscal '24 organic net sales to remain relatively stable and operating income growth of 2% to 4%. As we shared when we provided our outlook for fiscal '24, we see the year as a tale of two halves for the wine and spirits business, with 55% of planned volume being delivered in the second half. We anticipate benefiting from more proactive quarterly shipment and depletion rebalancing actions compared to last year, as well as improvement in our direct-to-consumer channels and an improved mix from incremental ASPIRA shipments inline with seasonality, along with benefits from recent price increases. Ultimately, we also expect to see operating margins meaningfully accelerate due to the improved sales trends and the resulting positive operating leverage. Before I conclude, I'd be remiss not to highlight our consistent execution against our capital allocation priorities. We continue to make progress towards our reduced net leverage ratio of approximately 3 times with a 400 basis point reduction since the increase resulting from the financing of our Class B common stock reclassification last November. Proactive management of the incremental debt from the reclassification now positions us to deliver lower interest expense than initially anticipated for fiscal '24. Consequently, we now anticipate higher reported and comparable earnings per share, excluding Canopy, in the ranges of $9.60 to $9.80 and $12.00 to $12.20 respectively, for the full year. Regarding cash returns to shareholders, our dividend payout ratio for the second quarter remained aligned with our 30% target. While we did not conduct any additional share repurchases in Q2, we executed $35 million year-to-date in line with our goal to offset dilution. Lastly, our brewery expansions are progressing as planned, including Veracruz, and we continue to bring these online with the flexibility enabled by our modular approach. As a reminder, our upcoming release of our annual ESG Impact Report will be available in a few weeks. This report seeks to provide a comprehensive review of our strategy, initiatives, targets, and performance addressing significant environmental and societal needs important to our business and other stakeholders. In particular, as noted in our last two calls, we've already surpassed our target of restoring 1.1 billion gallons of withdrawals from local watersheds. We look forward to showcasing initiatives in our beer business that drive this achievement and sharing more details on our new target in our upcoming ESG Impact Report. In closing, I'd like to leave you with four main takeaways from this quarter. First, our beer business continues to outperform the industry, and the acceleration of its performance since the beginning of the year has given us confidence to shift our outlook for fiscal '24 to the higher end of our initial net sales and operating income growth expectations. Second, the benefits of our Wine and Spirits strategy continue to take hold, and we expect net sales growth and operating income growth for that business to ramp up through the remainder of fiscal '24. Third, we are persistently delivering on our capital allocation priorities, maintaining discipline and balance to yield value and returns, and we remain committed to building on the consistent track record we've established with these priorities over the past few years. Finally, we are excited to share more of these important topics with you at our upcoming Investor Day in four weeks' time. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Garth, who will review our financial results for Q2 in more detail.

Thank you, Bill, and good morning, everyone. Our second quarter results reflect the ongoing disciplined execution of our strategic initiatives and our relentless focus on continuing to deliver growth while enhancing our performance. As Bill noted, we achieved yet another strong quarter with double-digit net sales and operating income growth in our beer business, while our Wine and Spirits business delivered solid performance across its largest premium, fine wine, and craft spirits brands, which partially offset the category headwinds affecting our mainstream brands. We also continue to generate strong cash flow results and execute against our consistent and balanced capital allocation priorities. Now let's review our Q2 fiscal '24 results in more detail, focusing mainly on comparable basis financial results. Our beer business increased net sales by 12%, representing an uplift of $253 million. This was driven primarily by volume growth of 8.7% as demand for our beer brands accelerated through the first half of the fiscal year. This growth also benefited from favorable pricing, contributing $59 million to the overall net sales increase. As a reminder, we expect pricing to account for 1% to 2% of our net sales increase this fiscal year from the wraparound impact from significant pricing actions taken in Q3 of fiscal '23 and targeted pricing actions we are taking in fiscal 2024. In the second quarter of fiscal '24, beer shipment volume and depletions were generally in line with one another. I’m pleased to report that our inventories are at healthy levels to support the ongoing growth of our brands. Beer depletion growth for the quarter came in at 7.9%, reflecting a successful summer selling season driven by ongoing consumer demand across our industry-leading beer portfolio. This is evidenced by our share gain acceleration; execution of our distribution and marketing strategies, including extending our category leadership across the key summer season; and continued positive results from our Shopper-First Shelf initiative, along with accelerated share gains across our core and emerging markets. Before moving to on-premise performance, I'd like to explain a notable recent development in off-premise channel observation. As many of you are aware, Circana tracked channel volume growth has historically been above depletion growth by a low single-digit variance. However, that variance has recently expanded to the mid-single-digit range as independent retailers, not captured by Circana data, have lagged in reversing additional pricing beyond our October fiscal '23 pricing actions. We believe this has led certain consumers to shift from these independent retailers to chain retailers offering more competitive pricing. While the shift in these variances has no impact on the overall demand for our brands, we will continue to monitor channel performance and plan to provide updates or insights needed to reconcile tracked channel data with our overall performance as warranted. As a reminder, Circana captures about 50% of our total beer volumes. Shifting back to the on-premise channel, depletions were flat year-over-year and accounted for approximately 10.3% of our total beer volume. While we experienced minor disruptions in our supply of kegs during the second quarter, this Q1 to Q2 step down largely reflects a normal seasonal pattern we've seen in previous years. Importantly, while there is some disruption in the near-term, we are currently producing and shipping kegs and fully expect to offset those disruptions as quickly as possible. Looking forward to the second half of the year, as noted, approximately 45% of our volumes will ship and that period is our lower volume period. Additionally, Q3 shipment volumes are normally subdued due to routine maintenance activities. Lastly, from a pricing perspective, we will start to overlap the uplift we saw from significant incremental pricing actions taken in October of fiscal '23. Nonetheless, as we've previously stated, we expect our full-year shipments and depletions to be largely in line, both on an absolute and year-over-year growth basis by fiscal year-end. Regarding selling days, they were flat year-over-year for the quarter. Please note, for the remainder of fiscal '24, Q3 sales days will be flat year-over-year and there will be one more selling day in Q4. Now let me review beer margins. For Q2, operating margin decreased by 60 basis points to 39.9%. This decrease was primarily driven by ongoing inflationary pressures in our costs of goods sold (COGS), as we faced an overall cost increase of approximately 17%. The key drivers of these cost increases came from packaging and raw materials and higher depreciation, which amounted to $12 million or a 24% increase. To mitigate inflationary and depreciation pressures, we continue to work across the business on cost efficiency and operational productivity programs that have yielded meaningful and sustainable benefits. Building on the $30 million of net savings delivered by these initiatives in the first quarter, we realized an approximately $20 million in incremental net savings in the second quarter. In addition to our cost-saving initiatives, we incurred margin benefits from the following: a $4 million or 2% decrease in marketing expense, primarily driven by the divestiture of our craft beer business; marketing as a percent of sales came in at 7.1% for the quarter; and a $3 million or 3% decrease in SG&A expense, which was primarily due to favorable foreign currency impacts. Regarding Q2, our marketing spend as a percent of net sales was outside our previously stated algorithm of 9% to 10%. Part of this relatively lower percentage is a reflection of strong volume and therefore net sales performance of the business due to category seasonality. However, the impact of reduced marketing due to the exit from craft beer has further lowered that percentage. For the full year, we expect to be closer to the lower end of our stated range of 9% to 10% of net sales due to these divestitures and our continued focus on ensuring our marketing investments prioritize the highest return areas in our portfolio. As a result of the acceleration in the growth of our beer business since the beginning of the year, we are now shifting our expectations for fiscal '24 to the higher end of our initial ranges, resulting in an 8% to 9% expected increase in net sales growth and a 6% to 7% expected increase in operating income growth. Now, moving on to our Wine and Spirits Business. In line with the reshaping of our offerings to a higher-end portfolio, we continue to benefit from solid performance across our largest premium wine, fine wine, and craft spirits brands. Meiomi, Kim Crawford, The Prisoner Wine Company, and Mi Campo, as noted earlier, outperformed their corresponding categories in tracked channels and delivered solid depletion growth. While we are pleased with the results from these leading higher-end brands, our overall Wine and Spirits organic net sales were down 11%, driven primarily by the category headwinds we continue to face from the performance of our larger mainstream brands, Woodbridge and SVEDKA. Our plans to renovate Woodbridge and SVEDKA are underway, and our leadership team looks forward to sharing updates on this progress at our upcoming Investor Day. Organic shipments decreased by 15% and depletions decreased by approximately 8%. Approximately 55% of the Wine and Spirits sales are anticipated to occur in the second half, wherein we expect to see a continued shift towards the higher end, supporting what we believe will be an acceleration in the growth trajectory of the business for the remainder of the year. Wine and Spirits operating income, excluding gross profit less marketing, from brands no longer part of the business following their divestiture, was down 12%, and operating margin decreased 10 basis points to 18.2%, reflecting the same exclusion. The margin decline was primarily driven by volume decreases in our mainstream brands, partially offset by lower material costs from sustainable packaging projects and supply chain savings. Looking ahead, we expect to see significant improvements in the Wine and Spirits Business's net sales growth trajectory for the rest of the fiscal year through contributions from our higher-end portfolio and incremental pricing actions. We remain confident in the outlook for Wine and Spirits for the year, and our guidance for that business for fiscal '24 remains unchanged. Moving on to the rest of the P&L: Corporate expenses totaled approximately $67 million, an overall reduction of 19% compared to the prior year, primarily driven by reduced spend in our digital business acceleration program and lower headcount-related costs. Interest expense for the quarter was approximately $111 million, a 17% increase from the prior year, driven by higher weighted average interest rates on a portion of our debt with adjustable rates and higher average borrowings due to the financing of the share reclassification. However, we now expect full-year interest expense to be approximately $460 million, roughly $40 million lower than our prior guidance due to refinancing actions for some higher interest debt and faster-than-expected deleveraging throughout the year. We ended the quarter with a net leverage ratio of approximately 3.2 times, excluding Canopy equity earnings, and we expect to continue making progress towards our three times ratio target over the coming quarters. Our comparable effective tax rate, excluding Canopy equity and earnings for the quarter, was 17.8% compared to 20.3% last year. For fiscal '24, we continue to expect the comparable effective tax rate to be approximately 19%. Moving to free cash flow, we generated $1 billion year-to-date, a 15% decrease versus the prior year, driven by a 34% increase in capital expenditures attributable to capacity expansions at our Nava and Obregon facilities and the construction of our new brewery in Veracruz. As of Q2, we fully commissioned our latest brewing capacity project at Obregon, totaling approximately 47 million hectoliters across our two breweries. Looking ahead, we remain on track to bring our ABA facility online at Nava by the end of this fiscal year. Development at our additional expansion at Obregon and our third brewery site at Veracruz is on schedule. We continue to expect fiscal '24 free cash flow of $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion, reflecting operating cash flow between $2.4 billion and $2.6 billion and CapEx of $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion. Our comparable EPS for the quarter, excluding Canopy equity and earnings, was $3.80. Due to the continued profitable and disciplined growth we've experienced, we are raising fiscal '24 reported EPS guidance to between $9.60 and $9.80 and comparable EPS guidance, excluding Canopy equity and earnings, to be between $12 and $12.20. Our announced dividend of $0.89 per share will lead to approximately $163 million returned to shareholders for the quarter. In closing, I'd like to say our team is executing and delivering against our strategic priorities. We demonstrated solid execution in the first half of fiscal '24 and as we enter the second half of the year, we plan to remain disciplined in driving long-term profitable growth and enhancing shareholder value. Our management team looks forward to meeting with many of you this November as we lay out our medium and long-term ambitions and vision for Constellation Brands at our Investor Day. With that, Bill and I are happy to take your questions.

Hi, thank you. Good morning.

You bet.

So, obviously, very strong one half results in the year. I've been getting a lot of questions on why the positive revision to guidance wasn't a little bit more robust. And, obviously, Bill, you laid out some of the factors to contemplate from a shipment perspective as well as from the lapping of pricing that Garth called out as well. But is there anything incremental that you can offer in terms of your outlook for the category in the back half that might have informed a little bit more caution as well? Thanks.

No. We remain very positive about the back half of the year. The critical things that are important relative to our back half are normal seasonality. We only do 45% in the back half, and we do our maintenance in Q3, which always limits Q3 somewhat. Additionally, we are up against pricing from last year that won't largely be repeated combined with the normal sales buildup ahead of price increases that occurred again in Q3 of last year. Looking at the takeout data you see in tracked channels, our four-week numbers are very consistent with the 52-week numbers. This is an ongoing growth story in which we have a lot of confidence, which is why we raised our expectations for the year in beer. We expect to have a very strong second half.

Thank you. Good morning. I was hoping to see if you can comment a bit on the shelf resets in the category, large, how you're seeing consumers. I understand the CAG situation and the on-premise consumption. Just hearing, obviously, the shift in market share and you were a beneficiary, and you have been doing a lot of work for a long, long time in the shelf resets. Can you comment on that, and how you're looking at as you go into the spring resets in the large boxes as well as what’s happening in the on-premise? Thank you.

Certainly. We expect to see a strong reset period. Some limited resets occur in the fall, but most of those occur in the spring. Our confidence around that primarily drives from the sheer velocities we have within our key brands. Our portfolio is second to none in terms of delivering against velocities. Those have been consistent year-on-year, which gives us a lot of confidence in our ability to continue to see shelf set gains. Retailers are smart about this and recognize where the growth and velocity are coming from, which will work strongly to our advantage as those resets occur.

Yes, thank you. Good morning, everyone.

Hi, Nik.

Bill, I was hoping you could comment on systems and supply chain volume. A lot of your growth is coming in areas that were not really driving your growth, let's say, 5 to 10 years ago. So getting the right volume in the right place at the right time requires some adjustment and probably some systems overhaul. I was wondering if A, if that is a valid point; and B, if it is, what you're doing internally to ensure that you have the most optimized supply chain?

Certainly. A couple of things stand out. A few years ago, we had no redundancy in the system. We now do, providing much greater flexibility in our operations footprint. This ensures we can keep up with increasing demand and react to accelerated growth scenarios. We've also made significant investments in our digital business efforts, paying dividends in terms of our supply chain capability. That has refined our overall supply chain capabilities, which have been critically important to maintain and meet substantial demand increases. We plan to discuss this in depth at our Investor Meeting on November 2nd.

Hi, good morning, guys.

Hi, Dara.

So just two quick clarity questions. The mid-single-digit gap versus Circana data that you saw in this quarter in terms of depletions, do you think that lingers? Might that close back towards the low single-digit gap going forward? Just conceptually, how do you think about that? And in your answer to Andrea's question around shelf space, is there more opportunity this year than a typical year, just given ABI's business is obviously falling off unexpectedly after the spring reset? So, do you think of the shelf space opportunity as greater than typical, given these dynamics?

Yes. Regarding the mid-single-digit variance, it remains to be seen. It's certainly more than usual, but whether it returns to the norm of low single-digits remains to be seen. We'll be monitoring this carefully. Relative to the shelf sets, we believe this is an excellent opportunity for us for all the reasons I mentioned previously; our velocities are second to none. We expect our strong brand performance to aid our shelf space expansion, including opportunities for new product development.

Great. Thanks very much. It's a macro-related question. Bill, one of the questions we get a lot is on student loan repayments. They're going to resume this month after a three-year pause. How are you thinking about the impact from that, maybe the potential for downtrading, just given some of the premium price points on your beer products? Any color there would be great. Thank you.

That remains to be seen. An important point is the consumer loyalty attached to our brands. For example, we over-index with the Hispanic community, which enjoys strong brand loyalty to Modelo and Corona. People make choices about their discretionary income, and brand strength is essential in those decisions. While it remains uncertain, we are confident in our ability to see our brands continue gaining traction due to this brand loyalty.

Hi. Two questions for me, please. Coming back to Modelo Oro. Could you share any updated data points, especially regarding cannibalization? How would you characterize that incremental consumer? Regarding the voluntary product recall, can you quantify the impact this has had in the quarter, both on top-line and on margins? Thank you.

Sure. Regarding Oro, it’s off to a great start, and the cannibalization rates were less than we anticipated, even lower than in the three test markets. We're particularly pleased with its reception in the Hispanic community. We plan to introduce additional SKUs next year to support this brand's growth. Garth, do you want to address the second part?

Yes. The impact from the CAG recall was entirely in the cost of goods related to shipping and destruction of products, as well as the initial cost to produce the product. It wasn’t a material movement for us for the quarter. More detail will be included in the 10-Q.

Thanks, operator. Good morning, everyone.

Good morning.

Could you provide some perspective on demand elasticity and consumer tolerance of inflation? What economizing behavior might you be seeing, particularly with the pressures in your beer and wine and spirits segments? Are shoppers buying more at chain convenience versus independents? Any insight would be helpful.

Our judicious approach to pricing has been spot on. We’ve consistently maintained a 1% to 2% annual increase. It's much easier to keep a consumer than to lose them. Currently, we observe that while people may make more shopping trips, they’re generally spending less per trip due to the inflationary environment. However, they remain loyal to our brands, which positively affects our performance.

Hi everyone. Garth, can you comment on how inflation is coming in relative to your expectations entering the year? What puts and takes have you observed? Additionally, could you provide context on gross margin delivery in the quarter relative to expectations, especially regarding the back half of the year?

Yes, as a reminder, we expect our beer operating margin for this fiscal year to be around 38%. That remains unchanged. Q2 is traditionally our highest margin quarter due to the volume associated with Q2. In the second half, we will continue facing inflationary pressures, but we’ve seen some easing as the year has progressed. However, a strengthening peso may offset these improvements. Additionally, the traditionally lower volume in the second half affects fixed cost absorption and COGS, as well as potentially escalating marketing and depreciation costs.

Can you hear me?

We do.

We can.

Quickly, I was going to ask about wine industry growth and against the backdrop of your comments on Woodbridge/SVEDKA's performance and the higher-end brands. How do you view the path forward for wine versus beer versus spirits? I am guessing we will dive into this further at the Investor Day, but could you briefly preview your view on long-term growth in wine?

Certainly, it's a tale of two cities. The lower-end business has been challenged, down mid to high single-digits, which is difficult for us, given our involvement. Conversely, the higher end is outperforming significantly, as brands like Meiomi and Kim Crawford gain share. Notably, 55% of our Wine and Spirits sales occur in the second half, where we anticipate a continued shift towards premium offerings supporting growth. We'll cover these details in depth during our Investor Day.

Thank you, and thank you all again for joining our call today. We're very pleased with our performance in the first half of fiscal 2024. As anticipated, our beer business further accelerated during its seasonally strongest period to deliver excellent results. In our Wine and Spirits portfolio, our higher-end brands continued to outperform and tracked channels, and we're looking forward to acceleration in growth for that business over the second half. All told, we remain confident in our outlook for the full year and tightened expectations for growth in our beer business at the higher end of the initial range while increasing our overall EPS outlook as we drove interest expense lower due to proactive debt management. I encourage you to tune in for our upcoming Investor Day on November 2nd, where we'll share our latest perspective on the medium-term outlook for our business. Further details on accessing this event will be available through our Investor Relations website. Thank you again for joining us today, and we look forward to seeing most of you, if not all of you, on November 2.