Kenvue Inc. (NYSE:KVUE) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript October 28, 2023
Operator: Greetings, and welcome to Kenvue’s Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Darryl, and I’ll be your operator today. [Operator instructions] As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce you to Kenvue’s Vice President of Investor Relations, Tina Romani.
Tina Romani: Good morning, everyone. I am pleased to be joined today by Thibaut Mongon, Chief Executive Officer and Director; and Paul Ruh, Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started, I’d like to remind you that today’s call includes forward-looking statements regarding, among other things, our operating and financial performance, market opportunities, and growth. These statements represent our current beliefs or expectations about future events and are subject to various risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that could cause our actual results to differ materially. For information regarding these risks and uncertainties, please refer to our earnings materials related to this call posted on our website and our filings with the SEC.
A smiling health worker surrounded by medical papers.
During this call, we will also reference certain non-GAAP financial information. The presentation of this non-GAAP financial information is not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for financial information presented in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation of these items to the nearest GAAP measure can be found in this morning’s press release and our presentation available on the Investor Relations section of our company’s website, kenvue.com. And with that, I’m pleased to turn the call over to Thibaut.
Thibaut Mongon: Thank you, Tina. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. I’m pleased to be here with you, hosting our first earnings call as a fully independent company. Since our last call, Kenvue has formally separated from Johnson & Johnson, and we are now included in the S&P 500 Index, solidifying our place as the world’s largest pure-play consumer health company by revenue. It’s hard to believe it has only been two months since J&J completed their successful exchange offer given all we have accomplished this year. So in addition to delivering another healthy quarter with 3.6% organic growth this quarter on top of 4.7% growth last year, we also continued to make tremendous progress standing up Kenvue for success as a stand-alone company.
From the creation of legal entities and to transfer of licenses to the development of fit-for-purpose company policies and build-out of systems, our teams continued to execute our separation plan successfully and on time. We remain on track in building a consumer-focused operating infrastructure while simultaneously bringing to life our purpose to realize the extraordinary power of everyday care and delivering profitable growth. Operating in the attractive consumer health space with an unparalleled portfolio of science-backed, healthcare professional-recommended trusted brands is what drives the resiliency and sustainability of our performance. We do all this in what continues to be a volatile environment, and we are conscious of the impact of the current geopolitical and macroeconomic situation and consumer behavior.
It is our long track record through economic cycles and our performance this year that gives us confidence in the superiority of our model based on brands that are part of daily rituals and designed for moments that matter. Every day, we continue to make sure our brands are attractive for all consumers, and we cultivate their desire for our efficacious, trusted products. Similar to Q2 and consistent with what we have seen historically, while consumers may be trending down in certain discretionary categories, we continue to see strong affinity for our brands and stable private-label penetration. As a stand-alone company, our teams remain focused on advancing consumer health through innovation, bringing new options to market that consumers love, and expanding the reach of our brands in the categories we operate in.
And we see this reflected in the healthy performance of our portfolio again this quarter. Starting with our largest segment, self-care. Once again, this quarter, self-care has demonstrated its ability to serve consumers with trusted solutions when they need them most. Even as unprecedented levels of cold, cough, and flu incidents started to normalize as expected this quarter, we continue to see self-care outperform the market, growing 6.7% on top of a strong 6.9% growth last year, driven by both value realization and positive volumes with all our product categories growing mid- to high single digit. Consumer loyalty to our brands, alongside investments in relevant brand activation, introduction of consumer experience, enhancing innovation, and premiumization continue to foster volume growth and share gains.
Let me share some examples with you. In digestive health, our Imodium and Pepcid brands are outpacing the market as supply recovery and strong consumer demand end up in growth. As consumer preferences shift away from preventive solutions to immediate relief products, our teams strategically launched successful brand activation campaigns that capitalize on this dynamic, ultimately accelerating our share gains during the quarter. In pain care, even with cold and flu incidence levels down and a slow start to the season so far as the weather in the Northern Hemisphere remained unseasonably warm, we are gaining share this year globally through preeminent innovation and product premiumization. Tylenol, the No. 1 pain brand globally, continues to gain share with successful premiumization initiatives and the reintroduction of product activation and display supporting growth through the testament to the brand’s leadership, the enviable consumer and healthcare professional trust and the strength of our teams.
Another standout innovation in this category that deserves highlighting is our recently launched Motrin Dual Action product in the U.S. It combines two core ingredients from two iconic brands, Motrin and Tylenol. And the combination of these two brands is resonating with our consumers with eight hours of relief in pain and inflammation, driving share gain for Motrin. Beyond the U.S., we apply a similar winning formula around the world. In China, for example, Motrin recently expanded into more holistic fever solutions with the successful launch of new Motrin fever patches. Within allergy, while the season remained soft with lower incidence levels this year, we have continued to drive accelerated share gains globally and in our largest market, the U.S. Adult Zyrtec has maintained its No. One branded share leadership for 77 consecutive weeks now and Children’s Zyrtec achieved No. 1 branded share position through an impactful go-to-market strategy and hyped-up outreach to healthcare professionals supporting the successful launch of Children’s Zyrtec Chewables last year.
We also drove share gains for Benadryl in the U.S. with the launch of our extra-strength formula and for our allergy portfolio in China. Smoking cessation had another strong quarter as well. In the U.K., our Nicorette team secured a new indication for vaping cessation. Early indications of consumer response have been strong with Nicorette gaining share and increasing household penetration. This new indication demonstrates Kenvue’s credibility in establishing new standards in the category while also highlighting the opportunity for growth in other markets around the world. Through these examples, you see the Kenvue model at work. We continuously strengthen our leadership positions across product categories, introducing impactful innovations, bringing healthcare professionals new clinical data, and identifying solutions to help address unmet consumer health needs.
And we do this successfully, extending the reach of our iconic brands to deliver sustainable growth. Before I wrap on self-care, I want to take a moment to address the U.S. acetaminophen litigation, which we appreciate late on our engagement with many of you in recent weeks, remains top of mind. As you will understand, I’m limited on what I can say on active litigation. However, even some of the noise and frankly misinformation we have seen lately, I believe we should provide some clarity. Over the past several months, it’s important to note that the only meaningful development in the litigation from our perspective has been that FDA continues to maintain the same pregnancy advice on acetaminophen labels that has been in place for decades. This conclusion is based on multiple reviews since 2014 with the most recent being March 2023 that recent studies do not change FDA’s view on acetaminophen’s safety.
For us at Kenvue, nothing is more important than the health and safety of the people who use our products. We are also concerned about the potential for real public health consequences in allowing claims made in courtrooms to influence medical decisions. Acetaminophen is one of the most studied medications in history and is often recommended by doctors as a first-line treatment option for women who have a fever or experiencing pain during pregnancy. Conditions that, when left untreated, are scientifically known to potentially have serious health consequences for both mother and baby, and we continue to stand behind the safety of our product. Getting back to the third quarter and moving to skin health and beauty, while we are executing on our plans to gradually increase performance, with organic growth about flat this quarter, our current results do not reflect our long-term ambition for the segments nor the underlying strength of our brands.
There were two primary pockets of weakness this quarter in the segment which accounted for about two-third of the 6.8% volume decline: first, the continued impact of the rationalization initiatives we conducted last year; and second, the general market softness in China. Starting with the first, as a reminder, we made the decision in 2022 to discontinue certain codes to focus on the production of core lines while we were experiencing supply chain disruption. These discontinuations resulted in lost points of distribution in the 2022 U.S. retailer Planogram resets. And with Planogram resets occurring annually, our first opportunity to regain a portion of this distribution point is with the full 2023 resets which are happening as we speak. While we expect to still see an impact of the discontinuations in the fourth quarter as these changes take time to materialize in our results, it’s good to see our teams securing a number of wins with the customers’ resets.
Moving to China. We see continued softness in that geography with Chinese consumers being more cautious on spending. As I shared last quarter, we have expected a slower recovery in China. And unfortunately, that’s what we see happening. We remain positive on the long-term prospect in China, though. We have operated there many years and have confidence in the market’s potential longer term, but we need to be patient as we expect continued softness in the market in Q4, and our teams on the ground will continue to be agile and allocate resources according to the opportunities they see in the market. Importantly, despite these two distinct dynamics, we were pleased to see sequential quarter-over-quarter improvement when looking at organic sales on a two-year basis, which factors in some of the unique supply recovery dynamics we are lapping in the back half of 2022.
If we look at the performance of skin health by geography now, in the U.S., our largest market, when excluding the impact of discontinuations, we are pleased to see sequential progress in our recovery plan with some of our core platforms gaining share. This quarter, we expanded our beloved Neutrogena Hydro Boost line by elevating our science, design, and packaging. This includes upgrading the water gel format with dye-free, fragrance-free options, alongside more sustainable packaging, and also introducing our new Hydro Boost Water Cream which delivers nine times more lightweight hydration. These two innovations are in the top three new launches in facial moisturizers, and Hydro Boost won the 2023 PEOPLE Beauty Award in this category, reflecting its status as a category prototype in hydration.
We also had a strong finish to the sun season, growing more than 80% faster than the market and regaining our leadership position through experience-enhancing innovation and compelling brand activation with Neutrogena holding nearly half of the top 10 launches of the category. Building on these successes, we continue to deploy our recovery plan and look forward to sequential improvement in the coming quarters. Outside the U.S., I’ve already spoken about China. But in other markets, we are excited to see positive initial reaction to the reintroduction of innovation and benefits from floor resets completed earlier in the year. This quarter, we have seen skin health and beauty grow mid-teens in both Latin America and Europe. In Latin America, strong performance was driven by strength in sun, coupled with positive customer response to the Neutrogena Hydro Boost innovation I just talked about.
In Europe, momentum continued in Neutrogena, and as you know, with mid-teens growth across priority markets and strong consumer response to the new product innovation our teams launched early in the year. Neutrogena is currently growing twice as fast as the category in Germany, outpacing the competition, fueled by the continued success of our Hydro Boost and Retinol Boost lines. In the U.K., Aveeno continues to accelerate its share growth with the team holding the No. 1 position in body care and also doubling its share in face care less as a year ago. With Europe being the first in the portfolio to launch innovation and completing their full reset early in the year, we believe this market serves as a leading indicator for the remainder of the globe.
While we expect gradual recovery to continue, we acknowledge there is more work ahead. Our brand equities are strong, and these examples of success give us confidence that with the proper support, the segment will deliver over time a level of performance aligned to our long-term ambition. And in essential health with 3.8% organic growth this quarter, essential health continues to deliver ahead of our long-term growth goals for the segment. Our value realization and premiumization strategies continues to perform well with 10 points of value realization, offset by about 6 points of volume. And about 2 points of the volume decline can be attributed to the softness in China I just talked about with the remaining reflecting our prioritization of margin recovery through value realization, as well as certain market and competitive dynamics.
Innovation in oral care, premiumization in women’s health, and strength in the U.S. baby care are fueling our growth. Starting with mouthwash, we continued to see strength with Listerine Gum Therapy in the U.S. Recognizing three out of four adults suffer from some form of gum disease in the U.S., you may remember that we launched earlier this year Listerine Gum Therapy to address this unmet consumer need. Under Listerine, it’s the number one oral care brand in the market. And with acceptance by the American Dental Association, we have seen immediate success post launch with Listerine Gum Therapy quickly winning and holding the No. 1 new product innovation in the mouthwash category. In addition, we also continue to see positive response from healthcare professionals with our five times flossing claim gaining traction around the world, and we see the impact in our performance.
While being roughly five times larger than the next competitor Listerine continues to gain share globally through the strength of our innovation, healthcare professional recommendations, and a strong distribution network. In baby care, our global leadership in baby toiletries remained strong. Johnson’s Baby and Aveeno Baby are the No. 1 and No. 2 brands in the baby toiletries category globally and are eight times and two times bigger than the next closest competitor, respectively. While we continue to see pressure in Asia, in the U.S., our largest market, we see strong growth with Johnson’s Baby and Aveeno Baby gaining share with supply recovery, value realization, and the successful launch of Aveeno Kids, which is driving substantial growth, becoming the fastest-growing brand in the U.S. kids’ toiletries market.
Finally, in women’s health and wound care, we had another quarter of solid growth. So as you can tell, our Q3 performance exemplifies the power of our portfolio. While we continue to operate in a dynamic environment, requiring agility and customer intimacy, I am pleased with the way our teams have been able to deliver on our top-line objectives this quarter and throughout the year. The same applies to the balance of the P&L, and Paul will walk you through the details of our financials. We are pleased with our ability to navigate market dynamics and deliver earnings per share in line with expectations while executing our plan to stand up our stand-alone company for success. So in closing, we delivered another quarter of healthy growth as a result of the balance we have across our intentionally curated portfolio of iconic brands, the power and agility of our operating model, and the execution of our 22,000 Kenvuers around the world.
I want to take this opportunity to thank our teams for their outside-in focus, their owner’s mindset, and their daring spirit. As a fully independent company, they demonstrate everyday their commitment to deliver innovative healthcare solutions to our more than 1.2 billion consumers around the globe. And with that, I’ll pass the call over to Paul to review our financial results in more detail.
Paul Ruh: Thank you, Thibaut, and good morning, everyone. Echoing Thibaut’s sentiments, I’d like to comment the ongoing passion of our people and their dedication to standing up Kenvue to be well-positioned over the long term. The energy I felt across the organization over the past several months has been inspiring. Not only have our teams made tremendous progress in executing the separation, they also delivered in the face of continued inflationary and macroeconomic pressures and a dynamic operating environment. Getting into performance, we had another healthy quarter with 3.3% reported growth and 3.6% organic growth. In terms of drivers, value realization, which is comprised of price and mix, represented 7.1 points of growth.
The majority of the value realization reflects the benefit of price actions we have taken in the first half of this year with a contribution of approximately 20% from carryover actions we executed in the second half of 2022. Volume was down 3.5 points with approximately two-thirds of the decline attributed to two distinct factors: first, last year’s portfolio rationalization; and second, the continued market softness in China that Thibaut spoke about. Excluding these unique dynamics, our results demonstrate consumers’ affinity to our brands. Acknowledging that performance in certain pockets of the portfolio is not where we would like it to be, the fact that we were able to deliver results in line with our commitments at this early stage in our journey, exemplifies the strength and resiliency of our portfolio and operating model.
This drives the reliability of our results, alongside durable cash flow generation. Transitioning to our results by segment. Strength in self-care continued with 6.7% organic growth. We continued to see strong positive value realization of 5.5 points, alongside a 1.2-point volume increase. As Thibaut mentioned, our teams continued to strengthen our self-care portfolio with a broad range of offerings from allergy and pain to smoking cessation and digestive health with all product categories contributing to growth. We’ve recognized that there’s a lot of attention on cold, cough, and flu products as we and the entire industry lap unprecedented demand over the past few years. To date, we have observed a delayed start of the season, and we have incorporated this slow start in our outlook for the balance of 2023.
We, of course, are ready for whatever the season may bring, and we’ll work with our customers to ensure our products are available to meet consumers’ needs. And lastly, in self-care, with regards to phenylephrine, or PE, while this ingredient has been in the headlines recently due to the ongoing FDA review, the agency has been clear that the review is not about the safety of oral PE, and they have not made a determination about oral PE in the monograph nor have they advised consumers to discontinue use. The FDA routinely reviews ingredients. And as always, we will work with the agency and our customers to ensure that we continue to offer a variety of options of both OTC and behind-the-counter solutions to serve the needs of our consumers. To date, we have not seen an impact on our business.
Let me remind you, we’re not the leader in the cold and flu category with products containing PE across our portfolio, representing just 2% of our global revenue and the U.S. comprising about half of that. In skin health and beauty, organic growth was negative 0.4% this quarter. Value realization of 6.4 points was more than offset by 6.8 points of volume decrease. Approximately two-thirds of this volume decline can be attributed to our portfolio decisions last year, resulting in lost distribution points this year, alongside continued market softness in China. With regards to the recapture of points of distribution in the U.S., while we are pleased with our progress and stable these costs, we don’t expect to regain all of the lost ground overnight.
Our expectations for gradual recovery remain the same. As we have spoken about, we prioritize sun, given the seasonality of the business, then focus on face with body and hair care next in our recovery plan. As Thibaut articulated, we have confidence in our strong brand equities as demonstrated by our performance in EMEA and LatAm. When supported by the right level of inventory, product distribution, and innovation, we see the flywheel in the business that fuels the growth. We look forward to restoring these elements across the segment. In essential health, we grew organically by 3.8% this quarter as we execute on our value realization and premiumization strategy with 10 points of value realization, offset by 6 points of volume decline. Approximately one-third of the decline can be attributed to market softness in China.
Heading into Q4, we see continued momentum in oral care behind the holistic value realization plans Thibaut spoke about. Premium innovation, such as Aveeno Kids, among others, continued to perform quite well, including essential health, on track to deliver another strong quarter. Now turning to gross margins. Excluding amortization, adjusted gross margin was 59.4%, an expansion of 80 basis points versus last year. Similar to Q2, we continued to see significant, though moderating, inflationary headwinds. Positive trend in logistics and resins have been more than offset by ongoing pressures in energy and continued wage inflation. This pressure was heightened by worsening FX with further devaluation of local currencies, such as the Russian ruble and the Argentinian peso, adding incremental pressure to gross margin.
FX negatively impacted gross margin by approximately 1.3 points, an acceleration from prior quarters, approximately 1-point impact. Assuming current spot rates, we expect this pressure to continue into the balance of the year that we would not expect to fully offset. During the quarter, we were able to more than offset these pressures through proactive productivity initiatives, as per plan, including procurement category cost reduction, improving supply chain manufacturing efficiencies, and leveraging digital and automation technologies. I’m incredibly proud of our talented operations teams who work in an end-to-end fashion with the R&D and commercial teams, driving efficiencies and executing successful innovation. During the quarter, we also realized some benefits as a result of nonrecurring items related to the separation as we continue to evolve to a more fit-for-purpose organization.
Moving to adjusted operating income. Adjusted operating income margin was 23.3% and reflects the impact of the FX headwinds I just mentioned, as well as incremental costs of being a stand-alone public company. In line with expectations and prior quarter, our stand-alone public company costs were approximately $50 million to $60 million, and we continue to expect this same level in Q4 as several of our investments are concentrated upfront in the process. We continue to expect this cost to decrease and be offset by other productivity efforts over time with total public company costs remaining in line with our initial expectations. SG&A also included expenses incurred related to the implementation of our new fit-for-purpose IT infrastructure and spend around digital capability enhancements.
Moving to taxes. On a reported basis, our Q3 tax rate is approximately 25.1%. The lower reported tax rate versus prior quarter is primarily due to a change in accounting policy with regards to the treatment of global intangible low-taxed income, or GILTI, to be in line with peer companies in the consumer goods industry. On an adjusted basis, our Q3 effective tax rate is 25.3%. The primary drivers for this higher tax rate versus last year are, first, high U.S. tax on OUS income, net of foreign tax credits; and second, high tax expense related to prior-year return provision adjustments and tax law changes, offset by windfall benefit on share-based compensation and tax benefits related to the full separation from Johnson & Johnson. And finally, our adjusted net income was $590 million, and adjusted diluted earnings per share were $0.31.
In sum, we continue to operate in a dynamic environment that requires agility and where brand loyalty is rewarded. Our Q3 top- and bottom-line performance is a testament to the power of our portfolio of iconic brands and the strength of our operating model. Now moving to cash and capital allocation. We ended the quarter with a cash balance of $1.1 billion and expect operating cash flow to be approximately $2 billion year to date, exemplifying our strong cash conversion. Our disciplined capital allocation philosophy remains the same. First and foremost, we responsibly invest resources in our iconic brands to drive profitable growth through marketing, R&D, and capital investments. Secondly, dividends serve as an important part of our TSR algorithm.
In line with our commitments, we were proud to pay our first dividend this quarter of $383 million. And this morning, we announced that our board declared a fourth quarter dividend of $0.20 per share. Third, our reliable cash flow generation allows us to prudently delever and reduce interest expense over time. Fourth, we assess potential inorganic tuck-in growth opportunities that build on our capabilities and strengthen our position as a leader in consumer health. And lastly, we use share repurchase to offset dilution from the vesting or exercise of stock-based compensation. Today, we announced our board of directors has authorized a program to repurchase up to 27 million shares of outstanding common stock for this purpose. Getting into our outlook for the remainder of the year.
With the strengthening of the dollar, we now expect the impact of translational foreign currency fluctuations to negatively impact reported net sales growth by approximately 1 to 2 points. Separately, given the soft start of the cold and flu season, we are tightening our previously provided outlook, which included expectations for a more normal season. As I mentioned, so far in the U.S. and in Europe, we haven’t really seen the start of the season, which we would typically see at this point in the year. As a result, we expect net sales growth for the full year to be between 4% and 4.5% and organic growth to be between 5.5% and 6%. On the bottom line, we expect full year adjusted diluted EPS to be in the range of $1.26 to $1.28, which also includes the higher negative impact of FX on gross margin versus our prior expectations.
With regards to remaining fiscal 2023 guidance items. We continue to expect reported net interest expense to be approximately $270 million and approximately $300 million on an adjusted basis. We now expect a reported effective tax rate to be between 25.5% and 26.5%, reflecting the change in accounting policy of GILTI taxes I previously discussed. On an adjusted basis, we expect the range to be between 24.5% and 25.5%. The higher rate versus prior year is primarily driven by jurisdictional mix of earnings and higher U.S. tax on foreign income, net of foreign tax credits in 2023 as compared to 2022. And lastly, our earnings per share range assumes a full year 2023 weighted average share count of 1.852 billion shares. A couple of notes regarding other assumptions in our guidance.
As you review your models for the remainder of the year, it will be important to consider the comps in prior year, particularly in healthcare, where we are lapping a mid-teens growth as we experienced unprecedented levels of demand as a result of the tripledemic in the U.S. and a strong cold and flu season globally last year. Further, in skin health and beauty, in addition to continuing to see the impact of discontinuations until the end of the year, we will also be lapping stronger comps in the fourth quarter of the prior year as we restored supply. With regards to gross margin, in addition to the FX impact I mentioned previously, our fourth quarter gross margins are generally lower from a seasonality perspective as we typically perform our annual maintenance at our manufacturing sites at the end of the calendar year.
In summary, as I reflect on the quarter, I am pleased with the way our teams continue to perform in a volatile environment while executing our separation plan successfully and on time. Operating as one team, we have been able to deliver on top line and earnings expectations year to date. This performance allows us to feel confident in our ability to deliver on our commitments for the full year and stand up Kenvue on a foundation for long-term success. Now, we will open up the line for questions.
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