Earnings Labs

B&G Foods, Inc. (BGS)

Q2 2015 Earnings Call· Wed, Jul 22, 2015

$5.43

+2.64%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+1.23%

1 Week

+3.33%

1 Month

+3.89%

vs S&P

+10.30%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day and welcome to the B&G Foods Second Quarter 2015 Financial Results Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. You can access detailed financial information on the quarter in the company's earnings release issued today which is available at bgfoods.com. Before the company begins its formal remarks, I need to remind everybody that part of the discussion today includes forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and therefore undue reliance should not be placed upon them. We refer all of you to the company's most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent SEC filings for a more detailed discussion of the risks that could impact company's future operating results and financial condition. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. The company will also be making references on today's call to the non-GAAP financial measures, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, adjusted net income, adjusted diluted earnings shares, base business net sales, and comparable base business net sales. Reconciliations of these financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are provided in today's earnings release. Tom Crimmins, the company's CFO, will start the call by discussing the company's financial results for the quarter. Next, Bob Cantwell, the company's CEO will discuss various factors that affect the company's results, selected business highlights, and his thoughts concerning the remainder of 2015. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Tom Crimmins, CFO. Tom? Thomas P. Crimmins - Chief Financial Officer & Executive VP-Finance: Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Net sales for the second quarter of 2015 decreased 4.6% to $193.6 million, compared to $202.9 million for the second quarter of 2014…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And we will go to Bryan Hunt with Wells Fargo.

Bryan C. Hunt - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Management

Yes, thanks for your time. I was wondering, first of all, can you talk in general terms about the acquisition environment, maybe, one, the opportunities you're seeing today? And then two, I would tell you the multiple on the most recent acquisition has definitely caught our eyes, little lower than anything else we've seen recently, so that's really my question and I have got another one to follow up. Thanks. Robert C. Cantwell - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. Well, I mean from acquisitions and just your comment on the multiple, we have been a disciplined buyer for a long time. I mean, our last acquisition prior the Specialty Brands acquisition was a multiple less than seven times or so (20:07). So, we are very much a model that wants to make sure our acquisitions are accretive to shareholders day one and the first step is the purchase price multiple. We are always looking. It's kind of a generic answer here. We're always looking, certainly from big food companies who have – big foods companies have to put things on the market. Right now, there is really nothing floating around per se from big food companies that would fit us. And there is a lot of smaller deals. Our last two deals was from private equity. Our SBA and Mama Mary's is a private equity, so those are around. It has to be right for us. Mama Mary's came up pretty quickly on us. And we're certainly an acquirer, who would like to do more of those. It's just a matter of what might be on the market tomorrow. Thomas P. Crimmins - Chief Financial Officer & Executive VP-Finance: Yeah.

Bryan C. Hunt - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Management

And then my second question is, when you look at Mama Mary's, you really don't mention much about synergies. When I think about synergies here, are there distribution synergies as well as potential manufacturing synergies in the future or how would you frame it? Robert C. Cantwell - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well as we look at what we, the business that we disclosed around $35 million in sales and $7.5 million in EBITDA has some natural synergies in that from buying a company and not needing certain functions. Yes, long-term, as we get into it, this product will be just more lines on our invoices and it's more product on our trucks. Hopefully, there's some real synergies there. And as a small company like Mama Mary's, their cost of distribution is going to be much higher than B&G just because most of their product does not go out full truckload where most of our product is full truckload, so this is just more products on our trucks, so. Just like SBA, we saw additional synergies after we owned it and we expect more of those synergies to happen. It's a nice little tuck-in acquisition. The other synergy we don't talk. We have a very strong, very good pizza sauce sold in the Northeast. We look at this as an opportunity to hopefully expand that pizza sauce because the Mama Mary's brand is in parts of this country throughout from East Coast to West Coast and we see real opportunity on our Don Pepino pizza sauce business and hopefully driving some sales combining it with the Mama Mary's business.

Bryan C. Hunt - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Management

And then lastly, looking at the breadth of your product portfolio, whether it's snacking, meal preparation, bold flavors, is there anything that you can decipher about maybe the change in consumption trends of the U.S. consumer in the last couple of quarters from the velocities within your product portfolio? Thank you. Robert C. Cantwell - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: It's hard to say. We've seen some of the – little bit more of the in-home eating meal occasion brands, which would include snacking. Even though it's not a full meal occasion, it's kind of sometimes a meal replacement. We're seeing that piece of business pick up. Some of the other kind of products, the more stable commodity kind of things, are still a little slower. We're seeing that even in the spice categories for example not so much with our Mrs. Dash, but just the other spices we compete within those category seem to be little slower. But the meal occasion businesses – and we consider our Ortega brand certainly that and certainly now Mama Mary's and certainly our snacking brands along with a few others seem to have picked up a little bit. Still a little bit of struggle in the Northeast. It's a little tougher in the Northeast than the rest of this country. For some reason, the Northeast seems to be responding a little slower than the rest of this country has and we are hoping that happens sooner than later in the Northeast.

Bryan C. Hunt - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Management

All right. I'll get back in the queue. Thanks, Bob and Tom. Robert C. Cantwell - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Sure.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And we will continue on to Karru Martinson with Deutsche Bank.

Karru Martinson - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Good afternoon. Just continuing on the acquisition, you guys certainly have been disciplined over the years, but is there any temptation of those larger targets that are out there? Robert C. Cantwell - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, we are certainly capable of doing a much larger acquisition, but the multiple has to be right. At the end of the day, it does not make sense for us to buy something at our multiple that we trade at or even higher, certainly we want to buy something that at turns of our multiple lower than where we trade, so shareholders get accretion they want and long-term that's a good investment for both B&G and shareholders. So, we look at bigger things, when and if they show up, but typically the multiples certainly in this market in the last couple of years have not made sense to B&G.

Karru Martinson - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

Okay, and when we look at the Albertsons and Safeway merger, Chapter 11 filing for A&P, I mean are there share of shelf considerations that we should be mindful of as the industry kind of goes through some consolidation and changes? Thomas P. Crimmins - Chief Financial Officer & Executive VP-Finance: Well, the Albertsons – I mean we actually look at the Albertsons/Safeway merger as a benefit to us. And we're getting additional distribution in the stores that weren't as fully distributed as some of the others in those chains. So they are kind of evening out of distribution and that's a benefit to us. The A&P bankruptcy is certainly going to be noise in the system, it's an initial negative just because there's noise in the system is that change disperses into different ownership. Certainly when we – this is – now we're a business that has some of those lower margin Northeast brands I mentioned in my remarks that are all sitting in here in A&P and the A&P chain is an important part of those brands too. Now those brands will continue being sold to consumers, but there's going to be noise in the system as that chain is broken up into pieces. So there'll be a little hiccup along the way, and hopefully, it is not too long. What we know is our consumers want our products, we just have to make sure those distribution outlets are available for us to sell those products in.

Karru Martinson - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Management

All right. Thank very much guys, appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. . And we'll go to Farha Aslam with Stephens.

Farha Aslam - Stephens, Inc.

Management

Hi, good afternoon. Thomas P. Crimmins - Chief Financial Officer & Executive VP-Finance: Hi. Robert C. Cantwell - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi, Farha.

Farha Aslam - Stephens, Inc.

Management

Could we talk about the TrueNorth brand. You'd highlighted that the retailers had accepted the prices. Could you share with us the volume trends and importantly, how you think going into that holiday period that that brand and nuts overall are going to be featured versus other options? Thomas P. Crimmins - Chief Financial Officer & Executive VP-Finance: Well, at least kind of initially what we've seen is we had a tough first quarter on TrueNorth as we actually held back on shipments getting customers to agree to the price increases because we needed the price increase to make any money based on what we were paying for the product. So the good news is we've seen a very flat second quarter. And we're watching this very closely. It remains to be seen. The consumer trends out of our largest customer of TrueNorth seems to be really good. It was good in the second quarter. Certainly your question is, this business does pick up in the second half of the year, and it's certainly the kind of product that's eaten occasionally, but it is also used for parties and things like that as you get into the fall holidays. Right now we think it's okay, but it is something we have to watch very closely. But basically anybody selling almonds, pecans, certainly almonds has taken major price increases to consumers. But there's always a consumer breaking point where you potentially lose some consumers just buying those products. But at least through the second quarter we saw a flat second quarter and we are very happy with that.

Farha Aslam - Stephens, Inc.

Management

That's helpful. And then just overall on your top line adjusting for the fact that you have that end of the quarter shipping timing. Generally you had anticipated volumes were going to be tough this quarter because you were planning to take price. Was the volume in line, in terms of the volume weakness in line with your expectations, great or less? Thomas P. Crimmins - Chief Financial Officer & Executive VP-Finance: If we had shipped to $3 million or $4 million at quarter end our volume would have been right where we thought it was going to be, because we knew our major brands what was going on was Ortega and Pirate's and we knew that was a little bit more timing than not and we'll get a lot more of those sales back in the second quarter. A couple of the brands in the Northeast reacted heavier to us reducing promotions/raising prices than we expected, because we actually got – through this year and through the end of last year, we didn't see a lot of competitive pressure on pricing, but we sourced some in the Northeast in our pickle category, in our bean category more than we expected as we went into the July 4 holiday. So where we're looking at our programs on those two brands and may have to be a little bit more aggressive on those brands as we head into the rest of the year. But we've kind of calculated that into what we've just said is our $10 million to $12 million pricing for the full year.

Farha Aslam - Stephens, Inc.

Management

Okay. And my final question. I'm sorry for the background noises. D&A, interest and taxes, could you just share with us those modeling questions, what you expect D&A to be, interest and taxes? Robert C. Cantwell - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: One second. As Tom is just pulling that up, the tax rate is around 35.5%, we expect that for the rest of the year, so that's not going to change as a percentage.

Farha Aslam - Stephens, Inc.

Management

Okay. Thomas P. Crimmins - Chief Financial Officer & Executive VP-Finance: And interest expense is going to be somewhere in that sort of call it $43 million to $45 million range. Robert C. Cantwell - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: For the whole year. Thomas P. Crimmins - Chief Financial Officer & Executive VP-Finance: For the whole year.

Farha Aslam - Stephens, Inc.

Management

Okay, $43 million to $45 million and then your D&A? Thomas P. Crimmins - Chief Financial Officer & Executive VP-Finance: Overall D&A... Robert C. Cantwell - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: D&A. Thomas P. Crimmins - Chief Financial Officer & Executive VP-Finance: D&A, I will (31:50). Robert C. Cantwell - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: It should, I mean Farha it should except for the Mama Mary's acquisition that will add a little bit of amortization and customer relationships. Thomas P. Crimmins - Chief Financial Officer & Executive VP-Finance: Yeah, you're somewhere in that sort of $27 million to $29 million range for the year.

Farha Aslam - Stephens, Inc.

Management

Okay. Perfect. That's exactly what I needed. Thank you so much. Robert C. Cantwell - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. Thomas P. Crimmins - Chief Financial Officer & Executive VP-Finance: Okay.

Operator

Operator

And we have a question from Kevin Ziets with Citi.

Kevin L. Ziets - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Broker

Hi, thanks for taking my questions. I'm just curious on Mama Mary's, how the business has been performing I guess in recent years or periods. Just what its growth profile been? How well distributed is it? And if you see an opportunity to sort of gain distribution under your ownership? Robert C. Cantwell - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, certainly we see the opportunity, but the business has been relatively flat, up a little bit. It is the leading brand of pizza crust. There's a competitor who is a very close second and so they kind to go neck-and-neck, but the business is pretty solid. It has some very good distribution to key retailers. What we can certainly add to that is they didn't get everywhere just because of the nature of their business and their size. Within our retail grocery organization, we should be able to get it in distribution where they are not. And we look as that as a real opportunity, and we look at having our pizza sauce right along with it as a real opportunity in our pizza sauce business too. So we think there is real opportunity in the upside. This is not going to be a business that's going to sky rocket in a big way, but certainly our natural sales and distribution network can fill in distribution voids that they do not have. But they're in most major customers, they're in Walmart, they're in Kroger, they're in Safeway. They're in the key retailers in this country.

Kevin L. Ziets - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Broker

Okay, great. And then just following on Karru's question, I know it's a little bit early, but in terms of like the Ahold and Delhaize merger, is there an opportunity there similar to what you're seeing with Albertsons and Safeway? Robert C. Cantwell - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: We hope so. Everybody – all organizations think differently. We will see how – I think it's a little too early for us to understand how they think about managing what they own. And it varies. We've seen mergers where they understand don't mess in certain areas with the store put ups because that's what consumers want in those areas, and that tends to be what honestly has worked longer term for most of these chains. We have to adjust just like everybody else in this industry, but again our customers are consumers. These are the outlets that sell our consumers and we just need to make sure we have the proper product put up to sell our consumers and all of these customers.

Kevin L. Ziets - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Broker

Okay, great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And with no additional questions in the queue, I'd like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Cantwell for any additional or closing remarks. Robert C. Cantwell - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you, operator and thank you all for joining the call and your continued interest in the company. We look forward to a very successful second half of 2015. Thank you again. Bye.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, once again that does conclude today's conference. Thank you all again for your participation.