Earnings Labs

Church & Dwight Co., Inc. (CHD)

Q4 2019 Earnings Call· Sat, Feb 1, 2020

$96.80

-0.29%

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Transcript

Matthew Farrell

Management

Okay, gang. We’re going to get going now. Okay. Thank you all for coming today and thanks, everyone, who is dialing in from office or home. I’m going to begin with the Safe Harbor statement. I recommend everybody to read that at your leisure. Say who is with us today from management, we have our CMO, Britta Bomhard; our Head of International and Global New Products, Steve Cugine; our General Counsel, if you have any legal questions; Rick Dierker, our CFO; Rick Spann, who runs Supply Chain; and Paul Wood, who runs U.S. Sales. All right. So here’s – I’m going to give you a short story right now. So you don’t have to really pay attention to the other 150 slides. We had a terrific year. This is the second consecutive year that our company grew organic sales 4%. The U.S. posted 4% organic sales growth and 10 out of 12 of our power brands grew or held share. International posted 9.2% organic growth and continues to be a juggernaut for the company. And as we ended the year, organic growth returned to the Specialty Products business after two down years. Last time, we had an up quarter was Q4 2017. And the reason it turned positive is because the dairy market became healthy. And another encouraging sign is that domestic volumes turned positive in the fourth quarter. And finally, we had record cash from operations in 2019. So now looking ahead to 2020. We’re calling 3.5% organic growth, and that is net of exiting the low-margin gummy private label business. And consistent with our Evergreen model, we’re calling 7% to 9% EPS growth and that is top tier in CPG. Now I want to recap for a minute why Church & Dwight is a standout in the consumer…

Britta Bomhard

CMO

Okay. Hello, everyone. [indiscernible] So you might remember, ARM & HAMMER is by far our biggest brands. It’s more than a million – billion, sorry, dollar brand. So really important to us. And you might remember from last year, we presented our more Power to You campaign year in this iconic institution. Now, I know most of you are pretty skeptical. You’re a little bit like my boss. Is this really working? So I thought, why don’t I share a couple of results first. Since we launched the campaign in 12 months, we’ve actually added 2.6 million households who are now buying ARM & HAMMER, and that’s an increase of 3%. And this picture you’re seeing is actually, it is currently nearly seven out of 10 households buying ARM & HAMMER. And if this room is representative, my ambition is actually to have three out of four households buying ARM & HAMMER. So you might remember, there’s not many where the U.S. is as united as having three out of four people agree that this is a great choice. But what’s more important? You could now say, well, but you get them in via promotions? No. Actually, we have people spent more money on ARM & HAMMER, and you see here they’re spending 5% more. So if you think about it, what is a great sign for brand health? More people buying it and spending more. So I think that’s very clear answer that ARM & HAMMER is very healthy and growing wonderfully, right? There we go. And I think for those of you who saw it last year, you might want to note that we have ARM & HAMMER every single one of our brands and categories. And I want to show you a couple of how we communicate…

Matthew Farrell

Management

All right. Obviously, I’m the expert on dry shampoo. So if you’re somebody with normal hair and you pick up an aerosol can of dry shampoo, that’s okay, that might make my hair dryer. So we said, “Hey, what’s going to appeal to women with normal to dry hair?” So we said, “Okay, we’re going to launch Batiste Waterless Cleansing Foam. So this is something that you rub into your hair and refreshes your hair and dries in 60 seconds, and we have four different variants we’re launching right now. And now WATERPIK. You also often hear us talk about WATERPIK water flossers. Well, WATERPIK, that business, we’re experts in water-jet technology. So that technology has been around for almost 50 years. And so now we’re coming out with a brand-new, the first-known FDA-registered showerhead. And the insight here is that, millions of Americans discuss massage with their doctors, it’s something that WATERPIK folks look into. So here it is, WATER FOR WELLNESS, this FDA-registered power pulse showerhead. And we’ve done nine clinical studies. And what those studies tell us is that, these particular showerheads soothes muscles, they increase flexibility and they promote better sleep. And here’s kind of a fun fact. The average shower is eight to 12 minutes. And what our consumers tell us is that, these benefits they start feeling after two minutes using these showerheads, really cool innovation. Okay, I talked a little bit about FLAWLESS earlier. Women are look – are focused on convenient hair removal. So new product from FLAWLESS called NU RAZOR. This is waterless, whole body hair removal anywhere, anytime. Now, floss, we’ve got a lot of interest in FLAWLESS on the part of analysts and shareholders. So let’s give a little bit of update on that. One major retailer right now,…

Steven Cugine

Management

Thank you, Matt.

Matthew Farrell

Management

All right.

Steven Cugine

Management

Excellent. So I’m pleased to be here to share with you the fabulous international growth story. So, as Matt already talked about, the Evergreen target for international is 6% per year. In 2014, we delivered $535 million in sales. We finished 2019 at $756 million in sales. The important note here is that, we firmly believe that we’ve reached global scale. There isn’t a market that we’re not in today and where we can’t reach with ourselves through our existing subsidiary markets or through our GMG business. I think even more impressive than the size of the business is that we tripled the organic growth rate from roughly 3% to about 9%. So significant, the larger business tripling the growth rate. This is an important chart that we show every year, but there’s some new information here. Our Global Markets Group is now 33% of the total business. For the first time, it is the largest segment within the international business, followed by Canada, Europe, three countries, Mexico, and Australia. We have grown historically well above our Evergreen target of 6%. In 2019, we hit 9.2%, an outstanding year, and we leave the year with momentum delivering 10.6%. So we feel the wind at our back. Let’s break that down in a little more detail. Our subsidiary markets delivered 5.2% and our GMG business, a whopping 19.2%. Our subsidiaries are largely in developed markets. So 5.2% in developed markets is really outstanding performance. Our brands are healthy, whether they be in emerging markets or GMG or in our subsidiary markets. So we’re excited about the performance of both of these businesses. The GMG business is certainly an engine of growth for the division and for the company. Since 2014, when we initiated the start of our new growth strategy for…

Matthew Farrell

Management

That was another balloon for you at home.

Steven Cugine

Management

I see.

A - Matthew Farrell

Management

Wow, that was perfect punctuation mark. Okay, animal punctuation. So back to the algorithm – 3% algorithm, 2% U.S., 6% international and 5% for Specialty Products. Where is the 5% going to come from? Well, we have a bulk chemicals business, which is bulk sodium bicarbonate and then animal productivity, 6%. How has that been working out for you? Not very well. Well, let’s talk about why is that. So this one goes – flow on this. When you look at the top of the chart, that’s Specialty Products Division organic sales growth since 2011. So what do you notice? We’re up in 2011, down in 2012 and 2013. Up in 2014, 22.6%, down in 2015 and 2016, up in 2017, down 2018 and 2019, back up in 2020. And then below it, you say, “Okay, what was going on with milk prices.” And you can see, as milk prices recover, that’s when you see a green for the growth at a Specialty Products business. So we knew that a few years ago, 2015, we said, “Hey, we’ve got to start moving into other species.” And in 2015, 99% of the animal productivity business was dairy. And today, that’s not true. It was 1% non-dairy. Today, it’s 27% non-dairy. So we think that we’re going to be able to flatten this out over time. Now, why do we go into other species? Well, because of demand for protein and simply population growth. We have 7.7 people – 7.7 billion people today going to 9.8 billion by the middle of the century. And antibiotics are out of favor. And the consumers are telling retailers and farmers, “Hey, no antibiotics, no hormones, no chemicals.” And if you look at the stats, you see that there’s a 40% decrease in the use of…

Rick Dierker

Management

All right. Thanks, Matt. Good afternoon. So we’re going to go through three things. We’re going to go through the 2019 results for the quarter, for the full-year and then go through the outlook. And before we do that, we’ll just start with Evergreen model, we – because we always do. 3% top line growth and 8% EPS growth. And then the drill down for that is 2% organic net sales growth, 25 basis points of gross margin expansion, flat on marketing as a percent, higher dollars typically with revenue growth. We leverage SG&A and we get to 50 basis points of operating margin expansion and then 8% EPS growth. So that’s the backdrop. So how did we do? In Q4, you heard from Matt already, you saw in the release this morning, 4.4% organic revenue growth. Domestic was 3.5%, international was 10.5% and SPD for the first time in eight quarters with positive organic growth, which is great. Adjusted gross margin was 170 basis points up. I’ll walk through the detail of that in a minute. Marketing was up 240 basis points. So that’s the highest spend rate we’ve had in 2019. Just $37 million more year-over-year. It’s a very significant increase. SG&A was up largely because of the acquisition. Our TSA agreement as well as the amortization with that deal. Adjusted EPS was $0.55 versus the $0.54 outlook. So, on a revenue basis, the quarter was very strong, 4.4% and it was very strong even versus a strong year ago, 4.3%. So on a stacked basis, 8.7%. If you run your eyes across the page, 4.5% in the first quarter, 4.9% in the second, 3.5%, 4.4% and then 4.4% for the year. So for the full-year, like I said, 4.4% domestic has a 4% in front of it,…

Operator

Operator

A - Matthew Farrell

Management

Well, all the hands are up, hands not even up here yet. Okay, Nik.

Nik Modi

Management

I finally beat someone taller than me. So I guess, two questions. I remember, I don’t know, maybe it was 10 years ago, seven years ago, compaction was a pretty big deal for Church & Dwight from a margin perspective. So I was hoping to get some perspective from you on the new product launch and what that means for shipping costs and just packaging costs and how you think about that? And then the second is, when it comes to FLAWLESS, I know there’s kind of conflict right between the As Seen on TV and the merchandising aspect. And so just thinking longer-term, is there a plan to like completely migrate this to a in-store and digital and online product where you don’t have that comp, because you guys have really execution, merchandising, display activity. So just – was hoping to get some clarity on the long-term plan there?

Matthew Farrell

Management

Well, I’ll take that one first. Yes, I mean the plan for FLAWLESS system migrated from As Seen on TV brand and completely into the wet shave aisle and completely vacate that part of the store. Because in a lot of stores, it’s not in a very attractive place. So if you look at one major retailers by automotive. But when we bought it, we said no, this is a brand that’s going to have legs at long-term and it belongs to wet shave aisle. And one major retailer is getting behind it right now. So over time, that’s what you’re going to see happening. It’s happening right now in 2020. Your other question was about compaction. So when compaction happen, there is one major retailer that drove that many, many years ago, that’s not on the horizon right now for the industry. I mean, right now, one would argue that the biggest form of compaction is pods. So that pods at some point – if pods at some point plateaus, I think, it’s possible then we would go back to, it may be a major compaction for liquid laundry detergent, but that is clear enough on horizon right now. Were you asking the question about that new product…

Nik Modi

Management

Yes.

Matthew Farrell

Management

…that we have online. I’ll let Britta take a swing at that one and what the insight was around that.

Britta Bomhard

CMO

So I think you’re talking about the product I showed, that’s an e-commerce play, right? So it’s not in mass distribution, because I think I’ve said that, and you’ve seen our ambition to grow on the online class of trade, because that’s where all the consumers go and a lot of shopping happens. And currently, there is not a good loan resolution there. And that’s why we’ve developed this specific product for that class of trade, and we’re seeing phenomenal results.

Nik Modi

Management

Great. Thank you.

Matthew Farrell

Management

Okay. Bill?

Bill Chappell

Management

Yes. Sticking on the laundry side, maybe first on CLEAN & SIMPLE. Can you give us a little more color. Is this incremental shelf space? How cannibalistic do you expect it to be? And then also, I mean – and maybe it’s in the plans, there is not a pod form coming out, I guess on the initial launch. Well, it seems that Tide is coming at you with the Tide Simply version of pods. So maybe the thought behind that of is, are you seeing pods in your category start to level out where it’s not as important? Do you not see this as big of a threat? So any more color both around what the shelf space looks like and how you expect this to interact with the core brand and then also just from the pod standpoint, the competitive launch?

Matthew Farrell

Management

Yes. So CLEAN – I’ll let Paul comment at some point, but CLEAN & SIMPLE, whenever you launch a new product in liquid laundry under the ARM & HAMMER brand, you’re going to have some cannibalization. But this one there will be some cannibalization, but net, it will be incremental to us and we think as well to the category. As far as, are we going to move into pods for CLEAN & SIMPLE, we wouldn’t disclose what our plans might be with respect to the CLEAN & SIMPLE as a platform. Could it happen? Absolutely. Bill, I’ll let Paul comment as well some retailer reception to CLEAN & SIMPLE.

Paul Wood

Management

Yes. I’ll be a little guarded just in the message, more for competitive reasons than I’m to avoid your question. But what I would tell you is, with every launch, we are going to have that cannibalization where you have the incrementality, absolutely. This one is a little different though, the story on this one of everything Britta showed in the marketing and the timing, what the consumers are looking for in the health and wellness front, just the other trends going on, makes us a very interesting story as you’re pitching it to get incremental space, different space, display space, other things in the store. I would tell you, it’s happening as we speak right now, the resets, so I don’t want to give away what others are doing. But I’d encourage you the next couple of weeks to get out to a retail, loved to have retail with you and show you firsthand. This one is a little different. I would also tell you on the insights front, we believe this isn’t just looking at the consumer within our set today buying another yellow bottle. This is going to get some attention on shelf from maybe you’re not buying it today. This is going to bring you in, the CLEAN & SIMPLE, the marketing grid has got behind it. You just saw fraction of it today. In the shopper marketing we’re doing with retailer is going to be a little special. So I’m excited, I’m going to temper my vocabulary here, but love to talk to you more on this one.

Matthew Farrell

Management

Okay. Rupesh?

Rupesh Parikh

Management

So I guess, just my first question with FLAWLESS, just curious what drove the shortfall in Q4. And as you look to this year, just want to get a sense, it seems like distribution is driving all the growth, just wanted to get a sense of velocity, the contributor. And then, also do you expect any inventory adjustments?

Matthew Farrell

Management

Yes. So in the fourth quarter, we were down year-over-year. So business was $180 million in 2018, it was $186 million in 2019. We bought the business, we thought it would be higher by the end of the year. We know why – a couple of things we disclosed. We had an issue with one large retailer, Bed Bath & Beyond and we also delayed a launch into 2020. Now as far as the consumption goes, consumption was down significantly in the fourth quarter. We expect that to continue, but to start to recover in the first quarter. And by the time we get to the second quarter, we’re in the new launch and also the new distribution, we expect consumption in measured channels, because measured channels in this – for this category is less than 50%. But you’ll start to see in measured channels a year-over-year increase. And we think it’s going to build from Q2, Q3 and Q4. So I think a lot of the growth is ahead of us starting in Q2 as a result of the NU RAZOR.

Rick Dierker

Management

Yes. And I would just add to that. From an organic growth perspective, right, we’re calling 50 basis points for tailwinds from FLAWLESS. In Q1, we think it will be flat to slightly down, and – but pretty much 90 basis points to 100 basis points of tailwind in the second-half and that’s how you get to the 50 basis points for the full-year for organic.

Rupesh Parikh

Management

Okay, great. And then…

Matthew Farrell

Management

Do you have another one, Rupesh?

Rupesh Parikh

Management

Yes. One quick one. So just in your guidance, what are you assuming for the promotional environment?

Matthew Farrell

Management

Okay. So on the promotional environment, we’ve talked about every quarter, and as many of you know the promotional environment generally talking about the household side of the house and not a personal care. And when we say household, it’s about laundry and we’re talking about litter. I’ll take litter first. The litter category is pretty tame right now as far as the promotional environment. So if you look at sequentially, it was pretty much flattish and even year-over-year, there is no story there. So we think it’s steady as you go in litter. I think you got to keep in mind is that, in the litter category these hard fought price increases, it’s unlikely that the suppliers are going to want to deal that, that the hard one increased back to the consumers. So I wouldn’t expect that to change in 2020. Laundry, same story. I mean, Q4 was our lowest quarter of the year, 25% sold on deal. And the category was 35%. And liquid laundry, little bit higher, it was 37% sold on deal. But two big suppliers would be Church & Dwight and Henkel both down sequentially from Q2, -- pardon me, Q3 to Q4. And Procter was up, it kind of filled the void in the promotional space. We expect that to continue in 2020. Okay. Your next. Yes.

Rupesh Parikh

Management

Okay. Thank you. Just on the – sorry, 3.5% organic growth, like and you’re exiting that you said is now out of the vitamin. So the vitamin business in private label, is that going to be – I’m assuming that growth was more dilutive to your growth or – it was actually growing faster. So that 3.5% on a more continuing space is like a 4%, or is not – is small relative to make – to move the needle?

Matthew Farrell

Management

Yes. I’ll take a swing at this and then Rick can jump in. Yes. So we call it 3.5% for 2020. Our run rate in the second-half of 2019 as a company is 4%. We’ve said, hey, that’s going to accelerate by 50 basis points, because of FLAWLESS from 4% to 4.5%. So we have 100 basis points go in other way for two reasons. One, exiting private label vitamins and number two, we’re continuing to pull back on OXICLEAN promotions. Now with that 100 basis points, the lion’s share of that is the vitamin business. We have stepped up our innovation over the last couple of years in vitamins. If you saw the Slide that we had earlier, you’ll see – if you went back to 2016 and 2017, we had like six new launches a year, 2018 – from 2019, we had 22 new launches and next we’re going to have 17 new launches. So – but this is the right time to exit our private label, it came into the company with the acquisition and it’s lower margin and we think it’s fine.

Rick Dierker

Management

Yes. I would just add, that business was flattish, the private label business for vitamins, it wasn’t declining or anything like that. We just felt that, that wasn’t the right strategic choice for the company. So we decided to proactively get out of it.

Rupesh Parikh

Management

And that is I think – that is accretive to margins, If I assuming right on exiting, to end that business or that’s not?

Rick Dierker

Management

It’s – when you think about the scale and the size of that business, right, where – if we give you a sense of it, if we’re saying 100 basis points is going down for those two things, maybe two-thirds of that is the private label and one-third of that is the laundry stuff. So, any impact on margin is pretty minimal.

Rupesh Parikh

Management

And following up on Bill’s question, if I may, on the CLEAN & SIMPLE, is that a margin accretive innovation or in the meantime you might have – like, what is the price point that you’re positioning at this point?

Matthew Farrell

Management

Hey, Paul, do you want to take a swing at the price points?

Paul Wood

Management

Yes. So the price points, this is going to be right in line with our existing lineup. So just as Britta was talking about the efficacy and it being equal, that’s how it will show up for shelf as well. And that’s a really big message that our retailers really resonated with them that it was going to be line-priced.

Rick Dierker

Management

And then from a margin basis, we wouldn’t really say much, but it’s at brand average. Year one we have, of course, cost to drive volume for incrementality.

Matthew Farrell

Management

Okay. Joe?

Joe Altobello

Management

Thanks. Just wanted to get a bit more color on the increase in marketing spend, obviously a big in the fourth quarter, and it sounds like you’re looking for about a 1 point of headwind on EPS growth in 2020. What’s driving the increase? Is it bigger new launches and what particular brands is it going behind and are you shifting dollars away from promo into marketing?

Matthew Farrell

Management

Is the question with respect to fourth quarter?

Joe Altobello

Management

Fourth quarter and 2020 as well?

Matthew Farrell

Management

Okay. Well, fourth quarter, we could see what was coming and we are doing well on top line and gross margin. So we have a chance to reinvest both in marketing and in SG&A. We call that all places we invested in SG&A. So obviously, we’re able to throw a lot of money behind on the brands. That – and that always helps you going into the new year. As your question about 2020, is the 10 basis points uptick?

Joe Altobello

Management

Yes. More so that the 1 point of EPS headwind that you’re expecting to from launches?

Rick Dierker

Management

The 10 basis points does represent the 1% EPS drag and it’s really for the new launches, right. The one on the table, we’ll really get behind that in a big way. The NU RAZOR for FLAWLESS get behind that in a big way. And then maybe, Britta, if you want to talk about.

Britta Bomhard

CMO

Yes. So we have a couple of exciting product, as you saw. So, for example, BATISTE foam, we are category leader and as you’ve seen, there is a huge household penetration opportunity, it’s also a new hair type. So we’re going to spend some money on educating consumers about a new way, particularly women with curly and dry hair.

Matthew Farrell

Management

And maybe one more I had, I just thought of is, we showed you household penetration for WATERPIK in the U.S. versus internationally, and we found that it’s very responsive to advertising. And so now we’re going to start rolling that out in Europe and Canada and Australia. So that marketing investment is happening globally as well.

Joe Altobello

Management

And just one for Steve. The increase in operating margin for international this year is pretty big. Is that coming from sales leverage among other things or cost savings programs? What’s driving that?

Steven Cugine

Management

Yes. So I think there’s a couple of things. We had some expense in the year that we’re not going to recover. We feel like we’ve made investments on top of that, that we’re not going to repeat again in next year. I would say, that’s a large part of that and there is some mix as well.

Joe Altobello

Management

Okay. Thanks.

Matthew Farrell

Management

Okay. Steve?

Stephen Powers

Management

Okay. I do have a question for Steve. But something Rick said earlier prompted another question. Why would FLAWLESS have any impact on organic regardless of what it does in the first quarter, given that you didn’t owner it a year ago?

Rick Dierker

Management

It doesn’t. I was trying to give you a sense that on a reported basis in Q1, that it could be flat to down. The organic impact is 50 basis points for the full-year. All of that’s in the second-half, around 100 basis points.

Stephen Powers

Management

Okay, perfect. And then internationally, maybe you could get a lot going on, but maybe you could rank order, the growth initiatives you have on top three, whether you think about it by brand, by geography or by category? And then as you think forward with the commitments or margin expansion as an evergreen, does that inhibit your ability to kind of press on growth as you have been or should we expect some deceleration back down toward that Evergreen’s six-ish level?

Steven Cugine

Management

No, we feel really confident, I mean we see the business accelerating as you saw in 2019, and we see that continuing into 2020, again with less requirement for investments. Because we think we have the right kind of staffing level in each one of the regions, China was a big investment over the last couple of years, as we’ve built our own team in China plus we spent money on slotting, getting product into that market. So we think all of that, whether it would be Latin America, which has been growing very nicely for us and in Asia-Pac, whether it would be China or Southeast Asia, we’ve made a lot of investments in the past. And now we think we can reap the benefits of continued strong organic growth without those investments repeating. That’s just – that’s why we feel, so confident that we can continue to deliver on the operating margin, because we’re going to get leverage in the P&L. So we’re going to get that on marketing and we’re going to get that on SG&A, for sure.

Stephen Powers

Management

It is the growth investment skewed anywhere, I mean are you more excited about emerging markets about...

Steven Cugine

Management

You know it’s a funny thing, and [indiscernible] is here. He runs our GMG business and he would say this year, we had strong growth in EMEA and in Latin America. Latin America is smaller for us, but fast growing. We made those investments in China, we saw very strong China growth in 2019 and we expect strong growth in Southeast Asia as well. Asia, in particular, we see is real growth engine long-term for the company, because we’re just still young and small, but growing fast.

Matthew Farrell

Management

Okay. Swing to this side of the table, Kevin?

Kevin Grundy

Management

All right. Kevin Grundy, Jefferies. I had a question on international as well. So it works out. So connecting the dots just to sort of pick up where you left off there, Steve, given that why the implied deceleration in the outlook for international and I don’t want to diminish 7%, which is outstanding. But you guys haven’t done a 7% in the past five years in the region and now you have a presence in China. So I’m just trying to to connect the dots with that. And then more broadly, maybe, Matt, you can chime in the role on M&A and how you potentially see that longer- and growing your international business. And lastly, from a capital planning perspective, when do certain markets you potentially consider moving them from the export model to the subsidiary model? What’s sort of like a tipping point? How do you think about that and implications from an income statement and from balance sheet perspective? Thanks.

Matthew Farrell

Management

Okay. I’ll try to remember all that. Let’s start off with the current year. So, we have an algorithm of 6% annually. So we always go back to that, can we sustain 6% year-after-year-after-year. And if you look at what Steve has been doing in international is hitting out of the park. And so, now we got a big plan for this year, you might say you’re sad because it’s not 9%, but we’re not a company that’s going to get way out over our skis. So we think we got a strong plan for 2020. We don’t view that as a deceleration, we look at that as we’re consistently now delivering above our algorithm. You asked the question about international. So we have done some M&A internationally over the past few years. Viviscal was a – is an international brand. Our WATERPIK had some international as well. We bought the ANUSOL brand from J&J. And so we’re putting a lot of effort behind those and we get a lot of traction. So Steve and his gang have done a great job, taking those two to international markets. So we’re continually scanning for things that we can acquire, and we can put into our infrastructure and leverage it. But we’re pretty fussy about what we’re going to buy. And as you know, you had a third one though, the third question.

Kevin Grundy

Management

Yes, when does it tip to go direct?

Matthew Farrell

Management

Yes. Okay, I’ll go – Steve can say what we’ve done in Germany.

Steven Cugine

Management

Yes. So we look at markets where we can go direct and it really is all about SG&A leverage. So how concentrated is the retail environment. And in Germany, it’s quite concentrated. So, we were able to go direct in Germany and manage that P&L, so we get returns fast. My two buddies down here, they’re pretty disciplined about spending and returns, as you can imagine. So you really need like a 20 to 1 relationship in terms of SG&A investment to sales growth. And so where the markets are young and highly fragmented from a retail environment, it takes a lot more SG&A to make that happen. So we know the underlying economic model for us, what we need to have to shift from an export market to a subsidiary market. And we’ll make those calls as we see fit, but that is not required for us to hit our evergreen target.

Matthew Farrell

Management

Okay. All right. Same table, Jason.

Jason English

Management

Good afternoon, and thank you. Two very different topics for questions. First, sticking on international, but with a supply chain angle. Can you update us on the status of tariffs on your supply chain and also whether or not we should be considering any risk related to the coronavirus in terms of supply and manufacturing of – whether it’d be the WATERPIK or I’m not sure where FLAWLESS is manufactured whether we should be cognizant of that as well? Second is on private label. Could you size of 100 bps drag, how much of it is from the private label exit, any reason to think that may actually suck some capacity out of the industry and help your branded side? And is there also maybe on the other side of that, risk presumably a good time to exit would have been five years ago when you’re spending a lot of money to add capacity, I imagine you chose not to, because of, there was a risk tethered to it. If assuming that’s the case then why is that there no longer that risk?

Matthew Farrell

Management

I’ll start with China. So we’re well aware of what’s going on in China, right now with the virus. So we have checked with our suppliers of both of finished products and also business like FLAWLESS and SPINBRUSH and WATERPIK. And right now, it looks like because of the extension of the Chinese New Year, there is going to be a one, maybe two-week delay in startup of those manufacturing sites. But because of our safety stock what’s on the water and also, you can overcome some of delay like that with air freight, that we don’t see a risk right now with what we know right now to quarter call that’s in the – it’s in the release. Good on that one?

Steven Cugine

Management

Yes. And then on tariffs I would I try to talk about in my prepared remarks, a little bit. But that 1% drag on EPS is tariffs that’s really the four B list that went into effect on December 15, and we’re getting hit on showerheads and FLAWLESS. So you can do the math on what about 1% EPS drag is, but it’s a couple of cents. And then your other question on private label vitamins of 100 basis points decline in organic growth, I had said about 60% is piece of the private-label vitamin beginning to exit, right? It’s a two-year process. So 50 bps of the 100 bps is from private-label vitamins. And I don’t know, Rick, if you want to say anything else about the supply chain in China or are you good?

Rick Dierker

Management

Yes. Matt pretty much covered it. We’re working very closely with our suppliers. And what we know so far is the one to two-week delay that Matt referenced on starting up after Chinese New Year. We have ample safety stock don’t anticipate a material impact to Q1, but it’s something we’ll continue to monitor on a regular basis.

Matthew Farrell

Management

Okay. All right. Okay. You’ve been waving your hand for a while.

Stephen Powers

Management

Thanks, Matt. Wanted to talk about two different categories and just state of competition in laundry and cat litter, and then also your expectations for fiscal ‘20 between volume versus price mix?

Matthew Farrell

Management

I couldn’t hear the very first part of it.

Stephen Powers

Management

Laundry and cat litter, the state of competition.

Matthew Farrell

Management

Oh, the state of competition in the laundry and litter category? Okay. Well, I mean you saw the chart with respect to shares in laundry. We had a great year in laundry. ARM & HAMMER was up. XTRA, for the first time in a longtime held share up a little bit. And OXICLEAN, we lost some share, but that was as not as expected because we pulled back on promotions. You also saw from the chart the dynamics over the last three years, but who is winning and who is struggling. We think we have an unfair competitive advantage in the laundry detergent, because we have a value brand, that’s advertised, which is ARM & HAMMER. And ARM & HAMMER is $1 billion brand if you go across all of our categories. And actually we’ve done a wonderful job in positioning that product against Sun over the last couple of years and we continue to win distribution. So we’ve got a long-term plan and we aim to be the number two supplier of laundry detergent at some point. In the litter category, litter is a function of innovation and we have been the innovator in that category for many, many years. And we think that over time that is going to bode well for us as far as growing share in the future. I commented earlier about the promotional environment, it is pretty much – pretty tepid, I would say, in both categories. I don’t expect that to change in litter as we said, because we’re not going to deal back your price increases. And I do think that the reduction in the amount sold on deal in the laundry category is really de facto price increase, we want list price increases in laundry. But the pull back in promotions as a group over time is de facto an increase in price and it improves margins.

Steven Cugine

Management

And Matt, if you want me talk about just how we advertise Oxi Laundry and what’s this done to the additives category?

Matthew Farrell

Management

You can do that.

Steven Cugine

Management

Well, sometimes myopically we just look at, Oxi Laundry is down a little bit in share, but we really didn’t take a broader brush and say since we launched OXICLEAN laundry, we’ve gone from a 42 share in additive to 56 share in additives. So we’re really happy with our OXICLEAN megabrand.

Matthew Farrell

Management

I hope everybody paid attention to that. So if you go back and say, wow, OXICLEAN launched into premium laundry detergent and we’re sad because it didn’t work out. No. So in stain fighters, we had a 42% market share when we launched OXICLEAN over in liquid laundry, it went from 42% to 56% today. So all that effort paid off, and so we’re making a lot more money today. So that brand is alive and well.

Britta Bomhard

CMO

Can I add something. So you see…

Matthew Farrell

Management

Let’s pile on here. This is good.

Britta Bomhard

CMO

Sorry?

Matthew Farrell

Management

Let’s pile on.

Britta Bomhard

CMO

Yes, well, I love that brand. So I have to talk about brands. And I think you’ve seen the more power to you and what it does for us. We now have a similar and that’s work your magic on OXICLEAN, which is equally working extremely well across the different components of OXICLEAN. So if we have several very clear evidence the lifts after we advertise and then it’s across the different sub-segments of OXICLEAN as well. So I’m very confident, positive that OXICLEAN is a very, very strong brand and we continue to grow.

Matthew Farrell

Management

Okay. All right. It looks like we might be done. Hey, I want to thank everybody for coming today. We had great questions and looking forward to talking to you at the end of the first quarter.