Earnings Labs

Campbell Soup Company (CPB)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Mon, Sep 8, 2014

$20.61

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Campbell Soup Fourth Quarter 2014 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will follow at that time. (Operator Instructions). As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I'd now like to introduce to your host for today's conference, Jennifer Driscoll, Vice President Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Jennifer Driscoll

Management

Thanks, Kate and good morning everyone. Welcome to the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2014 earnings call and webcast for Campbell Soup Company. With me here in New Jersey today are Denise Morrison, President and CEO; Anthony DiSilvestro, our Chief Financial Officer; and Anna Choi, Senior Manager of Investor Relations. I am going to start things of with a few reminders including items impacting comparability and our quarterly earnings days for fiscal 2015. Denise will follow me with her perspective on the quarter of the year and our plan through fiscal 2015. Anthony will then discuss our financial results for the quarter and full year, finishing with our expectations for fiscal 2015 and after that we will take your questions. As usual, we've created slides to accompany our earnings presentation. You will find the slides posted on our website this morning at investor.campbellsoupcompany.com and on our IR app which is available through Google or Apple. Please keep in mind that our call is open to members of the media who are participating in listen-only mode. Today’s presentation includes forward-looking statements, which reflects Campbell’s current expectations about future plans and performance. These forward-looking statements rely on a number of assumptions and estimates, which could be inaccurate and are subject to inherent risks. Please refer to slide three in the presentation or to Campbell’s most recent 10-K and SEC filings for a list of factors that could cause our actual results to vary materially from those anticipated in any forward-looking statements. Now I would like to remind you about items impacting comparability. As we said in this morning’s news release, in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014 we recorded $21 million of pre-tax restructuring charges and restructuring related costs to improve our supply chain efficiency in Australia, to reduce overhead across the…

Denise Morrison

Management

Thank you Jennifer and good morning to everyone. Welcome to our fourth quarter earnings call. At our investor day in July, I told you that I remain confident that our strategy to reshape Campbell by strengthening our core business and expanding in to faster growing spaces is the right course for our company, and I also know that it will take more time than we originally anticipated to achieve our long-term growth targets. Our industry is now in a period of profound change and challenge, and there has been a meaningful decline in the performance of the packaged food sector. Sources like the economic environment, the transformation of consumers’ food preferences with regard to health and wellness and their demand for greater transparency, the powerful social and demographic changes and the rise of e-commerce are all driving significant changes in consumer behavior with respect to food. With this as background, today I will focus most of my remarks on our performance for full year 2014 and our expectations for fiscal 2015. But first, I will briefly comment on our fourth quarter results. Our fourth quarter results benefited from the extra week in the fiscal year, which was a significant driver in the quarter, as we delivered 7% sales growth and double digit growth in adjusted EBIT and EPS. Organic sales in the quarter decreased 2%, as our core business continued to under perform in a challenging consumer environment. Turning to our full year results, in 2014 including the 53 week and the benefit of acquisitions, Campbell delivered growth in both sales and adjusted earnings. We were encouraged by the performance of the businesses we acquired in the last two fiscal years, as part of our strategy to reshape Campbell’s growth trajectory, but we were not satisfied with the performance of…

Anthony DiSilvestro

Management

Good morning and thanks Denise. I will walk through our fourth quarter results and segment highlights, followed by look a at our fiscal year results. As Jennifer indicated, both our fourth quarter and fiscal year results included extra week compared to the prior year. We’ll wrap up with a look at our fiscal 2015 guidance, which will be presented on a 52 to 52-week basis. As usual, my discussion of results will exclude items impacting comparability which are detailed in our non-GAAP reconciliations. For the fourth quarter, we reported net sales from continuing operations of 1.852 billion, an increase of 7% versus the year ago quarter. These sales results include a seven-point benefit from the 53rd week and a three-point contribution from our Kelsen and Plum acquisitions. Excluding the 53rd week acquisitions and a negative impact of currency, organic net sales decreased by 2%, driven by declines in our US Simple Meals and Global Baking and Snacking segment, probably offset by gains in Bolthouse and Foodservice. Adjusted EBIT increase 25% to 259 million, the increase was primarily due to lower administrative expenses and the benefit of the 53rd week probably offset by a lower gross margin percentage. Adjusted earnings per share were $0.49, a 14% increase versus the prior year, reflecting an EBIT growth probably offset by a higher effective tax rate. The next slide shows a composition of our sales performance. As you can see, there was no impact from volume mix and rising. The organic sales decrease of two points reflects increased promotional spending, primarily related to higher rates of spending to remain competitive in our Global Baking and Snacking segment. Unfavorable currency had a one-point impact due to the Australian and Canadian dollars weakening against the US dollar. The acquisition of Kelsen and seven additional weeks of…

Jennifer Driscoll

Management

Thanks Anthony. At this time will conduct the Q&A session. We would likely to request that our callers limit themselves to a single question. If you have a second question, we invite you to re-enter the queue as we’ll take double dippers after everyone else has had the opportunity to pose a question.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of John Baumgartner with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

John Baumgartner - Wells Fargo

Analyst

Denise just wondering if you could provide an update on the sauces strategy and maybe the products you’re seeing in terms of retailers adopting these dedicated aisle merchandisers, and your expectations for the contribution of sauces to growth in fiscal ’15.

Denise Morrison

Management

Our sauces strategy is to continue to build pace brand. We have on the docket for F ‘15 some innovation and brand building programs. But most of the contribution from sauces will come from the growth in Prego, where we are continuing to expand our white sauces, and also the innovation in our Campbell’s dinner sauces, where we have introduced Skillet and Slow Cooker sauces, and this year, we are introducing Oven sauces, and that platform continues to build. We now have the majority of retailers giving us an extra four foot section in the stores as a destination for these particular sauces. So it’s a very strong and profitable business for us.

Operator

Operator

Our first question comes from the line of Andrew Lazar with Barclays. Your line is open.

Andrew Lazar - Barclays

Analyst

Denise in the prepared remarks, I think you made a comment about remaining committed to investing in the platforms for the long-term, but also having the willingness to take additional actions if industry headwinds accelerate. So just trying to get a sense of what you meant by those additional actions; is that a potential for just to be more thoughtful around marketing in the year, potentially or incremental restructuring or both or things beyond that, then I didn’t mention thank you.

Denise Morrison

Management

I think it’s really important that the company, given the fact that we are still having challenges on our organic sales to continue to invest in these brands and to make sure that we are innovating, and that is going to take the investment that we have in our plans. However, given the volatility in the market place on some of the commodity issues that we’re facing et cetera, we are constantly looking for additional opportunities for cost reduction and management of those margins. So that’s what I was indicating their. We believe that we’ve got it balanced, but quite frankly, if there are surprises we will take extra action to make sure to deliver what we said we’re going to do.

Andrew Lazar - Barclays

Analyst

Got it. So a little less on marketing side, where I think you have mentioned even at your analyst day that does need to be, continued to be bolstered behind some of the new innovations and then maybe more on the cost side, potentially.

Denise Morrison

Management

Correct. Absolutely.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Eric Katzman with Deutsche Bank.

Eric Katzman - Deutsche Bank

Analyst · Deutsche Bank.

Maybe a little bit of a follow-up to Andrew’s question for the long-term. And then I have kind of a detail numbers question. But on the long-term, why wouldn’t and maybe this looks somewhat semantic, but why wouldn’t you change your long-term targets either a little lower, given the environment and the inability to achieve them over the last three years or just say, okay, our long-term targets now include the assumption of M&A to stop.

Denise Morrison

Management

The way we are looking at it Eric is, we need about a point more of sales and two points of EBIT growth to get to the bottom of the range, and when you think about the puts and takes that we’re cycling in F ‘14, that give was about four points of EBIT pressure in F ‘15 with a net impact of about $45 million from supply chain cost and incentive compensation. Without this headwind, EBIT would have been consistent with our long-term targets. So we have line of sight of how to get there. However, we are saying that there may be a call for more M&A to continue to diversify into faster growing spaces for sustainable achievement of those long-term targets.

Eric Katzman - Deutsche Bank

Analyst · Deutsche Bank.

Right. And then Anthony if I could just follow, I don’t understand one thing you said about the fiscal ‘15 assumptions. Now you have already started out by saying that fiscal ‘15 is likely to be less than planned. So if the incentive comp of 45 million is that a portion of what you would have assumed if you had achieve the targets. I’m just surprised that wouldn’t the incentive comp headwinds be lower because you’re already at the start of the year, assuming a less then average year.

Anthony DiSilvestro

Management

Let me kill clarify Eric, what I said is that, our fiscal 2015 growth rate would be lower than our long-term target growth rates. Those growth rates in F ‘15 are more consistent with our internal plans. And the 0% to 2% EBIT and EPS growth includes the negative headwind from returning incentive compensation to target levels, part of which is offset by restructuring benefits from the programs that we recently initiated.

Eric Katzman - Deutsche Bank

Analyst · Deutsche Bank.

But I guess I just don’t understand, if you are starting out the year, knowing that you’re going to be below your long-term plan, and I realize your compositions a function of several plans or several different time periods. Why would you restate or accrue the comp that what I guess is essentially a normal year’s level. Do you understand what I’m saying?

Anthony DiSilvestro

Management

Yes. You must be referring to the multi year programs and the annual plan resets every year, so that certainly goes back to target levels. The way the accruals work on the longer term ones is that you basically adjust to your current expectations, so that going forward, the increment is more consistent or closer to target.

Eric Katzman - Deutsche Bank

Analyst · Deutsche Bank.

Okay, maybe I’ll follow up off-line. I’ll pass up. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Chris Growe with Stifel. Your line is open.

Chris Growe - Stifel Nicolaus

Analyst · Stifel. Your line is open.

I just wondered if I can get a little bit more color on the increase supply chain costs. I know the through the year you had those, I think weather in part was a factor. But seems like those continued in the fourth quarter as well. Can you give a little color on that, and does that pressing in your response to Andrew’s question, in part, which you would be targeting if there was some more cost reduction activities.

Anthony DiSilvestro

Management

On the fourth quarter, we had a couple of situations in the supply chain was relatively unique and different than the full-year impacts that we saw around, for example, the Plum recall the impact of the extreme weather on warehousing and distribution costs. What we saw in the fourth quarter is really two things, and they both add up to being about a two point impact on gross margin quarter-over-quarter. The first is the timing of our fixed cost absorption, last year we had some favorability, this year we had some unfavorability rating. It’s a relatively small quarter, we are truing up some of our fixed cost reserves and what we saw was year-on-year negative impact on gross margins. And the second is on our open commodity hedges, so we take forward cover on the majority of our hedge able items, and what happened in the fourth quarter, the underlying prices of those commodities declined and so we had to record a loss on some of those open commodity hedges. So those two things happened in the fourth quarter, and again they are not really kind of a recurring thing which is why I added the comment that looking ahead we do expect 2015 gross margin percentage to be comparable to this year.

Denise Morrison

Management

And Chris, just to build on that. In the fourth quarter last year, we were gearing up on launching Campbell’s Homestyle soup. So that is something that we’re cycling this year.

Chris Growe - Stifel Nicolaus

Analyst · Stifel. Your line is open.

That’s very helpful. Thank you.

Denise Morrison

Management

The absorption.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Alexia Howard with Sanford Bernstein. Your line is open.

Alexia Howard - Sanford Bernstein

Analyst · Sanford Bernstein. Your line is open.

Just sticking with the soup category, you’ve launched a wide range of new soups over the past few years, the Go soups, Slow Kettle, Bisques and so on, and yet the categories continues to decline, it seems. What have you learned from those new product launches over the years, and what makes line up for fiscal ‘15 more likely to succeed this time. Thank you.

Denise Morrison

Management

Alexia what we’re doing in the next year is two things, we are improving against our drivers of demand, but we are also investing more in broader platforms to improve total category performance. So each one of the things you listed in and of itself is a single initiative, but when you bundle that into a premium soup platform, we then will be building the expansion of Slow Kettle and the introduction of Campbell’s Organic soup. We’re putting premium soup sections in stores, so that we know that the consumer for these particular product is younger and more affluent, so that gives us the range in value all the way from Condensed soup all the way up to a Premium soup and shelf-stable and then also in chilled, and so focusing on premium soup platform, we believe is a faster growing space for is within the soup category. The second thing we are doing is, Swanson broth is giving us an expansion to a flavor infused platform, which is offering consumers a creative homing soup in meal solutions based on the insight of why I cook? And then, within some of the brands we have platforms like pub-inspired Chunky or building out our Campbell’s Homestyle and Healthy Request soup. So what we’ve really learned is by bundling these into platforms, what we have to do is improve the total category performance, which has been declining,, and if you can do that by bringing new users into category we believe that’s the best opportunity for growth.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of David Palmer with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

David Palmer - RBC Capital Markets

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Just a follow-up on soup for this upcoming year. What sort of year-over-year performance would expect simple meals and soups specifically similar to your overall top line guidance, and where I’m going with this is, your innovation, marketing and renovation plans for this year, how would you characterize them versus ‘14, and what do you think of weather comparisons are they neutral or perhaps negative event for ‘15 as you are thinking ahead. Thanks.

Anthony DiSilvestro

Management

He yes, I would say I don’t want to give a specific forecast for simple meals, but as Denise said, we do expect soup to grow in 2014. We do expect growth from some of our other areas within simple meals. The challenge is that some of these core centre store categories have been sluggish of late, and that’s kind of what’s holding its back. We will flex the marketing to focus against some of the innovation that’s going on, so the launch of Oven sauce and the launch of organic soups, so will flex the marketing within there to do that. We expect pretty significant renovation, I mean Denise talked about 200 new SKUs, a lot of those fit inside the simple meals category. With regards to weather, I would say kind of neutral year-on-year, but don’t really focused too much on that.

Denise Morrison

Management

The only thing I would add is that, we typically plan our innovation at the average in the food business, and so if something performs better than average we get a benefit from that. But if something performs below that we believe that by planning to the average weekend balance out.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Bryan Spillane with Bank of America/ Merrill Lynch. Your line is open. Bryan Spillane - Bank of America/ Merrill Lynch: Maybe a broader question just trying to conceptualize a little bit where we stand or will go going forward in terms of the core business. I guess over the last few years, the challenging environment, the challenges have been really North America and I guess Australia, and it’s been a combination of the economy or a weak consumer wallet and all the things that would drive that. And then we’ve also got change in consumer case, I guess, from my perspective, it seems like early on it was more a weak wallet and less sort of consumer tastes and maybe that’s changed now. So can you just give is a sense for kind of, of those items which ones are really causing the most pressure today, and as you’re going forward, which of those two do you think are the most important in addressing in terms of sort of getting the base to be where it needs in order to get ourselves back to the algorithm.

Denise Morrison

Management

There are several factors, but I’ll talk about two that are on our watch. The first one is the impact of snack, particularly on the recipients, they are about 12% of our shopper base and that’s correlated to about 1% decline in sales. There are about 19% of households in general, based on government data. IRI captures about 12% of them as they do their analysis. And our analysis shows that about 30% of our retail customer base is experiencing greater dollar declines among these households versus their total retail shoppers. So we are continuing to watch that. The second is a shopping pattern of the next generation. We’re watching the fact that 18 to 24-year-olds are not necessarily frequenting stores like their parents. Now, a lot of them live with their parents, so that might explain some of it. But as we dig deeper in it, some of them haven’t even made any trips to either a club store or mass merchandiser in the last year. So making sure that we are engaging this nice generation where they shop and how they are going to be engaging with brands is going to be very, very important. So those are the two things that we think are having a macro impact, there are more. Bryan Spillane - Bank of America/ Merrill Lynch: But it’s fair to say in the near-term, the longer term thing is getting the millennial I guess other people in the 20s to engage in the category more. But the more specific thing that turned in the near-term, which is simply be that financial pressure of the wallet.

Anthony DiSilvestro

Management

Yes, I would say being the finance guy that that weak wallet has a very significant impact. We’re talking about our core category performance and probably something that we can affect the least, and it’s certainly impacting some of our centre store categories. Unlike the innovation thing we’re doing a lot about innovation. Now, those things are more in our control, we understand where the consumer is going, we can bring new products. Denise talked about dinner sources, we have a new line of [VHUs] as that is more healthy, we have new varieties of Swanson and Chunky and Homestyle and Prego Vista. All those things are addressing kind of where the consumer tastes is evolving. The hardest one for us to get at, obviously, is that weak wallet and the impact on our core categories.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Matthew Grainger with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Matthew Grainger - Morgan Stanley

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

So you’ve talked more recently about pulling back on some of the less productive promotional spending that you’ve seen through the course of the year and shifting these dollars back to advertising, but with promotion about 2% headwind towards sales this quarter. I guess it wasn’t clearly evident in Q4. Were you able to make or have you been able to make these kinds of tactical adjustments you’d hope to make 2 to 3 months ago, or is the competitive environment make it difficult to follow through on this.

Denise Morrison

Management

Actually for F ‘15 we have made course corrections based on our F‘14 results, and we’ve worked with both depths and frequency depending upon the category and the competition we are facing, and obviously for competitive reasons, we don’t disclose the specifics of our promotions, but we have like I said taken up learning and applied it. In general, we aim to keep a total marketing spend, which is a combination of advertising consumer and trade, add about 25% of less sales. But the marketing mix is going to vary depending upon the brand and the category and the competitive set in that category.

Matthew Grainger - Morgan Stanley

Analyst · Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

And then just to clarify with respect to some of the marketing and selling costs overall for the full-year, and my sense is that this should definitely be up year-on-year in absolute terms because of this course correction, but can you just confirm that that’s the right way to think about it on a full-year basis, not necessarily quarter-to-quarter.

Anthony DiSilvestro

Management

Yes. Denise was referring to our total marketing so advertising, consumer and trade spending, not the selling and marketing line on the P&L and trying to keep it around 24% to 25% of their sales. I wouldn’t expect any significant changes in those percentages year-on-year or ‘15 versus ’14. Maybe some slight changes within them, but nothing significant.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Jason English with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Jason English - Goldman Sachs

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

I want to drill down a little bit more on gross margin, I think, at least for me that was the biggest surprise in the quarter. Can you help us quantify the Plum recall expenses as well as the other supply chain expenses or I would guess the mark-to-market charges that hit you this year. Then bigger question thinking forward into next year, you are guiding for inflation to modestly outstrip productivity, as I think now it was getting at net pricing at our promotions has been eroding into the new fiscal year, and you had this mix issue within your P&L presumably as soup sales lag and some of your lower margin or faster growth piece of the portfolio becoming a bigger piece. So in context to all that, how are we comfortable gross margins being flat in fiscal ’15.

Anthony DiSilvestro

Management

Okay, I can address that because with any planning cycles there are certainly puts and takes. In this year, we had the Plum recall that was worth $16 million as we’ve discussed. In the four quarters, we had this issue around losses on open commodity contracts, both of those are going to turn and go the other way in 2015, but there has been some one-offs or takes in 2015, as well. Most of that Plum recall wrap is going to be offset by unfavorable currency movement at the transaction level. So, imports into both Canada and Australia are adversely impacted by the weakening of those currencies. So there are a number of pluses and minuses that kind of net out with the exception of the incentive compensation headwind and we’ve talked about that that’s $45 million. A good portion of that $45 million is going to be offset by the benefit of our restructuring programs. We had three quarters this year, where we’ve announced restructuring initiatives, combined when we fully implement those it’s worth 65 million, we won’t get all that in F ‘15, but we’ll get a good portion of that. So we’re trying to mitigate that impact, and again we have a number of puts and takes and they kind of all balance out with the exception of that one big one.

Jason English - Goldman Sachs

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Okay, that’s helpful. Switching gears, Denise to you on M&A, you’ve kind of hinted that maybe M&A is on the cards, but you put out this $10 billion sales bogey in five years, and even given your credits for pretty healthy acceleration to your underlying portfolio. You’re going to come easily $1 billion plus short of that without M&N. So A, is that the right way to think about it, and then B, as we contemplate up to 1 billion or more of acquired sales: next five years, how do we think about your prioritization in terms of buying businesses that accelerate long-term growth to your portfolio versus buying businesses that can have a meaningful impact on both the top and bottom line right out of the gates.

Denise Morrison

Management

Well, we continue to evaluate M&A targets that are a good strategic fit, but we have a very disciplined approach. So I don’t want to take away the [b’s] that we’re going to be reckless about this. We definitely have been looking at specific targets, but we’ve walked away from more than we made. So the prioritization will be about the places that we’ve picked being the global baking and snacking area, the packaged fresh area, health and wellness in North America. Those are the three areas that we believe that they are faster growing spaces for us based on the strategy that we’ve laid out. And we do have the financial flexibility to make a meaningful acquisition, but like I said, we are being very disciplined about it.

Anthony DiSilvestro

Management

If I could just add to that, I mean certainly M&A, can play a role as you’ve seen us deal with Bolthouse and Plum and Kelsen in terms of improving our growth profile and we’ll continue to look for opportunities to do that. But we also recognize that in terms of value creation the best thing we can do is improve the performance of our base business. And Denise has talked about the dual mandate, we are focused on expanding in the higher growth spaces with innovation and packaged fresh and availability in the international business that we do own. So it’s a combination of improving the base and expanding through M&A that will get us to that $10 billion target.

Jason English - Goldman Sachs

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Got it. Thanks a lot guys, I’ll pass it on.

Denise Morrison

Management

I know we are at the hour , but we’ll keep going because we still have a few people in the queue.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Diane Geissler with CLSA. Your line is open.

Diane Geissler - CLSA

Analyst · CLSA. Your line is open.

I wanted to ask about Denise’s comments about four pillars to accelerate growth in particular, the move in to some non-traditional channels, and I am particularly interested in, promo spending has been pretty inefficient, most of your peers have said the same and you even commented about (inaudible) not shopping the way their parents do. So I guess my question’s really, as promo hasn’t really produced the volume lift can you first of all quantify what percentage of your sales is coming from these alternative channels and then can you talk a little bit about how you will go about getting into say C- stores or clubs, or maybe you could just give us a few more details on kind of what’s behind that comment, and then obviously those channels are pretty competitive. So if you could just explain that up a little bit. I would be very interested in hearing that thank you.

Denise Morrison

Management

Well, we have a majority of our business still concentrated largely in grocery and mass merchandiser which gives us lots of opportunity for expansion in other channels, and we believe that we need to make a concerted effort to do so. We have expanded our sales presence and our programming across multiple channels and we are also paying attention to the e-commerce space with many of our large customers and so we are doing a better job in terms of tailoring programs in some of these new spaces. So we’re not highly efficient right out of the gate, but we are learning and getting better at it. I think most of the promotional situations that we have though this year was more in our traditional channels, and we were working more with frequency and less depths and in some categories like baked snacks and soup that didn’t work as well as we expected it to. So we are of course correcting.

Anthony DiSilvestro

Management

We have a very significant initiative against the immediate consumption channels that we’ve talked about as we develop our own router to market network. At this point we have over 100 new distributors signed up. That transition is largely complete, we’ve got over hundred thousand doors in terms of coverage and we expect to see some growth coming from this initiative, probably by the second-quarter of fiscal ’15.

Denise Morrison

Management

And the original focus on that is beverage from both V8 and Bolthouse Farms.

Diane Geissler - CLSA

Analyst · CLSA. Your line is open.

Okay, thank you for the additional color.

Denise Morrison

Management

Yes, and I think our estimate routing that channels Diane is about 10% somewhere in there.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of David Driscoll with Citi. Your line is open.

David Driscoll - Citi

Analyst · Citi. Your line is open.

Thanks for taking the question, I see the hour show. I’ll be direct here, I wanted to just talk a little bit about the gross margins. When I look really big picture at Campbell’s Soup in more than 10 years of data, Denise, we haven’t seen a gross margin like this. I mean 35.4%, it’s remarkable in respect to what Campbell has produced for so many years. I also believe that at the beginning of the year you guys thought that the gross margin would actually be kind of flattish on the year end and it was down 190 basis points. So there are a lot of things that have really happened that I think were not easily predictable by the team. The point in the question is, can adjust discuss why gross margins wouldn’t have significant risk to the downside ongoing for the very same factors that kind of drove the F ‘14 numbers. And is it simply all about this 65 million in savings, is that the lifeline that we are hoping that really stabilizes gross margins, thank you.

Anthony DiSilvestro

Management

Guess I think the first is we certainly acknowledge what has happened to our gross margin over the last couple of years, and the principal driver of that has been an increase in trade rates, and it has to do with the environment, it has to do with a couple of a businesses, namely US soup in Australia and more recently in Pepperidge Farm. And I think the difference, and certainly it is a challenging goal, we acknowledge that. But we also acknowledge in order for us to hit our financial targets, we need to do a better job at managing this trade rate closer to flat. We have plans to that in 2015 with a combination of changes promote price points that something that we didn’t have coming into this year, so that has a direct and immediate impact on the amount of trade. We have adjustment to the frequency and around specific promotional events continuing to learn in terms of what programs are more productive versus less productive, and that to reallocate within the portfolio. I think most of the challenge in Australia is fully behind us, we have specific plans to address the issue of late within Pepperidge Farm. So as we look across the portfolio, and again, its going to very by category, but we are looking to hold the trade rate relatively flat, and it is a challenge but that’s our plan and what we are trying to do in 2015, because we know how critical it is to the gross margin to get this trade rate back to flattish.

David Driscoll - Citi

Analyst · Citi. Your line is open.

I mean to state the obvious, it’s unsettling to see these gross margins do what they are doing and then to have confidence in the model. Certainly ‘15 will be critical. Can you describe or quantify the size of the commodity impacts for the open hedge position that it took in the fourth quarter. If I’m correct, that’s a reversible item. So what will happen is as you actually recognize those the actual transactions through F‘15. What was the headwind in the fourth quarter will become a tailwind within the operating segments as the course of ‘15 plays through and the hedges are used up.

Anthony DiSilvestro

Management

Yes, somebody studied hedge accounting, it’s about $10 million.

David Driscoll - Citi

Analyst · Citi. Your line is open.

It’s 10 million bucks, and then I would go back to Eric’s question just to speed it. I think I want to state it simply, the $45 million of incentive comp that you built back into the plan, I think what Eric was getting at is, kind of why does all 45 million get back into the budget for the year when the expectation is that the company will not achieved its long-term targets. I mean it’s in simple form, and he doesn’t mean to come across that harsh. I mean Denise, may be the right answer is, you just have to pay the team in order to keep the team. I think we all just kind of want to understand the philosophy on the 45 million and what it takes to maintain the excitement of the people running the business.

Anthony DiSilvestro

Management

Let me jump in first here and then Denise can come at it if she’d like. Thanks for the second attempt here at an answer. Think about it as two parts, again there is an annual incentive plan which kind of resets each year and then there is long term targets that will increase year-on-year, but do not get back to 100% pay out. So, the annual incentive goes back to target, the long terms ones will go up next year, but they don’t go anywhere near a 100%, if they are set against our long term sales and EPS targets.

Denise Morrison

Management

We definitely have pay for performance compensation system, and with sales goals that are higher than our guidance. I think we have time for one more question.

Operator

Operator

Our final question comes from the line of Todd Duvick with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Todd Duvick - Wells Fargo

Analyst

Very simply on the balance sheet, you had $700 million of debt that matured in August, and I think you had capacity to refinance that with commercial paper, and I guess my question is really two-fold. First of all, would you look to refinance a portion of that in the debt capital markets to term out a portion of your floating rate debt, and in terms of capital allocation priorities, do you continue to be focused somewhat on debt reduction for FY ’15.

Anthony DiSilvestro

Management

I can take that. In F’14 we had $700 million of long term debt maturing. We also had cash flow that enabled us to reduce our total debt levels by $300 million to $400 million. So one of them has been just paid off with cash from operations, and the other as you pointed out, refinance with commercial paper. As you know, we have pretty access to capital markets, so we are continuing to evaluate opportunities to come to market. We don’t have a specific plan to share with you today on that, but again we are looking at that pretty closely. In terms of capital allocation priorities, not much has changed there. Obviously our first priority is to fund our ongoing business, the second would be dividends, third, M&A and the last would be share repurchases. What’s changing in F’15 is that we are going resume in a modest fashion a return to share repurchases, get a little bit of EPS benefit in F’15, but that would be the only change for us going forward.

Jennifer Driscoll

Management

Thanks, and thanks everybody for hanging on a little extra time there. We appreciate you for joining us on our fourth quarter earnings call and webcast. If you missed any of our calls, the replay will be available about two hours after our call concludes, simply dial 7039252533, the replay access code is 164 2451. You have until September 22 at midnight at which point we move our earnings call to the website at investor.campbellsoupcompany.com just click on news and events then recent webcast and presentation. If you are a reporter and have questions, please call Carla Burigatto, Director of External Communications, at 856-342-3737. Investors and analysts should call me, Jennifer Driscoll, no catchy number just 856-342-6081. This concludes today's program. You may now disconnect.