Brian D. Goldner
Analyst · Needham & Company
Thank you, Debbie. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We are driving our global brand building efforts across our Brand Blueprint through toy and game innovation, digital media, licensing and entertainment to deliver long-term profitable growth for Hasbro and our shareholders. While we're up against challenging comparisons in the Boys arena this year, we have seen growth in our other categories and believe that these efforts position Hasbro to successfully execute our strategy and leverage our brands and our strategic investments in both the near term and in the years to come. Our second quarter performance reflected the difficult comparisons in the Boys category while at the same time, highlighted areas of growth and opportunity for Hasbro. Second quarter revenues of $766 million declined 6%, while year-to-date revenues declined 2%. Second quarter operating profit excluding charges declined 11%, reflecting the lower level of revenues in the quarter. However, year-to-date operating profit was up 3% absent charges. We are focusing on our most important initiatives while rightsizing our cost base and organization. This focus is having positive results. 5 of our 7 franchise brands grew, and 3 of our 4 product categories were up, both in the second quarter and year to date. We have extraordinary people doing outstanding brand building globally around these high-priority initiatives. Geographically, our emerging market investments continue to pay off. In the second quarter, these markets grew 24% behind Games in many countries, including Russia, China and Brazil. Supported by our investment in innovation and a focus on our top initiatives, revenues in our Girls and Games categories grew 43% and 19%, respectively, this quarter. Preschool revenues gained 4% in the quarter. Content is clearly driving our brands. Our investment in Hasbro Studios is powering our franchise brands, including My Little Pony, Transformers and Transformers Rescue Bots and most recently, Littlest Pet Shop. Our partner brands, Marvel, Star Wars and Sesame Street, are also leveraging global entertainment to build franchises now and into the future. Supporting future growth in games and the convergence of digital and analog play, we invested in our mobile gaming innovation portfolio with the recent acquisition of 70% of Backflip Studios. With established brands including DragonVale and Paper Toss, Backflip has a track record of sustained performance, including profitability, strong development capabilities and games which address an end consumer similar to that of Hasbro brands. We are really excited to begin working with Julian Farrior, Dale Thoms and the great team in Boulder and look forward to developing great games on their brands and Hasbro brands. Additionally, we also recently signed a new multi-year agreement with EA that focuses on 8 core Hasbro game brands for mobile gaming. Both of these steps ensure consumers can experience our brands anytime and anywhere. Importantly, over the next several years, we are headed into a period of significant boys entertainment. We are developing comprehensive and innovative lines behind both film and television, including Transformers 4 in 2014 and several Disney entertainment initiatives for Marvel and Star Wars in 2014, 2015 and beyond. For the 2013 holiday season, we are well positioned with new initiatives across product categories and geographies. Retailers have shared their excitement with us for Hasbro's holiday offerings, and we continue to partner closely to manage inventory and ensure the right amount of product is at retail at the right time. At the end of the second quarter, inventory at our top 4 U.S. retailers was of good quality and down versus last year. As I mentioned, revenue in 3 of our 4 product categories, Girls, Games and Preschool, grew in the second quarter, marking 3 straight quarters of growth for both Girls and Games. Innovative and immersive brand experiences contribute to the continued strong growth in My Little Pony, Magic: The Gathering and Play-Doh, as well as in a number of other brands, including Furby, Twister, Jenga and Transformers Rescue Bots. For the holidays, we are launching major new initiatives in each of these categories to continue their momentum. While I can't touch on all of the initiatives across our brands, we hope you will join us in Providence on September 10 for our Investor Day, where we will talk in more detail about our brand initiatives. Today, I will highlight a few important fall initiatives and launches, which should help continue the momentum in these categories. For Girls, Nerf Rebelle will be on shelf in the third quarter. We have been cultivating the Nerf Rebelle brand for more than 2 years and have talked to thousands of girls about what they would expect from a sports action line. Retailers and girls alike are excited about this all new offering. Additionally for Girls, we continue to leverage the globally popular My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic television program with new products launching in markets around the world. We are also building on the momentum of My Little Pony with the launch of My Little Pony Equestria Girls, a new full length feature film introducing a whole new dimension into the world of My Little Pony. The film launched at the LA Film Festival on June 16. It then rolled out to over 250 theaters in the U.S. and Canada. Based on positive audience reaction, screen vision added more showings. In mid-August, the My Little Pony Equestria Girls movie is planned to roll out in over 20 different countries and will be available on DVD. Additionally, it will air on the Hub Network on September 1. Products supporting the film will be on shelf beginning in August and is highlighted by a line of fashion dolls based on the characters in the film. Also for Girls, following a tremendous launch in 2012, Furby is rolling out in 12 languages and across all regions globally in 2013. This fall, we are unveiling Furby Boom in English-speaking markets. Featuring all the magic and personality of its predecessor plus twice the content, the new Furby Boom creature combines physical and digital play. Within Preschool, we have several new launches for our franchise and partner brands, including Big Hugs Elmo and Sesame Street, innovative new technology in Transformers Rescue Bots Beam Box and new playsets featuring our all-new PLAY-DOH PLUS compound. Our Games launches will showcase new innovation and gameplay this fall. Monopoly Empire, Twister Dance Rave, Bop It! Tetris and a new Preschool game, Cheeky Monkey, as well as the launch of our value game initiative, which offers classic games at lower price points, are all delivering on compelling on and off the board gameplay. Moving to Boys, as I mentioned, the category had difficult comparisons with 2012, which included 2 very strong Marvel Entertainment initiatives, the Avengers and The Amazing Spider-Man, and higher sales of Beyblade. As we look ahead to the next several years, we are developing and supporting significant Boys entertainment in both television and film distributed across all screens based on Hasbro and partner brands. In 2014, the fourth film in the Transformers franchise is scheduled to be in theaters, and for future years, we continue to develop new Hasbro brands, including Stretch Armstrong and Micronauts with our studio partners. Marvel has several films planned for 2014, including Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and an all-new franchise, Guardians of The Galaxy. And in 2015, the second Avengers film is anticipated. Importantly, Lucasfilm is unveiling all-new Star Wars television programming in 2014 and has scheduled the release of Star Wars: Episode VII in 2015. In the near term, for the 2013 holiday season, we have new Boys initiatives inspired by our extensive global consumer research, including Transformers Construct-Bots and all-new Kre-O initiative, Kre-O CityVille Invasion, featuring our new sonic motion technology and new NERF Elite products, including the NERF "N-Strike" Elite Mega series. Over the past several years, we've invested in developing Hasbro brands holistically across consumer groups, geographies and immersive experiences. Our efforts are enabling us to build a more robust and diverse portfolio around our brands. Instrumental in accomplishing this has been the development of all elements of our Brand Blueprint, employing game innovation, digital media, lifestyle licensing and immersive entertainment experience. Innovation and new technology development is central to this strategy and increasingly, the integration of digital and analog play is an essential element of these efforts. Furby, Magic: The Gathering and even Monopoly are effectively delivering against the promise of integrated play. Last week, we elevated our efforts in this space with the unveiling of TELEPODS, an all-new mobile gaming platform. TELEPODS uses innovative new technology to allow kids to play in 2 ways: in the physical space and through full and unprecedented integration into top tier mobile apps. The TELEPODS play experience will first be available in a line released this August based on and fully integrated into the highly anticipated new game app Angry Birds Star Wars II from Rovio Entertainment and Lucasfilm. We are very excited by the potential of this platform in the mobile space, and we'll expand the TELEPODS experience to other Hasbro categories and brands. We have also continued developing our Brand Blueprint by expanding our digital gaming capabilities through a majority investment in Backflip Studios. The addition of in-house digital gaming capabilities allows us to more fully participate in the value being created by our brands digitally. Our expectation is that the addition of Backflip will be neutral to slightly accretive to our financial results in 2013. We also continue to have tremendous partnerships in the broader digital gaming space with EA, Activision, Gameloft, DeNA and others. Through the combination of in-house and partner resources, Hasbro brands are being developed across all gaming platform for markets around the world so that consumers can play our brands anytime and anywhere. Moving to immersive entertainment experiences within our Brand Blueprint, our television strategy is enabling us to reach audiences across all screens globally. Hasbro Studios has received 7 Daytime Emmy Awards for its programming, which can be experienced in over 170 markets around the world on television, on all major digital platforms and on DVD. Recent developments include Transformers Prime now airing on national television in China after an almost 30-year absence. And we have begun to roll out our Littlest Pet Shop internationally, where it is now airing in the U.S., Canada U.K. and France, with distribution planned in all regions by year end. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Transformers Prime Beast Hunters, Rescue Bots and Pound Puppies remain highly rated shows globally. Another element of our global television strategy is our joint ownership of the Hub Network in the U.S., which continues to make significant year-to-year strides with kids and adults. The second quarter represented the seventh consecutive quarter of growth among its key demographics. In June, the Hub network received 7 Daytime Emmy Awards, tying for the most awards among kids network. The Hub Network is well positioned for success with distribution now in over 72 million homes, quality award-winning programming and a recent decision to further connect its advertising efforts with the reach and expertise of Discovery Communications. The network now has a plan to achieve pretax profitability in 2014. When you combine our Hasbro branded entertainment with that of our partners for both television and film, we have a tremendous entertainment slate planned for several years to come. In closing, while we are slightly more than halfway through the calendar year, most of our selling year is still to come. We are entering the important second half of the year and holiday season in a good position with new innovation across categories, which is supported by global integrated marketing campaigns and a strong presence and partnership with our retailers. Over the longer term, we remain strategically committed to executing against our Brand Blueprint as we work to unlock the full potential of our brands globally and drive the long-term profitable growth of Hasbro. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Deb. Deb?