Earnings Labs

Constellation Brands, Inc. (STZ)

Q1 2019 Earnings Call· Fri, Jun 29, 2018

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the Constellation Brands’ First Quarter 2019 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants have been placed in a listen-only mode. Following the prepared remarks, the call will be opened for your questions. Instructions will be given at that time. [Operator Instructions] I will now turn the call over to Patty Yahn-Urlaub, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Patty Yahn-Urlaub

Analyst

Thanks, Laurie. Good morning and welcome to Constellation’s first quarter fiscal 2019 conference call. I am here this morning with Rob Sands, our President and Chief Executive Officer and David Klein, our Chief Financial Officer. As a reminder, reconciliations between the most directly comparable GAAP measure and any non-GAAP financial measures discussed on this call are included in our news release or otherwise available on the company’s website at www.cbrands.com. Please refer to the news release and Constellation’s SEC filings for risk factors, which may impact forward-looking statements we make on this call. Before turning the call over to Rob, similar to prior quarters, I would like to ask that we limit everyone to one question per person which will have us end our call on time. Thanks in advance. And now here is Rob.

Rob Sands

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Thank you, Patty. Good morning and welcome to our discussion of Constellation’s first quarter sales and earnings results. These results were in line with our expectations and reflect significant investment across the business designed to ensure that we maintain our growth momentum well into the future as well as other timing issues. We have maintained our earnings guidance as the top line is responding to these investments, including digital enablement for our e-commerce initiatives and our new ERP platform as part of our Fit for Growth initiative. We continue to work with Canopy Growth to develop and build cannabis brands. Our investment in Canopy is certainly paying off as we have recognized gains of more than $700 million in our reported results since we made this investment last year. Now most importantly, we continue to invest in brand building through our innovation and new product development initiatives across the country. Our most significant investment includes an increase in beer marketing to support our newly introduced products, which are exceeding our expectations and fueling sales momentum. The successful launches of Corona Premier and Corona Familiar are the first two major Corona initiatives in more than 25 years. Premier has achieved record speed, record speed to shelf with velocities increasing each month since launch and Familiar has already achieved a healthy share of the category in its regional expansion with velocities outpacing our expectations. These innovations help drive industry’s leading depletion growth of 9% for our beer business during the first quarter despite unfavorable weather related impacts early in the quarter in some of our largest markets. As a matter of fact, this quarter marks 32 consecutive quarters of growth as the winning streak continues for the Constellation beer business. We remain the leader in the high-end of the U.S. beer market…

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the operator. I apologize that there will be a slight delay in today’s conference call, please hold and the conference will resume momentarily.

Rob Sands

Analyst · Wells Fargo

…..indicate that our total beverage alcohol strategy is working as we achieved the most retail sales growth by a wide margin among our U.S. beverage alcohol peers. As such, we remain one of the best growth stories within the U.S. CPG space. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to David who will review our financial results for the quarter.

Patty Yahn-Urlaub

Analyst

Operator, this is Patty Yahn-Urlaub, are we back online?

Operator

Operator

Yes, ma’am. Please go ahead.

Patty Yahn-Urlaub

Analyst

Okay, thank you.

David Klein

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Thanks, Rob and good morning everyone. Q1 results were in line with our expectations and were on track to achieve our full year comparable basis diluted EPS goal of $9.40 to $9.70. Now, let’s review Q1 performance in more detail, where I will generally focus on comparable basis financial results. Starting with beer, net sales increased 11% on volume growth of 9% favorable pricing and a $10 million federal excise tax reduction related to tax reform. This benefit will not recur in the remaining months of calendar 2018 as we reached the maximum barrel-aged level allowed for this excise tax reduction. Depletion growth came in strong at 9%, with excellent portfolio performance during the key Cinco and Memorial Day holidays. This growth is even more impressive considering the 12% depletion growth we are overlapping from Q1 last year and weather-related softness experienced throughout the industry in March and April. Beer operating margin decreased 230 basis points to 37.8% as the benefit of favorable pricing was more than offset by marketing investments, higher COGS and unfavorable foreign currency. The higher COGS reflect increases in transportation costs and depreciation. Beer segment depreciation increased $10 million to $49 million for Q1. Marketing as a percent of revenue increased 110 basis points to 11% of net sales driven by the upfront marketing investment supporting the successful Corona Premier and Familiar introductions. For fiscal ‘19, we continue to expect net sales and operating income growth of 9% to 11%. This includes 1% to 2% of pricing within our Mexican portfolio. As a reminder, are facing a 12% shipment growth comparison for Q2 and 6% shipment growth comparison for Q3. We continue to expect operating margin improvement for fiscal ‘19 although benefits from product pricing, glass sourcing and operational efficiencies are expected to be mostly offset…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Bonnie Herzog of Wells Fargo.

Bonnie Herzog

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Thank you. Good morning, guys.

Rob Sands

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Good morning, Bonnie.

Bonnie Herzog

Analyst · Wells Fargo

I was hoping you could help us understand your conviction levels for the rest of the year given the weak Q1 results and your ability to hit your guidance ranges for the full year specifically for beer. When you look at the midpoint of your guidance, it implies that beer margins for the balance of the year need to expand 80 bps. So, could you drill down just a little bit more on the key drivers of that? And I guess I am just concerned that this might be tough given the spending and strong commodity and transportation cost inflation you touched on? And then does your guidance assume a price increase, for instance? Thanks.

Rob Sands

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Yes, Bonnie, I will start off and I will let David address some of your points, but our convention level is very high. I think that as I said in my comments, the first quarter was very much in line with our own internal expectations. We had planned to invest behind in particular the new products and the beer portfolio as well as some other investments in a big way during the first half of this year and in particular the first quarter and we did make those investments and we see the top line coming through. And that’s what I would say is the most important thing that everybody should be looking at is, is the top line coming through? And in that regard, the top line is probably a little bit above our own internal expectations and our new products are performing I would say, a little bit above our own internal expectations. So, our confidence level on the year and the guidance I would say is very strong. David?

David Klein

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Yes. So, Bonnie, let me start out with GP margins in beer. So, GP margins in beer benefited from robust pricing and then that was offset by incremental depreciation which we had planned on as well as about 70 basis points drag from incremental freight and logistics costs as a result of a tighter trucking market in the U.S. It also was impacted by a headwind on FX meaning the peso. Now that may seem a little counterintuitive, but the weakening of the peso really happened at the very end of May and our production cycle is such that transactional FX benefits or headwinds actually don’t flow through for about 30 days. So, we didn’t get any benefits from the weakening peso at the GP line in Q1. We expect the remainder of the year to have a – to experience a tailwind from FX. We also have had several COGS improvement initiatives underway that we believe will offset the transportation headwinds that we are facing. We fully expect to expand GP margins in FY ‘19 versus FY ‘18. Now, I will also go on and talk about overall operating margins. So, in Q1, we had about 110 basis point headwind versus last year from the marketing investments that we made behind our brands in particular, Premier and Familiar. We expect in Q2 that we will spend about 10% to 11% of net sales on marketing, primarily because the brands are getting real good traction in the marketplace. As Rob outlined, the distribution performance has been astounding and we now want to make sure that we continue to drive increasing velocity on the shelf. However, we are still committed to being in that 9.5% to 10% marketing load for the full year. So, when you kind of do all of that math you get to the place where confidence in the top line understanding that we have a path to expanding GP margins and getting the timing right on our marketing investments that we are very confident that we will deliver both our top line and bottom line guidance in the beer business.

Bonnie Herzog

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Okay, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Dara Mohsenian of Morgan Stanley.

Dara Mohsenian

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

Hi, guys. So, first just a couple of follow-ups. The drag from freight that you mentioned in the quarter, is that fairly consistent in the guidance in the balance of the year in terms of the year-over-year drag you are expecting in the balance of the year? And then on the beer pricing front, are you guys looking to perhaps be more aggressive with pricing given the rise you are seeing in transportation costs or do you look at it really more from a competitive standpoint in consumer demand elasticity than being tied to cost spikes? And then just the last one on the innovation front, can you just talk about Premier repeat rates at the consumer level so far. Obviously, you mentioned the distribution was strong, but what are you seeing in terms of repeat rates and cannibalization across the rest of your portfolio? Thanks.

David Klein

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

So, I will start out and I will leave Rob to talk about the cannibalization, so yes, we, in our thinking about the rest of the year, we have fully internalized the effects of the transportation drag and expect to be able to cover it. From a pricing standpoint, we typically talk about being able to take price of 1% to 2% a year across the portfolio. We are seeing a fairly robust pricing environment in the high-end. I wouldn’t expect that we will go outside of our pricing range that 1% to 2% range, although that work is going on literally this month as our teams are working through pricing.

Rob Sands

Analyst · Morgan Stanley

And then I’d say consumer takeaway and repeat on Premier in particular which is what we asked about. As I said, Premier is responding probably a bit above our expectations. We were very – we were able to gain distribution on the product at a pretty rapid rate, you see velocities at rates which we think are very strong. So I’d say all good for Premier. We don’t see any cheeks in that armor. We think it’s going to be a very, very successful brand launch, plus we put a lot of investment behind the marketing of the brand. And I think that we are seeing the response to that. And then to your question on cannibalization, we are not seeing cannibalization at a rate greater than what we expected in the first place. So, pretty much, I mean that’s the bottom line. So I would say as it relates to the new products, I put that above expectation, I’d say as it relates to the entire Mexican portfolio, I’d have to say that, that’s also slightly above expectations as well. That business, our Mexican beer business is performing very strongly as we go through this fiscal year. So, we see no issues whatsoever there.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Caroline Levy of Macquarie.

Caroline Levy

Analyst · Caroline Levy of Macquarie

Thank you so much. Just a couple of quick ones. Could you just discuss the level of beer inventories with distributors at the end of the quarter? How that looked versus where you are comfortable, is it a little high or little low and are there any other stock issues? Were there any other stock issues as a result of the new products being managed? The second thing really is just I have never in the past decade, I don’t think I heard you call out grape costs, so it sounds like those are creeping up if you could explain why? Thanks.

Rob Sands

Analyst · Caroline Levy of Macquarie

Yes. So in terms of inventory levels at distributors, they are in line with where we typically are at this point of the year perhaps a bit on the low side. So I don’t think there are any distributor load issues clearly and there weren’t significant out of stocks to the best of my knowledge. From a grape cost standpoint, the callout is really based upon the flow-through of a tight NAPA harvest year 2016, which is starting to come through our P&L. Also, there was issues in Italy as well in terms of the grapes that are coming through that are driving increased cost. Now that said, the operations team in the wine business has some overhead initiatives and some blend management initiatives that we have put in place that will start to see flow through the P&L over the remainder of the year. So, I don’t think there is anything that’s worrisome there. It’s just a callout in terms of our margins in line.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Andrea Teixeira of JPMorgan.

Andrea Teixeira

Analyst · Andrea Teixeira of JPMorgan

Hi, good morning everyone. So, I want to just perhaps go back to the kind of depletion trends and how you see it evolving for the rest of the summer and on the price – and the pricing commentary that you gave, in terms of timing – is it the timing around October, which is the typical historical trend for the industry or given the cost pressures you may anticipate this price increase will perhaps reduce the promotional levels as we go? And then related to that just so as a clarification, so you are saying the second quarter pressure is on gross margin for the beer business would be slightly less than what we saw and then compounded the cadence through the rest of the fiscal year given that FX has been more favorable now that the beers are depreciating or should we still see some sort of the same magnitude pressure on the second quarter? Thank you.

David Klein

Analyst · Andrea Teixeira of JPMorgan

So let me start with the last one first. So in terms of gross margin in Q2, we expect that some of – we will still have some transportation headwinds we actually expect instead of having an FX headwind will have a bit of an FX tailwind and we will get some of the operational benefits that I touched on earlier. So, any operating margin pressure in Q2 will really come from the incremental spend behind our brands that I talked about from a marketing standpoint being in that 10% to 11% range of net sales. We are working through our price increase process. Our revenue councils have been meeting working with our sales people to try to arrive at our pricing increase, which will take place in October, it will be announced before then. So, we see no changes on that front. And depletions I would say that 9% were quite strong, especially given the weather effects that we are seeing across the country, but in particular for us, in California, which is in our largest market. So, we are very happy with those depletion trends and we are feeling pretty bullish on the performance of that business throughout the remainder of the year.

Andrea Teixeira

Analyst · Andrea Teixeira of JPMorgan

Thanks, David. And on depletion, can you give us like how much was each quarter so that we can see the cadence?

David Klein

Analyst · Andrea Teixeira of JPMorgan

No, we don’t really give depletion guidance.

Andrea Teixeira

Analyst · Andrea Teixeira of JPMorgan

Okay. And I am saying within the month of the fiscal – the first quarter fiscal ‘19?

David Klein

Analyst · Andrea Teixeira of JPMorgan

Yes, we don’t break it out to that level, but again, just generally and you can assume that March was soft in California, April was soft elsewhere in the country and May looked pretty strong, so.

Andrea Teixeira

Analyst · Andrea Teixeira of JPMorgan

Thank you, David.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Vivien Azer of Cowen.

Vivien Azer

Analyst · Vivien Azer of Cowen

Hi, thank you. So, I wanted to touch on Premier and Familiar as well please. So, two questions. In terms of the distribution gains, can you contextualize how your kind of ACV like has changed and perhaps like kind of the size of your shelf set has changed with this incremental innovation, one and number two, any callouts in terms of competitive responses? Thank you.

Rob Sands

Analyst · Vivien Azer of Cowen

Yes, Vivien. ACV is a great story. We built ACV in Premier thus far to 63% and Familiar without it being introduced everywhere to 37%. So, we are pretty excited about that. And as I sort of indicated, I placed that in the category of excellent results and even potentially above our own expectations. And then I would say in terms of the shelf, we are fundamentally getting incremental shelf space for these products, which is great and makes a lot of sense for the retailers. I mean I would say that retail is getting it, okay, retail understands and they are getting that they can increase their own sales and profitability by getting behind this portfolio, Constellation’s portfolio. So, we continue to be by a factor of many folds, the largest provider of growth at retail of any beverage alcohol company period in the United States. So, we are pretty pleased with these results which is one of the reasons I would say why we have the stomach, okay, to invest behind the portfolio, the way that we have invested behind the portfolio. So, we are pretty confident as we sit here right now that this is going to work out well.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Judy Hong of Goldman Sachs.

Judy Hong

Analyst · Judy Hong of Goldman Sachs

Hi. So, one is just a quick follow-up on gross margins on beer, David, just was there any impact on Q1 related to any of the trades been linked to the Premier and the Familiar expansion? And then secondly the broader question just really on the Corona brand family, so obviously the new innovations are lifting the gross rate of the entire family, which is positive, but you are seeing slowdown in terms of the Corona Extra and the Corona Light declining? And I know Rob you talked about cannibalization actually being pretty close to your expectations, so what do you think is happening to those particular brands? And is there any concern that even though the family is accelerating that particularly those brands are a little bit soft as you think about the growth rate into maybe next year as you lap the innovation driven growth this year?

Rob Sands

Analyst · Judy Hong of Goldman Sachs

Yes. I guess, I will comment on the last point. As I said, cannibalization is well within what we expected and predicted. We don’t see cannibalization really being a huge factor except perhaps against Corona Light, which I would say is what we expected. Any impacts on Corona – Corona Extra, which is performing very well is probably mostly weather-related in March in the first month. And frankly, I don’t really like to bring the weather off, because it doesn’t really matter and I think that we fully expect the portfolio and the base portfolio to respond or to perform as we expected. If you take a look at the whole Corona family, for instance, we were tracking, I don’t know, 200 or 300 basis points or 200 basis points behind where we were for the first quarter. So, that only appears to us that one plus one meaning the base portfolio plus the new products is adding up to 3, not just 2 or even below 2. So I think we are at 14.7% IRI, so – and higher than that for the latest. So, on consumer takeaway is very, very strong across the entire portfolio. As I said, Corona Light, we expected some cannibalization there.

David Klein

Analyst · Judy Hong of Goldman Sachs

And Judy, there was no real meaningful effect on the drag on margins as a result of the new product launches. Those were quite smooth based upon some really good work out of our production folks.

Judy Hong

Analyst · Judy Hong of Goldman Sachs

Okay, thanks.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Robert Ottenstein of Evercore ISI.

Robert Ottenstein

Analyst · Robert Ottenstein of Evercore ISI

Great, thank you very much. Rob, I was wondering if you could perhaps reflect on how you are looking at the cannabis opportunity touching on what roughly kind of your investment level and e-cannabis related projects this year. Do you see that being more or less than what you thought it would be 6 months ago? And in addition, can you address the potential of doing something in California, Loginetis is coming out of a product in 1 to 2 months, is there anyway in which you can create a separate subsidiary or something that would give you regulatory comfort that you could enter that market at some point in the future even if we don’t get full federal legalization. Is it even a remote possibility? Thank you.

Rob Sands

Analyst · Robert Ottenstein of Evercore ISI

So, first of all, Robert, our investment in cannabis is completely in line with what we expected, but that said, we are making a significant investment in Canada from an operating point of view. We all know of our investment in Canopy and of course that’s working out quite well, but we didn’t do it specifically to speculate on Canopy stock, because that’s not what we do. We did it to, in essence, have a stake in Canopy and to create what’s almost a joint venture between ourselves and Canopy to develop product for the world market, okay, including the U.S. So, we have a team and a significant team of people that both came out of Constellation as well as new hires sort of the full accouterment that’s necessary to really develop products. They are headquarters, we call them, Green Star, they are headquartered in Toronto and they are working diligently with many of the major both advertising firms and marketing firms and consulting firms for that matter. We also have Bane engaged on that topic meaning cannabis, so that we are ensuring that we are covering all fronts on that. I think that as to your question about the United States, the answer is, is that we are not going to do anything that is violative of federal law, but that said, we are looking closely at precisely that issue and making sure that we understand what we can do and what we can’t do. And sort of as you implied there maybe things that we can do and we will do them if we can do them as I said it’s not violative of federal laws and we would like to. So, yes, we are aware of the Loginetis. What they are saying, let me put it that way, I don’t have any really true inside knowledge of exactly what they are doing and how they are doing it, but we are pretty interested in what they are doing and how they are doing it and we don’t intend to get caught and becoming from behind. So I suppose therefore the answer to your question is yes, we are looking at it pretty carefully and if we see that opportunity within the confines of what we can legally do, we will do it.

Robert Ottenstein

Analyst · Robert Ottenstein of Evercore ISI

Terrific. That’s very clear. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Tim Ramey of Pivotal Research Group.

Tim Ramey

Analyst · Tim Ramey of Pivotal Research Group

Thanks so much. Hey, good morning. I think Rob probably continued talking in the couple of minutes that you weren’t on the call and if it was true to form previous calls it might have been when you are discussing some of the brand performance in beer, Modelo Especial, we didn’t hear any commentary on that if there was some? So that would be one question to maybe repeat some of that. And second of the wine grapes, based on my data, it looks like 2017 would have been flat to down from ‘16 so you understanding your FIFO structure, should we expect some easing of that as we roll forward?

Rob Sands

Analyst · Tim Ramey of Pivotal Research Group

I will let David address that. Yes, I think we have some technical difficulties in the call. And I believe I was talking about wine and spirits and perhaps what the part that was deleted was the fact that, that I said that we would reiterate – we wanted to reiterate that we are committed to growing net sales and operating income for our wine and spirits business in the 2% to 4% range in fiscal 2019, which is what our original guidance was, so. And then I think I was talking a little bit about appointing Jim Sabia, who is our beer marketing guy, historically to the position of Chief Marketing Officer for the whole company. So, I think that that’s what was cut out. And then on Modelo Especial, I think that I was saying that we had double-digit depletions in Q1 and so we see everything to be all good with Modelo Especial. Like some other brands, March was a bit dicey in the beer industry as a general proposition, especially in California in our largest market, but I think that the good news there is that we outperformed everybody else probably to the same extent that we have in the past and we saw everything bounce back. And if you look at Modelo Especia’s latest IRI, it’s up 20%. So, we just don’t see anything there that’s indicative that our Mexican beer portfolio will perform in accordance with our guidance and in fact, we think it’s performing above – a bit above our expectations at the current time. So, we are very optimistic in general about hitting both the beer guidance and the wine and spirits guidance. I will just talk a moment about the wine side of the business, which first quarter was weaker than…

David Klein

Analyst · Tim Ramey of Pivotal Research Group

And on the COGS question, Tim, so last year we finished with gross margins in the wine business kind of just sub 45% and then coming out of Q1 where we are just above 43%. We expect to grow our gross margins year-over-year in the wine business, so yes, that implies a combination of mix improvements some work we have done from an overhead and operational standpoint as well as blend improvements, which are inclusive of grape costs.

Tim Ramey

Analyst · Tim Ramey of Pivotal Research Group

Is it a fair statement that ‘17 was flat to down versus ‘16 in terms of grape costs?

David Klein

Analyst · Tim Ramey of Pivotal Research Group

Yes, I am not sure as it relates across – as it ties out across our portfolio, but we can get back to you on that.

Tim Ramey

Analyst · Tim Ramey of Pivotal Research Group

Fair enough. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Bill Chappell of SunTrust.

Rob Sands

Analyst · Bill Chappell of SunTrust

Hi, Bill.

Bill Chappell

Analyst · Bill Chappell of SunTrust

Hey, good morning. Just following back upon Premier and Familiar, you have given out the ACV numbers, can you just kind of give us some color of where you thought they were going to be this quarter, because you last reported 3 months ago and something happened obviously in the 3-month timeframe to pull forward the marketing, was it a big customer added more or was it just across the board, there was much more ACV than you had expected kind of going into the planning process, just trying to understand how, maybe it seems like it was a pretty quick shift and meaningful shift in a very short amount of time? So maybe even just from ACV, what you thought it would be?

Rob Sands

Analyst · Bill Chappell of SunTrust

So, Bill, we don’t really plan ACV quite that specifically in terms of the numbers. So all I really say is I think that the numbers that I quoted were above what we expected, which basically means that we had more, even better retail take-up than we expected. I mean, it’s sort of as simple as that. I’d say like whether it’s 300 basis points or 400 basis points or whatever and I think it would be sort of soft history to start talking about those numbers in hindsight. And then on the marketing, we did not pull it forward. We plan to do what we have done. In actuality, we thought that we had communicated that pretty specifically that we were going to be making significant investments behind the introduction of these new products in the first half of this year. We thought we had communicated that. And the only reason I’d say I thought we communicated that, I think that people seem a little surprised about it. But to be clear, we didn’t pull anything forward at all. We did exactly as we plan to do and there is no way around it, we have significant investment spending in the first quarter against these new products. The good news is, this is not a plan to invest money for some long-term – on some long-term basis that is immeasurable. We do think it’s a very, very good investment for the long-term, but in terms of seeing our return on this investment, we expect to see the return on this investment this year. So, that’s why – and we are seeing it and that’s why we are confident in the guidance and that’s why we were able to give the guidance that we gave in the first place, which we think is pretty robust performance for our company and for consumer goods company, I mean it still puts us, I mean, in a percentile that can hardly be measured. So, that’s basically the story.

Bill Chappell

Analyst · Bill Chappell of SunTrust

That helps. So, it’s just reading it and I understand what you are saying the comments at our conference maybe a few weeks ago was more of we said this before, we on the Street just didn’t hear it clearly and so we are trying to reemphasize that. Is that the right way to think about that?

Rob Sands

Analyst · Bill Chappell of SunTrust

Yes, I would say that. And again I just reemphasized one thing in particular, which is we didn’t do anything. Our explanation is not that we did something this quarter that we were fully planning to do. We did what we plan to do and based on our internal expectations things performed as well as we expected if not better. So, we are on track for our guidance for the full year. I mean, I guess in the end, you can wait and see how the year turns out rolling in the first quarter.

Bill Chappell

Analyst · Bill Chappell of SunTrust

Perfect. That’s crystal clear. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Bryan Spillane of Bank of America.

Bryan Spillane

Analyst · Bryan Spillane of Bank of America

Hey, good morning. Two quick ones. One, David on the FX effect on beer gross margins, just how much of a headwind was it in the first quarter and how much of a like tailwind given where the exchange rate is now be expected to be in the balance of the year?

David Klein

Analyst · Bryan Spillane of Bank of America

Yes. So, there are really two components of FX was the small headwind to GP in Q1, but it was a larger headwind through at operating income, because we have as the peso weakened in the quarter and we have the reval or peso receivables with the biggest one being our VAT receivable, there was a reasonably sized SG&A drag on our beer business. So again, at the operating income line it was a larger drag than it was at the GP line. And then going forward we are about just over 80% hedged for the year at reasonably favorable rates and so actually the pace has been a bit volatile leading into the elections this weekend. So I would say it’s probably too early to say, but we know we had a headwind in the first quarter and we are pretty confident it’s a tailwind for the rest of the year and I guess the size will be determined on what happens maybe even in the election over the weekend.

Bryan Spillane

Analyst · Bryan Spillane of Bank of America

Okay, great. And then just one second one on Corona Premier, can you give us a sense of where it’s sourcing its share from. So is it coming from domestic premium light, is it coming from above premium or even outside the sector, is it coming from spirits, just any sort of color or early indication you have of where it’s pulling its consumers from? Thank you?

Rob Sands

Analyst · Bryan Spillane of Bank of America

I would say, it’s pretty much pulling its consumers from across domestic premium as a general proposition. So I think that your characterization of it is probably correct meaning it’s – I think it’s probably pulling its consumers from domestic premium lights and that kind of makes sense when you think about it, because it’s a low calorie, low carbohydrate beer, I would say that it’s primary competition, Michelob, also continues to perform well. So, yes, I don’t think there is evidence that it’s pulling necessarily from there, but Mic Ultra and I think Corona Premier is pulling from the premium light is probably the bottom line. People are drinking the light beer in the first place, aren’t all of a sudden switching from non-light beer to light. There you made the decision that they weren’t going to drink light, so I think that the simple logic would suggest that this is a premium choice for the already health conscious and light consumer. That’s what I would believe.

Bryan Spillane

Analyst · Bryan Spillane of Bank of America

Okay, great. Thank you. Have a great weekend everyone.

Rob Sands

Analyst · Bryan Spillane of Bank of America

You too.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Lauren Lieberman of Barclays.

Rob Sands

Analyst · Lauren Lieberman of Barclays

Hi, Lauren.

Lauren Lieberman

Analyst · Lauren Lieberman of Barclays

Hey, thanks. Good morning. Two quick things. One was just one brand you haven’t mentioned, which is Pacifico outside of your prepared remarks and I know I get Nielsen data, which doesn’t seem to be all that representative, IRI seem to do a better job for you guys, but Pacifico even as the weather improved looks to not be performing terribly well again in the scanner data. I was just surprised to see that as you are kicking off the national launch of the 12-pack on the TV. So I would just be curious to hear any commentary on Pacifico performance and what the scanner might be missing? And then also just on the distribution footprint, so there is the trade press, the gossipy stuff isn’t a lot of chatter about some changes you guys have been making in your distributor footprint. So, any color you could offer there on what’s been driving decision-making process and if there is any records to be set straight versus what’s kind of been reported again in the trade press would be great? Thank you.

Rob Sands

Analyst · Lauren Lieberman of Barclays

Sure. So, first of all, on Pacifico, Pacifico is almost in the vast, vast majority of it is very regional in largely Southern California. So, it was probably affected by the weather in Southern California in the earlier part of the quarter to a greater extent than others. If you look at the performance outside of Southern California, it continues to perform at double-digits. And in general, it’s looking very good. We see no real issue with Pacifico other than that. That market has been – was pretty weak in the first quarter and Pacifico was affected by it, but it continues to be a very strong brand that I think that we have very high hopes for and we don’t see anything dashing those of. Now, on the distributor question, number one I would say that we have the best distribution network in the country, we call it the Gold Network, we call it the Gold Network for a reason, because it’s like making gold, it’s as simple as that. The one change that we made in Southern California was the only one change. So I think that characterizing it as some kind of change in our distributor footprint in general or some kind of change in our philosophy of how we deal with or treat our distributor partners is simply incorrect, I think that it was kind of interesting news and there is a lot of pundits that we have a lot to say about it. But the fact of the matter is, is that it was one change in a market and the change made a lot of sense, because we were able in that particular market to give that territory to another one of our very important distributor partners. So, that change as I said made…

Lauren Lieberman

Analyst · Lauren Lieberman of Barclays

Alright, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your final question comes from the line of Amit Sharma of BMO Capital Markets. Amit, your line is open. Please state your question.

Rob Sands

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Amit, your line is open. Please state your question

Well, that’s an easy question to answer, Amit.

Operator

Operator

Sir, your phone is on mute, please un-mute it. There is no response from that line. I will now return the call to Rob Sands for any additional or closing remarks.

Rob Sands

Analyst · Wells Fargo

Okay. Well, I want to thank everybody for joining our call today. Let me just reiterate that our business prospects remain very strong and I’d like to reiterate that we are confident in achieving our full year goals as we are expecting a strong back half to the fiscal year. As the July 4 holiday approaches, I hope that everybody gets to enjoy some of our fine beer, wine and spirits products at your celebrations with family and friends. So, thanks everybody and have a fantastic rest of your summer.

Operator

Operator

Thank you for participating in the Constellation Brands’ first quarter 2019 earnings conference call. You may now disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.