We're going to get started. It's great to have Brown-Forman's CEO, Lawson Whiting, back at our conference. We were counting, we think the ninth time.
Seventh.
Seven times. Okay
Joined by the company's new CFO, Jim Peters, who joined the company at the end of March. Lawson, I first want to congratulate you on your planned retirement. It's been a pleasure working with you, and thank you for being such a great supporter of our conference over these years. Back to business. You guys reported earnings last week. You reiterated FY 2027 guidance, conveyed confidence in a profit outlook toward the high end of the range, which was great news. A bunch of stuff we can talk about.
Yeah. Great.
I've got a list. Lawson, let's start with the broader kind of setup, if you will. Over the last year, the company has navigated softer developed market spirits trends, rising cost pressure, M&A speculation, CFO succession, considerable changes at the distributor level, and now your planned retirement. As you think about the next chapter for the company and what's ahead for your successor, what are the two or three strategic priorities that you think matter most for restoring confidence in the medium-term growth algorithm?
Yeah.
Or opportunity, I should say.
Yeah, look, it always, with Brown-Forman, starts with the geographic expansion of our portfolio, but obviously Jack Daniel's led. Just to sort of put some context around that, I started almost 30 years ago. When I started, we were 80% U.S., 20% international. Ten years later, we were 60% U.S., 40% international. Today, we are 40% U.S. and 60% international. It's been a massive movement in terms of where we generate our sales and our business, where our people are. We are now spread out all over the world. We have many more employees outside of the U.S. than we have inside the U.S. A lot of people think of Brown-Forman as this sort of U.S.-centric company from Kentucky, and it is much broader than that at this point.
So, look, the geographic expansion on Jack over my career is where the value creation has really come from. As the brand has gotten bigger and bigger around the world, it has created an enormous amount of shareholder value. That is going to continue to be priority one for the company. We will continue to do that, although the rest of our portfolio, which I will talk about in a second, also has a big place in that strategic plan, too. Another topic I think that is increasingly important, not only to Brown-Forman, but the industry on whole, and especially in the U.S., is innovation. Innovation, particularly when I started, really was not that honestly important. It was a handful of core brands that continued to grow around the world. Innovation has become immensely more important, whether different categories play well in the world of innovation.
It just happens, I think, that American whiskey, Scotch would be in there, too, but American whiskey and tequila are the two categories that play in innovation the best. A lot of that is because you use barrels to age, and there are different things that you can do to create super premium, ultra premium line extensions off of that. Innovation within the Jack Daniel's trademark range is everything from what we did last year with Jack Daniel's Blackberry, which has been a great success. In the same year, we did something called Jack Daniel's Heritage Barrel, which is really an ultra premium line extension that we sold out of. We sold every bottle we could make, and it is quite substantial, and it was a really great product.
I say all that because I find the Jack Daniel's franchise or the Jack Daniel's family of brands has the ability to do a Blackberry and then an ultra premium in the same year. It is the broad shoulders of the brand that can help to do that. You have Jack Daniel's first. You have innovation and making sure you do things there. Then a lot of the brands that we have not only just purchased in the last couple of years, the Gin Mares and Diplomáticos, but certainly I go back to Woodford. Woodford is now a big brand in the U.S., very small outside of the U.S., so that is another international opportunity. In general, we call them emerging brands, so the brands that are relatively small outside of the U.S., but collectively are meaningful. Excited about the opportunities there.
Okay, great. Let us talk a little bit about what I would describe as almost like the definition of self-help, and that has been the U.S. route to market changes. It has been about a year now. I think there were a couple controlled states where we will see some further changes in June. It feels like a reasonable time to reflect on how that has gone. Are you seeing the better execute? Let us actually back up. Maybe talk a little bit what you were hoping to see in deciding to make these changes that offer some context for people here.
Oh
who might be less familiar. Are you seeing kind of better execution coming out of that? Because it's hard for us to really see that, particularly with the category of challenge as it is, to really see what the outcome has been.
Well, the first and most important reason that we made the changes was focus. Towards the end, it really started with leaving RNDC, really in California was first, and then it spread to the rest of a lot of other brands. We were the first ones out for the most part, which gave us an advantage in that we'd looked at the rest of the industry and had the ability to navigate without 100 other companies trying to do the same thing, of which all accelerated as the year went on. But focus is so important, I believe, in our business. It's why I do believe Brown-Forman has been successful and not necessarily lost share or underperformed the bigger competitors that we have out there, because focus is that important. Towards the end of the RNDC days, they had huge portfolios.
I mean, literally, you could have literally hundreds of brands in a salesman's book, and that just doesn't work. We're not getting the focus that we wanted, and we wanted to really That was important. Better execution. We are getting better execution. Our trends have improved in the U.S. over the last year. It took some time. Some markets were easier to transition than others, but we've pretty much got our feet under ourselves now. The result of that was, interestingly, was our biggest brands transitioned pretty quick. It was our smaller brands that just weren't top of mind, and the distributors themselves weren't really ready for the entire portfolio all at once. So that only took a few months to fix. But so that part is working right now. Then economics.
We got better terms, allowing us to either drop some of that to the bottom line or reinvest a little bit more, and we did a little bit of both.
Okay. I am also curious to get your read on the state of the distributor landscape as a whole. There has been a large shakeup. There were catalysts along the way.
Yeah
A very broad shakeup since we were last here a year ago. How has that impacted the industry? Do you think we are through the worst of it from that standpoint? Let us talk a little about the impact of the distributor changes.
Yeah, I mean, look, it was earth-shaking for the industry
Yeah
in the U.S. The partners that we had, I mean, RNDC, I do not know when it started. Decades and decades and decades of partnership, and all of a sudden it goes away. That part was very difficult. I think another dynamic that we have not talked as much about, but it is the blurring of the lines between really beer and spirits for the most part, and then who plays in there. Suppliers are starting to cross the lines a little bit, but the distributors, like take Reyes. I mean, they have got huge beer, they have got huge non-alcoholic business, and now they have gotten. Well, they have already had wine, but they are getting much bigger now in spirits and have begun to expand. What we need in distributors is a solid, strong balance sheet. That is extremely important.
When they weaken, that becomes a problem for all the suppliers. I think that part is working well. Whether or not it's over or not is a tough one to speculate. I think it largely is, but who knows? Who knows the way the world is going to go. It's tough being in a business that is as capital intensive as distribution is with low margins. When volumes decline, everyone hurts. It was a heck of a transition to watch. As I said, a lot of years of partnership went away. At the end of the day, we're in a better place today than we were a year or a year and a half ago.
Okay. You think the shakeout from all of that, though, we're kind of through the-
Largely.
Yeah.
Okay. I want to stay on the bigger picture, but Jim, I'm going to turn to you now. You joined Brown-Forman from the more mature and cyclical consumer durables industry, which at least historically, had very different growth dynamics than spirits. Could you share some of your bigger early observations about where Brown-Forman has the opportunity perhaps to operate differently, particularly when it comes to cost discipline?
Yeah. I appreciate it. To begin with, I'm very excited to be here, obviously joining Brown-Forman has been a great experience. It's a company that's in very good shape, obviously in a tough industry, which as you alluded to, I've spent some time in different cyclical industries. We start off with a really strong portfolio of brands and products, as well as an incredibly strong balance sheet. I think that's something that kind of sets us out there, really sets us apart in terms of different consumer companies out there. As you alluded to, things that I've started to notice and understand and all that within how we operate in the different models is the good thing is coming in, especially from a cost perspective, we were already taking a lot of the right actions.
We had already done some of the restructuring and reorganization that many companies will do in these types of situations and had a lot of that behind us. We were already developing things within our pipeline around cost of sales and ideas to offset some of the increasing costs that we are seeing now. What that did is this is now more about an operating system go forward, where we have really got to have both discipline and we have got to have balance.
The discipline comes around that you are just constantly looking at your cost structure and constantly looking at things and saying, "Am I doing this in the most efficient way? Am I optimizing what I spent?" The balance is that, listen, you cannot cut or cost save your way to prosperity because it is really about growth. It is about creating the opportunities and the fuel for that growth.
The business that I came from, we used to just use a term, we called it productivity for growth. That is you have got to find ways to continue to fund the different things you want to invest in and that you want to grow. Lawson gave some examples earlier of the areas that we want to be able to reprioritize to our emerging markets and some of our innovation. I think that is what it is now about now is making sure we have that discipline to ensure that balance.
Just building on that, more rigorous cost mindset, do not want to compromise long-term brand equity. What has to happen culturally or organizationally to enable what I think you are describing is a pretty big mindset shift, not that the company was not oriented towards growth, but now it is we need to find the resources that we can invest in growth. So based on, I mean, it seems like some of the, you updated the guidance to say you are more confident towards the better end of the range, suggests maybe there is you are kind of getting momentum on this front a little bit faster. But curious culturally, organizationally, how you bring this to bear.
Yeah. I would say here, to begin with, I think that a lot of the mentality is already there, and the culture is already there. But this comes back to what I kind of mentioned earlier, is really helping the organization to prioritize and to say, "Okay, where are really those true areas that we want to invest in? How do we make sure that they have the right return?" Because listen, you cannot get too focused on the short term. We have really got to keep our eye on the long term. A company that is over 150 years old does not get there by staying very focused on the short term. They focus on executing in the short term, but making sure you are investing more towards the growth as we go forward.
As I mentioned previously, and Lawson talked about, really, that's as we look to what are those areas where we see the growth opportunities coming, and those areas such as the emerging markets. Such as a lot of the innovation that we've brought to the market right now. Throughout the day, we've talked a lot about how we've, whether, and Lawson even mentioned it now, with things such as the Jack Daniel's Tennessee Blackberry, the Heritage Barrel, many of our RTDs. These are all things that we're able to continuously fund internally by making sure we have that right balance. It's also within our brands. As we invest in our brands, it's making sure we have the right amount of investment, but it's also optimizing how we do that investment and being as efficient as possible.
I really, truly believe, and I said that on the call, that we are very good at that, and it's a discipline we'll just continue to focus on.
Okay. Lawson, talking about brand building a little bit in terms of the portfolio. Jack Daniel's obviously central to the investment story. The company's put a lot behind the new global brand campaign, on-premise activation, and innovation. What gives you confidence that the work underway is not just stabilizing the brands in a tough category, but actually building better share taking capacity for when the category improves?
Yeah. Look, Jack Daniel's, it's so big now that taking share in some of its big markets is difficult. Just to be honest. In the U.S. in particular, it's such a massive brand. That we've been pretty public, over the last 10 years really, of saying, "This company can grow very nicely. It doesn't need to take share in the U.S. whiskey market, but we do need to take share outside of the United States." We largely do. Even in some of the challenged markets really in Europe right now, which are in, they're more difficult than even the U.S. market is. But we are taking share in a lot of those. We feel pretty good that we've made the right changes in the brand building mix.
They range from the classic things that you do in terms of consumer communications and where you do it and all of that. McLaren has been a great partnership. That is a little bit less of a U.S. thing, and it is a little more of an international, as the races are obviously so spread out around the world. It gives us a unique and differentiated way of promoting the brand, and so we like that. Then music. Lots of brands try to do music, but I do not think there is any brand that, owns music is probably an exaggeration, maybe a little bit, but can certainly be successful in music. There are not many brands that do it better than Jack. We will continue to do that. It ranges from Shaboozey and his song that we have, it was about a year ago now, maybe even two.
There was an interesting stat somebody told me in our marketing world the other day, which I actually did not know. They did a, I do not know how they did it, but they look at country music, which for you Northerners may not be huge, but I can tell you down in Kentucky, and then really in the rest of the country, has gotten so massive. We are the number one most often cited brand in country music. I say all that, just because it speaks to the relevance of the brand. People's, just their love for the brand in aggregate and what it means to them, I think that is really important, and it just sends a good signal that the brand continues to have the DNA, to really be important and relevant in today's world.
When you think about Jack growing in the U.S., and your point that it is just tough at this point to gain share holistically, is the key to growth in the U.S. really about category recovery and-
It certainly helps a lot. If TDS in general, full strength TDS, which is still down 4% or 5%, it is hard for the really biggest brands in the market to really diverge a lot from TDS, and there is a long list of them that way. We are certainly trying to do that, and getting the trends in the right direction ultimately is going to be one of the most important things that we can do for the company.
Yeah. Okay. The category in the U.S. has become more value conscious. You guys have been very clear that you don't intend to chase low-end volume. Last week on the call, you'd mentioned some new pack sizes. I'm just curious how you're thinking about affordability, price pack architecture in a way that keeps brands accessible while still protecting the premium positioning of these equities.
Yeah. Over the last really 10 years, really I could probably go back 20 and 30 years, but really intensely in the last 10, we have changed our portfolio up quite a bit. We got out of a lot of lower-end brands, honestly, that were declining. The Southern Comfort of the world, everybody remembers that. But the list gets a little bit longer. It's Canadian Mist and Early Times and Finlandia. More recently, Sonoma-Cutrer, which really wasn't a low-end brand, but it was the last entry we had in the wine business.
20 years ago, we had a huge wine business, and we sold a lot of it out 15 years ago. Held onto Sonoma-Cutrer because it was sort of just a different brand. It was a true brand in the world of wine, and we loved it. But ultimately, it's not very efficient to own one wine brand, and we got rid of that just basically at the right time. We did all that and then purchased half a dozen different brands, but they were almost all very super premium, even in the ultra premium category. We premiumized the portfolio. That's been difficult in this environment right now when some of the lower, the brands that cost $25 are doing better than those that cost $45. But we're not going to change strategy based on that.
What we want to be able to do is offer those super premium brands at a price point that's accessible for a lot more consumers. You all have probably heard, because this is not new news. But smaller sizes have done considerably better than larger sizes over the last couple of years, and I think that's just because consumers want their brand. If they are Woodford Reserve drinkers, and that's a $30 to $35 a bottle brand, that's expensive for a lot of folks to go into a store, and if I only got a $20 bill, I can get a 375. I can still buy my Woodford. I can still have it be my brand, and do well with it. The industry has taken. We're not the only ones doing that, obviously.
It has provided sort of a base of business for us in a time when consumers are truly pinched, and it's worked out pretty well.
Okay. How early are you in rolling out these smaller sizes, or is it good-
They're all the, I mean-
It's all out.
It depends on the brand. But, yeah, not every brand has them, certainly. And the smaller ultra premiums, probably a little bit less, but across the core brands in our portfolio, they are all there.
Okay. Particularly value-conscious has really been very clear in tequila, specifically. We know there is major players, double-digit price deflation. Can you talk a little about your approach to tequila in the U.S. as your dual brand portfolio and how you are dealing with that price competition?
Yeah. It is one brand that did a major price positioning. The rest of, we did a study, and we said this last week on our conference call. If you just take the core 750s that are out there of the big brands, you are not seeing a lot of price deflation.
Like 1% to maybe 2% down, I think, is the current running number in Nielsen. So it is not a wholesale change, particularly obviously when the agave costs came down. They came down by 75%, something like that. So everyone was expecting the tequila category to show a lot more price competition, but it just has not really happened. The reality is, though, consumers seem to, are gravitating towards those, I will call it $20-plus price points, where the $40-plus price point was flying for the last bunch of years, and really did well, and there are a few big brands that got much bigger. We were disappointed Herradura, which is in the sort of low $40s, has not kept up market share-wise. But it is actually, depending on what timeframe you use, but it has still grown kind of mid-single digits over, say, the last 10 years.
It is not great, but it is not bad either. We feel okay about that, but certainly Herradura is challenged right now in this environment. el Jimador, on the other hand, in the U.S. is much bigger, and it is in the 20-something price point. Look, we just rolled out new packaging. We have got new communications. We have had some real nice national account wins that really help quite a bit. I think also not only help financially, but it also shows that the brand has gotten big enough and consumer awareness is enough that it deserves to be in a national account listing. There are nuggets of good news in the tequila business for us right now, and we will see where we go.
Okay. Affordability has definitely been a factor that supported the outsized growth of RTDs. You noted last week RTDs contribute a point to overall U.S. scanner growth, which is really interesting. Big enough to matter now. You launched New Mix in the U.S. late last year in some markets, and then el Jimador Tequila Spritz, and most recently Jack Daniel's Blackberry & Lemonade. Can you talk a little bit about consumer reception to these entrants, the role you see them playing in the U.S., and how that compares to Jack and Cola in developed and international markets, how that brand started out?
Yeah. Spirit-based RTDs, for those that have not been following around as closely, have really boomed in the last, I do not know how long, maybe five years, five or six years, something like maybe a little longer. It used to be malt-based, so back in the days of White Claw and Truly and those brands, they look the same as a High Noon or a Jack and Cola or you-name-it brand. It is actually malt versus spirit, which is different pricing, different lots of things, but they generally taste better. I have been amazed at how quickly those spirit-based brands have grown, led by High Noon is the biggest one. It has done amazingly well. It does so well in the world of convenience and flavor. Consumers are all over them.
Our portfolio, we have got a brand called New Mix that, prior to the last year, no one in the United States had ever heard of. It is a massive brand in Mexico. Very successful. It has been in double-digit growth mode. It is 13 million cases, which is very, very large for one country. We are bringing it into the U.S. It is targeted at Mexican Americans. Awareness is built-in, like already high because it is that big in Mexico. It is off to an awesome start.
I'm excited to see where that's going to go. el Jimador Tequila Spritz just started a few months ago, but it's light and refreshing, which is the space you want to be in the world of RTDs. That's where the vast majority of the volumes are. Jack and Coke, which is Jack and Cola or Jack and Coke, depending on where you are, that's been around for 30 some odd years, something like that. Not new. Lots of consumers know it. There's lots of people, that's how they've consumed Jack their whole life. We partnered up, I think everybody knows, with The Coca-Cola Company three years ago to get this started, and it's done okay. The reality is that cola is not anywhere near the size of the light and refreshing mixers.
It's maybe not off to the start we wanted, but we continue to make adjustments and work with them and partner with them to find. It's not declining a lot, it's just declining a little bit. But it's also bringing the Jack Daniel's name to the world. It's in 40 countries, I think, something around there. That is important for building awareness for us, too, particularly in the emerging markets where Coke is so big.
Okay, great. Sticking with emerging markets, Jim. Emerging markets are one of the clearest bright spots for Brown-Forman, growing high single to low double digits the last few years, with Mexico and Brazil leading that, and then India and parts of Asia still pretty much underdeveloped. As you go forward, how are you going to think about resource allocation, where to place the next dollar of investment internationally
Yep
as emerging markets present an opportunity?
Yeah. You kind of hit the nail on the head there as we do see emerging markets as a tremendous growth opportunity. We do believe, especially with the Jack Daniel's brand kind of leading the way into many of those, it is an opportunity for growth. As we look at the investment and what is needed in many of those markets, we start off by saying, okay, where is the market today? What is the best way to enter it? Via partnership or via our own distribution. What do we think the return is going to be? What is the necessary level of investment? You have got to think with more of a long-term mindset on this, because if you use Brazil as an example, that is a market that we had to invest in for a period of years, but now has become a tremendous market for us.
The return is there. We see places like India as having that same potential. When I talked about earlier the discipline and the balance and the prioritization, that is a big thing for us as we look at these emerging markets and saying that, "Listen, we cannot increase our rate of spending extremely above where we are today. What we can do is be very thoughtful and diligent about how we prioritize that spending, where we want to invest, what we think the growth rate, then keep it balanced." Because you cannot invest everything also on only long-term type of growth opportunities. We have to make sure we are also investing in innovation, investing in other things that may deliver in a shorter term.
I think we have got a very good balanced approach right now, we have got a very good track record of growing because, as we have said, you can see some of the markets that we do well in, especially in Latin America. Those are good examples of how we can do this.
Okay. Jim, I am going to stick with you. I wanted to talk about the higher cost whiskey inventory that is coming through. It has been a big investor focus. It is something you guys started to talk about with the market, I think in May, if I am getting my timeline right. Can you just remind us how you are thinking about the magnitude, the duration, kind of manageability or controllability of this headwind that is coming?
Yeah. Listen, what we're thinking about over the next couple of years is that, we've talked about this, that it's giving us a headwind of 100 to 150 basis points, and that's coming from the whiskey that we laid down years ago, during the higher cost era around COVID. However, as I talked about, that's only one part of what we look at within our gross margin because we're also looking at what are the opportunities within there that we have to identify costs, reduce costs, and offset a significant amount of that. While it is a headwind that we're dealing with right now, I think we've started to identify and we've actually been implementing a lot of different things to help offset it. The other thing that will help with that over time is, listen, that's a reality.
We've talked about our discipline in other cost areas, is also growth. Because as we continue to grow, the gross margins on our product help to at least bring in the overall operating income and bring that up and give us some leverage. I think that's another important thing. We always talk about the cost side, but growth is one of the areas, and that's why we invest in innovation in emerging markets, because that will help offset some of these cost pressures.
Okay. The guidance for FY 2027, is based on roughly flat organic sales and organic operating income towards the more favorable end of the range.
Yep.
It was down 3%-5%, now more favorable end. That implies limited near-term operating leverage. I guess number one would be, what are the most important unlocks for Brown-Forman to return to more profit growth once we get that cost cycle to ease?
Yep. Yeah. I think that's back to kind of where I said, I think really driving that growth, driving innovation, driving our expansion in emerging markets. Obviously, looking at where the cost-saving opportunities continue to come. That really helps us there to create that leverage further down the P&L. Because it's not just one lever. I think if you step back and you look where we are, we really have done a good job in a tough environment of identifying those opportunities of where we can grow and where we can grow above and beyond where some of our competition does. I think that's important. The other thing that we continue to focus on in there, that was just operating discipline, and making sure that from a working capital perspective, that we really manage that well, because that's another area that helps.
Rather than having to take significant amount of downtime in our distilleries, I think we've done a very good job of just trying to manage that more on what I'll call a smoothing type 2 basis. I think that's more important than making those dramatic moves, which are significantly costly when you do them.
Yeah. Okay. Between now and then, I think now being at the better end of the operating profit guide, is that more about the estimate of the cost, or is it about your ability to come up with offsets? Just so we think-
It-
We don't, I don't know.
It-
It informs how I think about the next nine months.
Let's put it this way. I think it's a bit of both, but I think it's definitely our ability to offset it and many of the things that we have identified. But I think it's also coming with the confidence that we have in that ability to do that on a go-forward basis, and the confidence in our ability to continue to grow and drive some of those top-line levers. Because that's the biggest thing to make sure that we stay in that range or get to the high end of that range, is hitting our top line. I think we gained an increased level of confidence that we are going to deliver on that flat top line this year.
Then we see the cost savings projects we put in, and all those combined give us that strong confidence that we will be at the higher end of that range.
Okay. Let me just shift to cash flow. Free cash flow in 2026 was a notable bright spot. Fiscal 2027's CapEx guidance is meaningfully lower than the last few years. How should we think about the right steady state capital intensity of the business?
Yeah. I would say this. To begin with, last year was a tremendous year from a cash perspective. $1 billion of cash from operations, just under $900 million free cash flow. That is, as I understand, a record year for the company. As we have said, we believe go forward, we are going to have very strong free cash flow because, as I talked about, the discipline around working capital and especially around inventory, we see as something that we have done a very good job with. We do. If you would have looked at our first quarter, we had very strong cash flows within our first quarter, and significantly above where we were last year. When you take all that in, we really feel confident. To your point on the investment cycle, we did significant investments over the last few years within many of our facilities.
That is behind us right now. It puts us in a good position. Yes, we may have some more capacity than we need based on where the industry is. The good thing is, as the industry at some point begins to recover, we expand globally. It gives us the capacity we need, and we do not need to be investing. We have already got that behind us. That is why we feel really good about our future free cash flow.
Okay, great. Just to wrap up, Lawson, there has been M&A news flow, and we will call it, however we want to name it. M&A news flow around future paths of the company in recent quarters, in recent months, and then CEO succession underway. Definitely investors have been asking about whether the company's strategic direction is evolving. How do you want the market to think about continuity versus change in through this next chapter? What parts of the strategy do you think will prove non-negotiable? Where do you think there is room for a new leader to bring a fresh perspective?
Well, look, the company's strategic direction, it may evolve a little bit, but I do not expect any dramatic changes in that. The first question of the day was more about the geographic expansion around Jack Daniel's and innovation and the importance of emerging brands and emerging markets. That I do not really think will change no matter who the next leader is. We still see that as a very big opportunity. It honestly, it has worked for 155 years. Some of the other more recent activities were more exploring, as we really do have a duty to explore potential transformational changes that create significant shareholder value, and we have an obligation to do that. At the end of the day, it did not work, and we plow forward, and we continue doing what we, as I say, we have done for 150 years.
I'm sure no year is the same, and the last few have been a lot of headwinds and a lot thrown at us. This company is still really well-positioned with a fantastic portfolio, with employees that love the portfolio, have strong values, and are the right people to lead this company into the next generation. I'm sure that's going to happen.
Okay, great. All right, we're going to leave it there. Thank you so much for joining us again, Lawson.
Thank you.
Congratulations pending.
Thank you very much.
Please join me in thanking Brown-Forman for being here.