Good morning, thank you for being here. I'm Olivia Tong, Raymond James' Beauty Health HBC analyst, and we're delighted to start our day this morning with Edgewell Personal Care. Joining us are Dan Sullivan, CFO, President Europe and Latin America, and Chris Gough, Vice President of IR and Treasury. Rod Little apologizes for not being able to be here; unfortunately, he's come down with the flu and such is life. I'm going to turn it over to Dan to do some remarks, Chris, to do some remarks, and then Dan will walk us through the financials, and then we'll have some time for Q&A. Thank you.
Thanks, Olivia. Dan and I are happy to be here again this year. Last year we talked about things getting back to normal. I guess they're really normal now because Rod's got the good old flu. That's it. He's sick, so he sends his apologies, and I know he really wanted to be here. Quite inconsiderate of him because now I'm presenting along with Dan as well, so this is the time when IR gets to sit back. But nevertheless, we are happy to be here with you today. We'll be talking through some forward-looking statements and using some non-GAAP financial measures. I'll start out very briefly to give an overview for those of you that don't know us as well. We launched the transformation of Edgewell at an Investor Day in November of 2020, and we've been sticking to that plan ever since.
I'll take you through that plan, and Dan will hit on how we've progressed, which is pretty nicely, and he'll talk about what's next, what you can expect next from Edgewell. This is really—you call this our strategy in a page, and when we launched it was, "Let's turn ourselves and transform into a growing, sustainable, consumer-centric personal care company." It sounds pretty simple. It wasn't at the time because the company, frankly, had been declining in sales for several years leading up to this. So when we announced this and our ambition for growth in our algorithm, it was met with some skepticism, and we had to go prove ourselves. So that's what we've been trying to do ever since. There's five strategic priorities that align with that. It's expanding our presence into attractive categories.
You've seen us do that with the acquisitions that we've made over time, including Cremo and Billie and Jack Black and Bulldog. Building brands consumers love with a consumer-centric innovation. We had historically been a technology-driven, innovation-led company. We were missing the mark several times in those years where we were declining, and it's requiring a revamp into how we innovate, and Dan's going to talk a lot more into that. Be a trusted strategic partner to retailers, so how we show up on shelf, focusing on distribution outcomes, having a seat at the table with retailers, very important to this turnaround. And then the last two are more internally focused, but it's simplifying how we work. It's just becoming more efficient, taking complexity out of the business, and working with agility, something that we should do as a company our size. It should be one of our advantages.
Finally, being a company that people love to work for. Engagement scores when we presented this were quite low. Dan's going to talk about that some more, but you can't underestimate the importance of changing the culture and what's happened over the last several years. Finally, we've structured it around the transformation of our portfolio, and we bifurcated sales into accelerating the top-line growth, our Right to Win categories, and stabilizing the profit pool in our Right to Play. I'll talk a little bit more about that in this slide. The left side of the page, we call our Right to Win. It's our grooming businesses, Sun Care, and Personal H ygiene, or Wet Ones. What defines this grouping is that the categories are growing pretty quickly. We have expectations for double-digit growth. We have leading market share positions in each of these.
So we categorized that at the time as our Right to Win categories. That was roughly about 25% of the business at this point in time. The Right to Play is the areas you may know better: Wet Shave and Feminine Care. Those categories are growing at a slower clip. Frankly, we were declining in these categories at the time we launched this, and our ambition at the time was to grow with the market in that flattish to down slightly at the time. The categories have performed better since then, and we perform better, but the first step for us was just to grow with the market and stabilize this business, which we've done, and then some of Dan will talk more about that. The geographical mix, we're about 60% North America, 40% international.
I'll double-click on the next slide: a diversified Shave business as well, not just diversified from an international point of view. So if you look at our Shave business, and a lot of people focus on U.S. Nielsen and how we're doing in men's, this kind of just gives you a different cut of our shave business. We're actually larger in international markets than in North America. We've got better market share positions internationally. There's been less disruption in the international markets, so that's one of the things leading to that. We also have quite a diverse subcategory brand. So you look at men's branded disposables, women's branded. Our women's branded business, which you'll hear a lot about today, is actually almost twice as big as our men's. Look at the men's at 16% of the Wet Shave portfolio.
If you substitute men's branded with North America men's branded, that's only 4%. So it's quite a diverse business. Something that's unique to Edgewell is our custom brands business of about a quarter of Wet Shave. That's the traditional private label to large retailers. It's selling shaving into DTCs around the globe, similar to what we did to Billie before we acquired them, and it's custom brands for retailers. It's a growing area of the business, and it's quite profitable because there's no A&P. The contribution margin is in line with the Wet Shave average. So as we've transformed over the last several years, we've focused on these three core capabilities, and Dan's going to get a lot more into details. It's what I discussed already: consumer-focused innovation. You can see some of the launches that we've had on the left.
It's enhancing our commercial capabilities, how we show up and shelf, packaging, insights that we're using, our relationship with retailers, our having a seat at the table. All of that's showing up under here. And then the last one that's really important to Edgewell is our ability to drive productivity savings. It's a core competency of the company. Frankly, it was a core competency before we launched our algorithm, and it continues. It's been extremely important over the last several years for obvious reasons, and Dan's going to get into a lot more detail on that as well. And importantly, all of that's underpinned by what we call strong fundamentals. So the categories we're in have strong gross margin profiles, and by the way, they're in everyday use categories as well. The cost management is a key component of what we do.
That helps generate strong cash flow over time and gives us flexibility on a capital allocation basis. We've taken that flexibility, and we've been able to invest in the business over time through CapEx, through M&A. We've improved capital return through dividends and share buyback, and we're focused on debt management. And what we've done here is it's changed over time. So several years ago, we focused more on M&A. Right now, with interest rates where they are, we're focusing a little bit more on debt management. Our fixed debt is about 90%. It doesn't mature until 2028 and 2029, so we're in a good position there, but there's a lot of flex in this capital allocation approach, which we believe suits us well. So that all ends in our algorithm.
So Dan's going to take you through the details of how we've actually performed, but it's an algorithm that's fairly simple: top-line growth, modest top-line growth. But because of the market expansion capabilities and the productivity that we drive and the cash flow that we drive, we believe it's a pretty compelling bottom-line algorithm as well, which hopefully generates TSR and value creation for shareholders. With that, I'll turn it over to Dan.
Thank you, Chris. Good morning. Hopefully, that was a helpful reminder of both the strategy and the evolution of our strategy and the fundamentals of the business. What I'm going to take you through now is a little bit more detail on why we think it's working. What are the proof points that suggest we're on the right path, and then where do we go from here? The first item that I would highlight as a clear proof point of the strategy is the durable, sustainable top-line growth that we've delivered. You see the numbers here on the page. I think what's interesting about this is that it's been driven both internationally and in North America, so it's widespread, and it's been driven across essentially all segments.
So you have a growth profile now with healthier categories, sustainable growth, three-plus years of that 4% growth, and we're primed for another year of around 3% at the midpoint. Now, what's driven that growth? There are so many things we could point to. I think Chris hit on a couple of them around capabilities and how we're executing. For me, nothing says it easier than this slide. Very simply, we have healthier brands. We have a better portfolio. Our legacy brands are being activated in a far better way on shelf. We've made some thoughtful acquisitions that have only strengthened the portfolio pipeline. And when you do that, not surprisingly, and your innovation is a little bit better and you're activating with consumers in a better way, you show up on shelf better. The highlight here is the Billie brands.
If you know our story and you followed us back in 2015, 2016, 2017, you would have talked about our Wet Shave business being disrupted. Well, we now own the disruptor in the category, and we've brought Billie to retail and essentially grabbed about a 10th share of the women's space. The second element, Chris pointed to this a bit, is we have a real mindset and demonstrated capability on cost excellence, obviously much more important in the last couple of years, but our experience and our history here predates the COVID-based inflation. We're really good at simplifying operations, taking waste out of the business, both in COGS but also in G&A. We've taken about $400 million of cost out in the last five years, and if you look to the right of the page, that doesn't stop now.
We think we can continue to generate about 200 basis points of COGS offsets through continued cost discipline. So that'd be point number two. I think point number three is how we focus on controlling the controllables. We are maniacally focused on unit economics. You see the cost implications there in terms of what we've generated in cost savings. We're equally building muscles and capabilities in our revenue management. Some of that has been pricing. Some of that has been better promotional execution, simplifying the portfolio, taking unproductive SKUs out of the range, getting better at mixed management and all the elements of just good revenue execution. Why that's important is because, unlike the old days of Edgewell, we've stayed in investment mode. We are not cutting spend to prop bottom-line. You see the numbers there: over $700 million that's been invested behind the brands.
Next element is around cash flow. Chris talked about it around capital allocation. Very simply put, this business throws off a lot of cash and pretty consistently throws off cash. And for a business that is a manufacturer in many of the categories in which we compete, we're actually a fairly low CapEx business, less than 3% of net sales. And you see the durability and sustainability of our cash profile. That gives us tremendous optionality when it gets to capital allocation. M&A is always interesting for us. As Chris mentioned, debt paydown has been a priority given the heightened world we're living in today in terms of cost of capital, but very balanced in how we think about it as well. Launched a dividend a couple of years ago, now in year three of a structural buyback program. And then the last proof point is around our people.
I wish Rod were here today because he's been the driver of this, and it's a real passion for him. But to put some flavor on it, when I joined the company, we had an engagement score around the business that was below 60%. That means over four in 10 people who worked for Edgewell were not engaged and committed to our success. That number today is over 80%. We've won some awards. Most recently, we were named to Forbes list for best mid-cap companies to work for. I think, more importantly, though, we've created an environment that allows folks to be at their best. We've allowed ourselves to now attract and retain a level of talent that we were not talking to three, four years ago. All of that then lands in 2024 in an algorithm that looks like this.
The blue box is our look at the business both through a reported lens and a constant currency lens. Then the right side is the algorithm Chris showed you a few slides ago. What's the takeaway here? Continued top-line growth at the high end of our algorithm, profit growth in the zone in terms of what we've committed to on a constant currency basis, and EPS at twice the level that we committed to in the algorithm three years ago. Those are the proof points. That's why we are committed to this path that we are on. It's why we believe it is the right one. We are really proud of the progress that we've made in a very difficult environment, but by no means are we satisfied. Let me take you through a few of the elements of what we think still comes for this business.
I think the first one is this journey that we are on around just really good commercial fundamentals, skills, and capabilities. We are transforming our approach to innovation. We have gutted the entire platform. We've taken what was a globally led effort and pushed it down into the local businesses. Every commercial leader of a main market for us has a seat at that table. We're faster to market, and we're much more consumer-centric. We continue to be really focused on return. Where should we put the next dollar that we spend? And as I mentioned earlier, developing the muscles around price and revenue management. I think the key for us, though, is really in that last line, which is around modern brand-building capabilities. Much of the improvements or the benefits we've gained here have come through acquisition.
I want to actually take a minute and show you what we did behind the Billie launch as the brand now moved into body. We'll talk about that in a bit more detail. But for here, I wanted to show you the execution. It is entirely in-house generated. All of the content is from the Edgewell organization through the Billie brand. It is a new way of thinking about brand-building that wasn't core to Edgewell prior to the Billie acquisition. What you're going to see here is a communication done in a genuine, authentic way for the Billie brand, very female-positive, with a catalyst or an ambassador, Jameela Jamil, who is a spokesperson for women's rights and for body-positive thinking. It's done in kind of a fun way around a movie that's celebrating its 25-year anniversary. Let me show you that as an example.
All right. Anyone braving up to read this aloud ?
I will.
Oh, Lord. Here we go.
I hate how you made me compare myself to every woman I saw. I hate how you turned our differences into glaring flaws. I hate how you kept me chasing ever-cycling trends, pluck the brows, slim the hips, plump the lips. It never ends. I hate how I had to change but somehow never age. I hate that even in my room, I felt like I was on a stage. I hate that just having a body meant endless work to do. I hate how seriously I took it, even though it wasn't true. I hate the insecurities you planted when I was small. But you can't make me hate my body, not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.
Okay. Who wants to go next?
I will.
The next element in terms of where we go from here, and Billie is certainly a big part of that, is how we are thinking about brands that can travel. There's a few examples on the page that I'll unpack because they all demonstrate different ways for brands to move out of their current zone. The first one is Cremo. You see that on the page. Cremo is a brand we bought a few years back that is now making a geographic move. It is available online only in Europe this year with actually some pretty interesting results and some compelling consumer feedback. That's a geographic travel for the brand.
The Bulldog brand, which is now the number two brand in men's grooming in the U.K., it just passed Nivea for that level, this brand now takes a step and travels into premium skin with the launch of a new piece of the portfolio around what we're calling Bulldog Advanced. That is being largely piloted at Boots as we speak. Then Billie, which is certainly the biggest example that we have on the page. This is a brand that, when we bought it two years ago, as the manufacturer, we bought what we thought would be a leading Wet Shave brand that could become the preeminent women's lifestyle brand. That journey begins now with a pilot with Walmart, where we will bring the brand out of Wet Shave and into three initial categories: AP-Deo, body lotion, and body wash. You can see some examples of the execution here through Walmart.
So a portfolio now that starts to travel beyond the traditional categories and traditional markets in which they were hatched. International, a big opportunity for us to continue to grow at a rate higher than North America, higher than the Edgewell algorithm. Chris alluded to this earlier. You can see the results there. This is a business largely through its Wet Shave portfolio. There's a bit of Sun C are in markets like Latin America and Australia, but it's predominantly a Shave business today, growing at a 6% rate over the last couple of years and in that zone for 2024, as you can see on the page. We've made some pretty compelling leadership changes in our international business. I think, first and foremost, we brought the business closer to the management team. We took out a layer and have those businesses now reporting directly into myself and Rod.
I think, more importantly, though, we've made leadership changes in key markets: Japan, China, and Europe. Proper commercial general managers, proper leadership around brand development and retail execution, a level of talent that we didn't have previously. Absolutely proper to think about this business growing at that mid-single- digit range from here. So let me wrap with this page and what you can expect from us going forward. We love our growth profile. We love the fact that we get asked more often than not, "When will you update the algorithm?" as opposed to, "When will you hit the algorithm?" We're really bullish on the brands in the portfolio and those brands' ability to move into new categories and new markets. All of the work we're doing structurally around gross margin absolutely points us back to a margin profile at or above pre-COVID levels.
With that, I'll pause the presentation. Olivia, hand it back to you.
Thank you. We've got about 10 minutes to take. Thank you. First question I had was just around the transformation. You discussed a lot about how the transformation continues. With ongoing changes within innovation, brand building, the international organization, among other areas that you discussed, can you give us a sense of how far along you are in those areas? Or maybe thinking about it a different way, what inning you think you're in?
Yeah. Maybe a surprising answer. I think we're early. So early innings, you want to call it second inning, third inning, which might seem strange given what Chris and I just took you through and all the work that we've been doing over the last couple of years in a very difficult macro environment. Why do I say that? The last few pages of this presentation, I think, highlight why we are so bullish on Edgewell and the opportunities we have going forward. We don't even think we've scratched the surface yet on the portfolio and the opportunities both in and outside of existing categories. International remains a really bullish growth opportunity for us. And we're going to continue to do the work that we need to do around innovation, capabilities, how we activate brands. So I think a lot of work done today.
We're certainly proud of where we've taken this business from three short years ago, but really, really excited about the runway that exists.
Great. Thanks. You also discussed getting back to pre-COVID levels of gross margin. Do you have a time frame for that or perhaps provide some scenarios that give us a sense of how quickly you can get there?
Yeah. This is the tricky one, right? It's not tricky because of what we can control. It's tricky because of what we can. If you looked at, you saw it in the presentation, we have a really clear line of sight to margin recovery based on cost takeout and revenue management. In fact, if you look at 2024 as a proxy, we expect to deliver about 300 basis points of offsets, 200 basis points of that through cost, 100 basis points of that roughly through revenue management. That's a really good proxy for us as we think about the margin profile going forward. The problem is, in 2024, you still see it. There is still inflation in the business. It may be less inflation than what we have seen over the last 18 months to two years.
There are still currency headwinds, both of which add up to north of 100 basis points in 2024. Our timeline to gross margin recovery is largely based on those macro factors. We have a very clear line of sight and a high degree of confidence to continue to deliver 200-300 basis points in margin offsets. The question will be, at what pace do we start to see, God willing, some level of deflation in the environment and some level of currency stabilization? That's the key to the timeline upon which we actually see margins recover at an accelerated rate.
Got it. You mentioned 200-300 basis points of cost savings. What gets you from the 200 to the 300 basis points?
Yeah. So 200 basis points is purely the cost side of the equation for us. You saw that in Project Fuel, and now we call it just productivity. The 100 basis points is around price, revenue management, mix management, really good promotional effectiveness. So think of it as 200 basis points on the cost side of the house, 100 basis points on the revenue side of the house. And it all goes back to this maniacal focus we have on unit economics and the behaviors and the skills that we've built most recently on the revenue side to get there.
Got it. Great. Then you mentioned M&A. So obviously, as the M&A market hopefully begins to improve this year, do you continue to see a role for that? And what type of businesses would be good adds to your portfolio?
Yeah. Look, M&A has been a really important catalyst for everything that you saw this morning. Now, as Chris mentioned, in the last 18-24 months, we've leaned back on M&A. We had done Cremo. We had done Billie. It's a really expensive environment with cost of capital to continue to prioritize M&A. We also feel really good about the portfolio. We don't see holes in the portfolio, which maybe we would have had a different answer two to three years ago. And so there's no burning platform for us on the M&A front. Having said that, we look at a lot. We are active probably looking at 10 things a quarter that are interesting. As we move forward from here, M&A will likely continue to play a role for us, continue to allow us to diversify the portfolio.
I think it's likely that M&A will continue to happen in the core. I think it's unlikely that we would look to use M&A as a vehicle to move meaningfully outside of core categories.
Got it. Maybe turning to the current year for a moment. A lot of discussion in the industry about volume growth when it gets back to growing. How do you see volume growth playing out for the year by segment? And can you remind us of the key drivers of growth for the year?
Yeah. For us, for that 3% midpoint of the organic growth range, it's roughly 2% points volume, 1% point price. That's sort of how we've thought about it. I think you have to look category by category to really unpack the volume picture. What we're really encouraged by is, in the U.S., we are seeing sequential improvement in volumes. If you look at January on a 52-week basis, you'd see volumes down 5%. Not surprising, right, with all the price that went into the categories in which we compete. If you look at it on a 13-week basis, that -5% is now a -2%. And if you look at it on a four-week basis, it's -1%. So you're starting to see the recovery in volumes. Importantly, in certain categories, you continue to see growth. Women's shave volume is still growing. We are the reason for that.
The Billie brand is the reason for that. We're also actually seeing growth in grooming. We also expect that to continue. The Billie brand now moving into women's grooming is a key catalyst. Our expectation in other Wet Shave categories, men's and disposables, is more of a flat volume picture. And then that brings us to Sun Care, where we fully expect, with the help of some sunshine and good weather, we'll have a very robust sun season with volume growth. So mixed picture here in the US, but certainly getting healthier as we now lap the pricing that's gone in for the last year.
Hopefully, more sunshine and good weather.
Yeah, exactly.
Turning to Wet Shave, could you just talk about the state of the Wet Shave category? You categorize that business in your algo as a flat to slightly down business. Has your view of that changed over time? What's the current competitive environment look like, both in the U.S., international, and then in women's and men's as well?
Yeah. Look, I think the best word I can use for the Wet Shave category right now is stable. You are not seeing the level of disruption that you had seen previously, including from ourselves and the Billie brand. I think what is on shelf is largely what you would expect to be on shelf this year, next year, and going forward. You're not seeing the level of disruption from DTC brands making their way to shelf. So I think, first and foremost, you see stability. I think, secondly, you're seeing a bit of a disproportionate move between women's and men's and Chris pointed earlier to the importance of our women's shave business, slightly higher growth rate. We're seeing some interesting behavior from women coming out of COVID, where it's more of a hair removal approach.
It's more do it yourself, do it at home, as opposed to returning to the spas. And so our business now has branched not just from Wet Shave, but into interesting subcategories around hair removal. I think pricing is largely stable. We're not seeing any heightened level of promotions in the category. So I think, all in all, I think the Wet Shave category here in the U.S. is largely stable. I think in other markets, Japan, as an example, where we're the market leader, Europe, where we are the second solid number two player in the category, you're actually seeing a bit more growth. You're seeing that both through the branded side of the business and through disposables. So I think that what you quoted, Olivia, around a flat to declining Wet Shave business hasn't been what we've seen over the last two to three years.
We're actually quite optimistic that this business can be flat to slightly positive as we move from here.
Got it. Got just about a minute and a half, so I wanted to ask two more questions. First one is around Sun C are, which has obviously been a big driver of the growth. But you took a bit of a step back last year on market share. So how should we think about growth this year, market share assumptions? And can you give us an update on your everyday Sun C are brand?
Yeah. Look, we are the leading Sun C are portfolio in the U.S. We have a share north of 25%. The share losses of a year ago were directly related to what happened the previous season, where you might have read a bunch of competitors, not ourselves, had to pull product off shelves and/or had an issue supplying. And we gained. And we gained at a disproportionate rate. Pure math would show that it's logical we would have given some of that back last year. And we did. Having said that, I think we are as optimistic about the season as we've been in a long time. We are seeing very positive distribution outcomes on shelf. We're getting more prominence at Walmart in the Islander program.
As you saw in the presentation, we're bringing some really interesting innovation to the category, largely through a new form, dispensing form, which is unique. I think our expectation, again, we are reliant on weather and sunshine, but our expectation is really good distribution outcomes. We're certainly going to be ready on shelf in terms of inventory levels and expect to have a very positive season.
Great. Just want to wrap with one last question. You discussed how your transformation is working. You certainly have vastly improved the business, yet stock performance has not necessarily followed all the time. So what do you think investors are missing?
Yeah. Look, I don't know that they're missing things. I certainly wouldn't criticize. I think markets have a long memory. And if you think back to how we performed coming out of split, 2015, 2016, 2017, at the exact moment our main category was being disrupted, we didn't perform well. And I think we certainly own that. I would position it slightly differently. And I would say, if you closed your eyes and didn't think of the name Edgewell and you saw a business that has grown at 4% for the last three years, that has held or gained market share, that has made thoughtful acquisitions and has a much stronger portfolio, is activating the brand in a very different way than it has and continues to be really good at cost takeout as it throws off cash.
If you imagined that business, that's a pretty strong and compelling place to be. That's where we are today. So we would just ask, take another look. We think we're significantly undervalued based on that performance and based on what's left for us to do as a business.