Hello, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Brown - Forman Corp. First Quarter Fiscal 2022, earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. . Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. . I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Sue Perram, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning, everyone. I would like to thank each of you for joining us today for Brown - Forman's First Quarter Fiscal 2022 Earnings call. Joining me today are Lawson Whiting, President, and Chief Executive Officer, and Leanne Cunningham, Senior Vice President, and Chief Financial Officer. This morning's conference call contains forward-looking statements based on our current expectations. Numerous risks and uncertainties may cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated or projected in these statements. Many of the factors that will determine future results are beyond the Company's ability to control or predict. You should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update any of these statements, whether due to new information, future events, or otherwise. This morning, we issued a press release containing our results for the first quarter fiscal year 2022, in addition to posting presentation materials that Lawson and Leanne will walk through momentarily. Both the release and the presentation can be found on our website under the section titled " Investors, Events and Presentations." In the press release, we have listed a number of the risk factors that you should consider in conjunction with our forward-looking statements. Other significant risk factors are described in our Form 10-K and Form 10-Q reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. During this call, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures. This measures, a reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures and the reasons management believes they provide useful information to investors regarding the Company's financial conditions and results of operations are contained in the press release and investor presentation. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Lawson.

Thank you, Sue. And good morning, everyone. We're pleased to share our First Quarter results with you as we delivered another quarter of solid growth. As we've seen for many months now, the pandemic has created ups and downs, and twists and turns that have produced a lot of volatility, a lot of uncertainty, and even changes in our seasonality. As we indicated on our last conference call in this quarter, we benefited from the reopening the on-premise channel, the return of tourism, and the lapping of softer comparisons during the early months of the pandemic. And once again, I do want to extend my appreciation to the 4700 Brown - Forman employees that delivered the results that we will review with you today. They're actively engaged in building an environment where we can bring our best selves to work, which enables us to maximize our collective and individual potential and increase our productivity, our creativity, and our innovation. Above all, I would like to say thank you to the people of Brown-Forman. The last 18 months have been an exercise in endurance, and you have demonstrated nothing but excellence. You are our greatest asset. Now, let's turn our attention to the headlines of our first quarter, most notably, our continued momentum on the top line growth with very broad geographical growth, the overall health of our brand portfolio with many brands contributing to solid organic growth. We really don't have a tail anymore that would be a drag on our growth rate. And unfortunately, we continue to see pressure on our gross margin. I'll start with the top line where our overall underlying performance was a plus 18%. When factoring in the 3% underlying top-line growth we achieved in Q1 of Fiscal '21, our 2-year average growth rate, which…

Thank you, Lawson, and good morning, everyone. As Lawson reviewed our headlines for the quarter, I will provide additional details on our business results and our outlook for fiscal 2022, starting with our top line. Compared to fiscal 2021, our reported net sales were up 20% for the quarter. Additionally, we had strong double-digit underlying top-line growth, reflecting an increase in distributor inventory levels in the U.S., partially offset by the sale of Early Times, Canadian Mist and Collingwood brands during the first quarter of fiscal 2021. The increase in distributor inventory is due to the lapping of the reduction related to the buildup in the early stages of the pandemic, which was in our first quarter of fiscal 2021, as well as a build ahead of price increases Lawson mentioned. Although, even with the increase in the quarter, we believe distributor inventory levels are still below their pre-pandemic levels due to the various supply chain challenges. From an underlying net sales growth perspective, we experienced broad-based growth across all of our geographic clusters of the U.S., developed international markets, and emerging markets, as well as our travel retail channel. The U.S. business which represents half of our underlying net sales, remained strong, growing underlying net sales 16%. Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey was the single largest contributor to growth, followed by our premium bourbon and tequila brands. The reopening of the on-premise, which continues to approach pre-pandemic levels, as well as the Kentucky Derby's return to its famed spot on the 1st Saturday in May, fueled volume gains. In addition, net sales benefited from continued portfolio premiumization mix and favorable channel and size mix. In the off-premise channel, we continue to experience solid growth compared to the same period 2 years ago, even as the on-premise continued to reopen. The…

Thank you. As a reminder to ask a question you'll need to press Please stand by as we compile the Q&A roster. Our 1st question comes from Dara Mohsenian with Morgan Stanley. You may proceed with your question.

Hey, guys. Good morning. Could you just give us a bit more detail on the supply chain issues you mentioned. It sounds like it's more glass supply. A is that correct, or are the shipping and other issues also pronounced? And it sounded to me this is more of creating higher costs for you guys in terms of supply and retail. It doesn't sound it's ultimately going to have as much impact on retail sales or your ability to supply demand at retail and is that correct?

I'll start with that one and then Lawson can follow on. You're correct, in that it is glass related largely for us. And again, similar to others in the operating environment that we're in like many other CPG companies. We are seeing challenges across packaging material all the way through logistics services. As you can see on Slide 4, as an example, Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey rebounded strongly from a -10 in Q1 of '21 to a +21 in this current quarter. We did support that growth by drawing down some of our finished goods inventory and with the glass of suppliers, we are working closely with them to increase the capacity that's available to us and working closely with our distributor partners. We continue to deploy several of our risk mitigation teams against these strategies and are close to partnering with everyone in the supply chain. We do believe that our current guidance reflects these challenges and volatility. We believe that, as we navigate through the challenges and headwinds, that we will have a better understanding of this impact as we get through our next quarter. And we did state that as we -- we believe these challenges can -- will persist through the fiscal year, but we believe they will ease in the back half of the year. Lawson?

Yeah. I mean, I think on the margin versus missed sales part of the question, our first quarter was actually -- as you can see with the numbers, the sales were obviously very, very good, so I would say the minimal impact on sales in Q1. We're a little more cautious on Q2, to be honest. We are -- we have drawn down inventory levels across both distributors, I think on the country and different wholesalers, and all the way down through retail, and so there's only so much maneuvering you can do on that. And so we're at a higher risk. It hasn't happened yet, but that is one of the reasons we're a little more cautious on the guidance for the full year. We're just not sure how much glass we are going to be able to acquire over the next, really, it's the next few months, that seemed to be a risk as we've worked very hard with one of our suppliers over the last, really over the summer to ensure that we're getting, you know, we're getting all the glass that we can get from them. Does that help?

Great. Yeah, that's very helpful. And then, just maybe a few short-term ups -- update. Obviously, we've had the Delta variant and rising case counts, particularly in the U.S. as well as some other large markets, so, can you just give us a bit of an update on if you're -- you think -- you're seeing much consumer reaction to that in the U.S. or in some of the other large markets? And if demand has stayed pretty steady when you don't have severe government restrictions in place, or if consumers are reacting to that. I know Leanne gave us a bit of detail on on-premise, but it'll just be helpful to have a bit more detail there and any thoughts. Thanks.

I mean, I think -- I mean, as we talked about the on-premise, it certainly came back over the summer, and that's where you would have expected to see weaker results, if people were really staying at home a lot more, and you're not seeing that. What I think is almost more interesting, and it's just -- we've tried to peel back the numbers, and cut through the noise, and understand what's happening in the off-premise. Because the numbers are still very, very strong in the U.S. And so you're not seeing a pullback in the off-premise. You're not really seeing an acceleration either, but they're already off a very elevated number anyway. But if you take my preferred way to look at that really has taken -- just take a Nielsen data as an example and take the 2 -- the full-year, the 52-week results and do a 2-year stack on that. The numbers are still really -- they're still in the low double-digits, and the 13-week is better than the 52-week. There is enough evidence out there that I think gives us some confidence that overall consumer takeaway remains strong and remains elevated above where it was pre-pandemic.

Great. And that's helpful. Thanks, guys.

We've had good U.S. results, I was just going to say. Some of our competitors and so the logistics particularly the U.S. market is a healthy place these days.

Okay. And I guess it doesn't sound like August is a big change so far. Obviously, there's a lot of volatility, but it sounds, in general, that strength in consumer spending is continuing.

As far as we can tell. It's only September 1, so I haven't seen August yet, but it's pretty good, yeah.

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Vivien Azer with Cowen. You may proceed with your question.

Hi. Thank you. Good morning. Lawson, I was wondering if you could expand a little bit, please, on your commentary around the price increases on Jack Daniel's and perhaps contrast them with the last round of pricing that you took, which I think was 2013? Thanks.

It was that long ago. I mean, look, a step back over the last -- well, you can even go back 20 years. Pricing in the U.S. spirits business and I would also -- I'd also say food, in general, was in the 2000s time frame was very, very strong. The financial crisis hit in 2008 and '9ish. And that pricing went away and it really never came back. You referenced 2013 because that was an era when American whiskey really took off and the supply was short of it and we were -- we, as the market leaders, we're able to get a lot of pricing through. But you're right, we have been pretty -- it's been pretty flattish over the last few years, particularly as a lot of our competitors got more aggressive and we found ourselves in a challenging spot. Fast forward to this year, or really the last few months, not only in our costs that are flowing through, you've seen those and that's one reason to be a little more aggressive with the price. But the competitive set now this time, unlike a few years ago, is starting to go up too. And so, we got more aggressive both in American whiskey and tequila and a couple of other brands too, because we could and we want to be pricing leaders. We've been saying that for a while and it's been challenging, but it feels good that, finally, we're getting some of this to flow through.

Absolutely. That's helpful. Thank you. In my follow-up, you guys have announced that you're launching your first-age expression for Jack Daniel's. I'm curious to hear your expectations for countries into the top line, which I expect are probably a little bit muted just given the glass supply issues you guys are contending with. But anything about that product launch will be great. Thanks.

And we would project that to be smaller in fiscal 2022. As it was just -- we'll just be launching it in the U.S., and then supply, again, will be limited for a period of time as we grow into this expression. But it does allow us to continue to ladder up the premiumization for Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey and innovate around that.

Understood. Thank you very much.

Thanks. Vivien.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Andrea Teixeira with JP Morgan. You may proceed with your question.

Thank you. Good morning. So my question is are to these -- obviously, we saw a nice lift during COVID and Brown-Forman has continued to invest behind them. So I was wondering if you can comment about the recent slowdown perhaps, obviously? You're not having hard sales per se? but does it give you any pause on devoting some of these resources to the segment? And do you see perhaps the second bag of the? spirits-based are due to the exhausting growth? From the hard seltzers, and likewise, do you see some of these, your hard seltzers brands, how do you see them moving into spirits and some of the spirits brands, and even alcoholic into RTBs? Do you see these lines blurring between brands on segments or do you think this is sustainable as -- that's it's something that Brown-Forman could look into do more of going forward? Thank you.

Yeah. I'm going to start, Leanne and you can certainly cut in. RTDs has been a huge business for Brown-Forman for a long time. And so many folks are focusing on the U.S. market and , I get it, where the vast majority of our teams are outside of the U.S. It's a very big business for us something in the range of -- it was about 18 million cases or so outside of the U.S., compared to only 3ish inside. So very, very different. Now, country cocktails, as much as you've seen a slowdown on the seltzer world, we have not seen a material slowdown in country cocktails. But some of that we know is a benefit from switching from our own internal network in the past. Perhaps there -- they're new, they only assume sales of the brand at the beginning of this fiscal, so it's finding all these new distribution points and the brand is still flying. We've done very well with that and feel pretty good about it. As far as seltzer is taking share or impacting the spirits business, I mean, we've been trying to look at that for a while, and I give the same answer I have given before. It's pretty far -- the seltzer occasion and the whiskey drinker, for the large part, are pretty -- it's not the same occasion and many, many, many ways and it's not even really the same consumer in many ways. And so we, we just don't think we've seen much in the way of an impact or loss share to the seltzers. And if you really just looked at the numbers, I mean, American whiskey is doing as well as it ever has, in total, as a category, so I just don't -- and I'm saying that over the last few years. I just don't see that the seltzers have really taken many shares at that. I mean, it feels like the seltzer s are coming at vodka and tonic, maybe, or gin and tonic, and maybe putting a little dent in that business. But for us, that's a very small part of our overall portfolio.

Absolutely. That's super helpful. The other question that I had is a follow-up on JDT Apple beer. Sorry, just to find it like we've seen some weaker NABCA date in July. Anything specific to call out there? Are there any pieces of -- that we can see NABCA that makes you feel comfortable from your comments that the strength continues?

Okay. I'm not sure if I understood your question. Were you saying you saw some weakness in 1 of our brands, or just in the market in general, or you're thinking NABCA? Because what I'm looking at here does not have a lot of weakness under NABCA. I mean, it's -- once again, I'm looking -- probably not looking at the same data you are. We've got a 2-year stack in front of us here for NABCA data and . I mean, it's as strong as the Nielsen data is. There is a little, well, no, it actually accelerated in the 3 months compared to 12. So, yeah. I think, overall, the market remains pretty strong. NABCA all -- obviously has the on-premise data flowing through it. And so you're getting that reload in the on-premise that I think is, at least for now, supporting, supporting the NABCA trends.

I was just saying the Jack Daniel's brands, but no call-out specifically on those.

I mean the --

Yeah. We're still positive and growing.

Yeah, we're still doing pretty well. I'm not -- I'm not sure which brand -- I'm not seeing a slowdown in the macro data even for our brands. There's a couple of them that are obvious. And so that is related to like a Gentleman Jack and Single Barrel. Even our flavors, the comps are challenging for the next few months as they did so well last fiscal year. It's not something I would say I'm concerned about.

Okay. Perfect. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Bryan Spillane with Bank of America. You may proceed with your question.

Hey, good morning, guys.

Good morning.

I think it would be helpful, Lawson, just to get a sense of -- if you could give us a sense of how Brown-Forman's performing relative to the market. So I guess my question is this, can you give us a sense of what you see the spirit's market growth in is right now. And maybe some of the key markets, so in the US may be developed international and developing internationally. Just -- and how you're tracking ahead or behind the industry, just trying to get a sense of how we should look at these results relative to what the industry is tracking. And maybe if you could give us a sense of whether the industry right now is, sort of, ahead or behind what your original expectations are, were.

Yeah. Look, we -- it is difficult to do those comparisons right now. For the obvious reasons that we have an April 30 year-end and they're June 30 or several of the big guys are June 30. And those months of May and June were still volatile in the last couple of years. So over the short term, it's tough to dissect, and you have to use a little bit of art to make the comparisons. But if I step back and just talk about the US, and this is some board I already said. We're basically -- we've been saying for a long time, the algorithm for our business has been growing the US business about TDS, a couple of points higher in our developed international and then particularly in the good years, we get well into double-digit growth in our emerging markets. That sort of overall medium-term to longer-term growth algorithm, I think is still very relevant. If -- the one that I have the most data on is obviously going to be the U.S. and we're right at TDS for the most part, depends on which time period you pick and all that. But literally, plus or minus 1 point from TDS. And I -- as I said on one of the previous questions, the total takeaway numbers in the U.S. market remain elevated, and I'm not sure if it's going to hold throughout the entirety of the fiscal year or the account. We're all sort of expecting it to slow down, but it's not happening yet. And I do think that has a lot to do with us. Look, Jack Daniel's Black Label has always had the challenge to grow at a rate of TDS just given its absolute size. But we have the rest of our portfolio, which has gotten much more meaningful in the last few years, is well into double-digit growth mode. And many of the brands are -- it's significantly higher growth rates than that. And I'll cite something that we said last quarter, which I still find to be an interesting statistic because it just would not have been true only a couple of years ago. So this is fiscal year and backing up one quarter, but Jack Daniel's global sales were down 4% and the Company did a plus 6 for the full year. That is the dramatic growth in the rest of the portfolio for Brown-Forman. And that continues to buoy our results even now. And so we're feeling good and we feel like we've got a lot more growth drivers now than we would've had just a handful of years ago. And we've gotten rid of the tailwind. That was the other part of it is, as you know, we've had 4 or 5 brands that we sold in the last five years that were all in decline and that certainly makes it easier to grow a little faster too.

Thanks for that, Lawson. And then just any context just outside the US. I mean, do you think the industry is growing faster than it was or slower than it was, maybe pre-pandemic. I appreciate the -- reason why I'm asking you is that we can't figure it out. But, just trying to understand any context at all. Just how you think the industry is growing outside the US as well.

I mean, I think if we looked at last fiscal, so not necessarily this past quarter, but last fiscal, you remember, we had a handful of markets that were growing very fast. It was the markets that had the big, developed economies, that had governments that were supporting with fiscal stimulus, and that kind of things. And so you're looking at Australia, you're looking at Germany or some of the other ones that we're really going

Australia, Brazil.

Brazil. Brazil's a little different in that it didn't have so much fiscal stimulus, but our results in Brazil have been brilliant now for a number of years, but that's just organic momentum. But I think the big -- the really big markets that got the fiscal stimulus, the reality is a lot of consumers use that stimulus and went and bought alcohol products. And so that kept, that kept growth rates elevated. I think it's too early to make or determine whether or not how that's going to come down. I mean, it's a great question though of has the consumer just adopted spirits relative to beer and wine? And will that hold as time goes on and sort of the world returns to normal? And I think there's a good chance it will, but we'll see.

All right. Thanks, Lawson. I appreciate it. I look forward to tomorrow.

Thank you. Your next question comes from Bonnie Herzog with Goldman Sachs. You may proceed with your question.

Thanks so much. This is actually Stan Reed. I'm pitch-hitting for Bonnie here. Maybe you wanted to touch really quickly on EPremise. It's exciting to hear the strength there. That said, could you give us a rough sense as to how the economics here might compare to some of the other channels, and anything around that, that we should be mindful of as this continues to become a more important part of your business?

Well, that's going to depend on where you are market-by-market and just around the world, economics is different as we look at each one of those. Stepping back and looking at it collectively, it continues to be an important channel for where consumers are going to drive to where our products are. It's one we're continuing to invest in. We need to be there within -- our products within the hand's reach of our consumer. We're continuing to invest in it because it will continue to be an increasing part of our business. As we said, it's just over 2% of our business, but it has grown 4x just recently over the last couple of years. From a profitability perspective, it is a channel where we can drive incremental profitability. It's how we choose to market inside of that.

Yeah. I mean, I think --

I'll talk about the U.S. First and then we'll hit some of the international markets. I find e-commerce in the US to be interesting to talk about because it's largely a delivery service. And that just adds costs into the system, but it's not coming out of Brown-Forman's pocket. It's not coming out of the distributor's pocket. It's coming out of the consumer, who's willing to pay a little bit more to get the product delivered. But I think if you're trying to analyze the economics of the US e-commerce business, it's kind of neutral, I think, for the suppliers, for the most part. Now, if you start to get into the conversation around direct shipping, say from Woodford to another state that gives a little -- that's a little different. That it's a very, very tiny business that doesn't work well within the 3Q system very well. It's so small right now that I don't even know if I'm going to give you a good answer to the question. But if you move into Europe, say, or certainly, Asia where we have set up e-commerce platforms, in that case, you're taking a retailer out of the -- of the mix. And so somebody is going to get a piece of that margin, and we would get a piece of it, and then whoever our fulfillment partner is, we get a piece of that. But then that's largely more profitable per case than regular business. And then China -- China would really be the same -- same thing as Europe in terms of it's a much bigger business over there. But you are cutting out tiers in the supply chain, so just like it does for Amazon non-alcohol products, say, or for a lot of suppliers that use Amazon, it's different because you're cutting out the retail.

That's incredibly helpful . I really appreciate it. And then maybe just wanted to quickly switch gears here and just touch on tariffs. It's great to hear the update that you guys provided there. I was wondering though, would you be able to walk us through maybe a little bit more detail on some of your own lobbying efforts as it relates to tariffs and perhaps the world that those efforts might be playing in getting both the U.S. and the EU to come to a resolution? Thanks a ton.

Well, look, I got to be really careful on that. We have done our best over the last -- it's been over 3 years now that we've been suffering through this. Obviously, with American whiskey being the only category left that is getting tariff, everyone else has gotten off, it is, you know, v -- to say frustrating would be an understatement. And we've done what we can, but obviously, there's a limit to how much we can do given the size of the steel and aluminum industry relative to American whiskey. And so we just keep hoping that cooler heads are going to prevail and they've made public statements in the last -- since Biden was elected, that the groups we're going to work together to try to get these, to get them over with. We've, we've got to believe that that's true and we have indications that it's true, but as I say, I've wished that these -- I've thought and wished that these were going to be over before, and I was wrong every time. We're just going to have to wait and see how it turns out.

Absolutely. We'll know. Thanks so much for the color. Really appreciate it. I'll pass it on.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Eric Serotta with Evercore. You may proceed with your question.

Thanks. One for Leanne, and then one for Lawson. First, for Leanne, you guys maintained that the mid-single-digit top-line and guidance with the gross margin being lower than previously expected so that would imply some reduction in your plan spending on -- in P or SG&A. Is that a fair conclusion or is it more some rounding as mid-single-digits are kind of a range and your spending plans haven't changed. And then for Lawson, hoping you could give some perspective as to how you're looking at the next phase for our Woodford growth. Obviously made some great headway in the US over a 20-plus year journey and started to build out some solid international positions. But would love to get your big picture perspective as to where the next phase of Woodford growth is going to come from. Thanks.

Okay. Well, I'll go back to your question related to guidance. We are off to a strong start. It is early in our fiscal year, but as we mentioned with the volatility and the challenges, we believe that it's built-in to the guidance that we've reiterated an issue today. Again, with the supply chain disruptions and increasing cost headwinds, we did change from slight improvement to flat to slightly down. As you can think about our investments back behind our brand, we continue to operate with the philosophy that the investment rate will be in line with our top-line sales growth. We'll find deficiencies in our SG&A and other operating line items to continue to be within the range that we have provided from an operating income perspective.

And then Woodford -- first of all, I'll make an advertisement for tomorrow at our investor conference. We're going to spend a fair amount of time talking about Woodford and its long-term potential. So I don't want to steal the thunder from that. But in short, I think what you'd probably already know about, we have been putting in a -- called a specialty, it's not really in the sales force, but a specialty team that we've already put into the U.S. when we did, we did several years ago, not for Woodford. But we did -- we call it the emerging brand's group, which has been an outstanding source of growth for us, and the brands that have gone in there absolutely hit an accelerated growth rate. And so we've taken those lessons and we've put it into some of the bigger markets in Europe and another in Australia. And I expect we will expand that idea in -- over the next few years to really get some focus on it. A big lesson learned is -- it's -- Woodford in these brands would be equivalent to our GlenDronach in the U.S. or something where it's small relative, particularly the Jack Daniel's portfolio and so incremental focus on that brand and you get paid back very quickly. And so it's one of the bigger strategic platforms that we have, I think, for the next few years is -- not only Woodford, but we're really going to push on Gentleman Jack, as an example. We're going to push on our single malt. Really the super-premium and ultra-premium brands that get a little bit of focus and get a better growth rate. And so, yeah, you're going to hear a lot more about Woodford and its international growth plans, not only tomorrow but in upcoming quarters, too.

Great. Well, I'll stay tuned. I'll pass it on Thanks.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Steve Towers of Deutsche Bank. You may proceed with your question.

Good morning. Thanks. Lawson, you sounded at least from my ear anyway, pretty bullish and optimistic on demand trends and your own execution, and clearly, the portfolio delivered a big acceleration in underlying top-line trends on a two-year basis in the first quarter. But then I juxtapose that against what looks like a pretty material resumption in two-year deceleration as implied in your outlook for the balance of the year. I'm just hoping you can maybe elaborate and provide a little bit more color to square that circle. I guess, is the guidance just prudent? That prudent versus your own optimism, or are the supply constraints that you called out, are they that severe that they may threaten to put you behind the 8th ball relative to demand trends if they continue the way you've described?

Well, look, I am bullish both, I'll call it short, medium, and long term. Leanne gave you some of the more details just a second ago on -- upon the top-line guidance that we have. It is trying to be a bit conservative, as we're only one quarter in, and there's just a lot of clouds on the horizon these days that put a lot of unknowns out there. And the supply situation is real. We walked through that already. But it -- when I say supply, I mean glass supply situation is one thing we are just uncertain about it. If we don't have -- If we can fulfill all of our orders and not lose any sales at all, well, we'll do well this year. We'll do even better I think than the guidance out there is just uncertainty around how much how big of an impact that's going to have.

We do have increasing confidence in our top line. momentum, maybe landing us closer to the top end of the range. But as Lawson said, it's our first quarter. It's very early in the year. When we think about the abnormal seasonality that the pandemic created, our fourth quarter of last year was very strong and we will be comping against that in the fourth quarter of this year, which is the furthest quarter away from us, which just, again, with the uncertainty and volatility between here and there; it makes it very difficult to forecast.

Okay. That's completely understandable. I guess just to -- just to tie that back to Leanne, how you answered Eric's question just a moment ago. If you do see that over-delivery on the top line as the year progresses, does the investment spending tick up commensurate with that, or does that become a source of -- a source of profitability and margin if you over-deliver on the top line?

Yes. I mean, I think that goes back to what we've stated, largely since Lawson has been and his role is the philosophy of reinvesting back behind our brands in line with top-line sales. I think that's definitely the model that we're moving forward with. And again, as we move through the next quarter, we'll have greater visibility into what does this uncertainty and volatility mean. And we'll just have more information available to you when we talk again soon.

Very good. Thank you both.

Our next question comes from Kevin Grundy with Jefferies. You may proceed with your question.

Great. Thanks. Good morning, everyone. You've covered a lot of ground on the business. I want to ask about capital allocation priorities and key factors informing your view there with the cash balance reaching historical highs and the leverage ratio continues to move lower. And then with that comment, just if you could touch upon the decision-making around buybacks. You sound optimistic about the business. The stock here has pulled back pretty significantly in recent months. Comment on how the market should interpret your potential views on your stock's valuation and should the Company not decide or opt not to resume share buybacks. Thanks.

Well, I'll start with our philosophy, which, as said, we've reiterated those many times, and they continue to be a by which -- that guide us. And 1st and foremost is fully invest back behind the business. Again, I think with the position we're taking, you continue to see us being conservative with what we see as volatility and uncertainty ahead. Again, secondly, and very important to us is paying the regular and increasing dividend, always being opportunistic with our long-term value-creating, looking for acquisitions, and then reach opportunistically returning cash to shareholders. So that's all in place, and stable from an environmental perspective. We continue to do the work that will guide us and what our future actions would be.

There's not much more I can say over and above that. We will continue our long-held sort of capital allocation strategies. We think it's a very shareholder-friendly strategy itself. It's not rocket science. And you're right, our balance sheet is it's more, not more conservative, but obviously, we are, we've reduced leverage quite a bit in the last couple of years. And we continue to have active conversations on what -- what the best -- what's the best way to employ that is.

Thank you. But just a quick follow-up on tariffs and understanding the volatility that exists around the supply chain and commodities. But you certainly sounded good on the tariff piece, more optimistic; that could potentially be north of 200 basis point benefit we calculate it to gross margins. As you're thinking about that, how should investors perceive the potential benefit in terms of what will flow through to earnings? Understanding will be -- the environment's going to dictate some of that around commodities and currency, etc. But I'd like to kind of get your thoughts as you're thinking about scenario planning, should that go your way?

And again, I think we're consistent in the messages that we have delivered over time, is there will be some level of reinvestment back behind the business. But yes, there will be a portion of that that we believe will fall to the bottom line.

Okay. Very good. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Sean King with UBS. You may proceed with your question.

Hey, guys. Good morning. I guess, I'll be curious how you're thinking about the international tequila opportunity, how the market is developing outside the U.S. and Mexico, and maybe Brown-Forman's right to win? And could some of your own distribution build-out have an impact on seizing that opportunity?

Well, that's a good question. Let me take the last part of it for and then we'll get into the ultimate opportunity. Yes, we've been saying this for a couple of years and I'm honest we have -- if I'm honest, we've not delivered to the extent I would like to see, but having your own -- controlling your own route to market gives you the ability to grow your portfolio outside of just Jack Daniels. If we had not made those moves in the last decade, we would be strategically disadvantaged because nobody wants to build brand-new brands as a distributor. It's just too hard and it doesn't -- they don't make enough money at it. And so that was -- has always been one of the underlying strategies for doing that. Now, having said that, tequila opportunity outside of the U.S.; we had been -- it's primarily been an el Jimador play to date. A lot of consumers outside of the U.S. really just think of tequila as a margarita, in quotes, that is changing I think over time. But we have a decent el Jimador business in a lot of -- it's South America, believe it or not. Australia and the U.K. I would say would be our principal markets where we've developed that. What I want to see is Herradura begin to get seeded in those markets. Teach consumers that there are other ways to drink it other than the margarita. and Herradura is a great one to go ahead and do that. And I do think the authenticity that the Herradura brand has relative to many of the other big Tequila brands that are sold in the U.S. gives us an advantage. Some of the celebrity-driven brands, I don't know what to say, don't have a chance outside of the US but I mean, it's more of a U.S. phenomenon for those actors and actresses. So I think we do have a right to win with Herradura outside of the U.S. and there will be, I'll say a much bigger, but there's definitely going to be increased emphasis on trying to develop that brand outside of the U.S.

Great. Thank you very much.

Our next question comes from Chris Pitcher with RedBrick. You may proceed with your question.

Thanks very much. A follow-up from your previous calling, Lawson. Are you mentioning the importance of own distribution in international? Can you say how much of your business now is going through distribution and the experience that you've had in markets recently, like the UK? Is this stepping up the need to close the final gap, particularly as perhaps U.S. growth you're saying there's a risk of a slowdown in the shorter term? I just want to get a feel for what new markets we should expect, perhaps coming on stream.

Yeah. For one thing, we're going to have, we're going to go into a much, much more depth on this topic tomorrow again at our, in our investor conference, we're going to have Thomas get up there and talk about how many markets we've done and what we've done with them and what might be some of the potentials moving forward so that -- you're going to get a mouth full on that tomorrow. But having said that, I don't know the percentage off my head, but I know we control it and 7 of our 10 largest markets, and then a handful of the next 10 are coming online even now. So there are more opportunities to continue to do it and we will continue to forward integrate as another way to think about it. But it is a meaningful change almost, I say, almost, I think nearly every time we have made a change in a route to market, that particular market goes on a run of better growth for a number of years. And I'll just use Germany as an example because it was real and that was the very first one. I guess Australia was the first. But Germany was one -- a second or third market in the world where we put that in place a decade ago and may have . We have grown so much in that market over the past 10 years. It has just been fantastic. And so I wouldn't say we have any regret on any market that we've gone ahead and done that and it's an important part of our strategy.

And perhaps as a follow-up, on travel retail, which was an attractive category pre the pandemic. Could you rethink the resource allocation there? A lot of your competitors are talking about it, a gradual recovery. But do you see that perhaps it's not the channel it once was? Do you think it's been structurally disadvantaged?

I'll take that one. And if you go back, in F '20, travel retail was 4% of our business and F '21 was the effects of the pandemic. It was cut in half to 2%. We continue to believe in this channel and its strength and ability to build brands. We do continue to see that it's just -- it's going to be a gradual return even though we are expecting strong growth. And if you look at Slide 8, you can see the strong growth that we're already experiencing in Q1 of this year. I think we'll continue to see strong growth, but it's more on the easier comparisons and some level of return to personal and business travel. But I think it will, it will take a number of years to fully recover, but it will continue to be an important channel for us.

It's so tied to international travel. When that comes back. I mean, I think you'll see a pretty good snap back in the ability of spirits brands to sell through there. And it, I know, you know this, but I mean super-premium and ultra-premium brands do very well in that channel. We have a lot more plays of the size that can fit well in that channel now than we would've had, say, 5 or 10 years ago. And so we want it to be a more meaningful channel for us going forward for all the reasons Leanne just said. And so I don't think there is a permanent change or reduction in the size of that market. I just think it's going to be a slow walk to get back to sort of pre-pandemic levels.

Thank you.

Thank you. And I'm not showing any further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Sue Perram for any further remarks?

Thank you. Thank you, Lawson and Leanne. And to all of you for joining us today for Brown Forman's First Quarter Fiscal 2022 Earnings Call. If you have any additional questions, please contact me. As a reminder tomorrow at 9:00 AM Eastern Time, we will post our first virtual Investor Day. We hope that you can join us to see a few familiar faces and meet some new leaders, all of whom will share more about our integrated strategy that underpins our performance ambition of nothing better in the market. We're looking forward to sharing additional insights into our long-term strategy, as well as addressing additional questions. Details regarding this webcast can be found in our August 19th press release about the event. And with that, this concludes our call.

Thank you. his concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.