Earnings Labs

The Clorox Company (CLX)

Q4 2016 Earnings Call· Wed, Aug 3, 2016

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day, everyone, and welcome to The Clorox Company Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2016 Earnings Release Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. At the conclusion of our prepared remarks, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Steve Austenfeld, Vice President of Investor Relations for The Clorox Company. Mr. Austenfeld, you may begin your conference.

Steven Austenfeld - Vice President-Investor Relations

Analyst

Great. Thank you very much. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining Clorox's fourth quarter conference call. On the call with me today are Benno Dorer, Clorox's CEO; and Steve Robb, our Chief Financial Officer. We're broadcasting this call over the Internet and a replay of the call will be available for seven days at our website, thecloroxcompany.com. Let me remind you that, on today's call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures including but not limited to free cash flow, EBIT margin, debt to EBITDA, and economic profit. Management believes that providing insights on these measures enables investors to better understand and analyze our ongoing results of operations. Reconciliation with the most directly comparable financial measures determined in accordance with GAAP can be found in today's press release, this webcast's prepared remarks or supplemental information available in the Financial Results area of our website as well as in our filings with the SEC. In particular, it may be helpful to refer to tables located at the end of today's earnings release. Please recognize that today's discussion contains forward-looking statements. Actual results or outcomes could differ materially from management's expectations and plans. Please review our most recent 10-K filing with the SEC and our other SEC filings for a description of important factors that could cause results or outcomes to differ materially from management's expectations and plans. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. So turning to our commentary on the quarter. There are three key messages to take away from today's call. First, as planned, our fourth quarter results reflect significantly increased demand-building investments to support awareness, trial, and distribution of our innovation pipeline. Second, we're very pleased with our fiscal year 2016 performance as we made further progress against our 2020…

Benno O. Dorer - Chief Executive Officer

Analyst

Thank you, Steve, and hello to all of you on the call. As Steve Austenfeld noted in his opening remarks, there are three key messages we have for you today. First, our Q4 results reflect incremental strategic investments to drive top-line growth that we believe will be sustainable and profitable long-term, keeping the core of our business healthy in a continued challenging macroeconomic environment. This approach is paying off with increased volume and sales growth across our U.S. segments. Second, we're very pleased with our fiscal year 2016 performance and the progress we're making against our Strategy 2020 accelerators, which, I believe, will continue to create value and drive long-term profitable growth in the years to come. On the top line, we delivered 2% sales growth, or 5% on a currency-neutral basis, excluding the 3 point impact of unfavorable foreign currency. On the bottom-line, we grew diluted earnings per share a very strong 8%, which includes our deliberately increased demand spending. We grew market share for the U.S. and International, supported by another strong year of innovation. We entered the Digestive Health category. Two months in, the transition is going well and we're excited to bring the benefits of Renew Life's Digestive Health product to more consumers by building on the success the team has achieved with our proven distribution, marketing, and innovation capabilities. And we delivered top tier returns for our shareholders doing it the right way, by investing in our brands, providing innovation and better value for our consumers, and driving productivity and cost savings in order to not just grow, but grow profitably. Third, we're staying the course for fiscal year 2017. Our fiscal year 2017 outlook reflects a healthy base business, while taking into account ongoing headwinds from foreign exchange, a difficult competitive environment, and comparison against our strong fiscal year 2016 performance. In addition, we're closely monitoring the general health of the U.S. economy and consumer. We have confidence in our strategy and will continue focusing on our accelerators, which are working well for us. We will continue to accelerate momentum in our portfolio with strong demand investments behind our brands. We will continue to drive our innovation program and deliver a robust collection of launches in the back half of the new fiscal year. We will continue to transform how we engage with consumers in the digital arena, with industry-leading levels of spending that are yielding positive returns. We'll continue our focus on productivity and cost savings to fund these investments while also growing margins. And we will continue to draw on our extraordinarily engaged workforce that is driven to create solid and consistent value for our shareholders. And with that, let's open it up for your questions.

Operator

Operator

Thank you, Mr. Dorer. We'll first hear from Steve Powers of UBS.

Stephen R. Powers - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Great. Thanks, everybody. Maybe just a few just housekeeping. So on the tax rate guidance, is the implication that the 30% to 31% fiscal 2017 rate is – broad brush strokes the right run rate beyond 2017? Or would there be a reason for a reversion back to historical levels? Stephen M. Robb - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: It's actually hard to know, Steve. We certainly believe that's our best estimate for what will happen in fiscal 2017. But as I indicated in my opening comments, there's going be significant variability potentially in both the quarters and the years. I do think there'll be ongoing benefit beyond fiscal 2017 but it's hard to call whether we're going to get a full 4 points of benefit. Actually what I'd recommend that you do and recommend that everybody do in this is if you look at the most recent 10-K that we have out there, if you go to footnotes in the tax section, you'll actually see historically what this benefit has been that's been flowing through equity. And that's probably not a bad starting place to just go back and look at the history on this.

Stephen R. Powers - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. That's very helpful. Thank you. And then just on the Renew Life benefit in the quarter, I think you said it was just over a 1 point or a 1 point-plus on sales in Q4. Can you talk about just how much that contributed to volume versus sales mix? Because if it's volume then that would signal, I think, a fairly sizable part of your Household segment volume was Renew Life. I just want to clarify if that's the case. Stephen M. Robb - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: It made a modest contribution to volume. And I would say, it was generally in line with the sales contribution.

Stephen R. Powers - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. Okay. And then I guess the bigger question is just, you spent – as you signaled you would, spent a lot on demand-building in the quarter both on trade and on A&P. It sounds like – I guess there's two parts to this question is: how much demand do you think you pulled forward from Q1 or the early part of fiscal 2017? And then as we think about the cadence of fiscal 2017, should we expect that sort of elevated A&P and trade to filter into the first half? Or is there a reason where you can shut it down and start clean in 2017? Stephen M. Robb - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: A lot of the incremental investment that we made in the fourth quarter, that we had previously communicated, actually came in the form of advertising. So we don't believe there was any pull-forward on the volume based on what we can see. Again, what we're trying to do is get awareness, trial, and repeat. So we certainly would expect to get some benefit in the first half from the investments we made in the fourth quarter. As far as the ongoing investment level, in advertising, as we'd indicated on the previous call last quarter, we were about 10% of sales this fiscal year, fiscal 2016. We anticipate a similar amount in fiscal 2017. But to be clear, you will see variability across the quarters. We do like to time these investments when we've got innovation and news to talk about. So you could see it go up and down on the quarter, but I would say the incremental point we put in 2016 will remain in 2017 based on what we know today.

Stephen R. Powers - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. That's great. Just – was there any pull-forward on the distribution gain? And then lastly and then I'll stop, any quantification that was material on the bleach plant sale? Thanks. Stephen M. Robb - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: There is no pull-forward again based on what we know on distribution and what we can see. As far as the bleach plant sale, just as a reminder for everyone, we've been driving world-class manufacturing for the last several years. As a part of that, our team has done a fabulous job of really increasing productivity. So we made a decision to close the Los Angeles bleach facility, move the volume to other network – plants within our network. And as a result, we were able to sell the facility. We received a little over $10 million for it, so we certainly felt very good about that. And that did give us a one-time gain in the quarter. Now just as a reminder, in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2015, we also had a similar one-time gain but this was on the sale of low income housing partnerships that we had. So they don't completely offset, but I would just remind everyone that there was two one-time gains in each of those two quarters, respectively.

Operator

Operator

Next we'll hear from Olivia Tong of Bank of America.

Olivia Tong - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Great. Thanks so much. Clearly a big pickup in spend and volume responded. So in response to the first question, you talked about the sort of tail, the benefit in the first half from some of the spending. But when I look at your fiscal 2017 outlook, it doesn't necessarily assume for the full year a whole lot. So can you talk about sort of the puts and takes that are embedded within your expectations for fiscal 2017 top-line? Stephen M. Robb - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah, Olivia, let me try to build on the comments that I made at the opening where we tried to break out, for you, our expectations around category growth, obviously the benefit of Renew Life and innovation. Here's another way to think of it. As we look at the full year for fiscal 2017, we anticipate sales growth in the range of 2% to 4%. Now included in that is about 2 points of foreign currency, which, by the way, offset about 2 points of benefit from the Renew Life acquisition. So you can kind of net those out. And then if I look at the 2% to 4% on the core basis there, I would say the U.S. business continues to perform very well. We think we'll be well within this 2% to 4% long-term growth target that we have for our U.S. business. International, on a currency-neutral basis, we think we'll likely be in this 5% to 7% growth range, but, obviously, when you layer in currencies, which are real, International's obviously going be challenged next year and it's certainly not going be growing. So on balance, I would say, we're feeling pretty good about the U.S. business. It's challenging in International, which is why we're really leaning in to rebuild the margins and accelerate profitable growth, but we think we have a solid outlook. Again, there'll be variability across the quarters as there always is, but we think this is a solid plan.

Olivia Tong - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Got it. And then you mentioned expectations for faster growth in the non-track channel versus the track. Obviously you've got the Costco wipes edition, but what else is driving that greater growth?

Benno O. Dorer - Chief Executive Officer

Analyst

Yeah, Olivia, we're seeing a really strong growth in non-track channels on several of our larger brands. You've mentioned wipes, which is pretty obvious and doing really well in the club channel. We're also seeing very strong merchandising in Kingsford charcoal, which has been on a remarkable run over the last year, in particular, as it relates to home hardware, which also is not tracked. And then we're starting to see what we started talking about perhaps 18 months ago. Our LOOP SKUs, low-out-of-pocket SKUs, that are at the very low-end of the dollar channel and also not tracked. To make an impact, we have 22 of such SKUs out there right now and they're well received as consumers are looking for value at all ends of the spectrum and that's starting to do pretty well. So I would point to those factors in particular, but perhaps to general strength across our portfolio outside track channels as consumers are looking for value and a lot of value is to be found in those non-track channels.

Olivia Tong - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Understood. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Next we'll hear from Jason English of Goldman Sachs. Jason English - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Hey. Good morning, folks. Thank you for the question. A couple housekeeping questions. One, I guess I was a little surprised by the answer to a question earlier about trade spend and the comment that most of the reinvestment was really focused on advertising. It stands in contrast to the pretty sharp negative inflection on price/mix this quarter. So can you just elaborate a little bit more on what drove that negative inflection, if it wasn't more elevated price – or more elevated promotion? Stephen M. Robb - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: So, Jason, to clarify for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016, there's really two things that occurred. One is the step-up in advertising that was previously planned and communicated. That was the $41 million. We also did step-up our trade promotion investment in the quarter, again, to drive additional trial on new and existing products that we have, so both are true. And we reinvested both in trade spending and in advertising, although advertising was a larger piece of that. Jason English - Goldman Sachs & Co.: And on carry-forward, on the go-forward I know you've commented on this, but just to really nail it home, the magnitude of negative erosion on that price/mix line, that's not something we should expect to carry into next year, correct? Stephen M. Robb - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: We do anticipate – well two things. First, as it relates to the top line, we would expect that volume growth will be faster than sales growth. Why? Well, number one is, because we've got FX headwinds. And then second, there's always a bit of mix drag and some trade spending…

Benno O. Dorer - Chief Executive Officer

Analyst

So, Jason, first of all, your assumption that reported sales is about in line with consumption is correct. I would perhaps offer the perspective on the coverage rates in some categories be well south of the 80% that you mentioned. On some of the businesses, like Kingsford and like Brita, the number actually is closer to 60%. So there is a substantial part of our business that is non-tracked and that indeed is doing very well. Jason English - Goldman Sachs & Co.: But overall, for the overall business?

Benno O. Dorer - Chief Executive Officer

Analyst

When you say for the overall business... Jason English - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Overall U.S. portfolio. Is the 80%/20% ratio sort of right and is the implied 20% growth in non-tracked sort of right?

Benno O. Dorer - Chief Executive Officer

Analyst

So I don't know that we comment on the growth rate in non-tracked. 80% is a good number for – like I said for some of the businesses but not for all the businesses. There are several large businesses of ours, and I mentioned two of them where the number is closer to 60%. Jason English - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Okay.

Steven Austenfeld - Vice President-Investor Relations

Analyst

And, Jason, this is Steve Austenfeld. One other factor which clearly is emerging and we've been putting a lot of investment behind it is the growth in the digital channel, so online sales. Jason English - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Sure.

Steven Austenfeld - Vice President-Investor Relations

Analyst

And I think if that continues, which we certainly expect it will and you're aware of the spending investment we put behind that, then I think you're going see more and more over time of our sales end up being in the untracked channel, at least to the extent that the online or digital space is untracked today. Jason English - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Right on. Cool. Thank you, guys. I'll pass it on. Congrats on a good year.

Operator

Operator

Next we'll hear from Jonathan Feeney of Consumer Edge Research.

Jonathan Feeney - Consumer Edge Research LLC

Analyst

Thanks for the question. I guess my first question would be, when you look at the new club customer you got, that kind of happened mid-year 2016 and you've been getting a fare (40:37) for that and maybe – I don't know if there's other reasons. It seems like dollar shipments seem a little bit ahead of what takeaway appears to be. I assume that's the major reason – correct me if I'm wrong. So does this mean that we're going to see maybe stronger dollar shipments and maybe volume in the front half than the back half next year? Stephen M. Robb - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: I'm sorry. Are you asking about first half sales growth versus second half sales growth or are you asking about...

Jonathan Feeney - Consumer Edge Research LLC

Analyst

That's correct. Stephen M. Robb - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Okay. We typically don't comment on that. We provide a full-year outlook. I would say, there's going to be variability across the quarters. I mean that would be expected. Probably the only thing I will point out to you is I do anticipate that foreign currency headwinds are likely to be stronger in the first half of the fiscal year than the second half. Why? Because we saw a major devaluation in Argentina that we're going to have to work through the balance of this calendar year before we lap it. And then following Brexit, we saw some of the currencies weaken against the U.S. dollar again. So I think that's certainly going to weigh on the first half results probably a bit more than the second half. But beyond that, we'll focus on the full-year outlook and focus on driving long-term growth.

Jonathan Feeney - Consumer Edge Research LLC

Analyst

Thanks so much for that. And, secondly, just a follow up on an answer to one of your questions on the increased competition. Where is this increased competition broadly coming from? Is it more from private label not taking pricing up as much or maybe taking pricing down in some places? Or is it coming from other competitors who maybe you've gained a little bit of share in major channels again.

Benno O. Dorer - Chief Executive Officer

Analyst

Yeah, so it's mainly from branded competitors. And again, we anticipated – and it's mostly in the form of trade promotion. And again this is something that we anticipated about a year ago and it's playing out about as foreshadowed. Growth is hard to come by in the U.S. We have a lot of growth and we have a lot of growth coming from innovation. But broadly in the industry, there is not a lot of innovation around, which is why as competitors are looking for growth in a reasonably low commodity environment, they're investing in trade. And we're seeing that in various categories, Home Care and Glad, our trash bags are two categories that we've mentioned in the past and that are playing out as we anticipated. And we can expect that elevated trade promotion environment to stay with us for the foreseeable future as commodities stay where they are. Our approach perhaps, if you'll allow me, it's certainly to an extent respond in kind, so competition doesn't buy share from us that could erode the business in the long run. But our focus mainly is on earning market share, not buying market share, invest behind innovation. Invest behind engaging with the consumer digitally, two things that have a long-term positive effect on our brand equity. So that can mean that we may be willing to temporarily accept share declines; for instance, on Glad where we're seeing that right now, but always with an eye on the long-term health of our business and the profitability. So in a nutshell, elevated trade spend from branded competitors, likely here to stay, and we're applying a balanced and disciplined approach as you'd expect.

Jonathan Feeney - Consumer Edge Research LLC

Analyst

Great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Next we'll hear from Ali Dibadj of Bernstein. Ali Dibadj - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: Hey, guys. Wanted to ask about 2017 top-line again. So if you exclude currency, if you exclude Renew Life, that gets the 2% to 4% that one's looking for. What happens if you exclude the wipes distribution in Costco? So what's the underlying sales growth? And I don't really know how to think about it because if you go back to – what was it, March of 2014, it looks like, where you lost that business, there's a negative 8 point swing in volume trends for the segment. But it really only lasted a quarter and there wasn't any mix benefit at that point. So I don't know whether it's 2% to 4% with or without Costco or whether it's 1% to 3% given what we've seen this quarter or even 0% to 2% without Costco for 2017. Stephen M. Robb - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Ali, our plans call for, in the U.S. business, excluding Renew Life, to be solidly within the 2% to 4% is our best estimate. And while we anticipate a modest benefit from picking up new distribution on Clorox disinfecting wipes, I would say the innovation is significantly larger. So it's a nice benefit, but I wouldn't overstate the size of the benefit to the company's growth.

Benno O. Dorer - Chief Executive Officer

Analyst

I'd also, Ali – good question – perhaps add that the wipes story of success is certainly not dependent upon this new distribution with the major customer. If you look at the size of the wipes business, in March by when we regained distribution, it was actually larger than it was with distribution at that customer two years earlier. So what we expect for wipes is continued momentum with all of our customers, continued growth in all channels because we're driving innovation, because we're supporting the brand through advertising and because we have about 50% of household penetration in the category still to go and the Costco business certainly helps, but it's just one driver behind the strength in the business overall. Ali Dibadj - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: So I appreciate that. I mean, is it going to be a 1 point? I mean – or does it even round to a 1 point? Because again, I'm going back to March 14 – March 2014, it didn't hit after that first quarter. But I'd assume, yes, you have pallet fill at a Costco or at a club store but you probably still have that until you lap that, right? So are you saying, Steve or Benno, it doesn't even round to 1 point of the 2% to 4%? Stephen M. Robb - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: So, Ali, normally, we don't provide that granularity. I'm going to in this instance. Ali Dibadj - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: Thanks. Stephen M. Robb - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: On a full year basis, it's less than a 1 point. Ali Dibadj - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: Okay. Stephen M. Robb - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: It does not round to a 1 point. And again, we're very happy to have it back. But what's more important is that we've grown the wipes category as Benno talked about. And this is great to have product wherever the consumer shops but I wouldn't overstate the impact to the top-line. Ali Dibadj - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: That's helpful. You guys mentioned, obviously, several times untracked channels: untracked channels growing more, clearly club, perhaps dollars, certainly online as well. How do you think about cannibalization in that instance? So you're getting this, for example, club channel. You're showing up with Brita on Amazon, et cetera, much more aggressively. How do you kind of factor in your growth going forward, the cannibalization of that versus incrementality?

Benno O. Dorer - Chief Executive Officer

Analyst

In general, that's, of course, always factored into our outlook. There's a certain element of cannibalization always, but the reality is that there's a certain element of channel loyalty, Ali, certainly in club, but also in dollar. So the question here for most consumers is, am I going to buy a Clorox product or a competitive product in the channel versus am I going to buy the Clorox product in channel A or in channel B? So needless to say, there's a positive effect from any distribution gain that we can get across a variety of channels. But there's a certain element of cannibalization, and based on our analytics, we always have a pretty good handle of what that cannibalization is and we factor that in as we think about our sales and profit forecast for the fiscal year. Ali Dibadj - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: Okay. And you mentioned profit – sorry, my last question is just on gross margins, so that to us, and seemingly to your stock is actually quite important. And you've had, it looks like five quarters now of really triple-digit basis point increase in the gross margin line. And then this time it was clearly not that. And if you pull out Renew Life, it was still slightly positive, but commodities look like, at least so far, commodities net of manufacturing logistics has turned negative. Pricing benefits very much to the strategy, which I'm not saying is wrong. But the strategy that you're laying out for 2017 is going to be dissipating, trade promo broadly is increasing. How are you going to get gross margins to be flat even as opposed to down for 2017? I mean what are the drivers that are switching that the other way than I would have…

Operator

Operator

Next we'll hear from Linda Bolton Weiser of B. Riley. Linda B. Weiser - B. Riley & Co. LLC: Hi. Just also on the question with, I guess, gross margin. Certainly, this competitive activity you're seeing is related to the commodity cost tailwinds. So as we see those tailwinds kind of dissipate, is it fair to think that maybe the competitive activity also dissipates by the end of the fiscal year? Or is there a lag effect and that's more of an FY 2018 phenomenon in terms of a little bit less competitive activity?

Benno O. Dorer - Chief Executive Officer

Analyst

It remains to be seen, Linda. Certainly, what we've seen historically is that whenever there's a more significant uptick in commodities costs that some of that trade promotion activity, and the Glad business perhaps is a prime example of that, generally tends to subside. So that would be our expectation here as well. It's really premature to talk about timing at this point. Certainly, our current assumption is that commodities for the fiscal year are going to be, as Steve mentioned earlier, somewhat of a benefit still and that, therefore, trade promotion will remain elevated. Linda B. Weiser - B. Riley & Co. LLC: Okay. And then can I ask about – maybe you talked about this when you announced the Renew Life acquisition, but I would just be curious, what percentage of its sales is online, because that category really does lend itself to online sales? And how does that compare, for example, like to Burt's Bees' percentage of sales online?

Benno O. Dorer - Chief Executive Officer

Analyst

Yeah, Linda, the Renew Life acquisition, 80% is in the U.S. of the sales and within the U.S., the majority of the sales are in the natural channel. E-commerce is a relatively small percentage of sales on that business. We certainly see what you're seeing and that is an opportunity for that business to be a meaningful addition to what is already a strategic platform to invest in e-commerce for the company. And we think that the capabilities that we've brought to the business are going help us with e-commerce. But I will tell you the biggest opportunity, immediate opportunity perhaps for us is to take a brand that is heavily skewed towards the natural channel and in fact, the market leader in the natural channel, to food/drug/mass where the brand is arguably somewhat under-represented and where the growth in the category is really taking off right now. And, of course, that is an excellent fit with our capabilities because building categories and profitable brands with our customers in the food/drug/mass channel is a hallmark of what The Clorox Company's been known for. And we think that that capability is playing very well for Renew Life and that'll be our first growth pillar for the business this fiscal year. Linda B. Weiser - B. Riley & Co. LLC: Okay. And then just sticking on Renew Life, does your acquisition of that business signal a growing interest in your company in the more general OTC drug category?

Benno O. Dorer - Chief Executive Officer

Analyst

I think what we've said, Linda, in the past is there are three areas of interest. It's natural personal care, where we have a beautiful brand in Burt's Bees but where there are brands that are perhaps complementary in terms of which consumer they speak to or a geographic orientation. And we'd love to add to the portfolio in natural personal care. We've said that we like food enhancers as a category that we have capabilities in. And that is a growing trend in consumers and a very profitable category that has tailwinds, so we continue to be interested in that. And then we've always said that health and wellness is an area of opportunity for us and that can have many legs. Certainly, the probiotics category and dietary supplements is one that we've made a foray in now. There're also other aspects of health and wellness that we're interested in. But to your specific question on OTC, that is less of a focus for us as a company. We like businesses that are on strategy and, importantly, a great fit with our capabilities. And as you got from my previous remarks, distribution capability in food/drug/mass is one of our world-class capabilities. And we'd like to take advantage of that rather than build new distribution capabilities that are less center of the plate for the company. Linda B. Weiser - B. Riley & Co. LLC: Great. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Operator

Next we'll hear from Lauren Lieberman of Barclays.

Lauren Rae Lieberman - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Great. Thank you. You've talked about A&P investments being very targeted toward trial building and some of the innovation. It'd be great to know what businesses in particular you've been focusing that incremental spending on.

Benno O. Dorer - Chief Executive Officer

Analyst

I mean typically, Lauren, what we've said is that we like to skew the investments towards our growth parts of the portfolio. I would say it's been pretty balanced last quarter across multiple brands, whether that's in Home Care, whether that's in Litter, whether that's Burt's Bees or whether that's Foods. I would point you to the areas where we've had strong innovation, and our innovation program of course across the company has been pretty balanced. Burt's Bees in lip and face, Fresh Step with Febreze, which as you've noted, has done well initially in the marketplace, wipes with micro scrubbers, Hidden Valley Ranch With Greek Yogurt and the flavored ranches. So it's been pretty balanced across the board in areas where we felt like we can support innovation that is going to be profitable and that shows a lot of promise in the marketplace.

Lauren Rae Lieberman - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Great. And then I just had one more question on Renew Life. First was, about how much of the business is international? Is 10% a decent estimate? That was first. Secondly was just to confirm that you said earlier that the majority of Renew Life flowed through volume this quarter, not in price/mix? And then also, why are you putting it in the Household division? Just curious, reporting line-wise, I would have thought it would have been in Lifestyle, more similarities to Burt's, and I was just curious about that. Thanks. Stephen M. Robb - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah, let me start off, Lauren, with the last question: why did we put it in the Household segment? Because under the accounting rules, you have to group things with similar economics, and the margins are attractive. They're at company average margins, but the margins are much more closely aligned with the Household segment than they are, say, with the Lifestyle segment. So that's why we made the decision to do that. I'll ask Benno to maybe address your other questions. Stephen M. Robb - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah, international, Lauren, at 20% of sales, mostly Canada. So that tells you that the immediate opportunity certainly is very focused and very aligned with our capabilities in North America. But mid-term, as we've done, and quite successfully, with Burt's Bees, there certainly is an opportunity to build out this business also in international, given that probiotics and digestive health more broadly is a broader trend. You asked the question on price/mix. Could you repeat that?

Lauren Rae Lieberman - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Oh. Sure. It's just that in the quarter, or really in the next three quarters as well, as you're folding it in, is it primarily reported in volume, not in price/mix? Stephen M. Robb - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: I don't think we've given a breakdown of price/mix in our outlook, to be clear. But I would say that generally we're seeing, obviously, consistent trends between volume and sales with Renew Life, at least based on what we know today. We've owned the business for 90 days. We've put some initial plans in place. Let's see how that plays out as we go through the year. But, I guess, the takeaway for everyone is, it's about 2 points of top-line sales growth. And I would imagine volume would be fairly consistent with that. But, again, let's get into the year and see how it unfolds.

Lauren Rae Lieberman - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. What I was just trying to get at is that in year one, not about are you taking incremental pricing at all, just if in year one of the acquisition it flows through volume as it folds into the P&L? That was the point, because the price points are tremendous per unit, so that's why I was asking.

Benno O. Dorer - Chief Executive Officer

Analyst

Yeah, the focus for year one, Lauren, is on distribution expansion, on applying our marketing capabilities and starting to bring innovation to the business. We're certainly having a keen eye on value, but at this point I would view the key value drivers to be distribution expansion in the first place and just a better awareness and trial behind the many good and differentiated products that the brand already has.

Lauren Rae Lieberman - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Stephen M. Robb - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: And, Lauren, the only thing I'd add specific to your question is, we convert – I mean, to your point, the shelf – the price at shelf is quite attractive on these products, but we convert all of our products to an equivalized volume unit, so even though these products may have a relatively high price point on shelf compared to other products, that's not going to drive the price/mix gain that you're thinking of because we equivalize volume units. And that, we do that for all of our businesses. So maybe that helps answer your question around price/mix.

Lauren Rae Lieberman - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. It does. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Next we'll hear from Erin Lash of Morningstar.

Erin Lash - Morningstar, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you for taking the question. I apologize if I missed it earlier, but I was hoping you could give a little bit more detail surrounding the success that you saw with the launch of Fresh Step with Febreze. Obviously, that's a category where you've been challenged over the recent past, and just kind of what you're seeing in that particular space?

Benno O. Dorer - Chief Executive Officer

Analyst

Yeah, Erin, if I rewind 12 months ago, what we've said is that we like the Cat Litter category because it's got a lot of consumer tailwinds and that what we're focused on as we are – as we were at the time battling share losses was to earn back market share, not buy back market share, and we've said that innovation is what it would take to do this profitably and sustainably in a competitive category. Fresh Step with Febreze was launched earlier this calendar year. And it's based on a superior proposition around the core benefit in the category in odor control. And certainly, this initiative is off to a very promising start. So we are now seeing sales respond. We're starting to see share respond over the last 13 weeks. The business has returned to market share growth. So we invest behind what we believe to be a very promising and differentiated innovation in this category. And we're also not resting on our laurels. But again, what it will take in a rather competitive category is continued stream of innovations, and we have more innovation to come in fiscal year 2017 to support what is now a tailwind in Cat Litter.

Erin Lash - Morningstar, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you. That's very helpful. And then I just had one follow-up. Obviously, you're still digesting and working to leverage the Renew Life acquisition. But just to get your sense in terms of the pipeline for future deals, obviously, you guys generated a ton of cash but you've spoken over the last year or so about the premiums that sellers are demanding and kind of just an update in terms of your thoughts in that regard. Stephen M. Robb - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah, I would say that our number one priority is to integrate the Renew Life business and to deliver against the promise of profitable growth from that business. So that's the number one priority. And then second, let me closely add that obviously keeping the base business healthy is actually critical. All that said, we have dry powder to do more deals. As you pointed out, as we've been pointing out for some time, the multiples the deals have been trading at has made it difficult, I think, for many of the strategics to buy attractive properties. And I think then it's incumbent on companies to try to fish in different ponds to look for opportunities in different places where you might have an opportunity to get a good deal. So we have the money. We have the resources to be able to do more deals. We'd like to do be able to do it, but our number one priority will be to keep the base business healthy, to deliver against Renew Life. And then if we can find a good deal, we'll obviously take a hard look at that.

Erin Lash - Morningstar, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you very much. That's helpful.

Operator

Operator

Next we'll hear from Bill Schmitz of Deutsche Bank.

Bill Schmitz - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Hey, guys. Good morning.

Benno O. Dorer - Chief Executive Officer

Analyst

Hey, Bill.

Bill Schmitz - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Hey. What was the path to get to the S&A ratio back down to that sort of like 12.5%, 13% range you were at previously? I know the international inflation is obviously wreaking some havoc on things, but it sounds like you're spending a fair bit of money on driving productivity down there. Stephen M. Robb - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: So we're certainly on track for fiscal 2017 to get this number below 14%. And as you say, Bill, historically if you go back over long periods of time, the company was closer to the 13%. There have been times – there have been some years where we're actually below 13%. That is when we had the automotive business in, and so we had a bit of a bigger base. And there were some dis-synergies when we divested the business, although the divestiture was certainly a good move, we think, for our shareholders. I think couple things need to be true. Number one, we've got to keep driving cost savings hard. We have to keep really challenging productivity which we're doing. And that's why as we've talked for some time, we've got a glide-path in place over the next three years with every function in this company to make sure we're being as productive as possible. And I think if we do that – I think if we rebuild the margins in our International business, I do think you're going to see that number continue to float down. The other thing I would just point out – and this is really consistent with my opening comments on fiscal 2017, we're coming off of two really good years in fiscal 2015 and fiscal 2016. Our compensation programs reflect that I think we're making an assumption in fiscal 2017 that the compensation will return to more normalized levels, although let's see what happens with the results of the business and that we're a pay-for-performance culture. So that'll obviously adjust. So I think we keep doing what we're doing. It's working. We stay the course. And I think you'll see that number continue to float below 14% which is a non-regrettable choice for us.

Bill Schmitz - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Yeah, and then this is more out of curiosity than anything, but why do you use a gross debt to EBITDA metric? Pretty much I think the banks will allow to use a net debt to EBITDA if you wanted to. And it seems like you continue to generate cash, so it's sort of like a misleading metric but as you kind of look at how you might use that availability going forward. Stephen M. Robb - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: To be fair, Bill, we look at a lot of credit metrics. We look at gross; we look at net. We also reflect that we do have some cash overseas that we're holding there for investment opportunities over the long-term overseas. So we look at a lot of metrics. I think the important thing to note is we're throwing off a lot of free cash flow. We anticipate 10% to 12% in fiscal 2017 as a percentage of sales. The debt levels are at a level where I think we feel very comfortable and gives us dry powder for deals. And what I've said consistently is over the very long-term, if we've got excess cash we'll look for ways to get that back to the shareholders if we don't need it to support the base business. But again, lots of credit metrics. We look at all of them.

Bill Schmitz - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Got you. Okay. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Operator

This concludes the question-and-answer session. Mr. Dorer, I would like to turn the program back over to you.

Benno O. Dorer - Chief Executive Officer

Analyst

Thank you. So to sum up, we're very pleased to have delivered such a strong year in fiscal year 2016. Our strategy is working and we're staying the course in fiscal 2017. And I look forward to speaking with you again when we report first quarter results in November. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

That does conclude today's conference. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.