Operator
Operator
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Kevin, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Coty's Second Quarter Fiscal 2016 Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, this call is being recorded today, Thursday, February 4. Thank you. I will now turn the conference call over to Kevin Monaco, Coty's Senior Vice President, Treasurer & and Investor Relations. Mr. Monaco, please go ahead. Kevin Monaco - Treasurer, Senior Vice President & Head-Investor Relations: Good morning and thank you for joining us. On today's call are Bart Becht, Chairman and Interim CEO; and Patrice de Talhouët, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that many of our comments may contain forward-looking statements. Please refer to our press release and our reports filed with the SEC where you will find factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements. All discussions of net revenues are on a like-for-like basis. In addition, except where noted, the discussion of our financial results and our expectations do not reflect certain non-recurring and other charges. You can find the bridge from GAAP to non-GAAP results in the reconciliation tables in the earnings release. I will now turn the call over to Bart. Bart Becht - Chairman & Interim Chief Executive Officer: Thank you, Kevin. This morning, we'll provide you with a brief update on the expected merger with the P&G Specialty Beauty Business, other corporate developments, and Q2 and year-to-date results. Then Patrice and I will be pleased to take your questions. Our efforts right now are all about creating a very healthy platform for Coty to become the strong leader and challenger in the beauty industry that we aim for it to be. This quarter we made good progress on that objective both from the merger acquisition front and the underlying Coty business site. Starting with the core Coty business, Q2 showed continued improvements in business fundamentals. Coty revenue trends remain muted with a 1% like-for-like decline and we do expect the Q2 trend to continue for the remainder of the fiscal year as we continue to rationalize non-strategic product lines and businesses. However, and encouragingly, power brands experienced solid mid single-digit growth in the second quarter very much held by our strategy of focusing and investing in these key brands. We also continue to show strong momentum in driving profit and cash flow generation. Our year-to-date operating profit grew high single-digits with adjusted operating income growing 13% at constant currency and impressive growth in operating margin. At the same time, our strong net working capital improvement contributed to significant growth in free cash flow generation. These results show that we can continue to build a healthier and better business, despite subdued revenue growth performance. On the merger and acquisition side we've made good progress on our Bourjois acquisition. As of today, the local Bourjois businesses have been integrated within Coty local subsidiaries. Also, Bourjois and Coty processes as well as the information technology are now fully aligned. We continue to see good growth opportunities for this brand and remain confident that it will be margin accretive to our color business in fiscal 2017. Since announcing the acquisition of Beamly in the second quarter these top quality leaders in this digital marketing company have started to engage and work with the Coty brands on several digital campaigns. We are confident by bringing in Beamly's cutting edge digital engagement platform in-house, we will continue to strengthen Coty's marketing and branding efforts. In addition, we announced on February 1, the completion of the acquisition of the Hypermarcas' Beauty & Personal Care business. As a reminder, Hypermarcas is a highly-profitable business with operating margins above Coty levels. This transaction will strengthen Coty's exposure to Brazil, which is one of the largest and growing Beauty markets in the world. We believe it will also provide an excellent platform to integrate the existing small Coty business and the sizable P&G Specialty Beauty Business in Brazil. And as announced last week, we signed a new fragrance license agreement with Tiffany & Co., an internationally renowned jeweler, which we believe will further strengthen our future position as the industry leader in fragrances. On the P&G Specialty Beauty business merger, we confirmed the transfer of 10 P&G fragrance licenses, including global powerhouses such as Hugo Boss, Gucci and Lacoste. We are making excellent progress to close the P&G Specialty Beauty Business merger in the second half of calendar 2016 and we are happy to report that we have received antitrust approval from the U.S., among other countries and we are actively engaged in discussions with the EU antitrust authorities. We have also materially advanced on structuring and staffing our future organization and are well advanced in setting up the teams and work stream supporting our IT system requirements and blueprinting the integration plans for the combined businesses. And as I discussed on the last call, we believe the new consumer-centric and category-focused organizational structure, our strong brand portfolio, together with our new leadership team will position Coty well to realize its ambition of becoming a true leader and challenger in the Beauty industry and drive profitable growth and shareholder value overtime. I will now hand over the call to Patrice. Patrice de Talhouët - Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer: Thank you, Bart, and good morning everyone. Total Q2 net revenues declined 1% like-for-like with an improvement in the Fragrance segment trends compared to Q1, and the solid Color Cosmetics segment growth was in spite of the decline in the U.S. main markets. I'm happy to report that fiscal year-to-date, the adjusted gross margin increase a very strong 130 basis points to 60.9%, reflecting our continuous effort in driving supply chain efficiencies and reducing discounting activity. We keep on building a better business, even in the face of soft top line trends, with adjusted operating income growing 5% fiscal year-to-date, with a much more substantial 13% increase at constant currency. The year-to-date adjusted operating margin at actual rates grew 160 basis points, with meaningful margin increase in Color Cosmetics, up 330 basis points, and Skin & Body Care, up 420 basis points. The Fragrance segment margin increased 20 basis points to 20.2%. As we discussed on the last call, given the market conditions and our global footprints, FX continue to pressure our revenues and operating income. Fiscal year-to-date, FX lowered net revenues and operating income by over 600 basis points. Our year-to-date adjusted diluted EPS was $0.98 compared to $0.73 in the prior year, reflecting in part the benefit from the favorable tax settlement of $113.3 million this year, compared to a $32.5 million settlement in the prior period. Our Global Efficiency Program remains on track, as we have recognized cumulative savings of approximately $170 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2016, driven by fixed cost reduction in direct procurement savings, footprint consolidation and more streamlined operations in China. As a reminder, we expect to generate savings of approximately $270 million through fiscal 2017. On the balance sheet, as a reminder, we closed on a $4.5 billion credit facility this quarter to refinance existing Coty debts with new borrowings subject to longer maturities. As of today, we have swapped approximately 40% of our outstanding net floating rates debt into fixed rates at an all-in-cost below 3%, with an average maturities between three years and five years. In addition, certain lenders have committed to loan up to $4.5 billion to an affiliate of P&G, which is expected to be conveyed to Coty in connection with the expected merger with the P&G Specialty Beauty business. With regard to the merger, the initial filing of our registration statement in connection with the transaction is expected to be filed in April. This registration document will include historical financial information for the beauty brands we are acquiring from P&G through December 31, 2015. Our strong balance sheet and cash flow generation allowed us to continue to advance on our strategic and financial objectives. I'm very happy to report that fiscal year-to-date, we generated $517.1 million in operating cash flow, and $438.7 million in free cash flow, each up over $160 million versus the prior year. Supported by this strong cash flow generation, we completed our $700 million share buyback program during the second quarter. In total this fiscal year, we repurchased approximately 26 million Class A shares and we also returned almost $90 million of cash to shareholders as dividends. We also announced this morning that the board has authorized an incremental $500 million of share repurchase program. We will remain opportunistic in the way we use this authorization. It further supports our commitment to return cash to shareholder. Finally, on Feb 1, we completed the acquisition of Hypermarcas' Beauty & Personal Care Business, which we believe, as Bart said, will be a great platform to integrate our current and future business in Brazil. We are very excited to expand our footprint in Brazil with this portfolio of leading brands. The execution of the Bourjois acquisition in line with our expectations, as well as the timely closing of the Hypermarcas' acquisition, demonstrate our ability to successfully execute on our M&A growth strategy. Thank you. I will now open the call for questions.