Irwin David Simon
Analyst · Bernstein
Thank you, Mary, and good morning, everyone. And welcome to our third quarter fiscal 2015 earnings call. I hope you all had a chance to review our press release that was released this morning. We started off the second half of fiscal 2015 with a great bang. On our last call, I talked about the MaraNatha recall, the Tilda fire and my torn ligaments and surgery. I'm glad to update you on all of these things and all the great things that happened in our third quarter. Our Tilda mainline #4 is back up, running at 85% capacity. The core MaraNatha business is back in full distribution, as many of you know, as you've heard us talk about, and John will talk about it later. And of course, I'm back walking around, out hugging customers and trying to sell more and more products. In March, a lot of you attended the Anaheim Natural Food Show. And in 20 years going to the show, I have never seen a show as busy as it was. I have never seen multiple companies, multiple retailers from around the world who wanted more and more natural organic products. At that show, we introduced over 100 new products and some exciting things that will start to launch in May and June and going into next year. Also in the quarter, we completed 2 great acquisitions that had tremendous opportunities for Hain. And with that, we paid 6.5x to 7.5x EBITDA, adjusted for synergies. We're disciplined on what we pay for acquisitions. And both these acquisitions, as I said, have tremendous opportunities for Hain, which I'll talk about in a minute. Our team capitalized on Hain's growth opportunity across channels and geographies with our compelling line of organic and natural products. Global demand for healthy better-for-you products help us deliver a record third quarter net sales up over 19%, including the impact of foreign currency fluctuations. The strength of the U.S. dollar reduced our international results by approximately $26 million. Remember that approximately 40% of our sales today are international. This was Hain's 18th consecutive quarter of double-digit net sales growth. Sales in local currencies were up in every segment of our business. Excluding the impact of FX, our brands achieved high-single digit organic growth. We continue to build distribution in the quarters in many other places. We had strong results in the U.S. Hain Pure Protein along with the U.K., Europe and Canada in constant currency. All our acquisitions that we did this year equated out to $100 million in sale, which $17 million of that came from growth under our ownership. We leveraged our distribution network, expanded new customers and new countries. On a like-for-like basis gross margin, excluding Hain Pure Protein, would have been 27.1%. In the quarter, we did experience certain commodity headwinds in almonds, organic coconut and other ingredients. Our global team has done a great job successfully integrating acquisitions by leveraging our infrastructure, controlling expenses and improving productivity. SG&A, as a percent of net sales, was 13%, 160 basis point improvement. A big part of our global team also is out there procuring ingredients which are hard to procure, which had our service levels at much higher levels than we've had in any other quarter. Part of our SG&A benefit is from outsourcing, and we'll continue to look at that where we should be outsourcing certain functions within Hain. Our natural merchandising group is now outsourced, and we're working very closely with advantage sales and marketing. These results including our higher-than-expected tax rate, which Steve will take you through in more detail later, combined to drive our third quarter record adjusted earnings to $0.45 per share. Having personally hugged, met a lot of our customers in this quarter like Whole Foods, Sprouts, Walmart, Target, Costco, Sainsbury's, Panera and others, just to mention a few, I have never seen so much demand. So many retailers wanting to bring more and more natural organic products, including our online business of Amazon and many other direct retailers that are looking to get into the natural organic product line. Although Hain organic and natural brands appeal to all consumers, millennials, in particular, are increasingly more health conscious and are making product choices based on their lifestyle with an emphasis on farm to table, organic, natural, free from ingredients. Health now has a greater meaning for many in a world with an abundance of information, social ethics and transparency matters. Last week, we launched currently.com [ph], a new lifestyle website for health and wellness-minded millennial parents. Currently [ph] is a dynamic and engaging online destination for busy parents, caregivers featuring topical articles, recipes review, how to do, not to do, tips to live a healthier lifestyle. One Wall Street firm cited recently that it's not your parents' palate. Millennials are choosing to eat more and more fresh protein with a clear preference for poultry and less processed food. This is just one example of the tremendous opportunities we have with Hain Pure Protein, including our recent acquisition of Empire Kosher Foods. Empire offers a full range of kosher, antibiotic, hormone-free, natural, organic chicken and turkey products. Importantly, Empire adds to our farm-to-table product offerings, a growing category that appeals to seeking the Pure Food trends, including our core natural organic consumers. We had planned to expand this brand, their product line, into fresh deli, into fresh prepared foods and other grocery items. We've also planned to use our current infrastructure of Hain Pure Protein to leverage costs, sales and lots of other production capabilities. We acquired in Canada, Live Clean brand, which is the leader in health and beauty care products in Canada with over 200 products. We plan to continually roll this out in Canada. And also, we look to roll the Live Clean brand out within the U.S. We also acquired with this a manufacturing facility, which gives us the ability to manufacture some of the Alba, Avalon, JASON's and Queen Helene products in our Canadian facility. This acquisition helps with scale of our Canadian operations, which now is over $150 million in net sales and gives us the opportunity to expand more and more of our products into the Canadian market. Whether consumers looking for personal care packaged foods, baby food, beverage or protein, Hain organic and natural product portfolio captures the growing demand for just not millennials, but their parents, too. At Hain, as we focus on our mission to provide a healthier way of life, we feel more optimistic about our future growth opportunities today than ever. We're in right categories with right brands and right products. Our strategic acquisitions have enabled us to have fully branded product offerings across vials, categories, channels. Over the years, we've done over 50 acquisitions. Today, we're in multiple categories, multiple products and multiple countries. Looking at the third quarter in more detail. Our brand performance was strong with broad-based increases. We had 14 brands up double digits in local currency. We had 6 up mid to high-single digits in local currency. Recent SPIN scan consumer insight for the natural channel places Hain in 13 of the top 20 highest wholesale penetrated natural organic categories with a strong, strong penetration, snacks, tea, yogurt, personal care, leading brands, Sensible Portions, TERRA, Garden of Eatin', Celestial Seasonings, Greek Gods, Garden of Eatin' -- sorry, Queen Helene, MaraNatha and many more of our other brands. John will talk about our latest Nielsen growth, while positive to note, it represents less than 30% of our worldwide consolidated net sales. MaraNatha is coming back with almond butter distribution having regained its share. We're finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel. Let me tell you, it's been a long tunnel. U.S. growth remained strong. We're also seeing continued -- we also see us continue to grow in over 65 countries today, including India through distributor relationships and the Middle East. Our product innovation team consistently works to deliver new and exciting products in key categories as we gain shelf space in existing and new areas in the retail stores. In March, as I said before, we introduced over 100 new products. We rolled out Celestial Seasonings in a whole new packaging and many new products. Now I'll focus on some of the key drivers that led to our strong performance, and let John talk about the U.S. business later. In the U.K. segment, net sales were up in local currency with the backdrop of a challenging retail environment. We saw good distribution from our soup, grocery, desserts, rice and plant-based milk brands. We've invested in our growth in the U.K. and will continue to do that with brand building for soups, desserts, ready-to-eat rice and CapEx investments in multiple plants throughout the U.K. and Europe. In constant currency, our New Covent Garden Soup at both Cully & Sully were both up 8.3%, while Sun-Pat business is up 9.4%. 40% of our business in the U.K. today under Hain Daniels is still private label. Our dessert business with Sainsbury continues to ramp up and has opened up many, many other doors for us with this retailer. I just recently met with Sainsbury in London. And as they asked me, provide us with more and more desserts. As much as you can make, we can sell. Our grocery business was up 4%. That consisted of our Hartley's spreads business, our nondairy business and some of our other spreads business. Ella's business in the U.K., which is amazing, continues to be the #1 selling baby food and was up 20% in constant currency. The opportunity for Ella's, not only in the U.S., but to roll out into the Rest of Europe and the Middle East, India and Asia is tremendous. Tilda performed well with fourth lineup, as I mentioned before, and expected -- was expected, ready for Ramadan sales in the fourth quarter. We expect the plant should be fully operational later this year. Our ready-to-eat products, up 11%. As we roll Tilda out around the world, today, it is now in Loblaws, Walmart Canada. And we have new listings in Albert Heijn in the Netherlands and are in the midst of presenting it in other parts of the country. John will talk about Tilda later on of what we're doing here in the U.S. Our team is also selling our first containers of TERRA Chips and other products to the Middle East. I'll be in India and Middle East next week as we seek to launch even more and more Hain products throughout those countries. Hain Celestial Canada under the Rest of the World segment performed well, up 8% in constant currency, led by Sensible Portions, TERRA, Greek Gods, Imagine and Spectrum. The balance of the world in Europe was up 7% in constant currency led by Natumi, TERRA, Celestial Seasonings, Lima, Danival, Robertson and Frank Cooper. We've also made tremendous headway in expanding our nondairy business throughout Europe and have picked up great distribution in Germany with a major retailer that will roll out in June, July. Hain Pure Protein, which we acquired in late July, had a very, very strong quarter. It's amazing what's happening in the protein category today, up double digits with record quarters, improved gross margin and EBITDA from a year ago. Hain Pure Protein expanded into Grover Trader Joe's. And we will be rolling out a major deli program in the coming quarters. We've been in the deli business for a long time. Now we see just tremendous expansion opportunities coming. As many of you have read about Chipotle will shift away from the use of GMO foods. And we believe this is just the beginning across the food service industry for more and more healthier foods and no genetically modified ingredients. Panera Bread is another example with the New York Times Wall Street Journal reporting just yesterday, their plan to eliminate a variety of artificial ingredients and a source of antibiotic meat. As you're well aware, we've announced our partnership with Panera a few months ago. 99% of our food products don't contain GMOs. Over 500 of our products have been verified, and over 650 are enrolled in non-GMO project verified, with a lot more to come. We also have over 500 gluten-free products today. So we have the products, we have the brands. We have the manufacturing, we have the distribution. We are ready to go. We've heard one analyst already talking about the extent of savory snack section in a Chicago 7-Eleven with Sensible Portions and TERRA listings. We'll continue to build out our infrastructure to support the growth with additional investments in CapEx. During this quarter, we successfully moved the BluePrint plant from Long Island City to our manufacturing facility in Westchester, Pennsylvania. And we invested in a new Harrisburg distribution center. We've invested in our growth in the U.K, France, building for soup, dessert, ready-to-eat with CapEx investments as well in our plant-based beverages in Europe. Productivity remains a key strategic initiative for Hain. And for the quarter, we generated over $13 million, and we are on track for the $55 million that we've talked about in 2015. Remember, productivity is mostly back ended in the third and fourth quarter. Our balance sheet remains strong, so does our ability to generate cash. We continue to evaluate our capital structure. At March 31, our bank leverage ratio was 2.55 compared to last year at 2.85. And with that, we did 3 acquisitions and spent over $100 million on these acquisitions. The environment for M&A remains compelling. And our balance sheet provides us with the opportunity to go out there and do additional acquisitions. We'll continue to focus on generating shareholder returns. We're also focused, as I've talked about, on return on invested capital. Our return on invested capital for fiscal '15 is in the high-single digits. And we're targeting low-double digits for fiscal 2016. In summary, so far, we've had 3 great quarters. And 1 month gone in our fourth quarter, it is hard to believe we're coming into the close of our fiscal 2015. So April is off to a great start. Our team has overcome some of the most challenging products, ideas -- challenging items that we've had in 2015. And with that, we finished with a strong, strong quarter. With that, I'll turn that over to John, and he'll talk about what's happening in the U.S.