Indra Nooyi
Analyst · Morgan Stanley
Thank you, Jamie. I'm pleased to report our businesses continued to perform well in the third quarter. Specifically, we had more than 3% organic volume growth in global snacks and more than 2% organic volume growth in global beverages. While foreign-exchange translation continued to pressure our reported revenue results, we delivered more than 4% organic revenue growth, which represents an acceleration from the first half. We generated positive net price realization in total. We stepped up investment in our brands, with A&M up 65 basis points as a percentage of net revenue and made incremental marketplace investments. We expanded gross and operating margins. We grew core constant currency operating profit 2% and up 6% excluding the impact of deconsolidating Venezuela. And core constant currency EPS grew 7% and up 11% excluding the Venezuela impact. Our performance was well balanced by market type. Our developing and emerging market businesses grew organic revenue 8% for the quarter, with double-digit organic revenue growth in a number of markets, including China, Mexico, Brazil and Egypt. And our developed markets grew organic revenue 3%, led by Frito-Lay North America and North American Beverages. Year-to-date, our results are equally strong. Core constant currency operating profit grew 5% and up 8% excluding the impact of deconsolidating Venezuela. And core constant currency EPS grew 7% and up 11% excluding the Venezuela impact. On the strength of our year-to-date results and our outlook for the fourth quarter, we have increased our full-year core EPS target to $4.78 from our previous target of $4.71, driven by the expectations and factors set out in this morning’s press release. In addition to our financial results, we’re also delivering on other key performance metrics. Innovation ran at approximately 9% of net revenue in the quarter. Advertising and marketing is up another 60 basis points as a percent of net revenue year-to-date. And execution metrics are improving across the board, driving growth for us and our retail partners. For example, the third quarter in the US, which is our largest market, we were once again the largest contributor to retail food and beverage sales growth. We generated approximately 37% of all food and beverage retail sales growth, significantly higher than our food and beverage dollar share position of less than 10%. And we generated more retail sales growth than all other $5 billion class food and beverage manufacturers combined. We’re on track to deliver $1 billion in productivity savings in 2016 and we’re on track to deliver $7 billion in free cash flow, excluding certain items. Our results reflect our commitment to Performance with Purpose. PepsiCo’s vision to deliver top gear financial performance over the long-term by integrating sustainability into our business strategy. When we launch Performance with Purpose in 2006, we opted not to view sustainability simply through the lens of corporate social responsibility. Instead, we charted a course rooted in the firm belief that in order to meet the changing needs of our consumers, exercise responsible stewardship for environment, and create an environment within our company where each employee feels valued and can bring their whole selves to work, we had to transform the way we do business, weaving sustainability into the way we make money. A decade into our journey, that belief is being validated and is preparing our company forward as this quarter’s financial results demonstrate. On the purpose side of Performance with Purpose, our first commitment was human sustainability, transforming our product portfolio with a particular focus on reducing sodium, saturated fat and added sugars, while dialing up our nutrition investments. And we're pleased with the progress we’ve made. As compared to 2006, we have reduced the average sodium in our food products by 11% per serving and removed more than 2,300 metric tons of sodium from key global food brands in key countries. We have reduced the average amount of saturated fat per serving by more than 15% in key global brands in a number of our major markets, including the United States, United Kingdom, China and Turkey. And we’re making strides to reduce added sugars in our beverages through reformulation. Our transformation efforts to date have resulted in a portfolio where we derive approximately 45% of our net revenue from products that we refer to as guilt-free. Those products include diet and other beverages that are below 70 calories per 12 ounces and snacks with low levels of sodium and saturated fat. And a full 27 points of the 45 points is made up of what we refer to as everyday nutrition, which are product with positive nutrients like grains, fruits and vegetables, unsweetened tea and water. And our innovation focus reflects our commitment to portfolio transformation. Just to give you a few examples. Recently, we launched Quaker Super Goodness porridge sachets in the UK, made with whole-grain oats, quinoa, barley and flaxseed. And introduced carrot, pineapple, mango Tropicana Farmstand in the US made with 100% fruit and vegetable juices and no added sugar. Sabra, built on the strength of our highly popular hummus, has established a range of authentic products that include guacamole, salsa, baba ganoush and Greek yogurt dips and spreads. Sabra now generates approximately $800 million in estimated annual retail sales in the United States, well on its way to becoming $1 billion brand. Our Naked super premium fruit and vegetable juices and coconut waters are loved by consumers for their great flavor, all-natural ingredients and no added sugars or preservatives. We have doubled Naked’s net revenue over the last six years and grown estimated annual retail sales to over $1 billion. We recently extended the Naked lineup with the introduction of Naked cold-pressed juices. Propel Water, by the makers of Gatorade, zero calorie sports hydration beverage enriched with electrolytes and minerals, is enjoying renewed success in North America with year-to-date volume up 6%. We’ve also successfully expanded what we refer to as our guilt-free product lineup. Pure Leaf Tea is an example, a premium line of ready-to-drink teas, brewed and steeped simply and authentically from leaves picked at their freshest. Since its launch in 2012, Pure Leaf has grown to more than $650 million in estimated annual retail sales. We’re now elevating Pure Leaf into a super-premium line under the Tea House collection. Our Baked! lineup is another example of how we're transforming our portfolio. Spurred by the success of the Baked! Lay’s, we have broadened our baked lineup to include Baked! Doritos, Baked! Tostitos and Baked! Cheetos and have expanded the lineup to nine international markets where there is a lot of opportunity for further growth and market expansion. And we recently launched, STUBBORN SODA, a new generation premium crafted, sparkling beverage that is just 9,200 calories per 12 ounces and is made with Fair Trade certified cane sugar and Stevia, with no high fructose corn syrup. So it's the breath of our evolving product portfolio and our ability to innovate against it that enables us to generate consistent organic revenue growth. Likewise, under Performance with Purpose, our environmental sustainability agendas had positive impacts, both on our business results and, more broadly, on the planetary share. By using fewer resources, water, packaging and energy, we are simultaneously shrinking our environment footprint and reducing our operating costs. We’ve improved our water stewardship by adopting new technologies and processes, which have steadily reduced use per unit of production and we’ve implemented innovative watershed management in water stressed and water scarce areas. As a result, today, we’re using approximately 25% less water per unit of production than we did when we embarked on Performance with Purpose. In addition, we have supported growers in our value chain in their pursuits of better water use management. And through the PepsiCo Foundation, we have successfully partnered to provide access to safe water for more than 9 million people globally. We’re using less packaging and generating less landfill waste. We have successfully reduced packaging, weight and size and increased postconsumer recycled content in our packaging. While reducing packaging weight and size, we removed almost 100 million pounds of packaging materials from the market in 2015 alone. We have worked to increase the recycling rates of beverage containers among consumers and we have significantly reduced the amount of solid waste generated by our operations that are sent to landfills, achieving a rate of over 90% solid waste diversion away from landfills in 2015. And we’ve reduced greenhouse gas emissions by focusing on energy use and renewable energy and by modernizing our fleet with more fuel-efficient vehicles, routing and capacity utilization. In fact, compared to 2006, we’ve improved the energy efficiency of our legacy operations by 18%. Taken together, our environmental sustainability initiatives have not only had a significant positive impact on our planet, but they’ve also contributed to our productivity savings. Over the past five years, our sustainability initiatives have generated more than $600 million in savings because we’re simply using fewer resources in our businesses. Combining our environmental sustainability savings with those of our other productivity initiatives, we're generating more than $1 billion in annual productivity savings. These savings are both providing fuel for reinvestment of the business and contributing to consistent margin improvement. And we’ve continued to invest in and promote initiatives to protect and support the safety, health, professional development and human rights for our global workforce. This includes promoting women's equal advancement and fostering a diverse and engaging culture that attracts the talent base needed to grow our high performing business. We view our sustained top-tier results as a validation of our Performance with Purpose direction where we’re balancing short-term results with ensuring PepsiCo remains successful for the long-term. In the coming weeks, we will issue our annual sustainability report where we will share with you in much more detail our progress and accomplishments under Performance with Purpose Just as important, we will lay out our sustainability vision and goals for the coming decade and our pledge to make our products more nutritious, our food system more sustainable, and our communities more prosperous. In doing so, we will pave the way for PepsiCo’s continued growth. So with that, let me turn it over to Hugh Johnston. Hugh? Thank you, Indra. And good morning, everyone. As Indra mentioned, we're very pleased with our year-to-date performance. We’re seeing a good mix of revenue and productivity within the P&L, driving the top line and margin results mentioned earlier, and we continue to exercise strong cash flow management and capital allocation discipline. As a result, in the third quarter, we once again shortened our cash conversion cycle; in this case, by almost 10 days compared to Q3 of 2015. And we maintained our net capital spending on a rolling four-quarter basis, well within our target of 5% of net revenue. I'm also pleased to report that we remain on track to return approximately $7 billion to shareholders in 2016, through a combination of $3 billion in share repurchases and $4 billion of dividends. During Q3, with the June payment, we increased our annualized dividends per share by 7%, which marks our 44th consecutive annualized increase. Looking to the balance of year, as we mentioned, we increased our full-year core EPS target to $4.78, which incorporates the following: underlying core constant currency EPS growth of 10%, excluding the impact of Venezuela; an approximate 2 percentage point negative impact from the 2015 Venezuela deconsolidation; and an approximate 3 percentage point negative impact from foreign exchange translation based on current market consensus, which is an improvement of approximately one percentage point versus our July update. Our outlook on the other metrics we provide remain unchanged from July and are set out in this morning's release. For the analysts on the call, as you update your Q4 models, you should consider the following factors: the inclusion of the 53rd week in this fiscal year will benefit our full-year revenue results by approximately one percentage point, but is not expected to result in any impact to our core earnings per share as we intend to reinvest the benefits back into our business; our Q4 foreign exchange outlook implies a moderation of the headwind as compared to what we have experienced year-to-date, but this assumption is obviously subject to macro and geopolitical conditions, which remain quite volatile. Given the timing of our commodity hedges, we face a difficult year-over-year gross margin expansion comparison in Q4. While we're lapping a large increase in A&M spending as a percentage of net revenue in the fourth quarter, we expect to continue to invest in A&M. And finally, while our full-year tax rate guidance remains unchanged, we will be lapping an unusually low core effective tax rate from Q4 2015. So to summarize, our core constant currency earnings per share outlook 2016 has improved from our last call and we continue our focus on disciplined capital allocation and cash returns to shareholders. With that, operator, we’ll take the first question.