Patrick Lockwood-Taylor
Analyst · Canaccord Genuity
Thank you, Brad. Good morning, good afternoon, everyone and thank you for joining today's call. I'd like to begin with an update on our progress against our Three-S Plan to Stabilize, Streamline and Strengthen Perrigo. Over the past 12 months, efforts to stabilize key parts of our business have yielded positive results. In our Americas business, store brand OTC, we've already secured new business awards and now largely offsetting the previously disclosed losses that began impacting our top line in the second half of 2024. We remain on track for these new awards to more than offset losses by the second quarter of this year. Additionally, consistent production of high-quality, reliable infant formula has led to continued recovery in store brand share. Notably, first quarter 2025 infant formula net sales increased by 19% compared to the same quarter last year. More on both of these topics when I discuss our Q1 results in a few minutes. Efforts to streamline our operations have yielded significant benefit. In the first quarter, these accretive initiatives continue to produce very positive results. The supply chain reinvention program delivered an additional $8 million in benefit and Project Energize achieved an additional $20 million in annual savings, bringing the program's total annual run rate to $159 million, the high end of our previously disclosed range for Energize. Actions taken to improve service levels are also paying dividends with global service levels now at 94%. I have to give recognition to our global operations team for their outstanding service achievement. We also remain excited about strengthening our foundation for growth. I'm pleased to share that the synergistic relationship between our store brand business and OTC brands is yielding positive results. Our store brands generate substantial cash flow, enabling us to invest further into our OTC brands. This strategy is already paying off as evidenced by our first quarter results. Excluding the prior year's benefit from Opill retailer stocking, our OTC brands achieved solid organic growth of 5.9% year-over-year. This impressive performance was driven by strong sales of ellaOne, Nasonex, NiQuitin and Compeed. These results reinforce our business model and our strategy. Lastly, to create a more efficient and effective new product pipeline, we have recently enhanced our stage gate process for new product development and we remain excited about our high-growth brands which we're expecting to begin delivering significant benefit in the second half of next year. At the same time, we are navigating through an uncertain macroeconomic landscape. So on the sales across the Self-Care categories we play in recently turned negative compared to the prior year and compared to their long-term growth rates of 3% or more, with contraction across most categories. This stems from more cautious consumer behavior due in part to inflation, tariffs, interest rates and overall reduced consumer confidence. Although we believe that we are well positioned in the broader environment to account for these macroeconomic uncertainties, we feel it is prudent to widen our 2025 net sales projections. However, with the opportunities afforded by a unique business model and clear actions to offset tariff-related cost increases, we are reaffirming our adjusted EPS range and net leverage targets. Furthermore, we are reaffirming our midterm 2027 targets provided recently at our Investor Day. Stepping back, Perrigo is the largest U.S. manufacturer of OTC self-care solutions by volume. We operate 11 manufacturing facilities across the U.S., enabling 85% of our OTC finished goods to be produced locally by sourcing the majority of materials and components domestically. Most importantly, all this work is performed by our highly agile and productive team of 5,000-plus dedicated U.S. employees. We will continue to look for opportunities to drive value from this large domestic asset base. Even though most of the products we sell in the U.S. are sourced domestically, given the global nature of consumer health supply chains, there are certain inputs for our business that are exposed to tariffs. As you know, the tariff landscape has been extremely fluid and our team has spent considerable time building mitigation plans for multiple scenarios. Based on what we know today, in 2025, we expect roughly 1% gross increase to our global cost of goods sold. On a full year basis, this rises to approximately 5.5% of global COGS, all impacting our Americas segment. Approximately 80% of the expected increase will impact our U.S. oral care category as many of its inputs are currently sourced from China. The remaining 20% is expected to increase costs in our U.S. OTC business. We plan to offset these cost increases through strategic price actions, in-sourcing more manufacturing to our U.S. facilities where possible and other actions, including identifying new supply routes. We're committed to protecting our P&L and also our balance sheet in this dynamic environment which Eduardo will provide further details of. The uncertain macroeconomic environment also presents several opportunities for Perrigo. Our unique business model with 100-plus molecules across 100% price point coverage, coupled with our significant U.S.-based manufacturing provides us an advantage to deliver our essential self-care solutions to more customers and consumers. Firstly, consumer confidence in the U.S. is at a 12-year low. And in Europe, it's at the lowest level in 18 months. These weakening consumer expectations present significant opportunities for share gains for our mid-tier and store brands due to their value advantage in the marketplace. For example, total U.S. OTC store brand volume gained 50 basis points over the last 4 weeks as consumers are quickly adjusting their buying patterns. We will continue to closely monitor changes in consumer behavior and leverage demand generation activities to further capitalize on this trend. And secondly, with our vast U.S. manufacturing footprint across OTC, infant formula and oral care, we have ample opportunity to win additional new volumes through contract manufacturing efforts. Now turning to our first quarter financial highlights. Organic net sales declined 0.4% which included higher net sales in the nutrition category, driven by the recovery in infant formula in addition to the upper respiratory category. Offset by the impact of previously disclosed lost distribution of lower-margin products in U.S. Store Brand which is not expected to be a sales headwind going forward and the prior year Opill retail stocking of approximately $15 million. Importantly, excluding the lost distribution and prior year Opill sell-in, organic net sales grew 1.8% versus prior year period. Gross margin expanded 440 basis points year-over-year to 41%, driven by business recovery in infant formula. Operating margin for the quarter meaningfully expanded by 550 basis points, driven by gross margin flow-through and benefits from Project Energize. First quarter EPS grew by a robust 107% year-over-year to $0.60 per share. Digging a bit further into organic net sales, both brand and store brand offerings and Upper Respiratory category performed well despite the impact of known loss distribution in the U.S. Store Brand business. This category benefited from higher incidences of cough/coal in the U.S. compared to the prior year and improved supply of the Physiomer brand in Europe. Pain and Sleep-aids was also impacted by known lost U.S. distribution, partially offset by higher incidences of cough/coal in the U.S. and improved supply of the Physiomer brand in Europe. Digestive Health was impacted by lower category consumption for proton pump inhibitors used mainly for heartburn which more than offset U.S. Store Brand share gains. And an expected decline in VMS where we de-prioritized several SKUs in Europe. Lastly, as I just mentioned, our OTC brands grew solidly year-over-year. One year ago, we made a strategic pivot in U.S. Store Brand which was highlighted at our February Investor Day. This pivot focused on improving forecast accuracy and customer service levels in addition to share gain from Store Brand competitors, primarily through new business awards. I'm pleased to report that we're making significant progress with these efforts. Our service levels have improved, as I mentioned earlier and new business awards remain on track for a positive contribution this year. Over the last 3 quarters, net business awards and losses have been a headwind to top line growth as we executed with pivot. We expect this trend to reverse in Q2 this year as already secured new business wins ramp up, expecting to improve Americas [ph] net sales growth in the second half of the year. Turning now to infant formula. Our quality production metrics across the network have dramatically improved key customer SKUs at shelf have been fully restored. The factors enabled first quarter infant formula net sales growth of plus 19% year-over-year. Infant formula industry dynamics continue to evolve, however, due to flat to declining U.S. birth rates, currently available manufacturing capacity and foreign manufacturers gaining share. These factors have caused many domestic brands to recently increase marketing and promotions as they compete for volume share. These short-term pricing actions have temporarily reduced the price gap between national brands and store brands, slowing the pace of our store brand share recovery. We believe maintaining appropriate price gaps in this business is essential to store brand value proposition with consumers and customers. So with this backdrop, we're engaging customers to close this short-term price gap. Additionally, spring shelf resets across several retail customers are expected to enhance our shelf placement and the number of store brand formula facings. At the same time, we are also reintroducing nearly 60 national brand equivalent SKUs in the second half of this year. We believe these actions will continue to accelerate store brand share gains in 2025. However, we are tempering our expectations for the year. In closing, we are steadfast on advancing our 3-year plan to stabilize, streamline and strengthen Perrigo to provide the best self-care to everyone. We delivered strong first quarter results, led by recovery in the infant formula business and solid organic growth in our global OTC brands. While we are operating in an uncertain macro environment with consumer, customer, industry and geopolitical risks. We're taking appropriate measures to mitigate these factors. Encouragingly, we believe Perrigo's unique business model provides opportunities for growth in this uncertain environment as we continue to advance our vision to provide the best self-care for everyone. Let me now turn the call over to Perrigo's CFO, Eduardo Bezerra. Eduardo?