Patrick Lockwood-Taylor
Analyst · Canaccord Genuity
Thanks, Eric. Good morning, good afternoon, and thank you for joining today's call. We are making steady progress in building a more focused, disciplined and consistent Perrigo. Challenging market environment impacted first quarter results. However, our Three-S plan to stabilize, streamline and strengthen the company is helping us navigate these conditions and positioning the company for long-term growth. The strategy is working as clearly demonstrated by our market share gains even in what we have highlighted as a transition year. Given these factors, we are reaffirming our 2026 outlook. Consistent with our prior commentary, results are expected to be weighted to the second half, supported by clear quantifiable factors, including stabilizing category consumption, the lapping of prior year manufacturing volume headwinds, benefits from cost-saving initiatives and delivery of our growth drivers. With those takeaways as a backdrop, I'll walk through how the Three-S plan is driving positive change. Our stabilization efforts have turned share losses in U.S. store brand OTC into a 100 basis point improvement in volume share during the quarter, six of seven categories gaining share. To further dimensionalize our performance, we have gained 270 basis points of U.S. store brand OTC volume share in the first quarter alone. Key brands in Europe also improved, gaining 20 basis points of value share in a challenging consumption environment. We have also stabilized results in Infant Formula with improved service levels and supply reliability. To streamline our business, we completed the divestiture of the Dermacosmetics business in April, an important milestone in further simplifying our operations and enabling debt reduction. Strategic reviews of our Infant Formula and Oral Care business are ongoing. Efficiencies are an important part of our streamlined pillar and our operational enhancement program generated more than $7 million of cost savings in the quarter and is on track for approximately $60 million to $80 million in savings for the year, with an additional $20 million to $40 million expected in 2027. To strengthen our business, we implemented a new category-led operating model and enhanced our commercial and category leadership, adding experienced talent with the capabilities and perspectives required for the next phase of Perrigo's evolution. These changes reflect a fundamental shift in how we operate. Our new structure aligns our decision-making, investment priorities and performance goals, enabling us to better leverage one of our most important competitive advantages, our scale. With more than 250 molecules, our deep retailer partnerships, a robust supply chain and our extensive regulatory capability, Perrigo is well positioned to be a leader in this category. And our new structure focuses our investments on fewer, bigger brands to target faster-growing categories where we have the greatest right to win. These changes are working as demonstrated by our strong market share performance. However, many of the benefits from these initiatives are not yet fully realized and are being somewhat obscured by the headwinds that we expect to ease in the second half of the year. Among those headwinds are softer cough and cold incidence and retailer inventory destocking. Those impacts, along with a $0.26 EPS headwind related to the carryover of prior year manufacturing volume headwinds weighed on first quarter results. As indicated last quarter, prior year manufacturing volume headwinds are expected to result in an unfavorable All In EPS impact of approximately $0.60 in 2026. Again, we believe those headwinds are largely transitory, resulting in 2026 itself being a transition year. As conditions evolve, consistent with our Three-S plan, we are focused on driving improvement in the areas within our control, streamlining our cost base while strengthening our top line growth. With that in mind, let's turn to the assumptions underlying our view of 2026 as a transition year, which largely played out as expected in the first quarter. Coming into the year, we anticipated market softness to carry over into the first half, followed by sequential improvement in the second half. In the first quarter, reduced cough and cold incidence and the impact of macroeconomic pressures, particularly in Europe, led to lower-than-expected consumption levels. We estimate soft cough and cold incidence was approximately a 3.5% headwind to CORE sales. In response to lower consumption, retailers in the U.S. and Europe reduced inventory levels, hampering sales further, resulting in an additional 3 points of CORE sales headwind. However, we, in line with other industry commentary, continue to expect sequential improvement in demand, led by stabilizing seasonal incidence of cough and cold. We also expect retailer inventory levels to positively adjust over time, in line with improved consumption. Our second assumption was our ability to build off our strong market share gains in 2025. We delivered on that expectation with solid market share performance in both store brand and branded products. Third, we expected to grow net sales through four key revenue building blocks: consumer-centric innovation, targeted geographic expansion, continued distribution gains and amplified demand generation. We've made progress across each of these areas in the first quarter, reaffirming our confidence in second half improvement. Turning to our financial results. The first quarter reflects category softness, partially offset by progress in our execution of the Three-S plan. CORE net sales declined 8.3%, driven primarily by softer category consumption in the Self Care segment due to reduced cough and cold incident and retailer inventory destocking. These impacts accounted for nearly 2/3 of the net sales decline. These impacts were partially offset by share-driven gains in the Specialty Care segment, particularly in the women's health category. All In net sales declined 7.2 points, reflecting similar pressures, partially offset by improved Infant Formula performance. Adjusted CORE EPS of $0.40 was impacted by prior year manufacturing volume headwinds and lower net sales volumes, primarily within our Self Care segment. Adjusted EPS results outperformed our expectations, benefiting from the net recognition of recovery of a portion of previously paid tariffs, a lower effective tax rate and benefits from our operational enhancement program. All In adjusted EPS for the quarter was $0.43. Turning to the market environment. Conditions remain challenging in the first quarter as expected. In the U.S., the OTC market declined 4.1 points in value, 2.1 points in volume, largely consistent with fourth quarter levels. European markets turned more negative, declining 3.7% in value and 4.4% in volume. Trends in both the U.S. and Europe were driven primarily by softer consumption demand in the cough, cold and pain categories within the Self Care segment. That weakness appears transitory, driven largely by challenging year-over-year comparisons and lower-than-normal illness levels as well as macroeconomic pressures, particularly in Europe. We expect the category to stabilize throughout the year as comparisons ease and more typical seasonal incidence patterns return in the second half of 2026. To mitigate category pressures, we are focusing on areas within our control. As I noted earlier, in the U.S., Perrigo grew volume share in six of seven OTC categories, and our store brand portfolio extended its streak to 12 consecutive periods of share improvement. Our priority brands gained value share in Europe, driven by strong performance from ellaOne up 200 basis points, Jungle Formula up 140 basis points and Physiomer up 50 basis points. Other areas of strength include Mederma Cold Sore and Opill, which increased 180 basis points and 40 basis points, respectively. Importantly, as we enter the summer period, momentum is building across our seasonal brands in several key European markets. Compeed is strengthening into peak season with impressive share gains and sellout trends supported by earlier activation and excellent in-store execution. For example, in Italy, Compeed achieved market share growth of 550 basis points to 35%. While in France, it is growing well ahead of the category, with Compeed up 160 basis points and our share approaching 36%. This was led by focused investment, improved activation, stronger retailer execution. And this strong performance gives us confidence in our ability to drive growth as demand builds through the summer. As category demand normalizes, we expect the increasing earnings power enabled by this brand strength to become increasingly visible. As we've discussed, we are driving share gains by scaling our CORE capabilities consistently across the portfolio. Nicotine replacement therapy is an excellent illustration of our approach to 360-degree innovation. Our process now develops claims, formulations and regulatory platforms once at the category level, then deploys them holistically across national brands and store brands across formats, geographies and price points. Importantly, this innovation expands the addressable market beyond traditional quitters to include vapers and dual users, allowing us to scale faster and unlock incremental demand without adding complexity. Store brand demand generation is another scalable differentiator for Perrigo. We are the only large-scale store brand supplier bringing national brand demand generation capabilities to retailers, allowing us to partner with retailers and elevate conversations beyond just the procurement price. Retailers are drawn to this program because it builds awareness for their business, it reinforces the perception of quality and equivalents, it drives household penetration and improved retailer profits. Retailers and more and more retailers are asking us to expand these programs across even more OTC categories. Demand generation is highly impactful for Perrigo. When we combine it with strong retail execution, we improve competitive takeaway and share gains. And these gains can be meaningful with a 1 point increase in U.S. store brand household penetration, representing incremental sales of more than $100 million of store brand OTC at retail. Targeted geographic expansion allows us to extend our existing successful initiatives into new areas. By selectively expanding priority brands into new markets, we can drive incremental growth with lower risk, achieve faster payback and higher returns. As a reminder, this is a long growth runway for Perrigo as today, we only serve approximately 5% of global households. Together, these capabilities form a repeatable and scalable growth model. 360-degree innovation expands our opportunity set. Store brand demand generation converts that opportunity into sustained consumption and targeted geographic expansion amplifies the impact, allowing us to scale performance across categories and regions. This is translating into early but significant in-market gains. This really is the outcome of what we have been working towards over the past 3 years, Perrigo sustainable growth model based upon a more focused portfolio that better leverages our core strengths, better leverages our unique asset base, underpinned by a much more effective commercial operating model. In summary, results in the first quarter reflect a very challenging market, but also demonstrates the effectiveness of our strategy. As we move forward, we are focused on building a more focused, disciplined and consistent business. By executing on our Three-S plan, we expect to mitigate current category challenges and drive long-term growth. We are reaffirming our full year 2026 guidance, which we expect to be weighted to the second half. That phasing is supported by clear quantifiable factors already underway. Our strategy is working. We are seeing market share gains. We've achieved a more focused portfolio. We have a more effective and scalable commercial model. I recognize that quarter 1 revenue and adjusted EPS are being driven by external factors that will need to be carefully managed. I'll now turn it over to Eduardo to walk through the financials in more detail.