Scott Thompson
Analyst · Raymond James
Thank you, Aubrey. Good morning and thank you for joining us on our 2020 first quarter earnings call. We are experiencing an unprecedented global health crisis, and our thoughts are with all those people around the world whose lives have been impacted.On today's call, I'll begin with comments on the quarterly operation performance, and then I'll provide you with some thoughts regarding the impact of COVID-19 on our operations. Then Bhaskar will review in detail our quarterly financial performance, current trends and also provide you with an overview of our balance sheet strength and liquidity position.Finally, I'll conclude with some thoughts on why we believe Tempur Sealy is well-positioned to manage through this challenging period and why we believe will emerge even stronger as a company on the other side of this global crisis.The first quarter of 2020 was truly outstanding. It was a record first quarter for sales and adjusted EBITDA. We're firing on all cylinders, both operationally and financially, until mid-March.As compared to last year, both sales and adjusted earnings grew double digits. In addition, our leverage ratio declined significantly year-over-year, even after acquiring Sherwood bedding and approximately $190 million of stock repurchase.Both our North America and International segments grew constant currency sales across both wholesale and direct channels. Our performance was very broad-based, with strength across brand, geographies, and channel.It should be noted that we achieved these results despite a significant drop in sales in Asia for most of the quarter due to COVID-19 as well as the negative impact of the pandemic on our U.S. and European operations exiting the quarter.Turning to the reported results for the quarter, net sales increased 19%. Adjusted EBITDA increased a solid 63%. And adjusted earnings per share increased a robust 148%. This marks the eighth consecutive quarter of adjusted EPS growth. I should also note that only 8% of this growth in adjusted EPS came from share repurchase.I should also note that if you consider seasonality, you can see with the first quarter results, we were on pace to deliver approximately $650 million in adjusted EBITDA in 2020. This gives you some idea of the strength of our business model going into the crisis. I'd like to highlight three items on the first quarter results:First is the completion of the rollout of Tempur-Pedic, Stearns & Foster, and Sealy brand products through our newly expanded U.S. distribution. The new distribution has resulted in increased availability of our customer preferred products both online and in-store.It was the single largest rollout in the company's history, and it was smooth and well planned with strong execution by all teams. The new distribution gains were significant drivers in our robust first quarter growth.Second highlight from the first quarter was the 33% growth in our global direct channel. In North America, our direct channel grew 60% year-over-year. Our global direct online sales grew 25%. And subsequent to the end of the quarter, that growth greatly accelerated benefiting from store closure.I'd like to call out the outstanding work by the team overseeing the Sleep Outfitters acquisition. When we acquired Sleep Outfitters out of bankruptcy in 2019, they experienced significant same-store sales declines, and they were operating at a significant loss.Since then through improvements in merchandising mix, advertising programs, the team reinvigorated same-store sales growth. We believe Sleep Outfitters was on track for a profitable year in 2020 prior to the impact of the pandemic.Third highlight is the integration of Sherwood bedding. This partnership with the Ellman's Family marks our entrance into private label category, giving us a complete suite of products ranging from Sherwood's non-branded private label products to our well-known branded products, including Tempur-Pedic, Stearns & Foster, and Sealy.This acquisition provides an expanded products offering and a wide range of price points. In the long term, we expect to leverage our overall brand portfolio to gain additional distribution for Sherwood products.In total, we delivered the highest first quarter adjusted EBITDA in the company's history, despite the impact of COVID-19 on global operations. Our robust first quarter results give us confidence that our underlying structure and strategies are working and that we're uniquely well positioned within our industry to withstand the headwinds associated with COVID-19.Before Bhaskar reviews the recent financial statements, I'd like to provide an overview of our actions we are taking in response to COVID-19 and the resulting economic downturn.First and foremost, I'd like to review the measures that we've implemented to protect the health and safety of our employees. We restricted travel and face-to-face meetings, allowed employees to work from home where possible and adopted all regional specific health protocols applicable to our global operations.Keeping our employees and customers safe and healthy during this time of uncertainty is a top priority. We are especially proud of the work that Tempur Sealy has done to support a variety of different people and organizations in need during this crisis.Over a short amount of time, our innovative R&D teams have developed mattresses, medical-grade foams and other related items to be used in hospitals and other medical facilities. We believe it's important that we do our part to help during this pandemic, which is why we're donating a substantial amount of these specialized products.Additionally, we are manufacturing personal protective equipment that we are donating, we're selling to cost, in support of all the frontline workers who are serving our community during this global hardship.Our entire organization remains committed to our customers, suppliers and shareholders during these rapidly changing times. The virus has been impacting different regions at different times. For example, countries within our Asia operations show the degree and stages of the impact within one of our geographic regions.Operations, specifically in Japan and Singapore were growing at the beginning of April. But since new restrictions were enacted, we've seen orders decline year-over-year. Meanwhile, Korea experienced peak impact of corona-19 in March. Then restrictions were lifted and orders are now growing double-digit year-over-year. In total, our Asia business has been consistent in the last two weeks as compared to the same period in prior year with a sight to grow order.While each country has its own government infrastructure and responses to the pandemic, the Asian market is an example that helps us understand how markets can recover. We're closely monitoring markets on a country-by-country basis and using this information to make informed strategic decisions across our global operation. In the U.S. consumers are shifting their shopping pattern online in response to their limited access to brick-and-mortar doors. As you know, one of our strengths is our powerful omni-channel distribution model.While traditional retail has been very weak, our and our third-party retailers' direct online sales have performed very well. As a result, we are leaning into our online channels, which is uniquely suited to serve our customers' needs. Our U.S. online business driven by Cocoon by Sealy and Tempur products for April more than doubled as compared to April last year. We continue to adapt to this new shopping behavior by recently expanding distribution of our online compressed Tempur cloud product to the entire U.S. market. The response online has been strong.Despite the growth online, we still experienced a major reduction in total sales since COVID-19 began materially impacting our business in mid-March. This required us to reduce our cost. The business model has highly variable cost structure, which allows us to partially offset operational deleverage in the face of sales decline, but we needed to do more. The team quickly implemented actions to further mitigate the financial impact by reducing headcount, eliminating nonessential expenses, delaying capital expenditures and suspending share repurchase.For example, this week, we've implemented new actions regarding personnel. In the U.S., these actions included a furlough impacting approximately 35% of our salaried workforce for an expected 90 days, and we suspended the 401(k) match for the balance of 2020. In total, considering all recent past actions, we estimate that we have implemented $300 million in annualized savings throughout our business to help mitigate the current sales decline. While we expect near-term financial results to be significantly impacted by COVID-19 headwinds, we see our long-term competitive position strengthening throughout the downturn.The company has fully recovered from past challenges due to our iconic brands, superior product quality, powerful omni-channel distribution, solid balance sheet and seasoned management. The demand for bedding products has faced numerous temporary headwinds throughout our history. But we believe the fundamentals of our industry are sound and we have constantly demonstrated an ability to adapt to a changing environment.With that, I'll turn the call over to Bhaskar to walk you through the financial results in more detail.