Operator
Operator
Good day, and welcome to the WD-40 Company Fourth Quarter 2013 Earnings Release. Today's call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to the CEO, Mr. Garry Ridge. You may begin.
WD-40 Company (WDFC)
Q4 2013 Earnings Call· Thu, Oct 17, 2013
$219.19
—
Same-Day
+5.50%
1 Week
+5.25%
1 Month
+9.50%
vs S&P
+5.92%
Operator
Operator
Good day, and welcome to the WD-40 Company Fourth Quarter 2013 Earnings Release. Today's call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to the CEO, Mr. Garry Ridge. You may begin.
Garry O. Ridge
Management
Good afternoon and thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter fiscal year 2013 earnings call. Joining me today on the call is Jay Rembolt, our Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer. This call contains forward-looking statements concerning WD-40's outlook for sales, earnings, dividends and other financial results. These statements are based on an assessment of a variety of factors, contingencies and uncertainties considered relevant by WD-40 Company. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ materially from forward-looking statements, including the impact of commodity prices, the impact of the introduction of new product lines and the fluctuation of global market conditions, both in the United States and internationally. The company's expectations, beliefs and projections are expressed in good faith and are believed by the company to have a reasonable basis. But there can be no assurance that the company's expectations, beliefs or projections will be achieved or accomplished. The risks and uncertainties are detailed from time to time in reports filed by WD-40 Company with the SEC, including 8-K, 10-Q, 10-K, and readers are urged to carefully review these and other documents and to stay up-to-date with our most recent company developments provided in the Investor Relations section of our website at wd40company.com. Our first quarter fiscal year '14 earnings call is scheduled for Wednesday, January 8, 2014. Moving on to the report on our results. Today, we reported net sales of $93.5 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2013, an increase of 10% over Q4 last fiscal year. Year-to-date net sales were $368.5 million, an increase of 8% over the prior year period. Net income for the third quarter -- fourth quarter was $8.1 million compared to $9 million in Q4 last year. The diluted earnings per share…
Jay W. Rembolt
Management
Thanks, Garry. In addition to the information that we're discussing here today on the call, we also remind you to review our 10-K, which will be filed next Tuesday, October 22. First, we always like to look at our 50/30/20 Rule, which is what we use to guide our business. And as you might recall, the 50 represents our gross margin, which we target to be at or above 50% of net sales. The 30 represents our cost of doing business, which is our total operating expenses, without depreciation and amortization. Our target for that is 30% or less. And then finally, the 20 represents EBITDA. If our gross margin is at or above the 50%, while keeping our cost of business 30% or less, our EBITDA will be at or above that 20% target. EBITDA is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. The descriptions and reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures are available in the 10-K and in our investor presentations. Now let's take a quick look, first, at the 50 in our 50/30/20 rule. Gross margin in the fourth quarter was 53% compared to the 49.4% in the prior year period. The increase of 360 basis points in gross margin was primarily driven by price increases, the impact of changes in sales mix, as well as foreign currency exchange rates, along with lower input and manufacturing costs, which stem from our gross margin improvement opportunities. Let's first start with input costs. We experienced a net favorable impact of 50 basis points from changes in input costs. Changes in the cost of petroleum-based materials and aerosol cans combined favorably impacted our gross margin by 60 basis points in the period. This included lower aerosol can cost into China, stemming from our local sourcing initiative, as well as lower petroleum-based…
Garry O. Ridge
Management
Thanks, Jay. While we are celebrating our fiscal year 2013 results, we are also very excited about the outlook and initiatives we have in place to grow sales and earnings in fiscal year 2014 and beyond. We continue to tackle new opportunities and grow our leadership position in our categories, with further product launches planned under our multi-purpose brands. We remain cautiously optimistic about several macro factors, which include the stability in the global economy, major input costs and foreign currency exchange rates. Our fiscal year 2014 guidance assumes that we will benefit from new products and continue to experience recovery and improvement in the global economy. As for import costs, we hope that initiatives in the pipeline will help offset rising costs and maintain our gross margin at or above 50%. The following fiscal year 2014 guidance does not include any acquisitions or divestitures and assumes that the foreign currency exchange rates will remain close to recent levels. For fiscal year 2014, we expect our net sales result to be in the range of $383 million and $398 million, or a growth of between 4% and 8% versus fiscal year 2013. We project our gross margin to be close to 51%. We expect our global advertising and promotion investment to be in the range of 6.5% and 7.5%. We expect income of between $40.5 million and $42.8 million, which would achieve a diluted EPS of $2.65 to $2.80, assuming a 15.3 weighted average shares outstanding. So to sum up, what did you hear from us in this call today? You heard, we celebrated our 60th year in the business by growing sales by 8% in fiscal year 2013. You heard that our sales growth was fueled by both our multi-use products and new and increased distribution of WD-40 Specialist…
Operator
Operator
[Operator Instructions] And our first question today comes from Daniel Rizzo with Sidoti & Company. Daniel D. Rizzo - Sidoti & Company, LLC: I know one of the bigger long-term initiatives is the WD-40 Lawn and Garden, is that still on track? Do I remember correctly that's fiscal 2015, when that's going to launch?
Garry O. Ridge
Management
WD-40 Lawn and Garden is one of the initiatives that we're working on around our WD-40 Specialist category expansion. We're still in a development stage of that, uncertain, yet, of the actual development of launch of it. But again, it's one of the many categories that we're working on. Daniel D. Rizzo - Sidoti & Company, LLC: And then you indicated that high, I think, import costs are one of the things that are kind of a headwind. Could you just elaborate on what you're referring to there?
Garry O. Ridge
Management
That might have been input costs. Daniel D. Rizzo - Sidoti & Company, LLC: I'm sorry, input, yes. Sorry, I meant input.
Jay W. Rembolt
Management
Yes. I'm not sure that we see that, yet, as a headwind. I think that our view is that there -- as long as they're somewhat stable, that we're very comfortable.
Garry O. Ridge
Management
And if I said that was -- it was an offset, then maybe I read my script wrong. But we don't see input costs as being a major headwind. Daniel D. Rizzo - Sidoti & Company, LLC: Okay. And then, WD-40 BIKE, is that -- I mean, that's going according to plan and meeting company projections?
Jay W. Rembolt
Management
As we said, BIKE is a pilot program. We're still working on it in the U.S. We're going to be expanding it into the other markets next year. But so far, we're comfortable with the amount of awareness and the activity that it's generating around the passionate users in the bike segment. It's certainly enhancing our overall brand positioning. So we'll continue to learn and it's one of the many, again, categories that we're working on at the moment. Daniel D. Rizzo - Sidoti & Company, LLC: This would probably be just a little bit of a nicher project than some of your other product lines, I mean, focusing on more people who are passionate about bikes and not really the more recreational users, would that be accurate?
Jay W. Rembolt
Management
Correct.
Operator
Operator
[Operator Instructions] We'll go next with Liam Burke with Janney Capital Markets.
Liam D. Burke - Janney Montgomery Scott LLC, Research Division
Analyst
Garry, during your prepared comments, talking about gross margins, you talked a lot about supply chain initiatives in China. You mentioned the local sourcing in for CATSA complete. Could you give us a sense as to where you are in terms of completing or how independent is the China operation in terms of local sourcing, manufacturing, et cetera?
Jay W. Rembolt
Management
We are nearly complete. So we do have some products, some SKUs that do come from outside of China, but the vast majority are in China being manufactured for the China market.
Liam D. Burke - Janney Montgomery Scott LLC, Research Division
Analyst
So -- okay. So most of what the benefit you've seen has already been done. You can fine tune it, you can bring some more products over, but you're seeing most of the benefit of these initiatives now.
Jay W. Rembolt
Management
We're seeing the benefit of the China initiative for local manufacturing in China, and that for sourcing China products and sourcing as essentially complete with some of the additional spillover that will take place. We completed the activities around the North American supply chain product, which are the structural changes within the warehousing and distribution system, but we are still working on improving the efficiencies, et cetera and have the opportunity to increase our savings from those.
Liam D. Burke - Janney Montgomery Scott LLC, Research Division
Analyst
Great. And Garry, Specialist is now in 22 countries?
Garry O. Ridge
Management
I think, that's correct.
Liam D. Burke - Janney Montgomery Scott LLC, Research Division
Analyst
Are you seeing a degree of consistency in the ramp, in terms of the customer take, or are some countries a little more challenging than, say, the U.S. or the U.K.?
Garry O. Ridge
Management
It varies across countries. It also depends what SKUs or the products we're taking in there. But it's really very, very early days, Liam. We were pleased that in the fourth quarter we gained distribution for Specialist in the biggest home improvement retailer in the United States, and you'll find that in those stores now. So we've got -- this is a long, winding, but very exciting road.
Operator
Operator
And our next question comes from Joseph Altobello with Oppenheimer.
Unknown Analyst
Analyst · Oppenheimer.
This is Christina, actually, in for Joe tonight. I was wondering if you could talk about what the factors are that will input where you fall in guidance for next year. And then, I believe you said that you're increasingly more confident in the global outlook and just why you're more confident?
Garry O. Ridge
Management
The first part of your question, around guidance, I missed what you asked, I'm sorry.
Unknown Analyst
Analyst · Oppenheimer.
Just the inputs that will affect where you fall within guidance?
Garry O. Ridge
Management
I'm not sure I understand your question.
Unknown Analyst
Analyst · Oppenheimer.
Just what are going to be the biggest variables, in terms of where you fall within your guidance range for 2014?
Garry O. Ridge
Management
Well, I think, gross margin is always important to us, so we want to be watching that closely. The other areas, we've got a range of sales that we feel reasonably comfortable about. Our track record has been, as we've been able to manage our advertising and promotional expenses over the years. So certainly, as has been in the past, gross margin is important to us, but then, that linked with reasonable sales growth. So I think those are the areas that we pay attention to all the time.
Unknown Analyst
Analyst · Oppenheimer.
Okay, great. And then, I'm not sure if you mentioned it, but your expectations for the tax rate next year?
Jay W. Rembolt
Management
We didn't. It's near 31%, between 30.5% and 31% is what we're seeing.
Operator
Operator
[Operator Instructions] And we have no more questions at this time.
Garry O. Ridge
Management
Okay. Thank you so much. Thanks for joining us. We'll be back here in January. And again, we congratulate our tribe for delivering a stellar year. Good afternoon.