Garry Ridge
Analyst · B. Riley FBR
Thank you, Wendy. Good day and thanks for joining us on today's conference call. I'm delighted to report for the first time in a long time that the impact of foreign currency exchange rates are not diluting our top line growth results. Today, we reported net sales of 97.6 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2018, reflecting an increase of 9% from the first quarter of last fiscal year. Net income for the first quarter was 12.6 million compared to 11.8 million in the first quarter of last fiscal year, an increase of 7% period over period and diluted earnings per share for the first quarter were $0.90 compared to $0.82 for the same period last fiscal year. Now, let's start with the discussion about our strategic initiatives. As most of you will recall, at the end of last fiscal year, we shared with investors a revised view of our strategic initiatives and our 2025 revenue targets associated with them. Our new long-term revenue target is to drive consolidated net sales to approximately 700 million in revenue by the end of fiscal 2025. Strategic driver number one is to grow WD-40 multi-use products. Our most important strategic initiative is to take the blue and yellow can with a little red top to more places for more people. We’ll find more users more frequently. We believe there are many opportunities in front of us that will enable us to achieve our anticipated target of approximately 530 million in WD-40 multi-use product revenue by the end of fiscal year 2025. To achieve this target, we will maximize the product line through geographic expansion, increased market penetration and development of new and unique delivery systems. In the first quarter, global sales of WD-40 multi-use product was 74.5 million, reflecting an increase of 10% compared to the first quarter of last year. Strategic initiative number two is to grow the WD-40 specialist product line. Our goal, under this initiative, is to leverage the WD-40 specialist product line and create growth through continued geographic expansion as well as by developing new products and product categories within defined platforms. We are optimistic about the long-term opportunities for the WD-40 specialist and believe we can grow the product line to approximately 100 million in revenue by the end of 2025. Our tribe has delivered some best-in-class WD-40 specialist products over several years. As a result, we now have an exceptional portfolio of products that we are proud to have wear the WD-40 shield. It's now time to maximize the pipeline of products we've developed by enhancing the distribution through focused and deliberate geographic expansion. In the first quarter, global sales of WD-40 specialist was 7.5 million, reflecting a increase of 29% compared to the first quarter of last year. We are optimistic about the long-term opportunity of specialist, however there will be some volatility in sales levels along the way due to the timing of promotional programs, the building of distribution and various other factors that come with building out a new product launch. Strategic initiative number three is to broaden the product and revenue base. Our goal, under this initiative, is to leverage the recognized strengths of WD-40 Company to derive revenue from existing brands as well as from new sources and products. Strategic initiative number three includes maintenance products like WD-40, sorry, THREE-IN-ONE, WD-40 BIKE and G T85 and has been expanded to include its brands such as Spot Shot and Lava in the Americas, 1001 in EMEA and NoVac and Solvol in Asia Pacific. We believe we can continue to nurture the products included under this initiative and expect their combined revenue to reach approximately 70 million by the end of fiscal 2025. We have spent the last several years better understanding how each of these brands perform in their own unique channels and geographies. Many of them generate sizable revenues and they all generate meaningful profitable contributions and cash flows. In the first quarter, global sales of products included under this initiative were 10.5 million, which is relatively flat compared to the first quarter of last year. Strategic initiative number four is to attract, develop and retain outstanding tribe members. Our goal, under this initiative, is to attract, develop and retain talented tribe members and to grow tribe member engagement to greater than 95%. We recently announced the addition of David Pendarvis to our Board of Directors. As a Global General Counsel at Resmed, David's international experience is an asset to the business like ours, which has products available in more than 176 countries and territories worldwide. In fact, over the last three years, we've made several changes to our Board of Directors to ensure we have a diverse board, not just because it's the right thing to do, but we need to have a board that understands and can adapt our business to respond to the current events from San Diego to Shanghai. Accordingly, over the last three years, we've welcome Melissa Claassen who is currently living and working in Germany. Eric Etchart is a French national who has lived and worked for much of his career in China and speaks fluent Mandarin. We also are very proud to have Linda Lang serve as our Board Chair. Furthermore, our diverse board of directors mirrors our tribe of employees. Our 447 tribe members are truly a reflection of a global business. They live in the United Kingdom, the United States, China, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and the Netherlands, Spain, Malaysia and you can bet I'm not the only Australian in this tribe. Let there be no mistakes. Our global diverse workforce is driving -- is the driving force behind our thriving global business, which is just one reason we’ve made another decision recently. As most of you know, last fiscal year, we relocated our San Diego based tribe members into a new office building designed to increase employee engagement and collaboration. Anyone who has ever visited our old offices would probably agree this investment was long overdue. What most people do not know is that our facility in Milton Keynes, which houses our UK based tribe members is nearly an exact replica of our old San Diego office. The fact is that it was built in -- it was pretty cool in 1985 when we moved in. Since then, we've done little to improve the office. After seeing the positive impacts of our new offices have had on our San Diego tribe, we decided it's time to invest in a new facility for our 85 UK based tribe members. We’re currently looking for properties in Milton Keynes area and we hope to find a building we can buy and renovate during this fiscal year and we look forward to keeping you updated on this exciting project in the coming months. Strategic initiative number five is operational excellence. Our goal, under this initiative, is best summarized by one of our core values here at WD-40 Company, make it better than it is today. We are continuously focused on optimizing resources, systems and processes as well as applying rigorous commitment to quality assurance, regulatory compliance, intellectual property protection. We measure ourselves against this operational excellence initiative by executing against our 55/30/25 business model and by making improvements to processes and systems that will safeguard the blue and yellow can with a little red top. To complete the update on our strategic initiatives, so let's move on to the details of our first quarter results, starting with sales. Consolidated net sales were 97.6 million in the first quarter, up 8.3 million or 9% versus last year. Translation of our foreign subsidiary results from their functional currencies to the US dollar had a favorable impact on sales. On a constant currency basis, total net sales would have been 96.2 million, an increase of 8% compared to last year. This is what we refer to as translation related impacts and impacts reported results from Canada, Australia, China and the EMEA segment. In addition, we experienced about 200,000 in transaction related impacts in EMEA. So in total, changes in foreign currency exchange rates increased our net sales by 1.6 million in the first quarter. Now, let's take a closer look at what's happening in the individual segments. We'll start with the Americas. Consolidated net sales in the Americas, which includes the United States, Latin America and Canada, increased to 46.2 million in the first quarter, up about 8% from last year. Sales of maintenance products increased by 11% in the Americas, primarily due to the higher sales of WD-40 multi-use products throughout the trading block as well as strong sales of specialist in the US and Canada. I'm pleased to share with you that the challenging market conditions we experienced in the United States during fiscal 2017 have eased. Accordingly, maintenance products sales in the United States increased 10% in the first quarter due to the successful promotional activities and higher sales of our WD-40 EZ-REACH delivery system. Maintenance product sales in Latin America were up 15% in the first quarter when compared to last year, driven by increased sales of multi-use product, particularly in Central America, Ecuador and Mexico. In Canada, maintenance product sales were up 16% during the quarter due to the timing of customer orders and promotional activities for the multi-use product WD-40. As a reminder, our maintenance products exclude our home care and cleaning products. Sales of our home care and cleaning products in the Americas decreased 7% in the first quarter as compared to the same period last year. Now, let's head over to EMEA. Consolidated net sales in EMEA, which includes Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India, increased to 35 million in the first quarter, up 16% from last year. EMEA’s reported results in the first quarter were positively impacted by foreign currency exchange rates. On a constant currency basis, sales in EMEA increased 3.7 million or 12% compared to last year. We continue to make progress with increased distribution throughout EMEA of our WD-40 Smart Straw delivery system. The UK marketing team ran some very successful in-store and online promotions to help educate trade users about the Smart Straw delivery system. In fact, the tribe was able to generate over 5.5 million views in one week with the help of their Don't be a Tool video campaign. As you know, we sell into EMEA through a combination of direct operations as well as through marketing distributors. Net sales in EMEA direct markets, which accounted for 64% of the region’s sales, increased 13% during the quarter to 22.5 million in US dollars. We experienced strong sales growth in nearly all of our EMEA direct markets in the first quarter. The strength was driven by the timing of promotional activities in the region and very strong sales of WD-40 specialist within our Continental European direct markets. Now, let's have a look at our EMEA distributor markets, which accounted for 36% of EMEA sales in the quarter. Distributor market sales increased by 22% in the first quarter to 12.6 million. The strength was driven by higher sales of WD-40 multi-use products in Northern Europe and the Middle East as a result of promotional activities in the region. Of course, we'd like to remind investors that the political and economic instability in many of these regions make it difficult for us to predict what level of sales we’ll have in this market in the future. Now, let's take a look at Asia Pacific. Consolidated net sales in Asia Pacific, which includes Australia, China and other countries in the Asian region increased to 16.4 million in the first quarter, up about 2% from last year. In Australia, net sales in US dollars were 4.5 million in the first quarter, up 1% compared to last year. Changes in foreign currency exchange rates had a positive impact on these results. In its functional currency of the Australian dollar, sales were down 2% for the quarter. This decline was due to the timing of customers orders and lower level of promotional activities in the period. In China, net sales in US dollars were 2.9 million in the first quarter, down 9% compared to last year due to the timing of customer orders. Changes in foreign currency exchange rates have an immaterial impact on reported results. We remain optimistic about the long-term opportunities in the China region that we expect a lot of volatility along the way due to the timing of promotional orders, the building of distribution, changing economic patterns and varying industrial activities as well as the timing of customer orders. In our Asian distributor markets, net sales were 9 million for the quarter, up 6% compared to last year. The increase in sales was driven primarily by a high level of promotional activities, particularly in Malaysia, South Korea and the Philippines. Our Asian distributor markets are not impacted by currency, since we sell our product in US dollars in that region. Now, I'd like to hand over to Jay who will continue the review of the financials.