Garry Ridge
Analyst · D.A. Davidson
Thank you, Wendy. Good day, and thanks for joining us for today's conference call. Jay, Steve, Wendy and I are dialing in from our respective homes, where I expect most of you are as well.To begin, I'd like to thank the tribe for their hard work and dedication to the company in these volatile and uncertain times. Our #1 priority during these challenging times is the safety and well-being of our tribe. Today, we will discuss some highlights from our second quarter, but a complete discussion of our second quarter results, please refer to the press release we issued earlier today and our 10-Q for the period ended February 29, 2020, which we filed with the SEC this afternoon.Today, we're going to talk mostly about the global health crisis caused by the COVID-19 outbreak and its impact on our business. We currently find ourselves at the peak of uncertainty as it relates to this global health crisis and its effects on both our company and the global economy. Jay and I were at the helm of WD-40 Company during the global financial crisis in 2008. Together, with our tribe, we successfully navigated those difficult times and the company emerged stronger than when we entered. We realize that the difficult times we are encountering during the 2008 fiscal crisis were very different from the ones we are facing today. We are in a health crisis, which is impacting all parts of the globe and affecting economies worldwide. As a result, the outcome is very difficult to predict. I have, again, confirmed in my mind that people are okay at dealing with risk that struggle with uncertainty. And while it is true that there's a lot we don't know today, there are some things we do know. We do know the health crisis is going to be a temporary disruptive to our business and that we will likely be some short-term negative impacts on our financial results. We know that we'll probably face some challenges in the coming weeks and months as we continue to operate a global business through these volatile and uncertain times.However, despite all this, we also know that we're going to get through this. We have a strong tribe, who are dedicated to our brands and to our end users. We have a famous brand that people can trust and which can bring certainty to both our customers and our end users in these uncertain times. We remain committed to making our products easy to buy, which is demonstrated by their availability in over 62 unique trade channels. We have a loyal end-user base in more than 176 countries and territories around the world. We have acted to further bulletproof our balance sheet, thanks to the great work done by Jay and the finance team over the last couple of weeks.For all these reasons, I am sure we are well positioned to navigate the storm as it unfolds from both a financial and operational perspective. This too will pass. Now let's talk about our long-term growth aspirations. As a reminder, our long-term growth aspirations are guideposts not guidance and they are probably wrong and roughly right. Our long-term growth aspirations are to drive consolidated net sales to approximately $700 million and to do this while following our 55/30/25 business model. Our long-term targets are still very clear to us. However, with the uncertain global economy ahead, the timing of our 2025 aspirations may be delayed.During the second quarter, except for the Asia Pacific segment, our long-term strategic drivers continue to perform mostly in line with our expectations. Let's talk about the strategic initiatives: number one is to grow the WD-40 Multi-Use Product. Our goal under this initiative is to grow WD-40 Multi-Use Product to approximately $530 million in revenue. In the second quarter, sales of WD-40 Multi-Use Product were $76 million, down 3% compared to last year. This decline was driven primarily by a 37% decline in Asia Pacific, which was partially offset by increased sales in the Americas and EMEA up 7% and 1%, respectively. The decline in WD-40 Multi-Use Product sales in Asia Pacific was driven primarily by a 74% decline in sales of WD-40 Multi-Use Product in China due to the disruptions related to the COVID-19 outbreak.As you know, in China, many distribution channels and factories were closed and the greater population was placed in quarantine for several weeks starting in mid-January. These factors materially impacted our sales during the second quarter since we had a significant number of orders that were scheduled to ship to our customers in early February after Chinese New Year Holiday, and those shipments could not take place due to the COVID-19 outbreak in the country. However, in recent weeks, we've seen factories start to commence production and people begin going back to work. Things are slowly returning to normal for our tribe members in China. Everyone is back to work, though some tribe members are still working remotely. Schools remain closed in many areas of China. So this month, we have some little tribe members in the Shanghai office who have accompanied their parents to work. We are happy to support this temporary working arrangement. We expect we will encounter volatility and disruption in other regions, where our global business operates due to the global health crisis.Strategic initiative number two, grow the WD-40 Specialist product line. We remain optimistic about the long-term opportunities for WD-40 Specialist and believe we can grow the product line to approximately $100 million in revenue. In the second quarter, sales of WD-40 Specialist increased 10% to $8.9 million compared to last year. We continue to move forward with our new packaging that we discussed with you last quarter, which we believe will give us a stronger brand presence for both WD-40 Multi-Use Product and WD-40 Specialist, aligning them as the blue and yellow brand with a little red top.Strategic initiative number three, broaden product and revenue base. Strategic initiative number three includes maintenance products like 3-IN-ONE, WD-40 BIKE and GT85 but also includes home care brands such as Spot Shot and Lava in the Americas, 1001 in EMEA and no vac and Solvol in Asia Pacific. Our goal for the products under this initiative is to reach a combined revenue of approximately $70 million. Global sales of the products included under this initiative were $12.8 million in the second quarter, up 2% compared to last year.Strategic initiative number four, attract, develop and retain outstanding tribe members. We are putting the health, safety and well-being of our tribe members and their families first during these difficult times, with shelter in place orders in effect in most of the countries where our tribe members live and work, many of them have been exclusively working from home for several weeks now. Our IT teams around the world have done an exceptional job ensuring that everyone has the technology they need to complete their jobs remotely. We call ourselves a tribe because we are a community of people with a shared purpose, that is to help feed and defend each other. During these difficult times, I think that definition is particularly fitting.There is no better time than now to have a highly engaged workforce. During the second quarter, we took our biannual employee engagement survey, and I'm happy to report that our overall global employee engagement score remains the envy of many organizations at 93%.Strategic initiative number five, operational excellence. The world is full of volatility, ambiguity and uncertainty, more so now than I and others have ever seen in our lifetimes. It is our commitment to maintain our operational excellence, which will help see us through the storm just as it has in other times of macroeconomic uncertainty. From a financial perspective, we are in an enviable position. We've always maintained a strong balance sheet and managed our funds wisely.That completes the update of the strategic drivers. I'd now pass the call to Steve, who will discuss some operational highlights.