Oil-Dri Co. of America Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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October 13, 2023

There are 7 speakers on the call.

Operator

Welcome to Oil Dri Corporation of America Q4 and Fiscal Year 2023 Earnings Discussion. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. I would now like to hand the call over to Chairman, President, CEO, Dan Jaffe. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you very much and welcome everybody. First, we're in virtual mode, so I want to introduce who's all on the various lines ready to answer your questions. Thank you for getting those into portal. In advance, Susan Cray, CFO and CIO Aaron Christensen, VP of Operations Doctor. Wade Roby, VP of Agriculture and President of Amlan International Chris Lampson, Group VP of Retail and Wholesale Laura Scheeland, VP of Strategic Partnerships and General Counsel David Atkinson, VP, Corporate Controller And last but not least, Leslie Garber, our Manager of Investor Relations, who will walk us through our Safe Harbor provision.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Dan, and welcome, everyone. On today's call, comments may contain forward looking statements regarding the company's performance in future periods. Actual results in those periods may materially differ. In our press release and in our SEC filings, we highlight a number of important risk factors, Trends and uncertainties that may affect our future performance. We ask that you review and consider those factors in evaluating the company's comments and in evaluating any investment in Oil Dri stock.

Speaker 2

Thank you for joining us. Dan, I'm turning it back over to you.

Speaker 1

Sounds good. And before I turn it over to Susan, I'd like to make some general comments. We just concluded our 83rd fiscal year. And one of the things we're very proud of is our accumulated lessons learned and we like to carry them on from My grandfather to my dad to me and on into the next generation. And one of those is winning at Oil Dri as a team game and that's what you guys saw The outstanding results, the record performance was all due to the collective effort of our nearly 900 teammates globally.

Speaker 1

And I just want to make sure I give them proper recognition. I mean, just recently we went through a flawless ERP upgrade, which is almost impossible So, we've been in the Q4, we're near perfect scores for on time deliveries and on our customers' scorecards really Received plenty of kudos moving all the way to the top, which was very exciting. And so all of those things had to happen to deliver The championship year we just delivered and we're obviously entering the new fiscal year with a lot of momentum, but mindful of the fact what have you done for us lately that we're going to have to lap these results as we move forward. And I think you'll hear that we're all very confident that we have a lot of good growth plans in place And that fiscal 2023, while the best we've ever had, is the best is still yet to come and we believe that. So Susan, I'll turn it over to you and then we will get into our Q and A.

Speaker 1

And Susan, we don't hear you, so you may be on mute.

Speaker 2

Susan, can you hear us?

Speaker 1

I wonder if Susan got disconnected. I'll go, you know me, I'd like open mic night. I'll cover some of the highlights and Susan, if you get yourself back connected, I'm happy to The floor over to you. But the Q4 was a record $107,000,000 in net sales, up 15% over the prior year. And that helped us finish the year for over $400,000,000 for the first time, 4thirteen-twenty 21, up 18% all year long.

Speaker 1

And obviously, it's really what happened at the bottom line that was very exciting. What we reported was an increase in the 4th order of 129 percent up to $11,900,000 and a 4 21% increase up to $29,500,000 But The real story is to back out the 2 non recurring events. You remember we had an impairment charge back in fiscal 2022, which was an accounting non cash charge. And then really good for our future is we finally closed our defined benefit plan, our pension plan and replaced it with a very generous defined contribution plan in the 401. So when you back out those 2 non recurring events, what you're really looking at from an apples to apples standpoint is an increase from $10,136,000,000 a year ago to $36,469,000 this year and that's a 2 60% increase.

Speaker 1

Obviously, we report by segment. You've got our business to business segment and their results were very much similar to what the company saw sales up 18% in the quarter, 26% year to date, and then operating income up 63% and 50%. And then over on the retail and wholesale group led by Chris Lampson and his team, sales were up 14% 15% and 67% and a robust 4 78%. Now if you put that impairment charge back in, he was up only to he and his team up only 204%. You guys can read the news release yourself, so you don't need me to go through any more of it.

Speaker 1

We've got a lot of great questions from our investors. I appreciate that and we have the team on hand to handle those questions. So Leslie, I'm going to turn it back over to you And let's get into the Q and A and hear what our investors would like to hear from us about.

Speaker 2

Okay. Sounds great. Susan, if you are back on the call, let us know. Otherwise, we're just going to continue. Our first question comes from Robert Smith, And he is from the Center For Performance Investing.

Speaker 2

And his first question is with respect to Amlan, you say there were timing issues that Back to the Q4 shortfall, what would the quarter have looked like without those issues? Will the current quarter include all the shipments that missed the last quarter? What are the prospects For Amlan in fiscal 2024. Thanks. Wade, can you please take that?

Speaker 3

Yes. Thank you, Leslie, and thank you, Robert, for You've got a number of questions in there. I'll try to hit all of them pretty quickly. So with respect to our business in the animal nutrition space, We don't see a lot of seasonality quarter to quarter. So typically, we're pretty smooth as we continue to grow in all the world areas where we're participating.

Speaker 3

We do sometimes see timing issues, as you've noted in your question. We have a logistics timing Concern that comes in periodically in terms of how long it takes product to get to our Asian markets or to our Latin American markets and that can sometimes cause month to month or quarter to quarter to have more volatility than the business itself would typically show. And so that generally has affected our numbers at times on an individual quarter basis. Going forward, certainly anything that we missed in the Q4 of The previous year, we would expect them to pick up and show in the next quarter, and we're seeing that as our business continues to move forward. So I believe I've covered all of your key questions.

Speaker 3

And again, thank you for that question to us.

Speaker 2

Perfect. Thank you. The next we're going to combine 2 questions regarding advertising. The first is from Robert Smith. What were advertising expenses in the 4th quarter?

Speaker 2

How much of an increase are you budgeting for fiscal 2024? And then the second part is from Ethan Starr, an individual investor, And it also relates to advertising. What results are you seeing from the most recent Cast Pride celebrity endorsement campaign with a prominent actress? Are the results meeting or exceeding your expectations for return on investment? And I'm going to turn it over to Chris Lampson to answer.

Speaker 4

Yes. Good morning, Robert and Ethan. Thanks for the questions. The relative to advertising and this past year and the flow of our spend and looking ahead to next year, the consumer business spends the overwhelming majority of our advertising So that's why I'm answering it. And yes, we did spend roughly 2 thirds of our total fiscal spend in Q4.

Speaker 4

I look back at notes from previous calls. I know I've been signaling that for most of this past fiscal year on these calls. And there were three reasons for it. One was we really wanted to advertise to full shelves and we knew that the supply chain would be stable. Dan alluded to it, better than stable.

Speaker 4

We're really nailing our service levels now, so we wanted to advertise to full shelves. And we were moving our ad campaigns from our Litter For Good campaign, which we've been on for the last several years to really emphasizing the benefits of lightweight. And we were basically getting that content in the can and ready to go, which is now done and is hitting the air. And the third reason for it was we launched antibacterial litter at the very end of the fiscal year, and we were wanting to support that out of the gate and and obviously into fiscal 2024. Looking forward into fiscal 2024, we will have modest uptick in spend on the full year, but it will be spread much more evenly than it was in the past year for the very three reasons that I articulated around why it was loaded Q4, all three of those things are now present going forward.

Speaker 4

So I think that it's Robert's question. Relative to influencers and our investments and content with celebrities and influencers. I would say overall, we like Influencers, we're looking at these ROIs constantly in real time, but pretty dynamic. They're and It's fun to play with the mix candidly and drive the highest ROIs. The content you're referring to did well for us.

Speaker 4

Other category experts in terms of influencers do extremely well for us. So expect us to keep up influencers, I'd say expect us to probably lean into those category

Speaker 2

Right. Thank you. The next question comes from John Bair. There have been numerous Announcements recently of poultry and swine plant shutdowns in the U. S.

Speaker 2

Since quarter end, have you seen any impact to your domestic sales efforts, Backing out the timing of shipments causing softness in Animal Health sales in Latin America, Asia and China regions as noted in the press release, our Animal Health sales Trends continuing to improve. Wade?

Speaker 3

Thank you, Leslie. And again, thank you, John for that question. Let me start with the last question or part of the question that you asked and that was our animal health sales trends continuing to improve. And the answer is yes, although albeit Differential depending upon the world area. So we are continuing to see impacts in the animal production industry around the world based on Lingering effects of the pandemic as well as regional economies, but we are continuing to see that improve and the opportunity for our products To continue to improve and grow in those markets.

Speaker 3

In the U. S, yes, there has been some depression of Profitability among some of the largest integrators and producers, what that really causes is a little bit more scrutiny as they look at new products and maybe a little a longer lead time for us to penetrate and begin commercial sales. But because we're new in a couple of these markets, like the U. S. With our new portfolio, We don't expect a significant impact.

Speaker 3

We'll work through it and we continue to see good testing, good adoption and good growth, specifically in the U. S, but around the world. So, yes, conditions are continuing to persist a little bit and we hear that as we travel around and visit customers, But we continue to see great interest in our products and lots of new adoption and growth in all the markets that we're serving.

Speaker 2

Thank you. Okay. The next question comes from Ethan Starr and he asks, to what Then are your costs continuing to increase, if at all? And I think we're going to have Aaron Christensen handle that question.

Speaker 5

Leslie, thank you. And Ethan, thanks for the question. I'm happy to answer it. Unfortunately, costs do continue to rise. I'll cite Four things quickly.

Speaker 5

The first is the ECI or Employment Cost Index. Right now, national Total compensation costs are up 4.5% over the last 12 months and have peaked as high as 5.5% in recent months. Well Drive continues to find ways to be competitive in total compensation for our teammates. So that's one key cost input. 2nd is the cost of materials and material inputs.

Speaker 5

The consumer price index is up 9 months in a row. Many of our suppliers in material basis peg their costs on the CPI. That's another area we're continuing to battle Rising cost inputs. The 3rd, and Dan alluded to it earlier, Ethan, is our ongoing repair both through Expense and capital of our asset base. Oil Dri has an aging infrastructure.

Speaker 5

Much of our asset base is now being Place through a multiyear capital strategy, the cost to both repair and replace those assets is significantly higher than what was initially put on the book for. It is mathematically impossible for us to maintain our depreciation base. And the last I'll mention Ethan is, Remind the audience, we're mining and milling company. Mining costs continue to rise, the cost of environmental and other regulation, as well as the natural reality of moving deeper and further from our factories. So I hope I answered your question, Ethan.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Aaron. The next question is from Robert Smith and he asked what accounts for the dramatic increase in diluted common And I'm going to turn it over to David Atkinson.

Speaker 6

Thank you, Leslie, and thank you, Robert, for the question. What I would like to point to is you'll notice we added an earnings per share reconciliation to Note 1. Although extremely unlikely, we included Potential impact of all of our Class B shares being converted to common. There have been no issuances in new shares other than those to support the restricted stock program, which has been consistent with prior years. And you can see those numbers in footnote number 8 on the 10 ks.

Speaker 2

Okay. Thank you. We will move on. Robert Smith asked, Discuss your R and D efforts, other new products coming in into the current fiscal year. And what is the R and D budget for the current year?

Speaker 2

Did it really decline meaningfully last year and if so, why? I'm also going to combine this because we're going to talk about some new products. I'm going to combine this question With John Baer's question, which I will read, which is, when did you receive EPA approval for your new antibacterial product? Will this be marketed solely as a new standalone product or will the additive component be incorporated into your other product offerings to enhance your overall marketing efforts? So first, I'm going to have Wade answer the first part of the question and then he will turn it over to Chris to talk about our new antibacterial cat Wade, do you want to start us off?

Speaker 3

Yes. Thank you, Leslie, and again, thank you, Robert. We look at our R and D efforts Really in 2 buckets, what we would call traditional R and D that we do at our Innovation Center and then at Contract research organizations as we do true discovery and product development. The second element of it is really our field validation work that we either do directly with customers or at regional universities that help validate the performance of our products And encourage customer adoption. As a result of that, we can see pretty significant volatility either within a year or across years, Because obviously the R and D efforts that we do in research and discovery tend to be a lot more expensive than the field validation work.

Speaker 3

Currently, we're really focusing on field validation as we have 2 new products that we're introducing into the market. Those are Being evaluated both at universities, as I mentioned, but also in direct customer trials, these sorts of evaluations allow us to be a lot more efficient with our spend. Oftentimes, we're actually selling the product as we move into the market, sometimes at a discounted price, but selling the product as we do those field validations with customers. So it really offsets some of the R and D expense that you would normally see. That's what causes our volatility.

Speaker 3

And again, given where we are in the rollout of the existing two products into the marketplace, it's causing us or allowing us to be a little bit more Okay. With that, I'll turn it over to Chris.

Speaker 4

Thanks, Wade, and thanks for the question, John. So I'll pull back really quick and just elaborate on the launch. So at the very end of fiscal 2023, We launched Oil Dri Cat's Pride antibacterial clumping litter, the 1st and only EPA approved antibacterial litter here in

Speaker 1

the U.

Speaker 4

S. The story kills 99.9 percent of odor causing bacteria and helps Obviously, further, the highly the high effectiveness of our clay, this really helps further relative to odor control and then Obviously, the broader sanitary home and the consumer very much takes this benefit to the cat not tracking nasties, if you will, through the home. And we're excited about it and I can tell you retailers are excited about it. So where Cat's Pride is particularly strong, which is up and down the East Coast and into the Southeast, virtually all of our customers have taken it into distribution and not only just distribution, but incremental distribution. I'll come back to your question on timing, But insightful question around launching it against everything or launching it against the base versus an incremental item.

Speaker 4

That choice out of the gate was deliberate. We wanted to build use it as an opportunity to build out our shelf space and really highlight a new benefit to the category. We are, as we speak, innovating further against this benefit. We think it's a big deal. Our customers think it's a big deal.

Speaker 4

Our consumer returns on it, both from an early takeaway perspective, but also some of the research led up to it, we're all very positive. I will tell you the EPA process is quite long, which is a good thing and a bad thing. It builds a really nice moat around us driving this benefit. We received federal approval at this point more than 18 months ago. You then and these cannot be parallel half.

Speaker 4

Once you have federal approval, you go through all each of the states and gain their approval as well, which like I said, build demote around things, but will also create long lead times for our further development here, which like I said is very much underway. We're excited about the benefit and we're excited about the initial returns we're getting on the item.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Chris. Okay. The next question comes from Ethan Starr and he asked, Is Amlan making progress towards getting 1 or more significant orders from large producers of cattle, poultry or swine? And Wade, can you please answer that?

Speaker 3

Yes. Thanks, Leslie. And again, thank you, Ethan. The simple answer is yes. If you look at the market in North America, we're already selling to several of the largest integrators in the North American market.

Speaker 3

That is continuing to grow with recent penetration again in a number of the key accounts here in North America. So Great progress there as we continue to launch our portfolio here in the United States. As you look around the world, we have been in those markets A little bit longer and so they're a little bit more established for us, but we continue to see expanded growth of our sales into alternative species Poultry. So in the ruminant market, specifically in dairy, some of our largest customers in Asia are actually in the dairy sector And we're seeing that being replicated now in Latin America, in the cattle market, in the beef cattle market, so another ruminant species. But we're seeing new testing and moving towards adoption of some of the largest cattle operations in Latin America, specifically in Brazil.

Speaker 3

So we're excited about that, continue to see the broad multi species applicability of our products and the application of them in solutions that are really allowing us to grow our participation in these markets. So Yes, absolutely. And we expect to see continued progress in this way in the coming year.

Speaker 2

Great. Thank you. Next question comes from John Baer and he says a recent article in The Wall Street Journal headlined Ocean freight rates pressure, which highlight a significant drop in East Coast to China shipping costs among other routes. So are you seeing or beginning to see any benefit in your shipping costs? I'm going to turn it over to Aaron to answer.

Speaker 5

Yes, John, I'm happy to answer the question. You heard me earlier talk about where we're still struggling with inflating cost inputs. This definitely is an area where we're seeing cost relief. Freight, both domestic and export has come down and stabilized. We are seeing that and have been able to take advantage of it.

Speaker 5

That was the place, however, where it became the most extreme and most inflated During the supply chain challenges and pre pandemic, those costs are not back to historical levels, but we've definitely seen relief. As important, if not more so to us, has been the improvement in reduction in lead times. Dan alluded earlier to our great service. We're thankful to be back to a place where international freight is more predictable in lead time to allow us to meet our customers' on time needs.

Speaker 2

Perfect. Great. Thank you. So I am going to Susan, is your line working now? Okay.

Speaker 2

So the next question I'm going to have Dan Jaffee answer is from Robert Smith. Please remind me about the seasonality and the quarterly numbers. Dan, do you want to take that?

Speaker 1

Yes. Good question. I think what you see is that generally there's not a lot of seasonality in our business when you take into account our diversified portfolio of products. Obviously, there is some seasonality within the individual products. You've got the pros choice, which is Reliant on ball field usage, so while we do an early sell in the winter months, really the predominant use is in the spring, the summer and the fall.

Speaker 1

You've then got our Fluids Purification business, which is very much tied to when they harvest The crop, so their 4th quarter could be our biggest of the year. But net, when you put it all together, We're relatively flat, which is nice, which again further validates our diverse portfolio. And that's what we've always tried to do. We've always tried to supply markets and deliver value across a wide range of applications So that over the course of the year, some are up, some are down. We just happened to get very fortunate that last year they pretty much were all up, which was very it was a great time to be in our calcium betonite business last year and we see a lot of momentum heading in new.

Speaker 1

So thank you for your question, but there's really not enough seasonality across the consolidated business that you would have to Take that into your model. I see a question just came in about Clorox. I'm happy to take that one. Aaron, obviously, you could take it too, but I've got the mic and I'm not giving it up. And Chris, actually, you could talk to him.

Speaker 1

You guys have educated me on For those of you wondering where this question is coming from, they've put out they meaning Clorox have put out a lot of news releases around the fact that they've had some cyber problems, cyber security problems with their ERP system And it has wreaked havoc on them. There's no doubt that their supply chains then got shrunk or their inventories were sold through And the shelves were getting pretty bare. Happy to say that they seem to have fixed their problems. The orders are back And they seem to be even playing catch up mode. So, what do I think the impact will be on us?

Speaker 1

They're our 2nd largest customer. So obviously, they're very important to us. But I think in the Q1, which is August, September October, by the time we hit the peaks in the valleys, They'll generally be it'll be an immaterial difference. That's what I'm hoping for. It might be slightly material, but it's not going to derail our quarter.

Speaker 1

So good question and we do certainly support and wish Clorox the best as they dig themselves out of this. Leslie, are there any other questions you want to cover before I head out and close those?

Speaker 2

We're going to take this one last question from John Baer and His question is, do you see any significant increase or need to increase capital expenditures for upgrades or replacements of plant operations over the next 3 years? And I know Aaron talked about

Speaker 1

I would have

Speaker 4

Aaron do it, but the

Speaker 1

answer is a resounding yes. But Aaron, talk about it.

Speaker 5

Yes. Dan already answered the key message, which is a resounding yes, John. But it's also already planned for. Dan alluded to it earlier and I alluded to it earlier, we are already in the midst of a multiyear cycle of a higher level of capital spending than historical. It is we already have a very intelligently built 5 to 10 year plan that plans for it.

Speaker 5

We're looking for intelligent ways to overlap business continuity investments, growth investments and savings investments. So yes, And already well planned for and aligned on organizationally, John.

Speaker 1

And I would add, I just want to thank our customers Because we've had to go out to them and say, look, this depreciation that we're charging is based on historic costs. And as we're replacing these assets, it's costing twice easily twice as much to replace these assets that were put into service 15 20 years ago. And they want us to be healthy. They want us to be able to replace our capital so that we can continue to supply them the quality and quantity that they require and value. And they've received the message very well and we very much appreciate it.

Speaker 1

So if my customers are listening, if our customers are listening, thank you very much. Obviously, we're all in this together. We're out of time. I I'm assuming everyone is happy with the quarter, happy with the fiscal year. I know the team and I are and we very much look forward to talking to you after our Q1, which ends October 31 and will be at our next teleconference, will be the Q1 of F24.

Speaker 1

So until then, Be safe, be healthy and thank you very much for your support.

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

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