Established 1999
123jump.com - U.S. Financial Information Archive: 90,000 Annual and 10-K reports – 20,000 Global news stories - 3,500 IPO reports - 1,700 - Earnings Calls – 320 Fund Interviews – 10-year Annual earnings on 4,500 stocks – 20 Quarterly earnings on 3,600 stocks – 1,800 IPO prospectuses – 1,200 Economic data releases
     
   
 
Earnings Calls: 
Church & Dwight First Quarter Earnings Call
Author: 123jump.com Staff
123jump.com
Last Update: 5:06 AM EDT May 10 2008


(Continued)

Email article | Print article

The ARM & HAMMER brand owner posted Q1 net sales of $552.9 million and organic net sales increased approximately 6% for the quarter, excluding a positive foreign exchange impact of about 1.5%. The net income for Q1 increased 23% from the past year quarter levels of $45.1 million to the current quarter level of $56.2 million. The management reported that about 5 cents to 6 cents of the year-over-year EPS boost is due to the timing of slotting and the diesel hedge gain.


Investors Question and Answers

 
 Company Website Links:
Investor Relations Financial Info Corporate / History Profile Executives Products Services
 
Sequential Earnings Growth | Quarterly Earnings by Year | Quarterly Earnings Growth by Year

Source: Company filings    Q1:March  Q2:June  Q3:September  Q4:December
 
Second Quarter Fiscal 2008 Outlook:

- Organic sales growth is expected to be solid in the second quarter with continued year-over-year gross margin expansion.
- The marketing spending in Q2 is forecast to increase to approximately 13% of sales and will be focused on key brands and trademarks including Arm & Hammer, Trojan, SpinBrush, OxiClean and First Response.
- The management reported that the timing of certain items, which served to increase Q1 EPS and gross margin performance, is expected to result in higher costs in future quarters.
- The company expects EPS of approximately 61 cents in Q2, which would result in 14% EPS growth in the first half of 2008.

Fiscal 2008 Outlook

- EPS estimate for the full year is $2.77, representing a 13% increase over 2007 results.
- The management forecasts that gross margin expansion will be 100 basis points in 2008. This is in spite of the significantly higher commodity costs.

Key questions and answers from the first quarter fiscal 2008 earnings call conducted by Church & Dwight on May 6, 2008.

William Schmitz (Deutsche Bank): What was the volume growth during the quarter for the U.S. business?

James R. Craigie: The volume growth for Q1 for domestic would be around 2%.

William Schmitz (Deutsche Bank): Can you comment on the gross margin drivers and offsets?

Matthew T. Farrell: Our cost reduction programs are the biggest drivers for us every quarter. That''s part of the backbone of the company. We are no different to anybody else. We have significant price increases, some single and some double digit increases like for resin, diesel, linerboard and corrugated works. We are able to overcome those. We probably have comparable increases to other companies.

Bill Chappell (SunTrust Robinson Humphrey): Do the slotting fees in diesel represent an upside surprise to you in the quarter or they are the difference between last year and this year in terms of earnings growth?

James R. Craigie: It is the year-over-year comparison. We weren''t surprised by the diesel because we put the hedging in January and so we knew it was coming. We hedged at a significantly lower price than what the spot price is right now. That was a wind flow for us in Q1 but obviously that doesn''t help in future quarters. With respect to slotting, that''s just timing. If you want to think about some of the things that impacts slotting, it''s going to be timing of your first ships to the accounts and the shelf resets will vary by account. Mix can affect as well; slotting costs are much higher for household versus personal care etcetera.

Bill Chappell (SunTrust Robinson Humphrey): Does the hedge carryover and give any benefit in the second quarter?

Matthew T. Farrell: Not unless if these got to $5.

Bill Chappell (SunTrust Robinson Humphrey): Do you see any changes in ordering patterns and any trade down from the higher price products to some of the Arm & Hammer products?

James R. Craigie: The quarterly pattern wasn''t that unusual. We had a couple of strong months, one little soft month. Q2 outlook is in plan with what we expect. We are noticing across some categories some softness, which reflects that we are in a recession. We are noticing a little bit of growth at private label in some categories. We feel our company is recession resistant in some sense. We do up some premium brands, we worry about OxiClean and SpinBrush, but we also have a fair number of value-oriented brands in our laundry business, which is our biggest business. We have value test kits that are doing very well; we have value toothpaste doing well. We are very conscious of the economy. We think consumer spending will take a hit. That''s why we went aggressive as we have in managing overhead costs and cutting costs. We are well positioned to handle the current outlook in the environment given our product portfolio and we have been bunkered down for almost a year on cost as we thought the commodity cost will continue to spiral and it''s paying off right now in terms of the ability to grow gross margin while most of our competitors are not.

Bill Chappell (SunTrust Robinson Humphrey): Did you realize a net benefit from compaction in Q1 and what are your estimates for Q2?

James R. Craigie: We did but it wasn''t the biggest driver. In fact, last time we put the release together, we tried to give some order to the factors and we had concentration in that as the driver of gross margin. As a result of the rollout timing, the benefit of compaction will grow quarter to quarter. By the third quarter of this year, the whole country will be in compaction. That will help us deliver continued gross margin improvement, as we through across the year.

Joe Altobello (Oppenheimer): How much of the 5 cents to 6 cents boost in Q1 reverses in Q2 and how much in the second half of the year?

Matthew T. Farrell: It''s not that academic because the slotting costs are going to be a function of several things but some is going to hurt us in the second quarter but also second half.

Joe Altobello (Oppenheimer): Are you seeing any de-stocking activity in your major categories from retailers?
  1  2  3  4  5

 



 
© 1999-2008 123jump.com. All rights reserved