United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI) Q1 2019 Earnings Call
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Corrected Transcript 06-Dec-2018 United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI) Q1 2019 Earnings Call Total Pages: 26 1-877-FACTSET www.callstreet.com Copyright © 2001-2018 FactSet CallStreet, LLC United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI) Corrected Transcript Q1 2019 Earnings Call 06-Dec-2018 CORPORATE PARTICIPANTS Steven J. Bloomquist Sean F. Griffin Vice President-Investor Relations, United Natural Foods, Inc. Chief Operating Officer & Chief Executive Officer of SUPERVALU, United Natural Foods, Inc. Steven L. Spinner Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer, United Natural Foods, Michael Paul Zechmeister Inc. Chief Financial Officer, United Natural Foods, Inc. ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... OTHER PARTICIPANTS John Heinbockel Paul Kearney Analyst, Guggenheim Securities LLC Analyst, Wolfe Research LLC Edward J. Kelly Kelly Ann Bania Analyst, Wells Fargo Securities LLC Analyst, BMO Capital Markets (United States) Christopher Mandeville Eric J. Larson Analyst, Jefferies LLC Analyst, The Buckingham Research Group, Inc. Vincent J. Sinisi Analyst, Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... MANAGEMENT DISCUSSION SECTION Operator: Good afternoon. My name is Jesse, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the UNFI First Quarter Fiscal 2019 Earnings Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. Steve Bloomquist, Vice President of Investor Relations, you may begin your conference. ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Steven J. Bloomquist Vice President-Investor Relations, United Natural Foods, Inc. Thank you, Jesse, and good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us on our first quarter fiscal 2019 earnings conference call. We appreciate everyone's flexibility since we moved our call from yesterday to today in recognition of the financial markets being closed to honor former President George H.W. Bush. By now you should have received a copy of the earnings release issued this afternoon. Press release, webcast, and a supplemental slide deck are available under the Investors section of the company's website at www.unfi.com. Joining me for today's call are Steve Spinner, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Sean Griffin, the CEO of SUPERVALU; Mike Zechmeister, our Chief Financial Officer; and Chris Testa, President of UNFI. Steve, Sean, and Mike will provide the business update, speak about our performance in the quarter, and address our fiscal 2019 outlook for the combined company. We'll then take your questions after management's prepared remarks. Please limit your questions to one question with one follow-up. 2 1-877-FACTSET www.callstreet.com Copyright © 2001-2018 FactSet CallStreet, LLC United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI) Corrected Transcript Q1 2019 Earnings Call 06-Dec-2018 Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that comments made by management during today's call may contain forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include plans, expectations, estimates, and projections that might involve significant risks and uncertainties. These risks are discussed in the company's earnings release and SEC filings. Actual results may differ materially from the results discussed in these forward- looking statements. And lastly, I'd like to point out that during today's call, management will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP financial measures are included in the schedules included in our press release. With that, I will turn the call over to Steve. ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... Steven L. Spinner Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer, United Natural Foods, Inc. Thank you, Steve. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining our first quarter earnings call. I'll start with some comments on the quarter and our new combined fiscal 2019 outlook, with the completion of the SUPERVALU acquisition, which replaces our original UNFI standalone guidance. Sean will then provide some remarks about SUPERVALU, including our integration process. Mike will then go over some more details on our financials and outlook, which, as mentioned, now reflects the combined company UNFI and SUPERVALU. This acquisition was and is all about the creation of value. We are transforming the way in which food is supplied throughout North America through synergy, scale, services, products, and people, providing better food for a better future. While we are clearly disappointed by the near-term results at SUPERVALU, we started this process with the viewpoint that in order to build a business for the future and to create considerable value for our constituents, UNFI would serve its shareholders over the long term by becoming the premier wholesaler of products and services throughout North America. This thesis has not changed. In fact, as we've begun to integrate, our outlook for the combination is stronger than ever. We have no doubt that the culmination of UNFI and SUPERVALU will translate into more significant value for shareholders than UNFI as a standalone company over time. I do want to recognize the incredible work done by our leadership team and all of the associates of UNFI and SUPERVALU. We've worked diligently to complete the acquisition of SUPERVALU, something we accomplished one week prior to the end of our first quarter. There is a heightened level of excitement and energy now that we've combined the two organizations. And together we are transforming food across North America as the premier wholesaler of products and services. We've begun the integration work. And I want to remind you that strategic M&A was one of our core strategies in fiscal year 2018 to fulfill our strategic imperative to build out the store. The acquisition of SUPERVALU accelerated our progress towards this strategic objective. The size of our business at over $20 billion in revenue with over 20,000 associates, the importance of a successful integration and capture of synergy means we will be doubling down our entire team's focus on this work. As we'd previously outlined, the strategic rationale that led us to acquire SUPERVALU is: the creation of value driven largely by delivering meaningful cost synergies; increasing our scale, distribution network, and capacity while enhancing and leveraging our core technology and systems; enabling cross-selling through a variety of greater products and services; essentially completing our Build out the Store model with meaningful revenue 3 1-877-FACTSET www.callstreet.com Copyright © 2001-2018 FactSet CallStreet, LLC United Natural Foods, Inc. (UNFI) Corrected Transcript Q1 2019 Earnings Call 06-Dec-2018 synergies; more customers and suppliers across a wider berth of retailers representing all channels, all of which will drive value for UNFI and our stakeholders. Now we're facing several near-term headwinds, which include first, the macroeconomic environmental in retail continues to be challenging, more and more retailers competing for their share of the consumer's dollar, products are now available in more and more outlets including online. We expect to scale the product offering and the services of a combined UNFI to offset this strength, as we start to realize the benefits of the combination. Second, SUPERVALU's performance, where trends have weakened, causing us to reset near-term expectations. This is partly due to the macro trends I just mentioned, as well as accelerated strategic investments made to the distribution network, the integration work at Unified Grocers and Associated Grocers Florida (sic) [Associated Grocers of Florida] (00:07:06), and softer product margins across certain center-store categories. Third, like many distribution companies, we continued to be challenged with higher labor costs and productivity issues related to serving this busy holiday season and the addition of temporary labor where needed. While labor costs will persist in the near term, we are confident that productivity will return to more normalized levels as we train new teams and stabilize volume. Fourth, continued supplier out-of-stocks, which were approximately 80 basis points higher than the first quarter of last year. Our suppliers' ability to fill our demand has continued to be a headwind and is negatively affecting our sales growth. Additionally, supplier promotional spending is also down significantly, driven primarily by very limited price elasticity at retail; and finally, higher acquisition financing costs, which Mike will discuss shortly. These elements are included in our combined company fiscal 2019 guidance, which now includes the