Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Kaumil Gajrawala with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.
Kaumil Gajrawala: Hi, guys. Good morning. You’re depleting — right now, you had a run rate of about 8%, or I guess you did 8% for the quarter. There’s expectations for some pretty good shelf space gain in April. Could you give some context on what that might mean for a tick-up in depletion?
Bill Newlands: Well, here’s what I’d say about that. As we said earlier, we were very pleased with the 8.2% that we got in the quarter, and we finished November very, very strong. And certainly, we were up, as you would have expected, that strong performance in late November continued into December. So we’re very excited about our ability to continue to see exceptional depletions as we move into this calendar year and soon into the new fiscal year. The important thing to me is we continue to gain share. Our two share point gains that you saw in the overall category, nearly three in the high end, continue to be industry leading and are frankly an acceleration of what our share gains had been earlier in the year. So we’re very comfortable again, 79% top line driven by mid-plus single-digit growth profile, which we’ve said we see the runway on that for a long time to come.
And certainly this quarter and certainly our expectations for the rest of the year are consistent with that.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Bryan Spillane with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.
Bryan Spillane: Thanks, Operator. Good morning, everyone. I wanted to go back, Bill, and just ask a bit about the management transition in Wine & Spirits. And I guess, a, what are you looking for? Like, what are the attributes or the skill set that you think is needed? And then if you could just maybe separate how much of the focus on wine or how much of the improvement path is going to be dependent on uncontrollable? So just the category improving and how much of it is, you think, things that are controllable, things that — execution elements or things that the Constellation can do to improve?
Bill Newlands: Sure, thanks for the question, Brian. I’d say this, our transformation of that business is largely complete. As we’ve said now a number of times, it’s a very different business than what it was several years ago, even though we still have a fair amount of business in the lower end of the business. What I would say is this. We will be focused on an individual who can bring great operating efficiencies and execution in the marketplace. We think it’s critically important that we improve our wholesale performance in the United States, and we think there’s going to be continuing opportunities for us to perform very well in DTC and international channels as we have developed that business over the last couple of years.
All of those things, I would argue, are well within our control. A lot of work is being done on the mainstream portion of the business, particularly on SVEDKA and Woodbridge to enhance the performance of those businesses. I think that you will start to see that play out in the new fiscal year. And we believe that — we believe some of the softening that’s occurred in the overall business is transitory and will come back our way, given the real strength that we’ve seen in our higher-end business like Meiomi and Kim Crawford and the Prisoner and Mi Campo and things of that nature. So I’m always of the belief that a significant portion of your results are really within your control and we’re going to focus on those critical factors that improve our business performance as we head into the new fiscal year.
Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Nadine Sarwat with Bernstein. Please proceed with your question.
Nadine Sarwat: Hi everybody, thank you for taking my questions. A two-parter for me. First, you obviously have posted really good beer depletions this quarter, but looking at 2023 for the overall industry, US beer has been weaker than the historical plus or minus 1% that we’ve seen over the last decade. I’d love to hear your thoughts in your experience why you think that is. Any key takeaways to share on the health of the consumer? And what would you expect to see for the industry as a whole in ‘24? And then finally, just to come back to Wine & Spirits again, good to hear you reiterating that medium-term growth algorithm you disclosed at the Investor Day. But would it be possible for you to share more details as to how — where that conviction and achieving that is given the guidance kept today, any building blocks.
I appreciate the initiatives you mentioned, but clearly the gap between the guidance for this fiscal year and that medium growth algo is quite big now. So any color would be appreciated. Thank you.
Bill Newlands: Sure. So let’s start with the overall beer market. One of the things that we’ve seen and it’s accelerated a bit is the separation between the low end and the high end in the beer market. The high end continues to be where the strength is and we continue to be the leader in the high end, gaining almost 3 share points in the most recent period. Part of that is driven, I think, by a couple of things. One is we have such a strong base with the Hispanic consumer where beer remains a critical part of their consumption pattern. Our brands have great brand loyalty. And again, that’s very valuable to us as time goes forward. But one of the things that we also noted, let’s take the light beer category. While there’s been a lot of movement within that category within brands, the overall sector is not overly healthy.
