Newell Brands Inc. (NASDAQ:NWL) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

And then there’s a little bit of other items in there that are kind of mixed related. Those items are only partially offset by the meaningful progression in our programs related to costs takeout. This year will be an all-time high. We actually expect to take out about 6% of COGS through the fuel initiative programs that we have in place. And then there’ll be a little bit of resin held, a little bit more transportation, a little bit of positive FX in the second half of the year. So taking all those elements together, that will take you from roughly $0.95 let’s call it down to $0.30. And then we have a tax benefit that we have contemplated and put in that’s worth roughly $0.15. That brings you to $0.85, which is the midpoint of the new range that we provided of $0.80 to $0.90.

Chris Peterson: And Bill, on the top line, of the three factors I cited, I would say that the student loan repayment and the more conservative stance on discretionary products as the first item, and the direct import to domestic shift are the two biggest of those items. The Buybuy Baby is a little bit smaller relative to the top line guidance change.

Bill Chappell: Got it. Thanks so much.

Operator: Thank you. And our next question coming from the line of Olivia Tong with Raymond James, your line is open.

Olivia Tong: Great. My first question is on gross margin. You gave a lot of detail on the changes to your sales outlook, but hoping to get some color on gross margin, which continue to show some sequential progress. And assuming you continue to see that sequential progress, should we expect it to turn positive in second half? Is that a fair assumption? And if so, could you talk about some of the drivers that better underlying that? Thank you.

Mark Erceg: Yes, thank you. We feel really good about where we are with gross margin right now. If you looked at our first quarter results, gross margin was roughly 27%. And the print that we just issued, gross margin was 29.8%, so meaningful progression. And as we think about the first half versus the second half dynamics, we’re very confident that the second half gross margin will be several hundreds of basis points higher than where we were in the first half, probably 300 to 400. What’s driving that is a fuel productivity program that has been placed for a number of years now. But that program has only increased in its intensity now that we have consolidated the supply chain behind the Phoenix organizational changes. We are literally on pace to take about 6% of COGS out of the gross margin line this year alone, which is quite important, because we’re still dealing with a lot of the after effects of inflation.

Inflation in the first half of the year is probably running around 400 basis points, but negative in the second half, we think it’d be more like 100 basis points of compression because of inflation itself. The other things that we’re doing that we talked about in the past are DC consolidation work where we’re going to be going from effectively call it 1.9 million square feet of space down to maybe 1.5. The network might go from 30 DCs down to something more like 20. We talked about it in the script the fact that we have just recently done a four wall cost assessment that will save on an annualized basis over $50 million by getting after overhead — in plant overhead and indirect operational elements, along with some direct shifting crews. And there’s just a whole range of other things on the [indiscernible] side that we’re also getting after.