Petco Health and Wellness Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:WOOF) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

We have over 0.5 million Vital Care members and we’re growing penetration with the higher spending millennials in midyears, all that is good. While Q4 adds were below orders, it was primarily driven by churn amongst lower spending customers. But we’re also not going to sit on that, we’ve enhanced our OPP offerings, profitable OPP offerings, and we’ll continue to do that and then get those customers into loyalty programs. So we’re focused on it and continuing to add, as I said, we’ve had 16 quarters of net adds.

Brian LaRose: Yes, let me take the second one, Oli, in terms of debt, I’m not going to comment on any kind of target today in terms of ratio. We would expect to update on the future Analyst Day, the way we’d expect to do in the coming month. We did a couple of things this quarter, we put callers in place, which combined with the caps that we did last quarter significantly. And also allows us to capture the length of an interest rate. We’ve paid $35 million down on our principal debt last week and then we would target for the year of $100 million won’t get into a specific we’re committed to deleveraging.

Operator: Our next question comes from Elizabeth Suzuki from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Elizabeth Suzuki: Great. Thank you. Could you just elaborate a little bit on what some of the principal drivers were the better-than-expected free cash flow? And then your expectations for 2023?

Brian LaRose: Yes. Let me start by saying the right way to think about €˜23 as higher free cash flow in 2022. In terms of the drivers (ph) we’ve been talking a while for a while now about opportunities in working capital. I think the team did an exceptional job this quarter in managing inventory. If you look at our overall operating management, in stocks were up tangibly at the same time, inventory on balance sheet was down in dollars and more meaningfully down in unit. So we managed our in-stocks better, we managed our balance sheet better. There’s more opportunity for us in terms of working capital and that’s what translates to expectations of higher free cash flow in 2023.

Elizabeth Suzuki: Great. Thank you.

Ron Coughlin: Thanks, Liz.

Operator: Our next question comes from Corey Grady from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Corey Grady: Hey, thanks for taking my question. I was wondering if you can provide a little bit more color on what you’re seeing in the vet labor market. You’ve been very successful at hiring vets this year. So curious how you’re seeing that market evolve in Q4 and into Q1? Thanks.

Brian LaRose: Thanks for the question, Corey. In a nutshell, we’re very pleased with our performance to-date. That market, while it remains tight, we’re very pleased with our ability to bring in high quality vets into our network. We brought in a record 1,100 vets into our ecosystem 40% more vets in Q4 than the prior year and our time to fill and our attention are above industry benchmarks. Clear that our strategy is working, it’s clear that our value proposition is working, whether you look at we allow vets to practice medicine as they see fit, we provide vets with stock, there’s a lot of unique attributes of our offering that just is ahead of what competitors are offering. We’ve also established a strategic pipeline with our Vet Tech program, which is one of my personal favorites.

What that means is if you’re a center store partner of Petco, and you have interest in being a Vet Tech, we’ll send you to Vet Tech school, and you’ll be a feeder into our system. And the Vet Tech market is tight as well, and actually, our first graduates are going to happen in 2023, and I’m really excited about that. So net-net is a tight market, but we’re outperforming in a tight market.