Reynolds Consumer Products Inc. (NASDAQ:REYN) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Lance Mitchell: No, our capital allocation strategy has not changed. We saw a very unique opportunity with this acquisition. This company creates unique and novel raw materials that enhanced performance in postability. They manufacture reusable plant-based products and develop technologies and partnerships in a circular economy, which aligns with our Hefty renewed recycling program and our sustainable product development. So we saw this as a unique opportunity to enhance our research and development opportunities and sustainable products. And as I said, but that doesn’t change. Our primary focus is on delevering.

Mark Astrachan: Got it. And maybe just a related question to that and then the second question. So is there any change in your thinking about how to think about that specific Avenue, the sustainability of what you’re selling? Or is it just part of the core sort of thing? And then the second real question is just how to think about the balance between gross margin expansion, obviously, very good in the quarter. It probably continues to be good reinvestment, which was increased and just the flow-through to adjusted EBITDA.

Lance Mitchell: I’ll answer the first part of the question, I’ll ask you to repeat the second one. So Michael can answer it. But our focus has always been on — and if you look at our ESG scorecard on having sustainable product solutions across our product portfolios. We have a goal to ensure that consumers have a choice of a sustainable product across all of our categories by 2025, and we’re well on our way to achieving that goal. So this is part of developing those sustainable product options for consumers. And could you repeat the second part of your question for Michael?

Mark Astrachan: Yes. It was basically just about thinking about the balance between gross margin expansion, reinvestment and adjusted EBITDA growth.

Michael Graham: Yes. So when you think about our gross margin expansion, we are expecting continued improvement into the future. We do expect additional gross margin expansion driven by the full year of cooking and baking improvements additional mix and revolution cost savings. So that is our expectation going forward. So you should look to see continuation of our expansion to understand. And you — and then the second part of that question was related specifically to what again, can you…

Mark Astrachan: Yes. Just what do you do with that incremental gross profit? How do you think about reinvestment? How do you think about flow-through EBITDA?

Michael Graham: Well, our priority continues to be delevering and pay down debt. Anything beyond that would be dealt with on an opportunistic basis, but — and we’ll continue to invest in this business, but our priority is to pay down debt and delever as we indicated previously.

Operator: Our next question comes from Lauren Lieberman with Barclays. Please proceed with your question.

Lauren Lieberman: One question I had on tableware. You walked through the plans for kind of resuscitating the business and using that the existing playbook that’s worked. But I was wondering if there’s an opportunity to reset profitability or business — product mix within tableware as you’re doing this? So there are segments of that business that are more profitable than others. Sort of is there like a broader kind of reset opportunity within that business as well as you’re putting in this resuscitation plan?

Lance Mitchell: Yes. Without getting into specific details beyond what I said in the prepared remarks, the answer to that question is yes. We have restored profitability across all of the products, which gives us the flexibility to invest in all those actions I talked about, which is features and displays, adjusting counts and increasing advertising and promotional activity.