Universal Corporation (NYSE:UVV) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Bruce Monrad: Great. And if I could — maybe a little bit further. So big picture, stepping back, we’ve had a couple of years of transport issues and the like. And I think I’m right in saying that your customers, your end customers can have lots of inventory, long cycle life. But would it be unfair to say that there’s sort of clear sailing here, and do you have an indication that they would want to make up for a couple of years’ worth of shipping problems and the like? So if there’s a structural tailwind for you in terms of your customers wanting to rebuild inventories to where they might have been? Would that be fair, or how would you describe that?

Airton Hentschke: No. We don’t see that, and each customer has its own policies on inventory on their durations. What we have seen is that cost of transport and logistics has come substantially down. And again, the demand seems to be strong. So, we don’t see adjustments — big adjustments in their duration policy, no.

Operator: Our next question is a follow-up from Ann Gurkin with Davenport & Company.

Ann Gurkin: I don’t know if you all talked about the refinance bank credit facility, but have you fixed that rate, or is that a variable floating rate on that new facility?

Johan Kroner: We fixed some of it, Ann. Based on where the current rates are and not knowing where the Fed is going with this whole thing, we decided to fix some of it and just wait to see if we do more in the future. But…

Candace Formacek: The details will be in the Q.

Johan Kroner: Correct.

Ann Gurkin: I can’t tell — I couldn’t read it fast enough to see how much is fixed in the Q.

Johan Kroner: Yes. About 50…

Ann Gurkin: Yes. Okay. So rates should go up, interest rate expense should go up in fiscal ’24, depending on what happens.

Johan Kroner: Yes. Again, rates are going up, depending on working capital and all of the borrowings that we require, we certainly have some — of the old hedges were in place, we have some positive there that might offset, but yes, the rates are up certainly and our borrowings certainly were up during the year.

Ann Gurkin: Right. And how should I think of the margin progression for the tobacco segment in fiscal ’24 versus fiscal ’23? Margin was a little bit less than I was looking for this quarter, I think, due to mix, maybe some carryover, you said you wrote down some tobacco. So, I’m not sure how to think about tobacco margin over the next, say, 12 to 18 months for this segment.

Johan Kroner: It’s too early for that, Ann. Brazil just started and hopefully that market remains where it is, and it doesn’t go into the situation where it was last year. But if we get the crops and everything, there certainly is a strong demand, as Airton pointed out. So, we believe it looks all positive. But again, it’s really early. The African crops are in the ground and we’ll have to see. Hopefully, whether we’ll continue to cooperate there. And in some areas, we don’t have it even in the ground yet. So we’ll have to determine what volumes are out there and everything. And hopefully, we can do what we need to do and get the margins that we require. But yes, certainly, this year, we had some of the mix and some of those written down inventories that we moved in the last nine months.

Ann Gurkin: Okay. And then worldwide uncommitted inventory number, Candace?

Candace Formacek: Ann, the worldwide unsold flue-cured and burley stocks are at $47 million at 12/31, which is down $2 million from the June rate level.

Ann Gurkin: Okay. And then with your inventory, you were just saying your inventory level for Universal at 7%. That is low given that you usually keep a little reserve for customers. So, can you walk me through kind of the thought process behind that?