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Text: During the call, we will discuss our results for the fourth quarter and fiscal 2021 as well as our outlook for fiscal 2022.
In addition, a slide deck providing detailed financial results for the quarter is also posted on our website.
Despite operating in what remains an incredibly volatile environment, we delivered on our previously provided 2021 outlook for net sales, synergies, adjusted earnings per share and adjusted EBITDA.
2021 was our sixth consecutive year of organic revenue growth behind elevated demand and distribution gains.
This top line growth, combined with synergies we achieved from the Spectrum acquisition and interest expense savings translated into strong adjusted earnings per share and EBITDA growth.
In a few moments John will provide details on the fourth quarter and full year.
However, before he does some key headlines from our fiscal 2021 performance.
For the first time our Company exceeded $3 billion in net sales.
We also maintained top line momentum with organic sales growth of 7.3% including growth of nearly 17% in our auto care business.
Our battery and auto care businesses benefited from elevated demand and distribution gains in North America.
Auto care further benefited from the expansion in our international markets, reaching $100 million in sales in those markets for the full year.
We also delivered synergies of $62 million for the year, resulting in total synergies from the Spectrum acquisition in excess of $130 million, 30% higher than our initial estimate.
And we continue to invest in our brands, resulting in strong brand preference globally.
With more consumers selecting our battery brand, we gained 2.2 share point in the last 12 months.
This performance is a tribute to our team and their resiliency.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have consistently adapted in real-time to ensure business continuity and repositioned Energizer for the future.
The hard work of our global colleagues to produce and deliver products to our customers and consumers in a time of heightened demand and significant disruption has been impressive to witness on a daily basis.
In a moment, I will provide headlines for our 2022 outlook.
However, before I do I want to provide an update on a few key topics that will set the stage for the future.
First, our categories remain healthy and are showing solid growth when compared to pre-pandemic levels and we expect the consumer behaviors supporting that demand will continue for the foreseeable future.
Specifically in batteries, there are two drivers.
Devices owned per household are up mid single digits in the US and an increase in the amount of time those devices are being used.
Consequently, consumers are using more batteries, which has resulted in new buying patterns versus a year ago, including increased purchase frequency and spending per trip.
As a result, on a two-year stack basis without e-commerce, the global battery category has grown by 2.9% in value and 3.7% in volume.
In the near term, we will see the category decline as it did in the three months ending August 2021 where it was down 6.9% in value and 5.3% in volume due to comping elevated demand from a year ago.
However, as we look to the long term, we anticipate the category to experience flat to low single-digit growth, albeit on a higher base as the category has increased in size due to consumers' behavior during the pandemic.
Within the category, our iconic brands remain well positioned.
Our brands outpaced the category, resulting in a 2.2 share point gain versus last year as we increased distribution in the US and internationally with share gains in those markets representing 70% of our total battery revenues.
Turning to the auto care category.
Over the last five years the auto care category has shown consistent growth, a trend that continued in the latest 13 weeks with category value up 3.5% versus year ago and 16.3% versus 2019.
The growth is being driven by consumers continuing the do-it-yourself behaviors established during the pandemic, including higher levels of cleaning and renewed interest in car care as a hobby, a higher number of cars in the car park and an increase in the age of vehicles given the shortage of new vehicles and the recovery in miles driven given the increase in personal travel.
All of this increased US household penetration to nearly 75% with the resulting buy rate that is up 20% as consumers are buying the category more frequently and spending more per trip.
As we look ahead, we anticipate the auto care category will settle in at low single-digit growth once it has cycled through the COVID-related demand.
In the US, we continue to be the market leader in this large and growing category driven by our Armor All brand, which continues to have positive momentum due to the strength of our innovation and brand-building activities.
As I mentioned earlier, our efforts to leverage our geographic footprint and expand our auto care brands internationally are proving successful.
While the categories are showing resilience, the macro environment in which we are operating is volatile, which leads me to the next important topic around operating costs.
Costs related to commodities, transportation and labor, continue to rise.
We saw a significant escalation in these costs during the fourth quarter and we expect these headwinds to continue throughout 2022, resulting in over $140 million of increased input costs versus 2021.
In order to mitigate the impact of these costs, we have executed or planned pricing against roughly 85% of our business.
In addition to raising prices to cover input cost inflation, we have also strategically redefined our battery pricing architecture to reestablish relative value across pack sizes, resulting in a progressive rate increase on larger pack sizes.
Currently, we are exploring the opportunity for additional pricing opportunities across our business.
We expect these pricing actions, improved mix management and cost reduction initiatives to partially offset the impact on our gross margin rate.
As you all know, in addition to the challenges companies are experiencing related to increased costs, the global supply chain network is under pressure from increased demand and pandemic-related disruption.
Earlier this year, we made the decision to proactively build inventory to ensure we have product for the peak battery selling season and upcoming auto care resets.
The change is in response to both the potential for supply disruption we have seen in recent quarters and the higher level of in-transit inventory versus historical levels due to shipping delays and port congestion.
As such, our inventory at the end of fiscal '21 was up 42% versus the prior year.
This action has given us flexibility to avoid disruption and ensure we service our customers as reliably as possible in this environment.
With that backdrop, I'll turn to a high-level overview of our 2022 outlook.
The two headwinds I mentioned earlier, the decline in demand to more normalized level and inflationary cost trends have impacted our outlook.
In fiscal 2022 organic sales will be roughly flat with auto care growth and pricing actions across our businesses, offset by volume declines in battery as we comp prior year elevated demand in the first half of the year.
Despite our cost reduction initiatives and pricing actions, we expect to see gross margin rate erode, given the escalating costs resulting in year-over-year declines in EBITDA and EPS.
Given the macro environment, we are proactively exploring additional options to reduce our costs, enhance our mix as well as evaluate additional pricing to further offset these cost headwinds.
I will provide a more detailed summary of the quarterly financial results and then the highlights for fiscal 2021 before turning to our 2022 outlook.
As a reminder, we have posted a slide deck highlighting our key financial metrics on our website.
For the quarter reported revenue grew 40 basis points with organic revenue down less than 1% versus 6% organic growth in the prior-year quarter.
Robust demand and distribution gains in auto care delivered a 11.5% growth in the quarter, which offset the expected decline in battery.
We expect these difficult comparisons in batteries to continue for the first half of 2022.
Adjusted gross margin decreased 70 basis points to 37.7%.
The combination of $9 million in synergy benefits and the elimination of $19 million of COVID-related costs from the prior year did not fully offset inflationary cost pressures related to commodities, transportation and labor.
In addition category mix impacted our gross margin as our lower margin auto care business achieved significant growth relative to battery in the quarter.
Excluding acquisition and integration costs, SG&A as a percent of net sales was 14.3% versus 15.6% in the prior year.
The absolute dollar decrease of $9.4 million was driven primarily by a reduction in compensation costs.
In the quarter, we realized $9 million in synergies, bringing the total for 2021 to $62 million.
We have delivered over $130 million of synergies related to our battery and auto care acquisitions, well exceeding our initial targets.
Interest expense was $13.4 million lower than the prior-year quarter as we are benefiting from significant refinancing activity over the past 18 months.
During the fourth quarter, we entered into a $75 million accelerated share repurchase program.
Approximately 1.5 million shares were delivered in fiscal 2021 and we expect another 400,000 shares to be delivered in the first quarter of fiscal '22, bringing the total number of shares repurchased under the ASR program to approximately 1.9 million.
Now turning to the highlights for fiscal 2021.
As Mark mentioned, we delivered our full-year 2021 outlook for revenue, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS.
Net sales grew 10.1%, including organic sales up 7.3% as we experienced robust growth in both the Americas and International and across all three product categories, batteries, auto care and lighting products.
Adjusted gross margin was down 100 basis points, as higher input costs were partially offset by synergies and the reduction of COVID-related costs incurred in 2020.
Interest expense, benefiting from significant refinancing activity, decreased $33 million.
Adjusted earnings per share increased 51% to $3.48 as higher sales, synergies and lower interest expense more than offset the higher input costs.
And adjusted EBITDA increased 10%.
At the end of 2021, our net debt was approximately $3.2 billion or 5.1 times net debt to credit defined EBITDA with nearly 85% at fixed interest rates, no near-term maturities and an all-in cost of debt below 4%.
Our adjusted free cash flow for 2021 was $203.5 million.
The decline versus the prior year primarily reflects working capital investments as we proactively invested in incremental inventory given the continued volatility in the global supply network and uncertainty around product sourcing, transportation and labor availability.
Now turning to our fiscal 2022 outlook.
As Mark discussed, our categories remain healthy and are showing solid growth when compared to pre-pandemic levels.
As we enter fiscal 2022, we are benefiting from significant pricing actions.
However, input costs continue to rise.
The outlook we are providing for next year reflects pricing actions that we have executed or planned as well as the assumption that our input costs remain at current levels for the full year.
Organic revenue is expected to be roughly flat with auto care growth and pricing actions across 85% of our businesses, offset by declines in battery as we comp prior year elevated demand in the first two fiscal quarters.
We also expect reported revenue will be negatively impacted by foreign currency headwinds of $20 million to $25 million at current rates.
As we have talked about for the last couple of quarters, input costs including raw materials, labor and transportation costs, are rising rapidly and supply chain networks continue to be stressed.
Last quarter I highlighted the potential for an additional 100 basis points of gross margin headwinds in 2022 if input costs did not improve.
And as of today, the trends have worsened.
While we expect the absolute dollar amount of these rising costs to be offset by the pricing actions and cost reduction efforts that our team has undertaken, we now project gross margin headwinds of approximately 150 basis points, based on current rates and assumptions.
These inflationary cost pressures, combined with the anticipated volume declines in battery in the first half of the year, are expected to result in adjusted earnings per share in the range of $3 to $3.30 and adjusted EBITDA in the range of $560 million to $590 million.
As we look at our capital allocation priorities during this volatile macro environment, we will continue to invest in our businesses and brands for the long term while returning cash to shareholders and paying down debt.
While 2021 was a solid year for Energizer and one that we are proud of, our focus today is on moving forward and working to further mitigate the cost headwinds we are facing while ensuring our products are available to consumers around the world.

user
expect reported revenue will be negatively impacted by foreign currency headwinds of $20 million to $25 million at current rates for fiscal year 2022.
for the fourth fiscal quarter, strong auto care performance drove net sales growth.
sees fy 2022 adjusted earnings per share in range of $3.00 to $3.30.
sees 2022 organic revenue to be roughly flat.
energizer holdings - current operating environment remains very volatile.
will remain focused on offsetting headwinds through additional pricing and cost reduction opportunities in fiscal 2022.

assistant