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Text: This is Jim Koch, Founder and Chairman and I'm pleased to kick off the 2020 third quarter earnings call for the Boston Beer Company.
Joining the call from Boston Beer are Dave Burwick, our CEO; and Frank Smalla, our CFO.
We achieved depletions growth of 36% in the third quarter.
We believe that our depletions growth is attributable to our key innovations, quality and strong brands as well as sales execution and support from our distributors.
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, our primary focus continues to be on operating our breweries and our business safely and working hard to meet customer demand.
I'm very proud of the patient, creativity and commitment to community that our company has demonstrated during this pandemic.
We remain positive about our future growth of our brands and are happy that our diversified brand portfolio continues to fuel double-digit growth for the 10th consecutive quarter.
We planned some major innovations to be introduced in 2021 for our brands.
These include Twisted Iced Tea Hard Seltzer, Samuel Adams, Just the Haze, our first non-alcoholic beer, Dogfish Head Scratch-Made Canned Cocktails and Angry Orchard Fruit Cider.
We're confident in our ability to continue to innovate and build strong brands to help support our mission of long-term profitable growth.
I will now pass over to Dave for a more detailed overview of our business.
Before I review our business results, I'll start with the usual disclaimer.
Now, let me share a deeper look at our business performance.
Our depletions growth in the third quarter was a result of increases in our Truly Hard Seltzer and Twisted Tea brands, partly offset by decreases in our Sam Adams, Angry Orchard and Dogfish Head brands.
The growth of the Truly brand, led by Truly Lemonade Hard Seltzer, continues to be very strong and we expect the Truly brand to continue to lead the growth of the business into 2021.
In early 2021, we will launch Truly Iced Tea Hard Seltzer, Truly Extra, a higher ABV version of Truly, and other new Truly flavors and package sizes, as we continue to lead innovation in the hard seltzer category.
We believe that Truly Iced Tea Hard Seltzer, which combines the refreshment of hard seltzer with real brewed tea and fruit flavor at only 100 calories and 1 gram of sugar, will further strengthen our position in the category.
Since early in 2020, Truly has grown its velocity and its market share sequentially despite other national, regional and local hard seltzer brands entering the category.
Truly is the only national hard seltzer, not introduced earlier this year, to grow its share during 2020.
We will continue to invest heavily in the Truly brand and work to improve our position in the hard seltzer category as competition continues to increase.
We will also continue to invest heavily in our Live Truly advertising campaign that showcases, variety, colors and joy to hard seltzer drinkers.
Twisted Tea has benefited greatly from increased at-home consumption and continues to generate consistent double-digit volume growth, even as new entrants have been introduced and competition has increased.
Our Samuel Adams, Angry Orchard and Dogfish Head brands have been most negatively impacted by COVID-19 and the related On-Premise closures, but we are pleased that they all finished the month of September with strong growth in the measured Off-Premise channels compared to last September.
For the remainder of 2020 and into 2021, we plan to build upon our success and work to drive our brands to their full potential, with a particular focus on our Truly brand.
We've adjusted our expectations for 2020 full-year depletions growth and our earnings guidance to reflect our trends for the first nine months and our current view of the remainder of the year, which is primarily driven by the year-to-date performance of Truly.
We are expecting all of our brands to grow in 2021 and are targeting overall volume growth rates to be between 35% and 45%.
We have closely managed our operating costs through the COVID-19 pandemic and achieved our planned cost synergies from the Dogfish Head merger.
In 2021, based on our current spending and volume assumptions, we are planning for the growth rate of our operating expenses to be below our top line growth rate, delivering leverage to our operating income.
We have been operating our breweries at full capacity for many months and, like our competitors, we have had out of stocks during the quarter.
We expect wholesaler inventories to return to normal levels in the fourth quarter, as we recover from our summer seasonal peak.
Improving our supply chain performance continues to be our top priority and we are in the process of doubling our internal and third-party brewery can packaging capacity for 2021.
Our new can line at our Cincinnati Brewery began production late in the third quarter and we have recently added additional third-party brewery sleek can capacity.
As reflected in our 2020 and 2021 capital spending guidance, we will continue to invest heavily to increase capacity as appropriate to meet the needs of our business and take full advantage of the fast-growing hard seltzer category.
However, the increased usage of third-party breweries and an increasing percentage of variety packs in the company's overall product mix come at a higher incremental cost.
As a result, our gross margins and gross margin expectations will be negatively impacted until the volume growth stabilizes.
We began a multi-year supply chain transformation project in 2020 to automate and change internal processes to increase efficiency and reduce costs.
The timing of the benefits of this program will depend on the timing and amount of our future volume growth.
We will continue to prioritize volume delivery over margin optimization in this high-growth environment.
While we are in a very competitive business, we are optimistic for continued growth of our current brand portfolio and innovations and we remain prepared to forsake short-term earnings as we invest to sustain long-term profitable growth, in line with the opportunities that we see.
Based on information in hand, year-to-date depletions reported to the company through the 42 weeks ended October 17, 2020 are estimated to have increased approximately 39% from the comparable weeks in 2019.
Now, Frank, will provide the financial details.
For the third quarter, we reported net income of $80.8 million, an increase of $36 million or 80.6% from the third quarter of 2019.
Earnings per diluted share were $6.51, an increase of $2.86 per diluted share for the third quarter of 2019.
This increase was primarily due to increased revenue driven by higher shipments, partially offset by lower gross margins and higher operating expenses.
Shipment volume was approximately 2.1 million barrels, a 30.5% increase from the third quarter of 2019.
We believe distributor inventory as of September 26, 2020 average approximately 2 weeks on hand and was lower than prior year levels due to depletions outpacing supply constrained shipments.
We expect wholesaler inventory levels in terms of weeks on hand to remain between one and four weeks for the remainder of the year.
Our third quarter 2020 gross margin of 48.8% decreased from the 49.6% margin realized in the third quarter of 2019, primarily as a result of higher processing costs due to increased production at third-party breweries, partially offset by cost saving initiatives at company-owned breweries and price increases.
Third quarter advertising, promotional and selling expenses increased by $11.5 million from the third quarter of 2019, primarily due to increased investments in media and production, increased salaries and benefits costs and increased freight to distributors because of higher volumes.
General and administrative expenses decreased by $1.1 million from the third quarter of 2019, primarily due to non-recurring Dogfish Head transaction-related expenses of $3.6 million incurred in the comparable 13-week period in 2019, partially offset by increases in salaries and benefits costs.
Based on information of which we are currently aware, we are now targeting full-year 2020 earnings per diluted share of between $14 and $15, an increase of the previously communicated estimate of between $11.70 and $12.70.
However, actual results could vary significantly from this target.
This projection excludes the impact of ASU 2016-09.
Full year 2020 depletions growth is now estimated to be between 37% and 42%, an increase and narrowing from the previously communicated estimate of between 27% and 35%.
We project increases in revenue per barrel of between 1% and 2%.
Full year 2020 gross margins are expected to be between 46% and 47% and narrowing down of the previously communicated estimate of between 46% and 48%.
We plan to increase investments in advertising, promotional and selling expenses of between $55 million and $65 million for the full year 2020, a change from the previously communicated estimate of between $70 million and $80 million primarily due to lower selling expenses.
This does not include any increases in freight costs for the shipment of products to our distributors.
We estimate our full-year 2020 non-GAAP effective tax rate to be approximately 26%, which excludes the impact of ASU 2016-09.
We are continuing to evaluate 2020 capital expenditures and currently estimate investments of between $160 million and $190 million, a change from the previously communicated estimate of between $180 million and $200 million.
Most of which relates to continued investments in the company's breweries.
Looking forward to 2021 we are in process of completing our 2021 plan and will provide further detailed guidance when we present our full-year 2020 results.
Based on information of which we are currently aware, we are targeting depletions and shipments percentage increases of between 35% and 45%.
We project increases in revenue per barrel of between 1% and 2%.
Full year 2021 gross margins are expected to be between 46% and 48%.
We plan increased investments in advertising, promotional and selling expenses of between $130 million and $150 million for the full year 2021, not including any changes in freight costs for the shipment of products to our distributors.
We estimate our full-year 2021 non-GAAP effective tax rate to be approximately 26% excluding the impact of ASU 2016-09 line.
We are currently evaluating 2021 capital expenditures and our initial estimates of between $300 million and $400 million, which could be significantly higher if deemed necessary to meet future growth.
We expect that our cash balance of $157.1 million as of September 26, 2020 along with our future operating cash flow and unused line of credit of $150 million will be sufficient to fund future cash requirements.
Since we are in different locations, Dave will be the MC on our side, similar to last time and coordinate the answers.

user
compname posts q3 earnings per share of $6.51.
q3 earnings per share $6.51.
began seeing impact of covid-19 pandemic on its business in early march.
full-year 2020 shipments and depletions growth is now estimated to be between 37% and 42%.
boston beer company -targeting overall volume growth rates in 2021 to be between 35% and 45%.
sees 2021 depletions and shipments percentage increase between 35% and 45%.

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