Noel Wallace: Yeah. Good morning, Mark. Thanks. So North America first. Clearly, we’re trying to get much more balanced investment across North America. We needed to get the P&L, particularly the middle P&L in the right shape, and that was a strategic choice that we made. A strategic choice enabled by, I think, the broadness of health of our business around the world that has allowed us to obviously accelerate the investment in North America as we took more pricing in the market. So we have a strong innovation pipeline. We anticipate that we’ll continue to increase our investment levels. This is not for the short term, this is for the long-term health of that business, which we believe to be a very, very vital market for our success in the future.
And we’ve seen the benefits coming through across our overall consumption. See some — a little softness in the Nielsen tracked channels, I’ll say that our non-tracked channels are growing at 3 to 4 multiple of the tracked channels. So we feel the overall investment in its entirety is proving to grow the consumption and the sales that we need in that marketplace. So long story short, we think we’re in a good position for that. On your Hill’s comment, our focus is in the channels where we compete. And we believe we’re a differentiated unique product that drives the premium nutrition side. Science clearly is the segment that continues to grow, particularly amongst pet specialty. We have no plans to expand distribution in the food drug mass. We believe that would deteriorate the brand and we have very unique distribution policies that require us to be in the channels that we’re in.
And we continue, as I’ve mentioned earlier, to feel we have significant upside in those channels and the brand penetration that I mentioned earlier continues to grow. So in a good place, no intentions on expanding distribution. That being said, as you know, the bulk of our business is done in the US. We will be very selective about market expansion on the Hill’s business, making sure we get the business model right, making sure the vet becomes a core part of that expansion strategy because that would drive long-term sustainable profitability for the business. And so we’ll continue to look for opportunities as we increase the health of that business and the expansion needed in markets around the world.
Operator: The next question comes from Robert Ottenstein with Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.
Robert Ottenstein: Great. Thank you very much. Noel, I was wondering if you can talk about India for a little bit. A lot of the companies that we talk to are very excited about the market and see it increasingly vibrant. So perhaps maybe review your position there, market share trends, if you’re seeing more opportunities and what your plans are? And then just a kind of a housecleaning item for Stan. It looked like there was a $0.07 impact on the other income item under — on other income, but there were some offsets there and some asset sales and a value-added tax refund. If you could kind of just let us better understand exactly what’s going on there. Thank you.
Noel Wallace: Yeah. Thanks, Rob, and good morning. So India, you saw the results this week, very strong results across the board, 9% organic, continued strong pricing and sequentially better volume in that market. I would likewise say we remain very excited and bullish on the market in India. We’ll see the continued return to the rural segment, the vitality of the rural segment, which will bode well for volume as we move — as we look forward. The other aspect, which I won’t get into a lot of specific details, we have some really strong innovation plan for India, particularly around our core businesses. And we’re excited to see that obviously be delivered in the market and executed. The team is doing an exceptional job finding added distribution points to make sure that we continue to capitalize on investment strategy.
So bullish on India, good results and sequentially right where we’d like to see their business today and setting us up for ultimately another strong year in 2024.
Stan Sutula: Hey, Rob, let me pick up on your second questionnaire and other income, other expense. As we talked earlier, that is made up of a number of items, both from this year and last year. And Argentina devaluation is certainly an impact, but not the majority of it. We also have some start-up costs in there, some onetime items from this year and last year. What I would say is that’s not a new run rate. That’s not going to continue into next [year at] (ph) that level. And you should think about these as kind of onetime events in nature. So these change as you go through the year.
Operator: The next question comes from Edward Lewis with Redburn Atlantic. Please go ahead.
Edward Lewis: Yes, thanks very much. Just wanted to talk on Europe. Another quarter of strong pricing this quarter. And looking back, I think it’s 9.5% for 2023 or 4.5% in 2022. So just be really interested to hear how you’re thinking about pricing over here because consistently, I guess, in the past, pricing hasn’t been a big part of the story in Europe. Is this kind of a new kind of attitude we should expect to continue doing sort of more pricing in general coming out of Europe?
Noel Wallace: Yes. Thanks, Ed. Good question. We think we’ve learned a tremendous amount on pricing in Europe and really work closely with our retail partners to find ways to drive value and ultimately their categories. Clearly, a significant inflation over the last six or seven quarters, which certainly helped to take more pricing in the marketplace. But I think our teams have exited ‘23 with more confidence. Now there’s no question as inflation declines in 2024, we’ll get a much more balanced view of pricing and volume moving back into the P&L. But I think some good stories that have allowed us to really accelerate our innovation and drive real value in the categories by relaunching our brands. You heard Jean-Luc talked about that at Deutsche Bank Conference, and I think that continues to be a consistent theme.
So a lot of learning there, not saying it’s going to be a challenge as we move forward to get more pricing in Europe, but we believe we’ve got the tools and the vehicle is to continue to find ways to accelerate category growth and therefore, our margin growth in the business.
Operator: This concludes the Q&A portion of our call. I would now like to return the call to Noel Wallace, Colgate’s Chairman, President and CEO, for any closing remarks.
Noel Wallace: Well, thanks, everyone, for joining the call this morning. We hope you agree that the strategies and plans we have in place to deliver consistent compounded profitable growth to drive value for all of our stakeholders is there. And let me particularly thank all the Colgate employees around the world for their incredible hard work and dedication to deliver these strong results in 2023 and thank them in advance for the results they’re going to continue to deliver in 2024. Thanks, everyone. We’ll see you down in Florida.
Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s call. You may now disconnect.
