Conagra Brands, Inc. (NYSE:CAG) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Alexia Howard: Great. Thank you very much. That’s very helpful. And just as a quick follow-up. Your leverage is obviously coming down. It’s expected to come down further. Appetite for additional M&A and what parts of the portfolio you might be focused on for that? And I’ll pass it on.

Sean Connolly: Yeah. Let me say this first because I never want our investors to misunderstand this. We always follow kind of a balanced approach to capital allocation. But we’ve said now for some time, and I’ll continue to say it, our top priority is de-levering. The importance of having a clean balance sheet in the current strained external macro environment is very important to our investors, our ratings agencies, and that is our top priority. When the time comes that we’ve got our balance sheet where we want it to be, M&A has always been part of it. We’ve always said there are two kinds of big picture M&A. There’s big synergistic acquisitions that rarely come along once in a blue moon, and then there are bolt-on more growthy smaller acquisitions, they tend to happen more frequently.

So we’ll always, over the long term, keep an eye on both of those things. But right now, our focus is on continuing to pay down debt. And then when we get to the time when we can add something to the portfolio, odds are it would be in our key strategic domains of frozen and snacks.

Alexia Howard: Perfect. Thank you very much. I’ll pass it on.

Sean Connolly: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. This concludes our question-and-answer session. I’d like to turn the conference back over to Melissa Napier for closing remarks.

Melissa Napier: Thank you, everyone, for joining us this morning. Investor Relations is available if anyone has any follow-up questions. Have a great day.

Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.