Coty Inc. (NYSE:COTY) Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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To sum up, I am very proud of the progress made in our sustainability journey in FY 2023 and beyond, and we’ll continue to be guided by our Beauty That Lasts sustainability framework And that brings me tour outlook for fiscal 2024. Before I discuss our guidance, I wanted to take a minute to frame the results we have delivered in the first half and our expectations for the second half. As you know, the overall beauty market has been growing well ahead of historical levels over the last three years, reflecting both the post COVID recovery, but even more so, a strong consumer appetite for beauty, particularly fragrances. We have been consistent in our expectations that these elevated growth levels would not continue indefinitely, and our medium-term assumptions were based on some market growth normalization, amplified by our own outperformance as we capture market share and white space opportunities.

Entering the second half of FY 2024, the beauty market remains a strong and outperforming category, even as the exceptional growth of the past two years normalizes closer to medium term trends. This includes the expected mid-to-high single-digit percentage growth in prestige fragrances, which is still above the historical low-to-mid single-digit percentage growth for the category; and the expected low-to-mid single-digit percentage growth in mass beauty, consistent here again with historical levels. These market growth trends are consistent with our medium-term expectations. And as you can see on this slide, in the second half, we expect our Prestige sell-out to continue to outperform the market, while our like-for-like revenues will see an estimated low-to- mid single-digit percentage headwind due to difficult comparisons last year as retailers restocked their supply in conjunction with improvements in our service levels.

And in Consumer Beauty, we expect sales growth to be broadly in line with the market trends. With this backdrop, let me share our outlook for the second half. We expect plus 6% to plus 8% like-for-like revenue growth in second half of the fiscal 2024 with again outperformance in Prestige. For reported revenues, in the second half, we expect an ForEx headwind to revenues of 1% to 2% and a headwind from the divestiture of the Lacoste license of approximately 2%. On gross margins, the significant easing in inflation should drive strong year-over year improvement to our adjusted gross margins. And we estimate second half adjusted EPS excluding the equity swap of $0.10 to $0.13 For the full fiscal 2024, we continue to expect revenues to grow 9% to 11% like-for-like, in line with previous guidance and supported by outperformance in Prestige.

Fiscal 2024 reported revenues are still expected to include a zero to 2% benefit from ForEx, which we recognized in first half of fiscal 2024, and a 1% to 2% scope headwind for the year from the divestiture of the Lacoste license, concentrated in the second half. We continue to expect modest fiscal 2024 gross margin expansion year-on-year, consistent with our growth algorithm, driven by strong year-on-year improvement in gross margins in the second half as the first half gross margin pressures abate. We continue to target fiscal 2024 adjusted EBITDA margin expansion of 10 to 30 basis points, implying adjusted EBITDA of $1,080 to $1,090 million based on current ForEx rates. We still estimate total fiscal 2024 adjusted EPS, excluding the equity swap, of $0.44 to $0.47, implying strong growth of 16% to 25%.

And we continue to target further reduction in leverage of approximately 2.5 times exiting calendar 2024 and approximately 2 times exiting calendar 2025, fueled by our cash generation and EBITDA expansion. To sum up, the beauty market remains resilient, holding a favored position with consumers all over the world, while also benefiting from ongoing premiumization trends. In this attractive backdrop, we are successfully executing on the strategy we laid out three years ago, with momentum across our core categories, and early wins in the white space opportunities we are pursuing. And we are delivering a best-in-class medium term financial growth algorithm, active deleveraging, and capital returns. In sum, as we celebrate the 120th anniversary of Coty as a beauty pioneer, we are proud of the progress we have made and are energized by the many opportunities in front of us.

Thank you for joining our Prepared Remarks call today. As a reminder, we’ll be hosting a separate question-and-answer session on Thursday, February 8th at 8:15am Eastern Time or 2:15pm Central European Time. We will also be presenting at the CAGNY conference on February 20th in Boca Raton, Florida, and look forward to seeing many of our analysts and investors there. Thank you.

End of Q&A:

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