HP Inc. (NYSE:HPQ) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

So really very solid return. And on top of that, this will also help us to continue to invest in our growth businesses. We think that it is important that as we go through a challenging marketing conditions during the next quarter, we continue to invest in the future businesses of the company, and this transformation is going to enable us to do that going forward.

Erik Woodring : Okay. And then maybe Marie, this one would be for you. Net debt is up a little $4 billion to $5 billion year-over-year. Obviously, Poly had an impact on that. Your gross leverage is creeping towards the higher end of your 1.5x to 2x range — target range. And so would you be willing to go over 2x temporarily? I mean the math says, you could technically get over 2x over the next 12 months. So are you willing to let leverage get over 2x? And/or why not try to work down some of that just given the more uncertain macro backdrop, rising interest rates, et cetera?

Marie Myers : Yes. No worries. No, we’re very much committed to the strategy. I think we’ve articulated of staying inside our range. So absolutely, we’ll continue to execute against our strategy.

Enrique Lores : We think that the world is, as we have said, very volatile and having a strong balance sheet is really important. So this is why we will stay below 2, keeping investment-grade rating is critical for many of our big deals with large corporations. So this is one of the big reasons why we want to stay there. And if everything we will deliver, we are not planning to go beyond the range.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Wamsi Mohan with Bank of America.

Ruplu Bhattacharya : It’s Ruplu filling in for Wamsi today. I have two questions. Enrique, one on PCs and one on print. In the prepared remarks, with respect to Personal Systems, you said that you’re not happy with the share performance. It looks like HP lost some share, both sequentially and year-on-year. But I’m sure you’ve already done in this quarter what other companies are doing, which is reducing price. And with the inventory — channel inventory remaining high for half of fiscal ’23, can you talk about your strategy in Personal Systems. How do you think you can gain share? And what are some of the things that — you talked about execution. So what are some of the things you can do better to gain share in this year?

Enrique Lores : Sure. As we have explained in the past, our strategy and our goal is profitable growth is not to gain share for the sake of gaining share. And therefore, we are very judicious and very careful as we look at deals in different geographies, different segments to make sure that the deals make financial sense for us. This quarter, we saw very aggressive pricing in many countries in the world, especially in the Consumer segment, especially EMEA. And in many cases, we decided not to participate. But we also know that to maintain a strong leadership position in this market, we need to regain share. And this is — and we think that the cost reduction activities that we have been working on for some time are going to be part of the Future Ready plan, are going to help us to be more competitive and help us to win share during 2023, which is our goal. And that’s really the key — this will be the key driver of the share growth that we expect to have.