Kimberly-Clark Corporation (NYSE:KMB) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Nelson Urdaneta: Yes, the short answer, Javier, is yes, it is part. We said that our new chapter started in Q1 of this year, and that’s part of the five years commitment to deliver that. The 120 is part of that and then there’s an element of procurement savings that we’re not disclosing today. We are committed to disclosing the entire savings, including procurement, annually, so that you get a perspective of how we’re tracking against the $3 billion that we committed to.

Javier Escalante: So congratulations on the very early start because I also see that the October — the new organization is starting in October, I thought that it would be something of 2025. So is that all true, right, if savings are coming through earlier, why is it that the guidance and this is the other thing that I get from your transcript, prepared remarks is that revenue realization faster. So you have faster revenue realizations from FOREX, you have faster savings coming from and they’re sizable, $3 billion coming from the restructuring, so I understand that you want to be conservative, but if we take you literally, the numbers for the balance of the year needs to come down. Is that what you want in terms of consensus to look like, very simple?

Mike Hsu: Well, I’ll just start. Javier, I’d say, hey, we’re still early in the year, and we feel really good about our start. We feel very confident in our performance this year. But that said, there’s — as Nelson pointed out in his remarks and in our prepared remarks, there’s still a lot of uncertainty out in the world right now, both in terms of the geopolitical situation and the effects that could have on global demand. But also, as you’ve heard just on the last few questions on the input cost environment. So I probably would say, yes, we’re taking a prudent approach to make on our call. But certainly, encouraged by our start to the year and would love to drive to a very strong result this year. Nelson?

Nelson Urdaneta: Yes. And just to build on Mike’s point, Javier, I mean a couple of things. We’re focused, obviously, on margin trajectory over time. And margins will move quarter-to-quarter. And they have to do with country and category mix, timing of our innovation pipeline, as well as changes in absolute productivity delivery. Productivity delivery is not linear. I mean the timing of when projects come online and how quickly we can realize the benefits, we have an estimate, but again, you got to get them through. We have a full outlook for the year, and that’s embedded there, and we’re very encouraged by how the whole year started, but we have a lot of activities still coming our way, including a very strong innovation pipeline for which we’re going to be putting back money into the business.

We’re going to be stepping up investments at least 50 basis points for the balance of the year. And if we see opportunities to invest more in the business and more in our transformation to accelerate it, we will. So we’re taking all of that into account and also take into consideration the sale of our PPE business, which we’ve built into the forecast, which is about a headwind of $0.08 for the balance of the second half of the year.

Javier Escalante: Well, I will take that as a conservative guidance. Thank you very much, okay.

Mike Hsu: Thank you Javier.

Nelson Urdaneta: Thanks Javier.

Chris Jakubik: Great. Well, thank you everyone for joining us today. For those of you who have follow-up questions, Aishwarya and myself will certainly be available for follow-ups. So thanks again, and we look forward to seeing you going forward.

Operator: Thank you. Everyone, this concludes today’s event. You may disconnect at this time, and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.

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