AHODF - Koninklijke Ahold Delhaize N.V. (ADRNY) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

2024-05-08 19:02:10 ET

Koninklijke Ahold Delhaize N.V. (ADRNY)

Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call

May 08, 2024 4:00 AM ET

Company Participants

JP O'Meara – Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations

Frans Muller – President and Chief Executive Officer

Jolanda Poots-Bijl – Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Sreedhar Mahamkali – UBS

James Anstead – Barclays

Izabel Dobreva – Morgan Stanley

Clement Genelot – Bryan Garnier & Co.

Robert Jan Vos – ABN-AMRO ODDO BHF

Michiel Declercq – KBC Securities

Frederick Wild – Jefferies

Emmanuelle Vigneron – HSBC

Fernand de Boer – Degroof Petercam

François Digard – Kepler Cheuvreux

Presentation

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, and welcome to the Analyst Conference Call on the First Quarter 2024 Results of Ahold Delhaize. Please note that this call is being webcast and recorded. Please note that in today's call, forward-looking statements may be made or statements other than statements of historical facts may be forward-looking statements. Such statements may involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results, performance or events to differ materially from those included in the statements. Such risks and uncertainties are discussed in the interim report first quarter 2024 and also in Ahold Delhaize's public filings and other disclosures. Ahold Delhaize disclosures are available on aholddelhaize.com.

Forward-looking statements reflect the current views of our Ahold Delhaize's management and assumptions based on information currently available to Ahold Delhaize's management. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made and Ahold Delhaize does not assume any obligation to update such statements, except as required by law. The introduction will be followed by a Q&A session and it is expressed by those asking questions or not necessarily the views of Ahold Delhaize.

At this time, I would like to hand the call over to JP O'Meara, Senior Vice President, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, JP.

JP O'Meara

Thank you very much, Sharon, and good morning, everybody. I'm delighted to welcome you today to our Q1 2024 results conference call. On today's call are Frans Muller, our President and CEO; and Jolanda Poots-Bijl, our CFO. After a brief presentation, we will open the call for questions. In case you haven't seen it, the earnings release and the accompanying presentation slides can be accessed through the Investors section of our website aholddelhaize.com, which also provides extra disclosures and details for your convenience. As always, and to ensure everyone has the opportunity to get their questions answered today, I ask that you initially limit yourself to two questions. If you have further questions, then feel free to reenter the queue. And to ensure ease of speaking, all growth rates mentioned in today's prepared remarks will be at constant exchange rates unless otherwise stated.

With that, I hand the call over to Frans.

Frans Muller

Thank you, JP, and good morning, everyone. I'm pleased to report a stable first quarter, placing us well on track to reach our goals and aspirations for the full year. 2024 is an important year for our company as we pivot to our refreshed strategy, which are very much looking forward to unveiling in two weeks time. As we tee up for this next phase of our journey, we are working hard to ensure we are fit and ready to transition to a more robust growth profile. On that front, three areas in particular drive much of our operational agenda for this year. First of all, our relentless focus on the customer, our price positioning and assortments and leveraging the strength of our great local brands. Secondly, further, the simplification of our organization to sustain growth investments and drive innovation and as always continue to be laser focused on cost control and cash flow delivery. So let me briefly step into the first two of those, and Jolanda will cover the third as we reflect on the first quarter.

Although inflation is stabilizing in our markets, the price value equation continues to be of utmost importance to our customers as household budgets remain tight. Therefore, our brands have been very active, delivering great value, quality and savings to customers, creatively using the full spectrum of our brand assortments and omnichannel toolkits. In the U.S., one example of this is at Giant Food, which has lowered prices on hundreds of its private label items and has expanded its flexible rewards loyalty program to include double points on Giant brand items purchased....

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