WWW - Wolverine World Wide Inc. (WWW) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

2024-05-08 14:50:07 ET

Wolverine World Wide, Inc. (WWW)

Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call

May 08, 2024 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Alex Wiseman – Vice President-Finance

Chris Hufnagel – President and Chief Executive Officer

Mike Stornant – Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Mitch Kummetz – Seaport Research

Laurent Vasilescu – BNP Paribas

Sam Poser – William's Trading

Jonathan Komp – Baird

Mauricio Serna – UBS

Dana Telsey – Telsey Group

Ashley Owens – KeyBanc Capital Markets

Presentation

Operator

Good day and welcome to the Wolverine World Wide, Inc. First Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. All participants will be in the listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] After today’s presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Alex Wiseman, Vice President of Finance. Please go ahead.

Alex Wiseman

Good morning, and welcome to our first quarter fiscal 2024 conference call. On the call today are Chris Hufnagel, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Mike Stornant, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Earlier this morning, we issued our earnings press release and announced our financial results for the first quarter 2024. The press release is available on many news sites and can be viewed on our corporate website at wolverineworldwide.com.

This morning’s earnings press release and comments made during today’s earnings call include non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP financial measures were reconciled to most comparable GAAP financial measures and attached tables within the body of the release.

References made regarding financial results and outlook for 2024 and comparable results from 2023 in each case for our ongoing business exclude the impact of Keds, Wolverine Leathers and Sperry.

I’d like to also remind you that statements describing the company’s expectations, plans, predictions and projections such as those regarding the company’s outlook for fiscal year 2024, growth opportunities and trends expected to affect the company’s future performance made during today’s conference call are forward-looking statements under U.S. securities laws. As a result, we must caution you that there are a number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. These important risk factors are identified in the company’s SEC filings and in our press releases.

With that being said, I’d now like to turn the call over to Chris Hufnagel.

Chris Hufnagel

Thanks, Alex. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today’s call. I’m pleased to report we continue to make progress against our aggressive plan to turn around and transform Wolverine World Wide. Executing our plan with tremendous pace to first stabilize the company, set new foundation for return to growth and ultimately deliver greater returns for our shareholders.

Importantly, we were doing what we said we would do. In the first quarter, we exceeded revenue expectations with a balanced performance across the portfolio led by beats to our plan for Merrell and Saucony. We exceeded earnings expectations while simultaneously investing more than we initially planned in brand marketing to capitalize momentum we’re seeing in the business today and to help build brand equity for the future. And we continue to strengthen the company’s balance sheet, which we remain intently focused on by further reducing our debt and inventory levels more than we anticipated going into the quarter, a good start to an important year for the company....

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