The Procter & Gamble Company
Q3 2016 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 26 Apr 2016

[Operator:]

Good morning and welcome to Procter & Gamble's quarter end conference call. P&G would like to remind you that today's discussion will include a number of forward-looking statements. If you will refer to P&G's most recent 10-K, 10-Q, and 8-K reports, you will see a discussion of factors that could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from these projections. Also, as required by Regulation G, Procter & Gamble needs to make you aware that during the discussion, the company will make a number of references to non-GAAP and other financial measures. Procter & Gamble believes these measures provide investors with valuable information on the underlying growth trends of the business, and has posted on its website, www.PG.com, a full reconciliation of non-GAAP and other financial measures. Now I will turn the call over to P&G's Chief Financial Officer, Jon Moeller.

[Jon Moeller:]

Thanks and good morning. As David Taylor said on the press release we issued earlier this morning, we continue to make progress on the transformation we are making to return P&G's results to a balance of strong top line growth, bottom line growth, and cash generation. We achieved a significant milestone this quarter in the transformation of the product portfolio with the exit of batteries business. We delivered another strong quarter of productivity improvement and cost savings. And we increased investments in innovation, advertising, and selling capacity to enhance our long-term prospects for faster, sustainable top line growth and value creation. We do continue to operate in a challenging and volatile macro environment. Market growth rates on both a volume and value basis have decelerated, due mainly to slower growth in developing markets. We entered the year expecting the market to grow close to 3% to 4% globally. We now expect 3%. There are more flashpoints across the globe than at any time in recent memory, with significant economic and political instability impacting incomes and consumption in many large and important markets

[Operator:]

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Olivia Tong from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

[Olivia Tong:]

Good morning, thanks. Jon, you mentioned that advertising was up 120 basis points, and it's been a while since we've seen an increase of this magnitude on the ad line. So is this a level we should expect going forward, or does it still move materially from here? And then price overall came in, so how much of that was incremental promotion, step up in sampling that you're doing, and things like that? Perhaps you can break out what the impact of price was between developed and developing markets, if you could help us out there. And then just lastly, you tightened the core EPS range, as you mentioned. But given that there's just one quarter left in the year, you left the full-year organic sales target unchanged, which obviously implies an incredibly wide range for Q4. So maybe can you refine your expectations a bit there and the main factors that impact where you fall within that range? Thanks a bunch.

[Jon Moeller:]

First of all, congratulations, Olivia, on the birth of your child, and welcome back to work. You're coming back strong with four questions in one, but it's great to have you back. In terms of the advertising rates, we were up about I think 130 basis points in the quarter. We expect to be up about 140 basis points on the second half, so there will be some sequential strengthening of that comparison as we move forward. I tried to say eight or nine times in our prepared remarks that we will be investing to grow our top line. We'll be funding that with productivity and bringing to the bottom line with it. There has not been a significant increase in the percentage our business being sold on promotion, nor has there been a significant increase in the depth of those promotions. We have in several markets used sales deducts as a way to adjust pricing back to competitive levels where we took more of a price increase than our competitors ultimately did, so you see that impact. And I would just think about price adjustment and value gap closures as being the explanation for the change in the price component of the top line. And as for fourth quarter guidance, we just provided it. It is what it is. And I think that the range, you rightly point out, is a wide one. That's the reality of the world that we're operating in, with very significant volatility, whether it's input costs, FX, geopolitical and geo-economic dynamics, and the consumer impacts of things like oil prices. And we're going to be living with that volatility for the foreseeable future.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Steve Powers with UBS.

[Stephen Powers:]

Great, thanks. Hey, Jon, I think you called out $18 billion in gross-to-net spending, which is close to 27% – 28% of your expected net revenues this year. And so first, can you just confirm that I heard that right? Second, assuming that I did, can you just talk about how that spending rate compares to maybe five or 10 years ago because I think it's up significantly? And then third, I'm curious how you assess the ROI on that spending. And as you optimize it going forward, how much opportunity do you see to reduce it? And then of that reduction, how much is likely to get reinvested elsewhere in the P&L as we think about the next several years? Thanks.

[Jon Moeller:]

So yes, Steve, you got the number right, it's $18 billion. Yes, it has increased over time, driven in part by expansion of modern retailers on a global basis, who have brought that business model with them to other parts of the world that previously were, for example, largely a distributor and wholesaler in markets. There is significant opportunity within that bucket of spend to first and foremost increase its effectiveness, ensuring that we're spending it in ways that drive category growth on a sustainable basis as opposed to short-term pantry loading, for example; shifting spending to our best product offerings, to increase the trial and repurchase rates of those items with consumers, again, not driving so much in some cases the lower end of the portfolio; the vehicles that we use to communicate in store and how those are constructed and utilized in conjunction with our retail partners. So there are just massive opportunities to improve the effectiveness of that spend as we work to reaccelerate the top line growth. There are also efficiency opportunities. And this is one of those unique and wonderful costs, if there is such a thing, where if you're able to reduce it, benefits both the top line and the bottom line. But we'll be very judicious as we do that. Again, really wanting where we have opportunities to shift that from ineffective spend to effective spend is the primary activity in this space. But I'm convinced within an $18 billion spend pool, we have efficiency opportunities.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Bill Schmitz with Deutsche Bank.

[William Schmitz:]

Hi, Jon. Good morning.

[Jon Moeller:]

Hi. Good morning, Bill.

[William Schmitz:]

Can you just give us some more color on the reinvestment strategy? So you talked about the increases this quarter and next quarter. But how long will the advertising restoration period last? Where are you going to focus? I think you talked about hair care, laundry, and diapers to start. And then what you trying to achieve? Because I think maybe the last two or three years you said market share is not a primary driver of the business. It's really about growing the categories profitably. But does that change as you feel more pressure to close the gap in organic growth versus your peers? Frankly, I think the scoreboard you have is organic growth, right? And so I think that's obviously really important. And then really quickly, just a housekeeping item; I know you don't have the exact numbers. But can you give us a rough cut at what you think the earnings upside is from both the Duracell and the Coty divestitures?

[Jon Moeller:]

You asked a very important question, Bill. How do we think about top line growth and what are we trying to achieve there, and how do you think about the different metrics, whether it's category growth, organic sales, or market share? First and foremost, we need to accelerate our top line growth rate, and there's no debate about that. The reason that we've talked a little bit about not following share out the window, we can be gaining shares in categories that are declining, and that's not going to grow our top line. What we need to be doing as innovation leaders in our categories is getting the market growing through that innovation and gaining a share of that growth. That's exactly what we're doing in Fabric Care in the U.S., for example. And it's taken a while, but it's worked extremely well. And the category is growing 4%. We're getting a disproportionate part of that growth. And that's what we are looking to do across our product categories. So it's bringing innovation to the market, which grows categories for the industry, for our retail partners, and allows us to gain a little bit of share in the process. And look, we need to be growing at the rate of the market or better, but market growth is an important element of that in terms of how attractive that growth ultimately ends up being. So it's all of the above. In terms of earnings per share upside from Duracell and Coty, I think we've talked before that we plan to be non-dilutive from day one. We've been working for two years on the stranded overheads that are going to be created as a result of this. And we also expect that the portfolio that we're going to be left with is a healthier, stronger portfolio that will grow and will grow more profitably.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Lauren Lieberman with Barclays.

[Lauren Lieberman:]

Thanks, good morning. I'm not sure if you fully answered what Bill had referenced in terms of the reset on advertising spending, so I'm guessing he's still looking for some color on thoughts around reinvestment and maybe extending beyond just it being about advertising, but also the investments in product quality and packaging and timeline for that. I also wanted to get color on your comments on consumer value investments, particularly in Gillette in the U.S. and Baby in the U.S. Just in Luvs, I wonder about how you think about Luvs pricing versus private label and positioning. And then for Gillette, it seemed like you were talking about the lower end of where you compete in the shaving category. But anything else you can share there would be great. Thank you.

[Jon Moeller:]

Thanks for the save for Bill there, Lauren. Sorry, I did miss that. As I said in the earlier remarks, we're reinvesting in not just advertising. I went through three examples of sampling to generate trial, getting our best products in the hands of consumers. That's a significant portion of investment. I mentioned as well expanding our sales capacity. That's happening across some of the newer channels, but also in our existing channels, dedicating sales coverage to individual categories and sectors, which has required and will require some investment. So it's broad-based. You mentioned package. There are clear opportunities to continue to improve our first moment of truth, which is a lot about the package, and we'll continue to do that as well. In terms of specific numbers for next year across those buckets, we're in the early stages of putting our plan together for next year, but our intent is clear, I think. And as I said, we'll continue to work to fund those investments through continued productivity savings as well. On value equation, there's really no change here in terms of our intent to be competitive across price tiers on big businesses that matter and big markets that matter. And clearly that involves Grooming in the U.S. You mentioned Baby in the U.S. I'm not going to get into specifics about the pricing moves that will be made. I'm not allowed to do that by law. But we'll be competitive. I don't think – in fact, I'll leave it there.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of John Faucher with JPMorgan.

[John Faucher:]

Thanks. Jon, you mentioned improvement in profitability, I think it was in India, over the past several years, mostly coming from I think improved manufacturing logistics in local markets. Can you talk about the state of that process? And are there still markets in emerging markets where you're losing money where you could benefit from moving that? And then I guess on the flip side of that, volumes have been weak generally. And so how do you deal with some of the stranded manufacturing capacity in some of the major markets where you've been producing this product, and is that a piece of the productivity we've been seeing for the past couple of years? And then how long do you think it takes to get to a more sustainable operating margin in some of these emerging markets on a broader basis? Thanks.

[Jon Moeller:]

On the broad question of developing market margins and steady states, I can't answer that without getting into, unfortunately, FX. The answer to the question involves what happens to foreign exchange rates going forward. For perspective, we've been growing constant currency earnings in developing markets well ahead of constant currency sales, going back three years ago 2x, the year after that 4x, last year 8x, this year 8x. And that reflects the things that you're describing in terms of the supply chain. It also reflects the overall productivity program and its benefits in the developing market, and it reflects a lot of work that we've been doing on our portfolio, as I described in our earlier commentary. The biggest driver of the really nice profit improvement in India has been that portfolio work. So it's all of that. In terms of volume and the impact that it's had on our fixed cost rates, if you will, in the supply chain, it's definitely had an impact. The good news is that we're right in the middle of the supply transformation, and that's going to be multi-geography in nature. So that gives us an opportunity, where we need to, to rationalize that fixed cost infrastructure. At the same time, hopefully the main benefit going forward in terms of that is reacceleration of volume and sales.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Nik Modi with RBC Capital Markets.

[Nik Modi:]

Thanks. Jon, can you provide some context on where within the P&G organization are the pricing decisions made? And have those decisions changed, or are you planning to change who dictates local market pricing for new innovation and the core portfolio? Any context on that would be helpful.

[Jon Moeller:]

So there are two forms of pricing decisions, if you think about it. One is what I'll call strategic pricing choices. That's the establishment of the pricing strategy, the price corridors you want to hold between markets, the price corridors you want to hold between competitors, whether they be branded or retail competitors. And those choices are made by our global business units, who have representation in both regions and countries, more representation in regions and countries than at the global headquarters. These are people who are very close to what's happening in the marketplace in terms of consumption, in terms of trade customers, in terms of competitors and consumers. And then there are tactical adjustments that occur on a routine basis as each day and week unfolds. And we're trying to give more flexibility to resources located closer to the action, to manipulate – or to move agilely there as they need to. So we're going to hopefully achieve the best of both, and we'll see how that works going forward.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Wendy Nicholson with Citi Research.

[Wendy Nicholson:]

Hi, good morning, two questions. First of all, can you talk a little bit more about China? I know you said that your business is showing some signs of improvement, down not as much given some of the premium price innovation you're doing. But how confident are you in the strategy of pursuing what sounds like almost exclusively premium price innovation? Because it does sound like from some of the other competitors out there that there is also price-based competition going on in some of your big markets. So if you can talk about China more broadly and the strategy there, that would be great. And then my second question has to do with your comment that I think we've heard. I think we heard it from Bob McDonald a few years ago that P&G was increasingly open to hiring from the outside. And I know we've had certain partnerships in R&D stuff. But in terms of actual physical new hires, outside of legal and tax and HR, I can't think of anybody on the business side who you actually have brought in from outside. So given that you've been saying that for so long, are there particular areas where you think that that is a priority? Is it marketing? Is it something in specific businesses? And why say it for so many years and then not have it actually happen? Thanks.

[Jon Moeller:]

So first on China, I'm glad you asked the question you did, Wendy. That big middle of the portfolio is very important, and we're not losing sight of that. We have fantastic positions in that portion of the market which we intend to maintain and build. But we also want to take advantage of the higher growth portion of the market, which is currently the premium tiers. Fifty percent of consumption is currently in those tiers across our categories. They're growing at high single to double-digit rates. And we obviously want to participate in that, not only for the sales and volume benefit, but also for the equity halo that it provides to our brands. So it is clearly an "and" strategy, not an "or" strategy. Your question on our approach to bringing in talent from outside the organization, I think David was very clear about that at CAGNY that we are going to maintain broadly our promote from within and develop from within, most importantly, program. But we are going to put the right people, the best people in jobs across the organization. And when that requires that we go outside, we'll do that. We have, for example, hired a number of experienced salespeople. I mentioned building our sales capacity. As we're dedicating selling organizations to categories and sectors, there are cases where we can find more experience outside the company, people who have had 10 years' experience in a category where we may be underrepresented, and we're bringing those people in. The whole area of digital marketing and media, where we need resources, we're either partnering with agencies who have that capability. In some cases, we're bringing it in. I don't think that's limited to any portion of the organization. That includes line management. But we're going to approach this deliberately. Having someone come in just for the sake of having them come in and being able to say that we're making progress there is obviously not something that interests us very much. But having the right people in the right jobs, bringing mastery to help us win across the board, we're definitely committed to.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Dara Mohsenian, Morgan Stanley.

[Dara Mohsenian:]

Hi, good morning.

[Jon Moeller:]

Hi, Dara.

[Dara Mohsenian:]

Jon, as you look out to fiscal 2017, are you expecting to be able to recover some of the net negative historical gap between FX and pricing from the last couple of years through pricing? Or with the lower commodities and at least less onerous FX, is pricing not expected to be a large factor next year? And then also, I was just hoping for some commentary on if you're confident that you'll see an equivalent level of volume rebound going forward as the overall level of pricing decelerates. Thanks.

[Jon Moeller:]

Thanks, Dara. I would expect pricing to be less of a dynamic next year than it has been the last two years, simply because at current spot rates FX would be less of a dynamic next year than it has been the last two years. I also mentioned that in some cases where we've had large gaps emerge, we'll be working to close those. But we're still seeing significant devaluation in some markets. There are still situations where we're going to be taking additional pricing where we feel that that will be matched. So it will continue to be a dynamic, but a little bit less going forward. On the volume piece, I certainly don't have a crystal ball. But if I look at what's happened historically, that volume has come back over time. Sometimes it depends on the market, but volume reacceleration in markets like Latin America has been fairly quick. In other markets, for example, Russia, the last crisis it took us three years to get back from a volume standpoint. So we'll have to see.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Bill Chappell with SunTrust.

[William Chappell:]

Thanks, good morning, just two things. One, on the U.S. shaving business, can you give us a little more color? It's a focus area, both the U.S. and shaving. You've had new innovation. But do you see signs that as we move through the quarter, as we move into next year that the growth dynamics can change and maybe follow more like laundry? And then also maybe for a bigger question, I understand that next year is still a transition year and you're stepping up advertising and marketing. How long does it take to get to your kind of growth algorithms excluding stuff like Russia or a global crisis per se?

[Jon Moeller:]

In terms of Grooming, this is really primarily driven by two things. One is the market, as you rightly point out, and the other is some of the promotion at primarily the lower end of the portfolio. If you look at the past three months, market consumption in tracked channels was down 4%. That's largely due to lower shaving incidences. And also that number, just the math of that number, doesn't pick up the volume from direct sellers, and that's had some impact on that tracked channel number as well. We estimate that total market growth inclusive of e-commerce sales is flat to slightly growing versus year ago, and that's an improvement versus where we've been. The top end of our portfolio is doing very well. ProGlide cartridges sales grew 18% last fiscal compared to a 7% decline in the overall market, and those kinds of trends are continuing. As I mentioned, we need to do more work on the lower end of the portfolio. We also need to be more present than we are in the direct-to-consumption e-commerce channels. And we need to bring innovation equally across the portfolio and marketing equally across the portfolio, which we're committed to do.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Javier Escalante with Consumer Edge Research.

[Javier Escalante:]

Good morning, everyone. Jon, I think that it would be helpful if you gave us a sense in a very top line way, volume and pricing between developed and emerging markets. I know that the U.S. was up 3%, but I would like to know what's happening with Europe as well. And how was the aggregate growth in emerging markets? And in emerging markets, how much of that has been – continues to be destocking in China, or are there any other one-time in terms of wholesalers' dynamics that is impacting your growth in developing markets? And again, in China, why is destocking so protracted? Shouldn't you be better off to just purge the wholesalers' inventory and just starting to roll out whatever innovation that you have? Thank you.

[Jon Moeller:]

So in terms of the breakdown between developed and developing, Javier, volume in developing was down 5%. In developed it was up 3%, which is really strong, by the way. Organic sales growth in developing was down 1%. In developed it was plus 2%. And so obviously price/mix then deductively was plus 4% in developing and minus 1% in developed. In terms of the trade stocking issue in China, we're making progress. As I said, our rate of decline was halved in the quarter, and in many categories we've returned to growth. And we're doing everything we can to bring that back in a responsible way, and we'll continue to do that.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Mark Astrachan with Stifel.

[Mark Astrachan:]

Thanks and good morning, everybody. I know you don't want to give too much detail on fiscal 2017, but you talk about expected organic sales growth to improve in the year. I guess given FX headwinds in the first half and your prior commentary about not focusing on market share given FX headwinds, is it fair to say that any share improvement then would be back-half weighted? And then more broadly, how should we all think about reinvestment required to return the business to top line growth? You talk about all this reinvestment on a go-forward basis, but if there's some way that we can quantify it or measure it not just in terms of what the advertising spend is on a quarter-by-quarter basis. But is there some sort of bogey out there or benchmark that helps us figure out basically where you're headed?

[Jon Moeller:]

Fair question, Mark. Unfortunately, I have a difficult time answering that as we sit here today. We're literally just beginning the process of putting our plans together for next year. To give you some insight into that process, though, we're going to go through each of the large category/country combinations and ensure that we're efficient in terms of our investment to change the growth profile and ideally to grow at the market, and then as we go through the year try to improve that. I'm not going to call a quarter in which that's going to happen. It's going to take time, as I said in the prepared remarks. It's not going to be a straight line, but I think we'll see improvement over time. And there's no bogey in terms of a number related to investment. This is strategic planning at the category, country, and brand level that we're just beginning to do. You've seen the increased investment profile in the back half of this fiscal year. That's the only one I really have real insight into at this point. And I certainly wouldn't expect the investment levels to be lower as we go forward into next year.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Joe Altobello with Raymond James.

[Joseph Altobello:]

Thanks, good morning, guys. First question, in terms of the 1% organic growth, can you tell us how that compared to consumption? I know it was a deceleration from last quarter, but last quarter you shipped a little bit ahead of consumption, so I was curious if that evened out in this quarter. And then secondly, just going back to Bill Chappell's question for a second, what is P&G's long-term algorithm right now given the changes in the portfolio, and how quickly can you get there? I imagine 2017 is probably too optimistic, but could we see a return to that by fiscal 2018? Thanks.

[Jon Moeller:]

In terms of the relationship between consumption and shipments, you're right. We had said in January that for the December quarter there was a little bit more sell-in than consumption and you see that reflected in the third quarter, and that's where that's really reversed itself and evened out. So I think we're in a steady state at this point in the process. I think that's also an important point in understanding the difference between the 2% last quarter and the 1% this quarter in terms of organic sales growth. That and Venezuela really explain all of that change. So thanks for asking that question. I think it would be – in terms of the long-term algorithm that has not changed. We want to be growing with the market to slightly ahead of the market. And we believe that with continued productivity progress, that should translate into mid to high single-digit earnings per share growth. I do think that getting back fully to that algorithm next year would be difficult, but again, we're just beginning to put our plans together.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Jason English with Goldman Sachs.

[Jason English:]

Hey, good morning, folks. Thanks for squeezing me in. There we go. Can you hear me?

[Jon Moeller:]

Yes, Jason.

[Jason English:]

All right. I'm going to ask a multipart question as well. First, coming back to top line, you mentioned category growth slowing from I think 3% to 4% to roughly 3%. How much of that is volume-related versus price-related? And per your comments on the forward with FX if it holds, commodities if they hold, potentially price abating, should we expect global category growth to slow even further? And then the second question was on the savings target. This could just be a matter of semantics, but I heard you say up to $10 billion. So should we consider $10 billion as the cap and a bit of a stretch goal that may not be achieved? And also on the supply chain side, you mentioned upfront investment, savings will build in three to four years. Should we be thinking about the delivery against those savings as being further out, so a bit more protracted than what we've seen over the last $10 billion?

[Jon Moeller:]

Great. So if I just look at the difference between value growth and volume growth in the markets, to get at your question of how much of it is pricing, in developed markets, if I just look over the past year basically, volume growth has actually accelerated a little bit, gone from zero to 1%. Value growth is unchanged at about 1%. And in developing markets, value growth has gone from 9% to 6%. Volume growth has gone from 2% to 1%. So I think with that set of numbers, you can put the picture together that you're looking to put together. In terms of the savings target and the semantics around "up to", those are the words we've used since we first started talking about this back at CAGNY, and that doesn't imply a cap. There's no reason to cap, but it does imply a range of outcomes. And last time we said $10 billion, we over-delivered that. So again, there was no cap. I think $10 billion is a good number to shoot for, and I'm sure we'll get somewhere close to that, if not there. You may recall a conversation that some of us were having four years ago on this topic, and there was a lot of concern about whether we would actually get to $10 billion. And I said again, that's the right number to shoot for. And if we only get to $9 billion, I'm going to be pretty happy. And I look at it the same way this time around, so really no change there. On the supply chain transformation, that particular portion of the savings will come later, as we've indicated since we started talking about supply chain transformation. I wouldn't take that as indicative of the entire program. Last time around, it was pretty evenly paced across the fiscal years. That's not the design intent. That's just how it fell, and I don't see a reason for it to fall significantly different from that this time. Remember, though, and I know you know this, we are going to be reinvesting a lot of these savings. And on a relative basis more of that investment acceleration, if you will, will occur in the early years. And then as that gets fully in place, it will obviously have less of a year-to-year impact.

[Operator:]

Your final question comes from the line of Ali Dibadj with Bernstein.

[Ali Dibadj:]

Hey, guys. I actually appreciate the tradition of always giving me the last word on the call. I hope it's a sign of respect for our work. So two things, one is I know you're pretty reluctant to talk about 2017 guidance on this call, but it would seem that analysts and investors have at least been interpreting some sort of message from you guys, given many EPS numbers have come down over the past month or so, and significantly more negatively, it would seem then, Jon, some of the messaging you've talked about at least on this call. So I'm trying to get a sense, especially with the Coty benefit or the share retirement benefit. So I'm trying to get a sense of a recap of your thinking on 2017 in terms of reinvestments and returns because clearly there are some messages being interpreted out there. And if you can balance the "continued progress" that your CEO says versus the not straight line that you mention and give us a little bit more color, I think it would be appreciated because there is some message getting out there, clearly. The second question is, Jon, you joked a few years ago that you wouldn't want to be CFO of P&G at a time where the dividend didn't grow. And I think we're all collectively glad that it did grow. But can you give us some more color on the 1% dividend increase? Shareholders have been waiting around for you guys for quite some time. You've had some very challenging times. The macros have been very challenging. Others in your peer group suggest that they increased their dividend a little bit more aggressively than yours. And I get your dividend yield and I get your payout ratio. But what would in the end be the true cost of a slight ratings downgrade here to reward shareholders a little bit more aggressively? Thanks for those two.

[Jon Moeller:]

In terms of the message that's being interpreted externally, I personally have a hard time sorting through that simply because of the very wide range that exists in estimates right now. So I'm not sure what message is being received. In terms of the message we're providing, it's very much the one you ascribed to David just a minute ago, which is continued progress on both the top and bottom line as well as our cash flow. And obviously, we want to accelerate all of that as quickly as we're able, but do it in a sustainable, responsible way. And as I indicated, we're just putting our plans together for next year, and we'll see what amount of progress we make. Our competitors don't sit still. Markets are volatile, and so that's where the not straight line comment comes in. I just think that's a reflection of reality. The Coty benefit in terms of the share retirement will depend on exactly when those shares get retired, but there should definitely be a benefit associated with that, and we view that as part of the overall equation. In terms of the dividend increase, as you know, we're very committed to the principle of cash return to shareholders. Over the last 10 years, as I mentioned earlier, we've returned $118 billion. This year between dividend and share repurchases and share exchange, we'll effectively return $15 billion to $16 billion. There is not a lot of juice, if you will, to the amount of cash available from a borrowing standpoint between our current credit rating and one or two notches down. So to do that to the credit rating for a small amount of additional dividend increase is not something that made a lot of sense to us. We were very happy to increase the dividend. We remain committed to cash return to shareholders, but we also need to reflect reality in our dividend planning, significant FX headwinds. We are creating a smaller company, and our earnings per share are below year ago. And we have a responsibility there, as you'll appreciate as well. So it's a balancing of those two things. I completely get and understand the question. It's a very fair one, but that's where we net it out. I'll leave it there.

[Jon Moeller:]

Thank you, everybody, for questions this morning. We'll be available for the balance of the week to talk through any of this with you. We're very happy about the progress that we're making, but we clearly understand we have more to do. Thanks a lot.

[Operator:]

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude today's conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Have a great day.