Newell Brands Inc. (NWL) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending June 30, 2023

July 28, 2023, 11:00 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Newell Brands' Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After a brief discussion by management, we will open up the call for your questions. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded. A live webcast of this call is available at ir.newellbrands.com.

I will now turn the call over to Sofya Tsinis, Vice President of Investor Relations. Ms. Tsinis, you may begin.

Sofya Tsinis

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Newell Brands' second quarter earnings call. On the call with me today are Chris Peterson, our President and CEO; and Mark Erceg, our CFO.

Before we begin, I'd like to inform you that during the course of today's call, we will be making forward-looking statements, which involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results and outcomes may differ materially, and we undertake no obligation to update forward-looking statements. I refer you to the cautionary language and risk factors available in our earnings release, our Form 10-K, Form 10-Q and other SEC filings available on our Investor Relations Web site for a further discussion of the factors affecting forward-looking statements.

Please also recognize that today's remarks will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, including those referred to as normalized measures. We believe these non-GAAP measures are useful to investors, although they should not be considered superior to the measures presented in accordance with GAAP. Explanations of these non-GAAP measures and available reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP measures can be found in today's earnings release and tables that were furnished to the SEC.

Thank you. And now, I'll turn the call over to Chris.

Chris Peterson

Thank you, Sofya. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our second quarter call. Second quarter results were in line with or ahead of our projections on all key metrics. As expected, top line results were pressured by normalizing category trends, constrained consumer spending on discretionary products and retailer inventory destocking.

Operating margins, earnings per share and cash flow were all well ahead of expectations as we made meaningful progress on productivity initiatives and working capital reduction. While our results met or exceeded our expectations for the quarter, on an absolute basis, we aspire for significant improvement going forward.