Kimberly-Clark (KMB) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending June 30, 2023

July 25, 2023 8:30 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good day, everyone And welcome to the Kimberly-Clark Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are placed on a listen-only mode and we will open the floor for your questions and comments after the presentation.

It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Christina Cheng, Vice President of Investor Relations. Ma'am, the floor is yours.

Christina Cheng

Welcome, everyone, to our second quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Before we begin, please note, today's presentation will include forward-looking statements. Our results may vary materially from those expressed or implied in our forward-looking statements and you should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Please refer to our SEC filings for a list of factors that could cause our actual results to deviate materially from our expectations. Our remarks today refer to adjusted results, which exclude certain items described in our news release. We use non-GAAP financial measures to help investors understand our ongoing business performance. Please consult our press release for a discussion of our non-GAAP financial measures and reconciliations to comparable GAAP financial measures. We have published supplemental material, which can be found in the Investor Relations section of our website.

Participating in today's call are Chairman and CEO, Michael Hsu; and our Chief Financial Officer, Nelson Urdaneta. Mike will start the discussion with our strategic priorities and provide an overview of our performance for the quarter. Nelson will provide a detailed discussion on our Q1 results and our outlook before we open the floor for Q&A.

With that, I turn the call over to Mike.

Michael Hsu

Thank you, Christina. We delivered another solid quarter with 5% organic growth while cycling 9% growth in the year ago quarter. Organic sales were up across all segments with personal care and consumer tissue each up 4% and professional at 13%. Our growth strategy is working and our performance in the quarter reflects strong execution by our teams around the world. We continue to make strong progress in margin recovery. Adjusted gross margin was up 380 basis points and fueled a 17% increase in adjusted operating profit and a 23% increase in adjusted earnings per share. Given the strength of our first half, we're raising our full year 2023 outlook to 3% to 5% organic growth and 10% to 14% adjusted EPS growth.