Coty Inc. (NYSE:COTY) Q2 2024 Earnings Conference Call February 7, 2024 4:45 PM ET

Company Participants

Sue Nabi - Chief Executive Officer

Laurent Mercier - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Operator

Hello, everyone, welcome to the prepared remarks portion of Coty's Second Quarter Fiscal 2024 Earnings. On Thursday, February 8th, 2024, at approximately 8.15 a.m. Eastern Time or 2.15 p.m. Central European Time, we will hold a separate live Q&A session on our results, which you can access via our Investor Relations website. Joining me for our presentation are Sue Nabi, Coty’s CEO, and Laurent Mercier, Coty’s CFO.

Before I hand the call over to Sue, I would like to remind you that many of the comments today may contain forward-looking statements. Please refer to Coty’s earnings release and the reports filed with the SEC, where the company lists factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements. In addition, except noted, the discussion of Coty’s financial results and Coty’s expectations reflect certain adjustments as specified in the non-GAAP financial measures section of the company's release.

Thank you. I will now turn it over to our CEO, Sue Nabi.

Sue Nabi

Thank you, Olga. Welcome, everyone. The strength of our Q2 and first half results reinforce several of our convictions, including: Number one, the attractiveness of the beauty market; two, the strength of our brands; and number three, Coty's transformed and industry-leading capabilities and of course our disciplined financial execution. The momentum of the global beauty market in the midst of geopolitical and macroeconomic disruptions confirms that consumers continue to gravitate and prioritize beauty as a fundamental pillar in their well-being.

At the same time, our amazing brands and our industry-leading capabilities are enabling Coty to bring exceptional innovations to the market which further strengthen consumers' desire for beauty. We are continuing to deliver on our balanced growth agenda, with like-for-like growth in both Prestige and Consumer Beauty, in each of our regions, in each of our categories of fragrances, cosmetics, skincare bodycare, and across volumes, price and mix. As a result, we are once again outperforming the beauty market. And this growth is accompanied by strong and disciplined financial delivery, as we generate robust profit growth, operating and EBITDA margin expansion, free cash flow, and deleveraging progress. We therefore continue to target sales growth that is ahead of the beauty market, growing our profit ahead of sales, steadily deleveraging our balance sheet, and positioning the company as a beauty powerhouse with still significant untapped potential.