Steelcase Inc. (NYSE:SCS) Q4 2024 Earnings Conference Call March 21, 2024 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Mike O'Meara - Investor Relations
Sara Armbruster - President & Chief Executive Officer
Dave Sylvester - Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Reuben Garner - Benchmark
Greg Burns - Sidoti
Budd Bugatch - Water Tower Research

Operator

Good morning. My name is Dennis, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Steelcase Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2024 Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]

Mr. O'Meara, you may begin your conference.

Mike O'Meara

Thank you, Dennis. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for the recap of our fourth quarter and fiscal 2024 financial results.

Here with me today are Sara Armbruster, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Dave Sylvester, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

Our fourth quarter earnings release, which crossed the wires yesterday, is accessible on our website. This conference call is being webcast, and this webcast is a copyrighted production of Steelcase Inc. A replay of this webcast will be posted to ir.steelcase.com later today.

Our discussion today may include references to non-GAAP financial measures and forward-looking statements. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures and details regarding the risks associated with the use of forward-looking statements are included in our earnings release, and we are incorporating by reference into this conference call the text of our safe harbor statement included in the release.

Following our prepared remarks, we will respond to questions from investors and analysts.

I will now turn the call over to our President and Chief Executive Officer, Sara Armbruster.

Sara Armbruster

Thanks, Mike. Hi, everyone, and thanks for joining the call today.

Our fourth quarter results reflect strong earnings growth, as we continued to make progress on our profit improvement initiatives. This progress is evidenced by our year-over-year gross margin improvement of 140 basis points, marking the seventh consecutive quarter of year-over-year gross margin improvement. For the full fiscal year, our earnings per share more than doubled versus the prior year, and our adjusted earnings per share increased by more than 60%.

I'm proud of our employees for actively helping to capture price increases to offset the significant inflationary costs we absorbed over the past couple of years, for implementing improvements in various aspects of our operations, and for continuing to drive our overall fitness initiatives. These efforts to improve our profitability and to reallocate resources are supporting specific growth initiatives and transformation priorities, allowing us to continue to invest in our strategy, while strengthening our financial results.