Darden Restaurants, Inc.'s (DRI) CEO Rick Cardenas on Q4 2022 Results - Earnings Call Transcript

Darden Restaurants, Inc. (NYSE:DRI) Q4 2022 Earnings Conference Call June 23, 2022 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Kevin Kalicak - Investor Relations

Rick Cardenas - President and Chief Executive Officer

Raj Vennam - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Jared Garber - Goldman Sachs

Nicole Miller - Piper Sandler

Jeff Farmer - Gordon Haskett

Jeffrey Bernstein - Barclays

David Palmer - Evercore

Lauren Silberman - Credit Suisse

David Tarantino - Baird

Dennis Geiger - UBS

Andrew Charles - Cowen

Chris O’Cull - Stifel

John Glass - Morgan Stanley

Jon Tower - Citigroup

Andrew Strelzik - BMO

Brett Levy - MKM Partners

John Ivankoe - JPMorgan

Peter Saleh - BTIG

Brian Vaccaro - Raymond James

Operator

Welcome to the Darden Fiscal Year 2022 Fourth quarter Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time.

I will now turn the call over to Mr. Kevin Kalicak. Please go ahead. You may begin.

Kevin Kalicak

Thank you, Maureen. Good morning, everyone and thank you for participating on today’s call. Joining me today are Rick Cardenas, Darden’s President and CEO; and Raj Vennam, CFO.

As a reminder, comments made during this call will include forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from materially from our expectations and projections. Those risks are described in the company’s press release, which was distributed this morning and in its filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We are simultaneously broadcasting a presentation during this call, which is posted in the Investor Relations section of our website at darden.com. Today’s discussion and presentation includes certain non-GAAP measurements and reconciliations of these measurements are included in the presentation.

Any reference to pre-COVID when discussing fourth quarter performance is a comparison to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2019, this is because the results from the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021 and 2020 are not meaningful due to the pandemic’s impact on the business and the limited capacity environment that we operated in during those periods. This will be the final quarter that we provide comparisons to pre-COVID. Moving forward, we will provide comparisons to the prior year.

We plan to release fiscal 2023 first quarter earnings on Thursday, September 22 before the market opens, followed by a conference call. This morning, Rick will share some brief remarks on the quarter and full year before discussing our focus moving forward. Raj will provide details on our Q4 and full year financial results and share our fiscal 2023 financial outlook and then Rick will close with some final comments.