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Intrinsic Value is all-important and is the only logical way to evaluate the relative attractiveness of investments and businesses.
Good morning. This is Kasey Jenkins, Vice President of McCormick Investor Relations. Thank you for joining today's Fourth Quarter Earnings Call. To accompany this call, we posted a set of slides at ir.mccormick.com.
Currently, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following our remarks, we will begin a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] We'll begin with remarks from Lawrence Kurzius, Chairman, President and CEO, and Mike Smith, Executive Vice President and CFO.
During our remarks, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. These include information in constant currency, as well as adjusted operating income, adjusted income tax rate and adjusted earnings per share that exclude the impact of special charges, as well as the net non-recurring income tax benefit associated with the December 2017 US tax reform legislation and for 2018 transaction and integration expenses related to the acquisition of our Frank's and French's brand.
Reconciliations to the GAAP results are included in this morning's press release and slides. In our comments, certain percentages are rounded. Please refer to our presentation, which includes the complete information.
In addition, as a reminder, today's presentation contains projections and other forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those projected. The company undertakes no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statement, whether because of new information, future events, or other factors. As seen on slide 2, our forward-looking statement also provides information on risk factors that could affect our financial results.
It is now my pleasure to turn the discussion over to Lawrence.
Thank you, Kasey. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Starting on slide 4, our fourth quarter results completed a year of solid financial performance. We drove solid sales, adjusted operating income and adjusted EPS growth as well as operating margin expansion, while continuing to make targeted investments and fuel future growth.
We delivered substantial cost savings at our eighth consecutive year of record cash flow. Our sales growth and focus of profit realization drove strong financial results across both our Consumer and Flavor Solutions segment and reflects the successful execution of our strategies and the engagement of our employees around the world.
We have a broad and advantaged global flavor portfolio as seen on slide 5, which continues to position us to meet the demand for flavor around the world and grow our business.
This morning, you'll hear about our 2019 accomplishment, which were driven by successes across the portfolio. Our investments in new products, brand marketing, capabilities and infrastructure continue to drive growth.
The breadth and reach of our portfolio across segments, geographies, channels, customers and product offerings creates a balanced portfolio to drive consistency in our performance in a volatile environment.
Our highlights for the year include, in our Consumer segment, strong US branded growth and double-digit e-commerce growth across all regions. And in our flavor solutions segment, we continue to win with customers, driving base business and new product growth with Europe, Middle East and Africa, our EMEA region, driving particularly strong performance.
Overall, we're confident that the breadth and reach of our portfolio continues to position us to fully meet the demand for flavor around the world and grow our business. Heading into 2020, I'm confident our operating momentum will continue.
This morning, I'll begin with our fourth quarter results, reflect on our 2019 achievements and then share with you some of our 2020 business momentum and plans. After that, I'll turn it over to Mike who will go on more depth on the quarter-end results and the details of our 2020 guidance.
Let's start with our fourth quarter results on slide 6. Starting with our top line, versus the year-ago period, we grew sales 1% for the total company, including a 1% unfavorable impact from currency. In constant currency, we grew sales 2%, with both segments contributing to the increase.
In addition to our topline growth, we grew adjusted operating income and expanded our adjusted operating margin. Higher sales cost savings led by our comprehensive continuous improvement program, or CPI, drove the growth which was partially offset by higher brand marketing expense.
At the bottom line, our fourth-quarter adjusted earnings per share of $1.61 was lower than $1.67 in the prior period or a decline of 4%. This decline includes a 7% headwind from a higher adjusted tax rate. Our adjusted operating income growth was more than offset by this tax headwind.
Turning to our fourth-quarter segment business performance. In our consumer segment, we grew our constant currency sales 2% in the fourth quarter, driven by the Americas and Asia-Pacific region.
The Americas, we grew constant currency sales 2%, attributable to higher volume and product mix driven by both our base business and new products. Our strong US branded performance was partially offset by declines in private label products as well as soft Canada sales performance. Overall, our US shipments were in line with strong consumer consumption across our portfolio.
Our category management initiatives, effective marketing support and merchandising execution, expanded distribution and new product, all contributed to driving growth in the fourth quarter.
Our IRI data indicates US McCormick branded spices and seasoning scanner sales grew in line with the category and we again had double-digit growth in unmeasured channels and our McCormick branded dry recipe mixes continued their momentum of consumption and share growth.
Consumption in spices and seasonings and dry recipe mixes accelerated through the fourth quarter, both for the category and McCormick branded products, with particularly strong results in November.
Our brand marketing and our strong merchandising execution drove strong holiday results. Our new product, including ONE DISH and Street Taco dry recipe mixes, continued to gain momentum and contribute to growth.
As we accelerate our condiment leadership, French's mustard and Stubb's Bar-B-Q continued to grow consumption and share. Frank's hot sauce had strong performance again this quarter and over the entire Frank's portfolio, including frozen wings, seasoning blends and dry recipe mixes, we drove double-digit consumption growth as we're making further progress in our opportunities to expand this brand.
Now, in the EMEA region, we're focused on driving brand growth and our success with new products and strong promotional programs has continued, particularly in the UK. Growth was tampered in other parts of the region for the quarter and the full year by declines in private label. We remain selective where we participate, aligning our strategy to optimize the profitability of our portfolio.
In the Asia-Pacific region, our sales growth was driven by pricing actions with volume growth, as I've mentioned, partially impacted by macroeconomic pressures in China. Our fundamentals across the region are strong and we've driven strong growth for the full year in 2019.
Let me take a moment now to mention the rapidly-evolving events in China, which we are following very closely to, first and foremost, ensure the health and safety of our employees.
All of our Wuhan facility activity, from sourcing of materials to distribution of manufactured products, is contained within the Chinese market. And at this point, it is too soon to quantify any business impact.
Turning now to the Flavor Solution segment. We grew sales 3% in constant currency in the fourth quarter, with all three regions benefiting from higher volume.
In the Americas, we have strong flavor sales growth driven by snack seasonings, attributable to robust base business growth and new products. Across both our restaurant and packaged food customers, new products continued to drive growth in the second half of the year, following a particularly strong first half of innovation. Our momentum also continued with strong branded food service growth.
Now, turning to EMEA, we drove strong constant currency sales growth. We're winning with our customers through expanded distribution, promotional activities and new product.
In fact, during 2019, we were successful in this region in establishing a significant new product platform with a global customer and have achieved a 100% new product win rate with them.
And finally, in the Asia-Pacific region, our fourth quarter sales growth was the best performance of the year and was partially driven by our customers' promotional activities as well as new products.
Moving from our fourth quarter results, I'm pleased to share our full fiscal year accomplishments, which not only highlight what we achieved during 2019, but fuel our confidence to drive another year of strong operating performance in 2020.
Now starting with our 2019 financial results, as seen on slide 9, we drove 3% constant currency sales growth, driven by new products, brand marketing investments and expanded distribution.
Our consumer segment grew sales 3% in constant currency, driven by the US and China. In our Flavor Solutions segment, all three regions drove the constant currency sales growth of 3%, with particularly strong EMEA performance.
We grew constant currency adjusted operating income 7%, driven by higher sales and a 60 basis points gross margin expansion, driven primarily from CCI led savings. This increase, combined with the lower interest expense and an increase in income from unconsolidated operations, drove an 8% increase in adjusted earnings per share to $5.35 for fiscal 2019 including an unfavorable impact of currency exchange rates versus last year.
With higher sales and CCI, we increased our adjusted operating margin to 18.3%, which is an 80 basis point expansion from last year. We expanded adjusted operating margin in both of our segments, while also making investments to drive continued growth.
We reached a record $119 million of annual cost savings, driven by our CCI program to fuel our growth. We realized $463 million in CCI-led cost savings over the last four years, exceeding our four-year $400 million goal, and there continues to be a long runway in 2020 and beyond to deliver additional cost savings.
2019 was an eighth consecutive year of record cash flow from operations, ending the year at $947 million, a 15% increase from last year. We're making great progress with our working capital improvements and expect the programs we've put in place will continue the momentum in 2020.
Our strong cash flow is enabling us to make great progress in paying down our acquisition debt and we further reduced our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio, as Mike will discuss further in a few minutes.
At year-end, our Board of Directors announced a 9% increase in the quarterly dividend, marking our 34th consecutive year of dividend increases. We have paid dividends every year since 1925 and are proud to be a dividend aristocrat.
Now, I'd like to comment on some of our 2019 achievements beyond our financial performance. New products remain integral to our sales growth, with 8% of 2019 sales from product launches in the last three years.
In our consumer segment, where new product innovation differentiates our brand and strengthens our relevance with our consumer, our robust 2019 launches across all regions accelerated our new product growth rate and we're excited about the momentum they're ability.
In our flavor solutions segment, we're capitalizing on our differentiated culinary foundation, customer collaboration and technology platform. We realized particularly strong new product sales growth in 2019 with packaged food companies, while new product growth with quick service restaurants was tempered through the stronger core item focus, particularly in the APG region, which we mentioned throughout the year.
Brand marketing is the key driver of sales growth and we've made significant investments supporting our brands over the last few years. In 2019, we continued to optimize our brand marketing spend, leveraging our scale and getting more value out of each marketing dollar, enabling us to maintain a comparable level of spend to last year while delivering an 11% increase in the Americas working media.
Our marketing excellence organization drove greater speed, quality and effectiveness across our programs, notably in our digital marketing. In 2019, our digital leadership was recognized again by Gartner L2 research. McCormick was ranked number 1 on their digital IQ index for food and the only food brand to earn the title of genius, their top distinction. This marked our sixth consecutive year in the top five ranking of over 100 food and beverage brands on the effectiveness of our digital website, social media, e-commerce and mobile platforms.
Our investments and resources across e-commerce are also paying off. We're delivering global growth and have positioned ourselves for future acceleration. We drove double-digit sales growth in all regions, resulting in global e-commerce growth of 44%, driven by both strong pure play and omni-channel performance.
We're making measurable progress toward our 2025 sustainability goal and just last week issued our most recent purpose-led performance report.
We're being recognized for our efforts. During 2019, we were recognized for the third consecutive year as a DiversityInc Top 50 Company. And at the recent 2020 Davos World Economic Forum, Corporate Knights ranked McCormick in our 2020 global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations Index as number one in the food products industry for the fourth consecutive year.
Just last week as well, we announced the election of Anne Bramman to our Board of Directors and is currently the CFO of Nordstrom with extensive financial and leadership experience and brings an exciting new background to the board in digital e-commerce and online retail shopping.
Anne's history of driving growth and productivity for companies with leading brands as well as her broad financial expertise makes her a great fit for McCormick. We look forward to Anne's further strengthening the impressive group of leaders that comprise our board.
Mike will go over our 2020 guidance in a few moments, but I'd like to mention a few highlights related to our growth momentum and plan, our significant business transformation plan and provide some summary comments on slide 11.
At the foundation of our sales growth rate is the rising global consumer demand for great taste and healthy eating. Consumers have an increased interest in creating flavor experiences with bold, rich, authentic flavors, while also demanding convenience. Additionally, consumers are focused on fresh, natural and recognizable ingredients with greater transparency around the sourcing and quality of food and consumers want to know about the environmental and social impact behind the brands they buy.
Flavor continues to be an advantaged global category and our products inspire flavor exploration and are the essential complement to real fresh food.
We deliver flavor across all markets and through all channels and are aligned with consumers' demand for flavor, convenience, health and sustainably-minded business practices.
Our alignment with these long-term trends, our breath and reach, combined with our execution of effective strategies positions us well to meet increased consumer demand, both through our product and through our customers' product and bolsters our confidence to drive sales growth across both segments.
Across our consumer segment, our 2020 plan includes to further drive our undisputed leadership in spices and seasonings, accelerate our condiment global platform and fuel our growth in emerging markets and channels, as well as an on-trend fast-growing platform.
With our investments in brand marketing, category management, analytical capability and new products, as well as our drive to strengthen our connection with the consumer, we expect to drive further sales growth.
For our flavor solution segment, the execution of our strategy to migrate our portfolio to more technically inflated and value-added categories will continue in 2020. The top line opportunities gained from our global investments to expand our flavor scale as well as with our momentum in flavor categories such as savory product and beverages and in branded food service, we expect to realize further results from this strategy. Driven by our best-in-class customer engagement, we also expect to continue our new product momentum. Beyond our strategies to drive sales growth, we're also making business transformation investments to create capacity for continued growth.
Turning now to slide 12, we're implementing a global operating model across our entire organization to deliver globally aligned and simplified processes that will allow us to grow at scale through increased digitalization and automation.
As technology is the backbone for this model, we've begun the process of replacing our existing disparate ERP systems with SAP HANA, a single global system. Our last ERP implementation was in the early 2000s. And since then, we have more than doubled in size.
This growth, as well as changes in technology and SAP's plans to discontinue support of the current platform, requires us to invest once again to modernize our ERP system and transform our business processes.
We want to be ahead of the curve in achieving an advanced integrated platform, which will allow us to realize the benefits of a scalable platform for growth sooner and enable growth in line with our aspirations.
This is a multiyear program during which we will continually learn and adjust as we progress through a full global implementation. We have recently completed milestones for our global template and it's made up based on our implementation plan which we expect will drive greater benefits and lower risk at a higher estimated total program cost.
With the completion of these milestones, we have broadened our program cost estimate to include estimates related to the go-live activities in our operations, which we are now able to estimate.
As such, we have added these expenses to our information system technology cost, the basis for our previously communicated range of $150 million to $200 million. We are now projecting the total cost of our ERP investment to range between $300 million and $350 million from 2019 through the anticipated completion of our global rollout in fiscal 2022, with an estimated split of 40% capital spending and 60% operating expense.
As such, the total operating expense impact for the entire program is estimated to be between $180 million and $210 million. In fiscal 2020, we're protecting our total operating expense impact to be approximately $80 million, which is an incremental $60 million over fiscal 2019.
Notwithstanding this significant incremental investment in 2020, we expect growth in our underlying business to remain strong. And while the deployment activities will continue through 2022, we expect to return to our normal growth algorithm in 2021. Mike will discuss the 2020 financial impact of the program further in his outlook remark.
I'd like to now share highlights of the updated plan. We've now included in our program cost, as I just mentioned, projected expenses related to go-live activities such as inventory builds and pre-go live operating expenses.
The inclusion of these costs drives nearly half of the increase in our operating expense projection. We are also extending our deployment schedule and increasing training and support, all to further mitigate risk. This strengthens our change management plan and represents the second biggest driver of our projected increase.
Next, we plan to drive greater business transformation, including integrating certain other software applications within our global HANA solution.
Finally, we've also identified additional opportunities to drive greater financial benefits after stabilization of each of our phase deployments.
These updates will drive greater benefits and lower risk. We are excited about this investment to enable us to transform our ways of working and realize the benefits of a scalable growth platform.
Throughout 2020, we will periodically provide high-level updates on the progress of the program. Our overarching focus, though, will be to continue highlighting the strength of our operating performance.
Our achievements in 2019, our effective growth strategy as well as our robust operating momentum all bolster our confidence in delivering another strong year of growth and performance in 2020.
We're looking forward to sharing more details regarding our 2020 growth plans and our business transformation initiatives in just a few weeks at CAGNY.
To summarize, on slide 13, before turning it over to Mike, we achieved solid financial results in 2019. We're driving strong momentum in sales growth and we're continuing to drive sales growth balanced with our focus on lowering costs to expand margins and sustainably realize long-term earnings growth.
We have a solid foundation and, in an environment that continues to be dynamic and fast-paced, we're ensuring we remain agile, relevant [technical difficulty] long-term sustainable growth.
Our fundamentals momentum and growth outlook are stronger than ever. Our experienced leaders and employees are executing on our strategies, which are designed to build long-term value for our shareholders.
With our 2019 results, they have again proved to be effective and we're confident they will prove effective again in 2020. In 2020, we continued to differentiator our brand, build capabilities and make investments for growth that will continue to move McCormick forward.
Our top-tier long-term growth objectives remain unchanged and, in our 2020 outlook, reflect the small strong underlying business performance and necessary significant investments in business transformation to achieve those long-term objectives. Mike will discuss this more in a few moments.
I want to recognize McCormick employees around the world and thank them for their dedicated efforts on engagement. The collective power of our people drives our momentum and our success.
With this power and our effective strategies, we are well-positioned to achieve continued growth in 2020, while also driving transformation to fuel growth into the future.
Thank you for your attention. And it is now my pleasure to turn it over to Mike for additional remarks on our 2019 financial results and the detail on our 2020 guidance.
Thanks, Lawrence. And good morning, everyone. I will now provide some additional comments on our fourth-quarter performance and full-year results, as well as detail on our 2020 outlook.
Starting on slide 15, during the fourth quarter, we grew sales 2% in constant currency, driven by both our consumer and flavor solutions segments.
The consumer segment grew sales 2% in constant currency. This growth was driven by the Americas and Asia Pacific regions.
On slide 16, consumer segment sales in the Americas rose 2% in constant currency versus the fourth quarter of 2018. This increase was driven by strong US branded growth, partially offset by declines in private label products and soft Canada sales performance.
In EMEA, constant currency consumer sales were down 1% from a year ago, primarily due to declines in private label products. We grew consumer sales in the Asia-Pacific region 3% in constant currency, driven by pricing and promotional activities. Sales growth in India were strong due to e-commerce and holiday promotional activity.
Turning to o our flavor solutions segment and slide 19, we grew fourth quarter constant currency sales 3%, driven by continued strength in our EMEA region. In the Americas, flavor solutions constant currency sales increased 3%, driven by new products and base business growth, with continued momentum in snack seasonings and branded food service.
In the EMEA, we grew flavor solution sales 5% in constant currency. Sales growth in the quick service restaurant and packaged food companies was driven by new products, base business volume growth and pricing.
In the Asia-Pacific region, flavor solution sales grew 2% in constant currency as higher sales to quick service restaurants were partially driven by the timing of their promotional activity.
As seen on slide 23, fourth-quarter adjusted operating income, which excludes special charges, increased 3% or 4% in constant currency versus the year-ago period. Adjusted operating income in the consumer segment rose to $227 million, a 1% increase, which was the same in constant currency.
In the flavor solutions segment, adjusted operating income rose 11% to $76 million, which in constant currency was a 12% increase.
Growth in both segments was primarily driven by higher sales, CCI-led cost savings and a one-time 2019 global benefit plan alignment, with some offset from incentive compensation.
Incentive compensation was partially due to, and offset by, favorable results realized below operating income, such as interest expense and income from unconsolidated operations.
In the consumer segment, a 7% increase in brand marketing versus the fourth quarter of last year unfavorably impacted the consumer adjusted operating income growth. Flavor solutions growth was favorably impacted by product mix.
For the fiscal year, the increase in adjusted operating income in constant currency was 7% and we expanded adjusted operating income margin 80 basis points, with both segments contributing to the growth.
In constant currency, the consumer segment grew adjusted operating income 7%, while the flavor solutions segment grew adjusted operating income 5%.
As seen on slide 24, gross profit margin expanded 120 basis points in the fourth quarter versus the year-ago period, as we have planned, and for the full year expanded 60 basis points, driven by CCI-led cost savings.
Our selling, general and administrative expense as a percentage of net sales increased by 80 basis points from the fourth quarter of 2018. Leverage from sales growth and CCI-led cost savings were more than offset by increases in both planned brand marketing and additional incentive compensation expense.
Turning to income taxes on slide 25. Our fourth quarter adjusted effective tax rate was 24.7% as compared to 19% in the year-ago period. Our fourth-quarter adjusted rate in year-ago period was favorably impacted by discrete items, principally a higher level of stock option exercises.
For the full year, our adjusted tax rate was 19.5% which is comparable to 2018. Income from unconsolidated operations increased 7% in the fourth quarter of 2019 and 18% for the full year with strong performance by McCormick De Mexico joint venture driving both comparisons. For 2020, we expect a mid to high single digit increase in our income from unconsolidated operations.
At the bottom line, as shown on slide 27, fourth-quarter 2019 adjusted earnings per share was $1.61 as compared to $1.67 for the year-ago period. The decline was mainly due to a higher adjusted income tax rate versus last year, with partial offsets from higher adjusted operating income and lower interest expense. And this comparison also includes an unfavorable impact of currency rates.
On slide 28, we summarize highlights for cash flow and the year-end balance sheet. Our cash flow provided from operations ended the year at a record high of $947 million compared to $821 million in 2018. For the fiscal year, our cash conversion cycle was significantly better than the year-ago period, down 22% or 12 days as we executed against program to achieve working capital reductions.
We returned a portion of this cash flow to our shareholders through dividends and paid down debt, reducing our acquisition debt during the fiscal year by $436 million. Of our $1.5 billion in acquisition-related term notes, we have now paid down $1.25 billion and we finished the year with a net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio of 3.4 times.
Our capital expenditures were $174 million in 2019 and included initial spending related to the transition of our ERP platform, as well as growth and optimization projects across the globe.
In 2020, we expect our capital expenditures to be higher than 2019 to support our investments to drive growth, including our ERP business transformation investment.
As of year-end, $32 million remained of a $600 million share repurchase program that was authorized by our board of directors in March 2015. An additional $600 million share repurchase program was authorized by our Board of Directors in November 2019.
We expect 2020 to be another year of strong cash flow, driven by profit and working capital initiatives, and our priority is to continue to have a balanced use of cash, making investments to drive growth, returning a significant portion to our shareholders through dividends and to pay down debt.
Let's now move to our current financial outlook for 2020 on slide 29 and 30. We're well-positioned for another year of underlying solid performance, with our broad and advantaged flavor portfolio, effective growth strategies and focus on profit realization.
As Lawrence mentioned, in 2020, we expect adjusted operating income and adjusted earnings per share growth to reflect strong underlying business performance, offset by significant incremental investment associated with the business transformation, our ERP replacement program, and a higher projected effective tax rate. We also expect there to be a minimal impact of currency rates.
At the top line, we expect to grow sales 2% to 4%. This increase is expected to be entirely organic growth as no incremental impact from acquisitions is planned, and will be driven primarily by higher volume and product mix from new products, expanded distribution and brand marketing as well as the impact of pricing, which in conjunction with cost savings is expected to offset anticipated mid-single-digit inflationary pressures.
Our 2020 gross profit margin is expected to be 25 basis points to 75 basis points higher than 2019, in part driven by our CCI-led cost savings.
Our adjusted operating income growth rate, excluding the incremental business transformation impact, reflects expected strong underlying business performance driven by sales growth, and it's projected to be a 5% to 7% increase from $979 million.
This includes our cost savings target of approximately $105 million and an expected mid-single-digit increase in brand marketing investments, which will be heavier in the first half of the year.
As Lawrence mentioned earlier, we are projecting an incremental operating expense impact of $60 million versus 2019 related to our ERP replacement program. This impact lowers our adjusted operating growth rate by 600 basis points, resulting in our total expected adjusted operating income to be comparable to 2019, plus or minus 1%. We expect the ERP expenses to be higher in the second half of the year.
Our 2020 adjusted effective income tax rate is projected to be approximately 22% based upon our estimated mix of earnings by geography as well as factoring in a level of discrete impacts, the most significant of which occurred during the first quarter of 2020 related to a refinement to our entity structure.
For the remaining quarters, we estimate a tax rate of 23%, thus driving our full-year outlook of 22%. This outlook versus our 2019 adjusted effective tax rate is approximately 300 basis point headwind through our 2020 adjusted earnings per share growth.
Our change in projected 2020 adjusted earnings per share from 2019 is expected to be driven by strong underlying business performance growth of 7% to 9%, the unfavorable tax headwind I just mentioned and an estimated unfavorable 700 basis point impact from our incremental ERP investment.
Our guidance range for the adjusted earnings per share in 2020 is $5.20 to $5.30 compared to $5.35 of adjusted earnings per share in 2019.
In summary, we are projecting strong underlying business performance in our 2020 outlook, offset by a significant incremental ERP investment associated with business transformation and a higher projected effective tax rate.
Turning to slide 31, I want to discuss our track record of achieving our constant currency long-term financial objectives. As we have said, our long-term sales growth objective is 4% to 6% with base business, new products and acquisitions each contributing a third. Additionally, our long-term objective is to grow adjusted operating income 7% to 9%. This coupled with our approach to capital allocation results in our long-term adjusted earnings per share growth objective of 9% to 11%.
Given there's variability in our business from year to year, especially related to transformational events, we evaluate our performance against these objectives over several years. With that said, a review of our five-year compounded annual growth rates, which includes our 2020 guidance, projects that our five-year compounded annual sales and adjusted operating income growth rate are expected to exceed our long-term objectives. Additionally, our adjusted earnings per share performance is also in line with our long-term objective.
On a final note, while we have a significant transformational investment in 2020, we expect to return to our normal growth algorithm in 2021. As Lawrence mentioned, our foundation is strong, our strategy is effective and we're generating results in line with our objectives.
I'd like to now turn it back to Lawrence for some additional remarks before we move to your questions.
Thank you, Mike. Now that Mike has shared our financial results and outlook in more detail, I'd like to recap the key takeaways as seen on slide 32. We delivered solid organic sales, adjusted operating profit and adjusted earnings per share growth in 2019. We expanded adjusted operating profit margin and drove strong results in both segments.
Our 2020 outlook reflects strong operating performance driven by a solid foundation, continued strong momentum and the successful execution of proven growth strategy. Our underlying business is robust, with offsetting impact from an incremental business transformation expense and a significant tax headwind.
We're confident that 2020 will be another successful year and we will continue to build long-term value. Importantly, we are continuing to deliver differentiated results, while significantly investing for growth to build the McCormick of the future. We'll share more about these transformation investments at CAGNY in a few weeks.
Now, let's turn to your questions.
Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from the line of Andrew Lazar with Barclays. Please proceed with your questions.
Good morning, everybody.
Good morning, Andrew.
Hi there. Just one quick one on ERP and then just one on private label. With ERP, I guess, on the operating expense piece, I think, as you mentioned, the cost is now expected to be about $195 million at the midpoint versus the $60 million to $80 million before giving the go-live piece that you mentioned. So, as we think ahead to fiscal 2021, I assume there's likely still another incremental step up on operating expense where previously maybe fiscal 2020 was expected to be the bulk of the investment. So, in your comment around getting back to the algorithm in 2021, is it that a big chunk of one-time expense from 2020 goes away and then you've got an incremental expense in 2021? I'm trying to get a sense of what the offset is to that incremental cost in 2021.
Hey, Andrew. Let me start and then I'll also let Mike comment on that. That's a great question and a great thing to clarify. So, it is still our expectation that 2020 is the peak in the ramp-up of the expenses from business transformation and ERP. We don't have a real roll-off of those expenses in 2021. They continue at a high expense level. But the ramp-up is done, and so we expect to be back to algorithm in 2021, really all-in. And then, those expenses start to ramp – those expenses ramp down in 2022. So, I hope that's clarifying. Mike?
Yeah. In 2020, we'll have expenses for the pilot as we mentioned and also – it's our heavy investment year. 2022 and 2023 is when we get the wind down and the benefits really kick in for us.
2020, we've got to build the whole global template and spend it up. And then, when we go-live with our pilots, we actually have to start depreciating and realize all the expense for that.
Got you. And does ERP by the way – I don't think is the case, but would an implementation of a program like this impact sort of ability to integrate acquisitions at all were or is that really a separate aspect?
I think that's a separate aspect. Our priority, of course, is growth. And so, if we had an attractive asset that we wanted to buy, we would adjust our ERP plans in order to accommodate it. So, we've been thoughtful about that internally and we don't believe that it would interfere with our ability to do an acquisition of the right asset, whether it be a bolt-on or a large one.
Great. And then, just quick on private label, you talked about some of the weakness in private label in consumer Americas. And I guess I'm just trying to get a little more perspective or color around that, whether it was a one-off, like particular retailer thing, was it McCormick losing private label share or overall private label slowing. I'm trying to get a sense of if this is something we think about as you move through into 2020 or somewhat more of a one-off, not that it's a bad thing for margins, of course?
Exactly. So, that's actually part of the answer. So, the private label was one of the factors in Q4 that was down. And we talked about in Q3, it was up. And I would think this is just the kind of the normal ebb and flow of this business. Private label is not as strong as it was a year ago and you can see that through the consumption data, and that's reflected in our performance as well. I think this is more of a kind of a normal ebb and flow in that part of the business.
We are selective about where we participate, and so there are always a level of wins and losses; we want to participate in private label where it's a strategic value to us and also where frankly it's profitable.
I think you can see that, as you look at our fourth quarter in the Americas in particular, brand came in strong, private label was light, and that change in mix shift flows right through in the margin [indiscernible].
Yeah. Great. Thanks very much. See you soon.
Our next question is from the line of Ken Goldman with J.P. Morgan. Please proceed with your question.
Hi. Good morning. And thank you.
Hi, Ken. Good morning.
Hi. I just wanted to ask. I know it's way too early to talk about the impact of coronavirus. But I wanted to make sure that maybe I had my facts straight on it. So, can I ask a couple of questions on maybe exactly what your setup is there. I think you have one plant in Wuhan. I don't think it's two. It's one. Is that correct?
That's correct.
And, I guess, the follow-up would be, is that plant operating today and is there any way for us to sort of quantify how much that contributes to your sales or EBIT? Can the other plants maybe pick up some of the slack if that plant doesn't happen to be operating? I just wanted to kind of get some of the lay of the land there to how to think about that.
So, I'll say a few words about this. Of course, our concern, first and foremost, is for the health and safety of our employees and around product safety. So, I want to emphasize a lot of our efforts and responses are directed to that. We don't disclose our China sales specifically, but we do talk about – as you know, anything that's over 10%, we do have to spell out. Well, China is a large country for us. It's our largest after the US. It's less than 10% of our sales and quite a bit less than 10% of our profitability even though that is a profitable business. I think it's too early to really know what the impact is going to be on us.
We've got three plants in China. One is in Shanghai, one in Guangzhou and one in Wuhan. Right now, all of them are closed. It's the Chinese New Year holiday. They closed in the normal course of business actually before all the government restrictions were put in place. So, this was a very orderly, plant-full shutdown for their regular holiday season. Normally, there's about a 10-day shutdown period for the Chinese New Year.
If everything was normal, they'd have reopened for business on February 2 along with the rest of the – February 3. I think it's the Monday for resumption of shipments. And that's actually the date that the government has put out for most of the country to reopen operations.
The city of Shanghai has put in a special restriction, saying that companies can't reopen until February 10. But other than that, there's really no new news for us. And so far, it's not a business interruption. I think it really remains to be seen how far this goes.
Certainly, the reduction in people traveling, being able to go out to eat, being able to shop at the grocery stores is not a positive for business. We can't really quantify it right now. We certainly think more facts will come out over the coming days really and we'll be better able to understand what the real business impact is.
Okay, that's very helpful. I guess just a quick follow-up and then I'm going to go.
If there's one thing to kind of caution around our first half of the year, it's the uncertainty around this.
That's exactly where I was going to go. Is it safe to say that your guidance includes a little bit of conservatism just because of the uncertainty or is it really just so uncertain that it's not worth even estimating at all in your numbers?
Ken, I think it's a consideration. Definitely something in the last week or two, we've thought hard about. Yes, I'd say so.
The other point I'd raise too, this Wuhan manufacturing facility, we source from China and sell into China. There's really no external…
Very good point.
So, it's really within country.
Great. Thank you so much.
Our next question is from the line of Steven Strycula with UBS. Please proceed with your questions.
Hi. Good morning. So, first question would be more of an operational one. I just want to know, relative to internal plan, what if anything kind of deviated in the fourth quarter trends? It sounds like, at a high level, it might've been private label. And just to clarify a little bit more from Andrew Lazar's question, is there any kind of read forward into 2020 about that state of the business or was there really just a lumpiness between Q3 and Q4?
First of all, at the end of the – on our Q3 call, we did guide through the low end of our range for a variety of reasons. We talked about some unseasonable weather impact and the warehouse transition in our flavor solution side on the Americas part. And those factors did spill into Q4 really in the September timeframe, in particular. So, we did come in a little light due to those factors rolling forward, especially in September, and some softness in private label in Canada that we mentioned in our prepared remarks.
I would think that the Canada softness is nonrecurring. It related to the promotional activity that we didn't repeat and we see that as a nonrecurring factor. The private label, probably I would expect that to carry into the early part of the year as well. So, that will be the one carryforward item. So, those were some of the negatives.
I will say, on the positive side, the quarter started a little soft, as I had mentioned. We had unseasonable weather in September in the Americas. We did have some hangover from the warehouse transition. But it's got stronger as we went through the quarter and definitely finished on the strong side. We had strong consumer consumption and strong branded growth, which as I had on Andrew's question. You can see in our margin, the flavor solutions was really solid other than the warehouse issue early in the quarter. So, I wouldn't think there's anything untoward there and really no reason to – I don't really think of anything as being a negative there that would carry forward.
Okay, that's very helpful. And then, a quick follow-up for Mike. I know it's extremely early to even think about 2021. Just wanted to understand the cadence you laid out for the ERP system. So, for 2021, would that imply that the residual left over balance would be – that runs through the P&L is roughly $80 million to $115 million and then the tax rate this year is 22$ including discrete items. Is the normalized rate, given what we know about tax reform at this point, probably 24% for the company? How should we think about it?
I think if you look at the fourth quarter tax rate, which was 24.7%, it's going to be in that range. We didn't – hardly have any discrete items in the fourth quarter. So, yeah, the underlying tax rate is in that range. Of course, we're always looking to optimize structure and things like that to help drive that.
From an ERP perspective, like we said, there's a lot of cost going into 2020 and 2021. 2021 is when we really have the big deployments. We had the pilots this year and we're building out the global model in 2020. Those are the big years. We'll have some expenses out into 2022 and 2023 as we bring up some of the other regions, but they'll fall off pretty rapidly.
Okay. And is any of that $80 million this year included in that $0.05 charge that you're adjusting out of operating earnings?
No, no, none of this program is going through special charges. This is all just going right through the P&L, normal GAAP.
Very helpful. Thank you.
Thanks.
The next question is from the line of Alexia Howard with AllianceBernstein. Please proceed with your questions.
Good morning, everyone.
Hi, Alexia.
So, I've just got two quick ones. The operating income trend between consumer and flavor solutions, it was up very modestly this quarter in consumer, but up double digits in in the flavor solutions side. Just wondering, will the brand marketing investment continue to pressure margins in the consumer side and can the margins in the flavor solutions side of things continue to expand like this, so that they continue to converge over time? And then, I have a follow-up. Thank you.
Yeah, Alexia. This is Mike. We saw in the second half of the year, flavor solutions margins did improve. We had a tough comparison in the first half because of the transactional FX rates. Those did ease in the second half, like we talked about earlier in the year. So, we do see those favorable trends continue as FX really for 2020 is going to be a neutral impact versus negative 2-ish percent in 2019. So, that's a favorable trend there. And we do see continued optimization of our portfolio, more value-added products in flavor solutions to help drive margins upward.
On the consumer side, in this year, in 2018, our advertising increased about 18%. So, in 2019, we basically have spent comparable – we decided we were going to optimize our spend, form the marketing excellence program. And even though our A&P spendings were flat, our working media was up double-digits. So, we really got the optimization there.
And we also changed – we skewed it. So, if you recall, in the first half, we were below year ago. In the second half, we were above. And that's what you're seeing in the fourth quarter, operating income coming through kind of – I won't say hoarded it, but we should skew the A&P towards the fourth quarter where it frankly – where it has the highest ROI. And you'll see, in the next year, as we said in the prepared remarks, we were going to outspend A&P. The comparison is easier in the first half of the year where we'll have increases in A&P a little above our full-year guidance.
[Multiple Speakers] it's really effective.
Great. And as a follow-up, acquisitions, I think in previous commentary, you had said you were looking internationally and possibly at the flavor solutions side of things. Has that thinking changed as you think about the larger scale deals that might be on your radar screen? Thank you. And I'll pass it on.
I'd say, there's no change in our thinking about acquisition. If we were to do a bolt-on size acquisition that contributed to our international business to kind of balance out the skew that we've got towards the Americas right now, that would be a plus. Flavor solutions, we're certainly interested in assets in that flavor space. And those are certainly areas where we would be looking to fish. And the same set of the larger assets that we have on our internal tracker are still out there in the market. There have been some large transactions in the space. They were not things that we were targeting.
Great. Thank you very much. I'll pass it on.
The next question is from the line of Faiza Alwy with Deustche Bank. Please proceed with your questions.
Hi. Good morning.
Good morning, Faiza.
Morning. So, two questions from me. One is just on – is it possible for you to disaggregate as you think about 2020 outlook between the flavors business versus the consumer business? Are you expecting more growth in one segment versus the other?
We expect the guidance for both businesses in the 2% to 4%, which is consistent with our strategy [indiscernible]. We feel there's opportunities [technical difficulty].
Okay. Just I wanted to talk about cash flow a little bit, especially as it relates to the deployment of ERP and what that would mean for the cash conversion cycle in 2020 and beyond. And then relatedly, if you could discuss your capital allocation priorities because you have de-levered quite a bit. You're getting closer to your three times target. But then you've talked about a new share repurchase program and you just talked about acquisitions. So, how should we think about sort of your priorities for cash in 2020?
Those are great questions. On cash conversion cycle, yeah, we're down 44 days since 2016. So, we really put a lot of effort into our program across all components of working capital. We do see there's a lot of runway to go here with extending terms and other programs. We do, however, also realize that sometime this year we're going to start building inventory which will eat into some of those gains, but I think the opportunities overall still do outweigh some of that inventory build. I don't want to give you a cash conversion cycle forecast. I don't want to get into that much detail, but we still do think there are some opportunities.
And the nice thing is once we get these go-lives behind us, we do think there's a lot of benefits from a working capital perspective from being on one global system. So, as part of the return that we're expecting from our ERP investment quite frankly.
From a capital allocation perspective, you're right, we're down to 3.4 times debt to EBITDA. We're going to continue paying down debt this year in the absence of M&A targets as we promised. We reauthorized $600 million of buyback. We were down to $32 million. We're using that as stock options we've got to exercise for neutralizing the impact there. In the near term, we'll continue to do that. We don't see any large stock purchase or anything like that. M&A is obviously where we – paying down debt and attractive M&A targets to drive growth are two best uses of cash.
And we've looked at some targets. So, we're actively considering assets that come available. We feel that we have a clear line of sight to getting down to our target. We don't think that we actually have to literally get there. So, we're not going to let a great asset get away.
Great. Thank you.
Our next question is coming from the line of Robert Moskow with Credit Suisse. Please proceed with your questions.
Hi, thank you. I might have missed it, but the reason for the increase in the cost of the ERP system was to have a broader estimate, I guess, for the go-live activity. But I think you did have an estimate before for the go-live activity. So, what changed between now and a few months ago to have it expand that much?
The outlook that we gave previously were literally the program costs around the IT program itself. They did not include the broader business impact and preparation of the business which we're now giving quantification of and guiding to All of the costs associated with building and holding inventory and business preparation is about 50% of the increase in the OpEx component that we're talking about here. And our concern here is really to make sure that we have a smooth go live without any disruption to our customers and to mitigate risk around these go-lives. That would be our hope that they go smoothly and we've gotten a lot of experience in going live with SAP. So, we're not neophytes to this. We did just go – brought up all of the RB Foods business on our old version of SAP very smoothly and we would hope that this goes smoothly, but we don't want to just hope. We want to make sure that we're really doing the things that it takes to mitigate that risk. That's a portion of it.
And then also, we haven't given any kind of window into some of the other expenses. We have software as a service that we start to realize and the depreciation costs which I'm probably better off letting Mike talk about. So, I'm going to stop on that point right now and let you take over on that.
But then the second piece is also around mitigating risk, strengthening to change management program. So, we've taken that a lot deeper. As we've looked at this, we just have really been thoughtful about identifying areas where there might be – a business might be at risk or if something doesn't go right or where – we're not taking for granted, people working in a plant, looking at new screens are going to get it quickly. So, we've really doubled down on the change management program, the number of super users that are embedded in the business and we've extended the deployment schedule just a little bit following the pilot to make sure that we've got time to adjust if anything does surprise us in the pilots which again we don't have any reason to believe it will, but we're trying to be thoughtful and mitigate the risk as much as we can. Go ahead, Rob.
I guess if you've given us a conservative estimate here, it's now in the organic kind of EBIT growth algorithm. So, if there's improvement versus that cost, will you kind of give us an update and tell us to the extent to which it's kind of upside to any given year?
Obviously, we will, Rob. We realize this is a multiyear program, but we will definitely be very transparent with this.
Yeah.
I'll just say, these programs are expensive. They are multiyear. They are major, broad, enterprise-wide programs. And it is a lot of money, but we believe the price tag is in line with the experience that others have had when you consider the all-in cost.
Right, okay. Thank you.
Our next question is from the line of Adam Samuelson with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your questions.
Yes, thanks. Good morning, everyone. I was hoping to just get a little bit more color on the inflation guidance that you've given for the mid-single digits and the ability on part to offset that with pricing. Just, A, where categories of buy where you're seeing kind of inflation at or above those kinds of levels, like what's really driving it? And second, on the pricing side would seem to imply about 100 basis points of pricing in the revenue growth guidance, just any specific categories or geographies where that might be an outsized benefit?
Yeah, Adam. This is Mike. From a cost perspective, we're seeing pretty broad based increase across a lot of items. Some are declining. Some like garlic are going up, but pretty much every category has seen inflation higher than the last couple of years, whether it's packaging, shipments from overseas or some new regulations there are causing some increases. So, I don't want to pin it on one thing, but from a pricing perspective, we've obviously built that into our plans.
Yeah. I don't think we want to break out that pricing portion of the guidance separately, but the pricing we are planning to take contributes to the confidence we have on our outlook for 2020. That's for sure. And I'll say that when we do take pricing, we know there're some elasticity impact as well, so we're considering that as well. But just because we're taking pricing doesn't mean it's literally added to the results that we realize in the absence of pricing. You have to consider pricing and volume together.
I'll also add that we've got – there's always some commercial tension in the discussions about pricing. So, I don't want to get overly specific about where we are. I can say that, in the Americas, we've really completed our pricing negotiations and have that resolved, and those pricing changes are going into effect as scheduled. In other parts of the world, it varies somewhat by market sometimes because of statutory reasons. But we'd expect to have it all in place by the end of the first half.
So, you'll see a ramp up in pricing most likely during the year, our results.
Okay. That's helpful color. And then, just quickly from me a follow up. If we go back 12 months last year, in November, you had a challenging Thanksgiving in the US. And just want to make sure that, as we look at the kind of sales performances in this quarter in the Americas, that returned back to normal and mix was – seems to be variable given the private label decline, but as it relates to some of the premium Thanksgiving ingredients that you sell, that all – that there was something [Multiple Speakers]…
…spices and seasonings business shift, as I mentioned. Consumption was strong. We shipped well ahead of consumption as we lapped that dip on those branded items and that's definitely a contributor to the strong gross margin in the quarter. That's really where you see that through. There is an offset. So, it's less visible on the top line. As we said, that soft – I'd say the lower private label sales and some softness in Canada.
Okay, I appreciate the color. I'll pass it on. Thanks.
Thank you. Our next question is from line of Chris Growe with Stifel. Please proceed with your question.
Hi, good morning.
Hi, Chris.
Hi. I just wanted to kind of follow-on the last question, the point you made. Just to be clear on the private label side. Are you talking a weakness in the category or have you lost some private label business perhaps even intentionally just to understand the magnitude of the decline in the fourth quarter? It seems like it was larger than I expected. Is that because of the category or…?
Well, those category turns on private label are nowhere near what they were a year ago or two years ago. So, we see that flatten out. But really, it's just – I don't want to over-bake it here. Third quarter private label was unusually strong. It was a little softer in the fourth quarter and I'd say that this is just kind of normal ebb and flow in that business.
Okay. And just a second question if I could around – and you talked about before, you had some cost inflation built in for the year, mid-single digits. You've got some pricing you've noted and we don't really get into the timing and the amount of that. I guess what I'm trying to understand is, when I add in the cost savings, I guess I'll call them CCI cost saving, $105 million, why is it not sufficient then to offset the ERP spending? Is it because you have to offset some inflation or where are those savings getting kind of eaten up to where they can't offset this incremental expense in ERP spending?
Chris, this is Mike. There's a $60 million incremental investment we're making this year that we wouldn't have in a normal year. So, I wouldn't expect CCI to offset that. CCI, what it does is it drops through the P&L. It covers things like increased advertising as we make more investments in things, increased SG&A costs for salary. Actually, if you look at our guidance for next year, we have about 50 basis points adjusted operating profit increase which is our long term algorithm. So, I think the value is, we can't expect when you have a $60 million incremental item to cover that. And frankly, we hit $190 million this year on CCI. We're guiding to $105 million. Some of those resources we use to drive CCI are really supporting the ERP program. So, we just want to be aware of that too. We can't just turn on CCI and make it go up $60 million.
Okay. Like I said, we'll call it CCI program, is there a multiyear program behind this or is it just a year at a time from here on out as you think about your cost saving opportunity?
Yeah. Four years ago, when we started the four year program, that was kind of a different time in the food industry and we wanted to really show how we were different from a cost perspective and really planful and thoughtful about this and not doing ZBB and all that sort of stuff. At this point, it's a year-by-year process, but it has a – there's a long term plan to it.
[Multiple Speakers]
Things like ERP, that will generate savings in 2022, 2023 that are built into our internal – we have an internal program, but we don't talk about that externally. We'll give you the yearly buckets as we get the guidance.
Okay. Got it, thank you.
Our next question is from the line of Peter Galbo with Bank of America. Please proceed with your questions.
Hey, good morning, Lawrence and Mike. And thanks for taking the question. Just two really quick cleanup ones from me. Mike, I know you had said, CapEx for 2020 to be up over 2019. I don't know if there is any way just to quantify that more.
In the 10-K, it's $265 million. It's a round number.
$265 million. Okay, got it. And then, anything you can do to help us out just with interest expense? I would expect to be lower year-over-year.
Yeah, I think it will be lower. We had a nice decline this year. I think if you model based on our outstanding debt, continued cash conversion, you can – it will be down definitely.
Got it. Thanks.
Thank you. Our final question is coming from the line of Rob Dickerson with Jefferies. Please proceed with your questions.
Great. Thank you very much. Couple of questions. Good morning. I guess just the first question is to clarify on the transformation expenses over the next three years. It sounds like what you're saying is, yes, there's the ramp this fiscal year and then just based off of the math. It's probably like a similar expense in 2021 and 2022 as well if we just cut it in half what's remaining. But that might ramp down a little bit as we go through time and then it's the benefits that all set. Because, I guess, where there's a little confusion on my end was if we have the numbers, and we know what you're saying for this fiscal year, then why wouldn't we just take the remaining and just divide it by the next two fiscal years and say it's just kind of a standardized $60 million run rate per year? It sounds like what you're saying is, oh, no, there are going to be all these benefits to offset that kind of run rate cost.
I think we'll start getting benefits in 2022. So, you kind of compartmentalize 2020 and 2021 as a significant investment, increased expenses around the same level of impact on the P&L between 2020 and 2021. And then, 2022 there's lesser go lives and then the benefits kick in, so you get a nice tailwind in 2022 and 2023.
Right, okay. Perfect.
That's just like a $60 million run rate. I'm not sure I'm following you on that one, Rob.
Sorry, it was just – I just took the midpoint of the 3 to 3.50, which is 3.25.
That's not an ongoing cost.
Right, okay.
That's a [indiscernible] that's like a proverbial pig in the python.
Okay, fair. Completely fair. Thank you for clarifying. And then, the other question I had was just on private label profitability. I think you said there was – just given you had a little bit of a mix shift, branded/private label in the quarter, maybe early this year, but some of that can be margin mix positive. But I swear I've heard you say historically at times that it might depend on what private label that is because a lot of your private label, it seems like, overall is usually margin mix neutral, just more of a penny profit piece. So, just any clarification as to basically, like, on average as private label usually a little bit lower margin for you or not?
I think, overall, you've got to understand with private label, we're pretty much focusing on large customers where we get the plant manufacturing optimization or distribution optimization and it's because we do a whole service for the customer. And from a total margin perspective, the other thing, compared to brand, you don't have things like innovation, marketing, things like that below that. We'd much rather sell brand.
From a gross margin standpoint, there's no doubt that private label is lower. I don't want there to be any misunderstanding about that. Was there like a return on investment? It's surprisingly close to brand because these other expenses and utilize existing capacity and so on. But private label certainly lower gross margin.
Okay. Makes complete sense. And then, just lastly, in terms of the 2% to 4% percent on the top line, I know you said, you don't really want to break out pricing relative to volumes. But in the press release,. you do say that you still expect grow sales via increased distribution, brand marketing et cetera. So, just to be clear, you do expect volumes overall to still be up. It's kind of basic, but that's it.
We're nodding our heads, but you can't see. But, yes, we certainly do. We've got a lot of reasons to belief in our growth plans for 2020. Certainly, there's the – pricing is an element of it, but we have confidence that we're going to be able to continue to drive our undisputed leadership in spices and seasoning. We see continued growth opportunities in condiment and global flavor, particularly in those areas where we've got scale. Notwithstanding the issue in China, which we hope is short term, we think that emerging markets and channels and platforms are our continued growth opportunity and with all of our programs and especially with all of the digital e-commerce and social media outreach that we do, we're strengthening our consumer connection. So we have a lot of reasons to believe that – or growth plans for 2020 are solid.
Okay. Super, thank you.
Thank you. And I'll turn the call over to Lawrence Kurzius for closing remarks.
Thanks, everyone, for your questions and for participating on today's call. McCormick is a global leader in flavor and we're differentiated with a broad and advantaged portfolio which continues to drive growth.
We have a growing and profitable business and we operate in an environment that is changing at an ever faster pace. We're responding readily to changes in the industry with new ideas, innovation on purpose. With a relentless focus on growth performance and people, we continue to perform strong globally and build long term shareholder value.
I'm proud of our 2019 financial performance while doing what's right for people, our communities and the planet as well as our positive momentum heading into 2020. I'm confident and in our 2020 outlook, another year of strong underlying business performance, while making significant investment in business transformation to fuel our growth and build both the McCormick of the future and shareholder value. Thank you.
Thank you, Lawrence. And thanks to all for joining today's call. If you have any further questions regarding today's information, please feel free to contact me. This concludes this morning's call. Have a good day.