Brady Corporation (BRC) Earnings Call Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Brady Corporation Fiscal Year 2020 Annual Shareholders' Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Ann Thornton, Chief Accounting Officer. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to the Brady Corporation Fiscal Year 2020 Annual Shareholders Meeting. Thank you for joining us today. I'm Ann Thornton, Brady's Chief Accounting Officer and Director of Investor Relations. The slides for this morning's call are located on our website at www.bradycorp.com/investors. We will begin our prepared remarks on Slide #3. Please note that during this call, we may make comments about forward-looking information. Words such as expect, will, may, believe, forecast and anticipate are just a few examples of words identifying a forward-looking statement. It's important to note that forward-looking information is subject to various risk factors and uncertainties, which could significantly impact expected results. You can read about these risk factors in more detail in our 2020 Form 10-K, which was filed with the SEC in September of this year. Also, please note that this teleconference is copyrighted by Brady Corporation and may not be rebroadcast without the consent of Brady. Moving to the agenda on Slide #3, we will first announce the results of the election of Brady's Board of Directors. Next, Brady's President and CEO, Michael Nauman, will provide the President's report. And then we will open it up to a Q&A session where Michael Nauman; and Aaron Pearce, Brady's CFO, will be available to answer questions. Today's presentation is being broadcast live on the Internet and will be available on our website for replay. So your participation in the Q&A session will constitute your consent to being recorded. Let's now turn to Slide #4 for the election of the Board of Directors. I'd like to introduce Mr. Conrad Goodkind, the Chair of Brady's Board of Directors, for the results of the election of the Board of Directors. Conrad?

Thank you, Ann, and good morning to everyone. Thank you for joining us this morning. I am Conrad Goodkind, Chair of the Brady Board of Directors. I'd like to briefly give you an introduction to each of our directors who are standing for reelection today. First, in order -- in alphabetical order, Pat Allender. Mr. Allender is the retired Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Danaher Corporation. Gary Balkema. Gary is the retired President of Bayer Healthcare, LLC and Worldwide Consumer Care division. David Bem, I should say, Dr. David Bem, he's PhD Doctorate, as our other 3 doctors who I'll introduce later on. David is Vice President, Science and Technology and the Chief Technology Officer of PPG industries. Dr. Elizabeth Bruno, is the President of Brady Educational Foundation and formerly on the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and is also the granddaughter of William H. Brady, Jr., the company's founder. Nancy Gioia. Nancy is the retired Director of Global, Electrical Connectivity and User Experience at Ford Motor Company. Myself, Conrad Goodkind. I'm a retired partner at the law firm, Quarles & Brady, where I specialized prior to retirement in corporate and securities law. Dr. Frank Harris. Frank, is the founder of several technology-based companies, including Akron Polymer Systems, where he currently serves as the Chair of the Board. Prior to that, Frank was a professor of Polymer Science at the University of Akron. Bradley Richardson is the recently retired Executive Vice President and CFO of Avient Corporation, which was previously known as PolyOne Corporation. Dr. Michelle Williams is the global Group President of Altuglas International subsidiary of Arkema S.A. And last and most important, J. Michael Nauman, Brady's President and Chief Executive Officer. Now turning to Slide 5 for the results of the election, I'm pleased to report that the holders of 100% of the Class B Voting Common Stock have voted in favor of the election of each of the director nominees and therefore, they are reelected for a 1-year term. At this point, I'll turn the meeting back to Michael Nauman for a brief update on Brady. Michael?

Thank you, Conrad. I really appreciate the introduction and the support of an extremely strong board. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. The format of this meeting is, of course, different than we've used in the past, we're all getting used to new ways of doing things, whether that's a virtual meeting like this, sourcing products and materials differently or figuring out how we meet the emerging needs of new customers. Let's turn to Slide #7 for a reminder of Brady's strategic vision statement. This year, we continue to prove that our deep expertise and innovative products and solutions are indeed market-leading and meet the needs of existing and new customers alike. I'm incredibly proud of how the Brady team has responded to COVID-19 pandemic. We quickly developed and launched many new products to help fight the disease and adapted our work processes to be a faster, more efficient organization than ever before. Turning to Slide #8. As the pandemic spread globally, our sites quickly responded. We realized we're in a unique position to develop and sell products that would help with social distancing, promote critical hygiene and identify and track samples for hospitals and laboratories. Several of these new products are featured on this slide. The patented drinking fountain safety cover was an idea born from an existing Brady lockout product that is being sold to offices, universities and schools throughout the country, prevent the use of drinking fountains where germs can easily spread. Our experiencing and developing high performance for marketing tape made a surge in orders and a wider range of offerings related to social distancing. Brady's unique high durability labels are sought after for use in COVID tests, along with our absorbent pads, which are being placed in many test kits to absorb liquids in the event of a broken test file. And the Brady mask less off, which is sold through several of our businesses, is an easy way to keep track of your face mask when you take it off. Before the pandemic, we launched many new products that were well received in the market, and we continue to respond to industry demand throughout the spring and summer. Some of these are highlighted on Slide #9. Last fall, we launched the A5500 Flag Print Applicator, which prints and applies label flag in just 5 seconds. This product expands our leadership in the automation of labeling. We recently launched BradyGrip Print-on Hook Material, a label material designed to adhere to VELCRO branded cabling bundles, making it easier for our customers to identify critical applications. Turning to Slide #10. This past year, we maintained our strong focus on creating an excellent digital presence and seamless order entry payment and fulfillment functions. We recognize the opportunity created by the economic downturn and went live on our global ERP systems 6 months to a year earlier than originally planned at several of our businesses in the United States and Europe. Our teams reacted quickly to launch new digital tools on our website to help customers easily find the products they need. Due to lockdowns in cities around the world, much of this work had to be completed remotely. We also added many new customers ranging from small businesses to major retails, and our businesses are working to continue to serve these customers long into the future. Moving to Slide #11. I'm proud that Brady lives out our values every day through social responsibility initiatives that include a focus on cultivating an inclusive and diverse workplace. We've also increased our philanthropic efforts through the Brady Foundation to partner with not the profit in communities where Brady has a presence to support racial equity issues. And we continue to identify ways that we can help the environment, whether it's through the installation of solar panels on the roofs of our plants in Orange, Florida and Buffalo, New York or using thermal energy at our plant in Germany to heat and cool the office and warehouse. As we look to the future, we're committed to driving environmental efficiencies in our facilities as well as with our products. Last year, I shared that for fiscal 2020, we will maintain our focus on activities that would secure our future for the long term. Even with a global pandemic to deal with, Brady's stated course and focused on those activities. Turning to Slide #12. You can see just a few of our global team members. As I said to my colleagues around the world over and over again, Brady isn't just going to survive, we're going to thrive. I couldn't be more proud of what we've done. With that, I'd like now to turn this over to start the Q&A. Operator, would you please provide instructions to our shareholders?

[Operator Instructions] And I'm not showing any questions at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Michael Nauman for any further remarks.

Thank you. I'd like to leave you with a few concluding comments this morning. We're all living in unprecedented times and are dealing with uncertainty and disruption in our daily lives. Our focus at Brady remains unchanged. We will deliver what we promise to our customers, our employees, our communities and our shareholders. We'll invest in R&D and other sales-generating resources to grow our business. We'll invest in automation in our facilities, and we will execute sustainable efficiency gains. We don't know when this pandemic will susbside, but we're controlling all we can. We'll stay focused on the long term, and we'll make the right investments and the right decisions today that will continue to generate opportunities for the long term. We're up for the challenge. We're proud to be your company. It's important that we create a strong future for you, our shareholders, and for our employees, our customers and our communities. We're dedicated to being better every day. Please stay safe, and thank you for your time this morning. Have a great day. Operator, you may disconnect the call.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.