Tyson Foods, Inc. (NYSE:TSN) Q4 2018 Earnings Conference Call - Final Transcript

Good morning, and welcome to the Tyson Foods, Inc. Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) Please note this event is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Jon Kathol, VP of IR. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and welcome to the Tyson Foods, Inc. Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2018 Earnings Conference Call. On today's call are Noel White, President and CEO; and Stewart Glendinning, CFO. Slides accompanying today's prepared remarks are available as a supplemental report in the Resource Center of the Tyson Investor website at ir.tyson.com.

Tyson Foods issued an earnings release this morning, which has been furnished to the SEC on Form 8-K and is available on our website at ir.tyson.com.

(Forward-Looking Cautionary Statements)

I would like to remind everyone that this call is being recorded on Tuesday, November 13 at 9:00 AM Eastern Time. A replay of today's call will be available on our website approximately one hour after the conclusion of this call. This broadcast is the property of Tyson Foods and any redistribution, retransmission or rebroadcast of this call in any form without the expressed written consent of Tyson Foods is strictly prohibited.

Please note that our references to earnings per share, operating income and operating margin in today's remarks are on an adjusted basis, unless otherwise noted. For reconciliations to our GAAP results, please refer to this morning's press release.

I'll now turn the call over to Noel White.

Thanks, Jon. Good morning. It's my pleasure to join you today on my first earnings call as CEO of Tyson Foods. I'm honored to be in this role, and I'm energized by the many opportunities ahead for this great company. I'd like to begin by acknowledging Tom Hayes. We wish him well and thank him for his leadership in refining our strategy and putting it into action. I'm committed to Tyson Foods' strategy to sustainably feed the world with the fastest growing protein brands. As a member of the leadership team that developed this strategy, I know it's our foundation for continued growth. After 35 years with Tyson, I've been a part of the evolution from a commodity protein producer to a global food company, and we will continue on this trajectory.

I have a track record of delivering results in mobile segments of our Company. And my focus is to grow our prepared foods, our value-added chicken and international businesses to help stabilize volatility and grow earnings. We have a great team both at the executive level and throughout the Company. This team is empowered to accelerate growth and deliver results while maintaining our commitment to sustainability. Our algorithm for growth continues to be 3% value-added sales growth and high-single-digit EPS growth annually over time. Our 2018 value-added growth of 4.2% exceeded our goal. EPS was $6.16, an increase of 16% over last year, including $0.78 from tax reform.

We exceeded our revised guidance due to strong finish in the fourth quarter in the Beef and Pork