Perrigo Company plc (PRGO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
March 15, 2023
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Peter Grom
analystAll right. Well, good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the UBS Global Consumer Retail Conference here in New York City. My name is Peter Grom. I'm the U.S. Beverages and Household product analyst here at UBS. And we are very excited to have joining us today from Perrigo, Murray Kessler, Chief Executive Officer; and Eduardo Bezerra, Chief Financial Officer. Thank you so much for being here today.
Peter Grom
analystSo we have a lot of ground to cover in terms of for -- to cover today. But in terms of format, I have a series of questions that I kind of plan to run through. I think all of you in the audience, if you kind of -- you kind of know the drill at this point. You can submit a question through the online application, and it'll then show up on this iPad, and I'll be happy to ask questions on your behalf. If not, you just want to raise your hand. Happy to just call on you later, and we can go from there. But before we start, I'm required to read a legal disclaimer as a research analyst, I'm required to provide certain disclosures relating to the nature of my own relationship and that of UBS, and which any company I express a view on this call today. These disclosures are available at www.ubs.com/disclosures. Alternatively, please reach out to me, and I can provide them to you after the call. So with that, why don't we get started? So I know the company -- very short a while ago at Investor Day. And I think a lot of people, including myself, are still kind of digesting the information. So I just kind of was hoping we could run through some of the highlights. Maybe just start -- you were here at this conference a year ago, you were just closing on the HRA transaction and underway to completing Perrigo's transformation from a healthcare company to a self-care company. Can you maybe just briefly remind us kind of where we are in the transformation and kind of go from there?
Murray Kessler
executiveSure. And the sheer fact that we're new to a group of individuals that cover consumer stock -- is the reason we needed to go through the transformation in the first place because Perrigo's core of its business for 130 years as -- in the bulk of the business has always been a consumer over-the-counter business. It was, I think, the first over-the-counter business, private label business in the U.S. But over time and in a year, let's call it, 115 or 117 of the company's history, it went down the path of pharmaceuticals and prescription pharmaceuticals and the generic business that was exciting for a short period of time. And then like many companies that go away from their core, it created massive distraction for us, it created massive of tax overhangs and some legal issues and that ultimately created neglect on the core business. So my job coming in was go back to what made Perrigo great and so successful for so many years and get back to the core. So the last 4 years that the team and I have done, I believe, 13 transactions, 5 divestitures or 4 divestitures, 1 closure, 9 acquisitions and made it back to a pure-play consumer company. And -- and we -- it's still health care, but it's self-care. It's not needing a doctor and it's beyond just treating illness where we started to treating illness and preventing illness and promoting wellness. And that allowed us, through these acquisitions to go out and -- and broad and diversify and get into other categories that we're growing faster. And -- at the same time, we had to invest. We had to invest in people. We had to invest in equipment. We had to invest in IT. We had -- put in business intelligence capabilities that any modern consumer packaged goods company would have. And when we started the process, we were a company that was declining top and bottom line for a 5-year compound annual period of like 2% declines on the top and 6% or 7% on the bottom. And we -- over the last 4 years, we've been growing now at a 7% compound annual growth rate on the top line and growth has actually come pretty easy despite all the challenges of COVID, but we had to invest. So our goal initially was to stabilize the operating income line, and we did that. But then we got hit with -- 2021 was supposed to be our first year within our algorithm of delivering 3,5,7, which is 3% topline growth, 5% operating income growth, 7% EPS growth. And that got delayed a year because of the massive input cost increases. But we just finished 2022. And the reason we're at this conference and everywhere else is because Perrigo -- if you look at our peer benchmarks against other consumer companies, we were at the top of the list, top quartile on net sales, our net sales, operating income growth, EPS growth, even stronger if you recognize we got hurt by currency last year, dividend payout, et cetera, and despite being the metrics and the performance of double-digit top and bottom line growth. We are at the very bottom of the list on multiple. So we believe we're a compelling value, and we're here to tell the story.
Peter Grom
analystThat's really helpful. I mean, maybe building on that last point, now that the transformation is complete, right, this self-care, new consumer -- consumer health care industry is kind of performing, right? You have ellaOne now public company, you have other potentially new public companies on the horizon. Procter & Gamble is a large OTC business. Stage consumer others. I mean it seems like the opportunities outweigh the risks. But I guess I'd be curious, how do you think about it from your vantage point?
Murray Kessler
executiveWell, -- as part of what we've done over the last few years is diversify. So we're -- we are a -- a lot of people think of us as a private label company. We're 50% private label. We're 50% branded. We're 55%, 60% U.S., 40% international. So we're a diversified business. So I have to answer the question differently a little bit for which part of the business we're talking about. But if you're not familiar or if you're listening on the webcast here, Kenvue is being spun off from J&J, Haleon is -- the formation of Pfizer and GSK. You've got us, better Pure-Play. You've got Prestige as Pureplay. My experience, when that happens, those companies that were neglected because they weren't the big division before, start investing heavily and that usually results in more innovation because the companies have sent them on their way, want to give them off to a good start, probably means more Rx-to-OTC switches at least initially. And let's call it, what it is -- for half the Perrigo business in the U.S., we're a fast follower. So we want them to innovate and launch products as fast as they can because we're really good copycats. And we are the first to be out there, and -- we always file. And an example was -- the Advil combination product. The very first day, it was about 1.5 weeks ago that it could be approved by somebody else past the exclusivity, Perrigo got the approval on the very first day. We're almost always first to file and first to market as a follower. From the European side and the innovation side, I'm sure there'll be certain areas of increased competition, but when we get back in the M&A business, there will also be a lot of spin-offs and sales by those companies that would fit our portfolio and not necessarily theirs. Now I {caveat that because for the first couple of years, right now, we're in a debt paydown mode and raising cash, not M&A. We've done plenty of M&A for the last couple of years. But in general, it -- it just -- as you raise awareness, every major trend, self-care is $400 billion $450 billion forecasted to grow 4%, 5% a year going forward. So I mean, that sets up for -- as long as you're growing your margins and keeping your balance sheet tight, you should be able to have a pretty strong performance.
Peter Grom
analystEduardo, do you have anything to add?
Eduardo Bezerra
executiveNo. I think, as Murray mentioned, we continue to let a lot in our portfolio in innovation, et cetera. So I think that increased competition will just benefit consumers at the end of the day.
Peter Grom
analystOkay. And maybe talking about the consumer and the consumer trends. In your Investor Day slides, you showed U.S. OTC and Oral Care, I think it was up more than 9%; Nutrition up 14%, CSCI business is also showing very good trends. So I think these metrics were also on a dollar basis. So I'd be curious, what's kind of the drivers of that -- is that just pricing? Are you gaining share potentially both -- just a color on that?
Murray Kessler
executiveWell, I'll say 1 thing, as a starting point, I'm proud to say that I think Perrigo's growth is higher quality than most consumer companies. I think what you saw is some real strong dollar growth last year against 8%, 10%, 12% price increases. So -- but with those 8%, 10%, 12% price increases, most big CPG companies had 4%, 5% volume declines to sort of net a 7% or 8% organic growth rate. We got the same 8%, 9% organic growth rate, but it was 50:50 price and volume. We grew our volume last year. So that was a big part of it. Now this will be a controversial statement. I believe a big piece of that was consumers trading down in the face of higher prices to price value. And you could push back on me and say -- or in the U.S. -- you could push back on me and say, "No, no, no, the national brands tell us all the time that -- their shares were good and consumers aren't trading down. And I say nonsense, your volume was down 5%. Our volume was up 5%. They traded down on volume. You just priced so aggressively, but we got more consumers, we got more share of the -- their volume share, which ultimately, over the long term, matters. So I mean that's on the U.S. business. In the international side, the HRA acquisition drove a lot of that volume plus the products most hit by -- in the U.S. and international, the products most hit by COVID. So like our cough/cold business went away. It came roaring back last year to the point we couldn't even keep up with it. And -- then there was infant formula that a competitor had a -- sort of a tough recall -- that had them out -- their largest plant out for a year, and we benefited from that, and we will continue to benefit from that as we just completed -- we purchased an infant formula plant from Nestle. So we were very, very, very capacity constrained. So those are kind of the big drivers. I think the infant formula situation, the acquisition and fast growth of comp, the cough/cold recovery and consumers trading down. They are sort of the big trends.
Peter Grom
analystAnd I guess, maybe building on that, right? There's -- lot of volatility out there, the things change day to day. But there just seems to be a concern on the economy. And it seems like kind of building on your point that consumers did trade down and that was a benefit to you -- just shown by your volume growth. I mean, I guess I would be curious, like, how do you think about kind of how your company plays in a potential recession? Will that be a benefit to you as you look out if that were to happen?
Murray Kessler
executiveI mean, again, we're more diversified than we were in the past. But if you go back to prior recessions, private label and -- in our categories tends to gain a share point. So you would say it would benefit us. I think it's already benefited for us. And we -- people ask me all the time, do you guys have pricing power? And we do and we have in Europe with our branded products, but we don't want to raise prices like our -- our whole reason for being is value, and we want to be a low-cost producer. And I'm sure you'll get to it, but that's why I would rather focus on driving costs out of the system and COVID showed us where a lot of cost was in the system that could be improved upon. So we'll continue to push on that as a big priority. Anything you want to add to that?
Eduardo Bezerra
executiveNo.
Peter Grom
analystYes. I mean, maybe building on that, obviously, inflation has been a big pressure not for you for everybody. Gross margin has been negatively impacted. And we kind of touched on pricing. I mean it's a great segue to want to put that. And let's -- what are the other drivers to kind of offset the inflation that you're kind of seeing? And I think while we're kind of on the topic. I think it would be pretty helpful to kind of just give some background on the store branded business. But -- but also just kind of the pricing strategy for the store branded business. And particularly given what we're kind of seeing right now, right? I mean I just think it would be helpful to give listeners those in the room, just some context how you think about the pricing strategy, particularly in the environment we're kind of about to go in and have been dealing with?
Murray Kessler
executiveOkay. So our historic pricing model for price value, again, different than the branded businesses in Europe is we want to bring a -- in our ideal situation -- in price value, it's a 30% discount to the consumer versus the national brand. It's a 30% margin to the retailer, and it's a 30% margin to Perrigo. That -- we have above, we have below and we get off -- strategy a little bit, but that's what we're shooting for on average every day. And when we do that, it works, everybody is profitable. We're investing, things are working well. There was a period of time when too much complexity was added to our system and our gross margin started to erode prior to COVID, okay? Prior to this last 18 months where everybody got slaughtered. We lost 200, 300 gross margin points there and was an area concern, but we had already started to work on it. Last year, we got hit with another 500 gross margin points like everybody, but we recovered it all back by the end of the year. So from first quarter to fourth quarter, we grew 500 gross margin points and ended the year basically a little -- a tiny bit of erosion, from 2022 versus 2021, and our recovery from first quarter to fourth quarter was better than any CPG company, and we were in the top 3 performers on gross margins year-over-year last year. That gets us back through pricing -- was a big piece of it, right? Because we can price when it's to cover inflation and our customers are great partners when it's truly cost justified, which it was. So we covered that, but that's still left a couple of hundred points of 200, 300 points of erosion prior to COVID, which you're not going to get back right away because of higher wage costs and things like that. And we have a major, major cost savings initiative on the supply chain side to recover that and that couple of hundred of gross margin points and more over the next 3 or 4 years.
Peter Grom
analystOkay. And then maybe that's a great lead into what I wanted to ask, which is -- how do I think about the gross margin recovery? Maybe specifically for 2023, but also looking out to 2025 for the total company. And I just kind of maybe just talk through the progression between CSCA, CSCI. In other words, I guess what I'm trying to understand is, does one have greater potential versus the other in terms of margin recovery?
Eduardo Bezerra
executiveYes. So for 2023, we are expecting around 200 basis points improvement versus 2022. So in other words, it's carrying the same Q4 margin that we saw in 2022 throughout 2023. And there are different components there. So in the first half, you have the detailed benefit of the pricing adjustments that we had in CSCA. While in international, we are going to see -- and also in CSCA, you have the benefit of the 10 months of the Gateway acquisition. And then in international, you have mainly 4 months of HRA acquisition. That's mainly the 4 months of the year, still offseted by some onetime impact that we have related to our distribution transition that's going to translate more into a price benefit in the near term. And then we have the supply chain reinvention that we went with synergies in the second half of the year. So when you look into that, those are the key components that make those 200 basis points benefit in 2023. And between CSCA and CSCI, we expect that to be fairly well split. So we expect both to present the same growth trajectory in 2023. When you look into '23 to '25 in terms of expansion, it's more on the benefit of the full year synergies that we're going to see in 2024 on HRA, and we're going to see more of the ramp-up of the supply chain reinvention that we can talk a little bit more further.
Peter Grom
analystOkay. Maybe moving back to the business, but kind of focusing on maybe some of the categories here. I kind of want to touch on women's health and kind of skin care. And it seems both have really benefited from HRA kind of acquisition -- so just maybe first in women's health. What are your kind of growth plans for the emergency contraceptive product? And then -- can you talk about the potential for the once daily contraceptive in the U.S. with Opill, I'd just be curious on like timelines for approval and I guess, launch. Just anything we should be aware of in terms of thinking about the timeline from here?
Murray Kessler
executiveSure. We're pretty excited about this. And we -- so much so that we formed a global business unit with 20 or 30 folks -- primarily strong women leaders who believe they are going to change the world, to some extent, bringing access and affordability to contraception and control of women's sexual health. So we see this as a big opportunity. On the emergency contraceptive side, in the U.S. Plan B, not us, is the biggest player. We have the ANDA. There was resistance to it because there's misperception. And then to be clear, Plan B is not a -- an abortion pill. It is a preconception, an emergency contraception. That outside of the U.S., the biggest player in the world is Perrigo with ellaOne that we got with HRA. And there is many markets still available for expanded distribution. I think we have applications right now into China. But the way we've been doing that is adding markets, adding markets, adding markets. ellaOne, the political environment wasn't ripe in the U.S. because Plan B approval was controversial back when it got approved. It was I believe, were rejected by the FDA and then overturn by the commissioners and received approval, but there wasn't sort of a stomach for another one. We did get the ANDA, so there is a private label version, but it makes retailers a little bit nervous about it, although I will say with Roe v. Wade having just been overturned that Amazon's first to go and has launched Option 2 under the Amazon Basic Care label. We just started shipping that about a month ago. So -- and we are evaluating now whether to go for the OTC switch with ellaOne back in the -- in the U.S. So lots of opportunity for continued growth there. Second is we are pushing hard for approval of the first over-the-counter birth control pill in the United States. We have approval already in the U.K. with a product called Hana. This -- in the U.S., a progesterone-only pill. We believe an advantage with similar efficacy, but less side effects -- is with the FDA, we expect an advisory council or advisory committee review probably in the second quarter. And we hope approval sometime within the months after, so that we could be shipping that product and promoting that product early, early in 2024, like hopefully right after the first of the year, but fingers crossed. It's -- you still have to get through the FDA and -- but we believe the data is of all there to support it, and we have the support of the American Medical Association, the American Gynecological Association and about 25 major organizations that all support the product's approval. Keep in mind, this product has been on the market since the 60s. So there is literally 60 years of safety data available on the product. So super excited about that. Concurrently, we're applying in -- and I believe right now, as a start, 3 additional European countries, and we would intend to take that globally. And leverage of what would be a 3-year exclusivity head start against anybody else and those ambitious and purpose-driven women that are leading this group for us will -- are also looking at fintech and all different kinds of products. We think there's a real opportunity for Perrigo to differentiate and in the consumer space to own -- owns a strong word but be a leader in women's health area.
Peter Grom
analystThat sounds really, really exciting and best of luck with that -- the things like it could be tremendous for you guys going forward. So I kind of want to hit the skin care. You have some very strong brands. You've acquired some brands. I think Compeed, Mederma , I mean what are your kind of growth plans for these brands as you think about the future here?
Murray Kessler
executiveWell, all 3 -- I mean, and the other one, I would say, is sort of a powerhouse brand ACO in the Nordic regions. Right now Compeed is pan-European and beyond has a significant opportunity to expand into the U.S. It's just started. HRA had just started that exercise. So not only geographic adjacency, but also product category adjacencies. So right now, I believe, early last year, we launched a cold sore product out of the Compeed technology. We also are launching a spots product that literally works for removing black heads and things like that. So just broadening on the skincare side, Mederma also in the U.S. has an opportunity in cold sores as well as going across because it's fantastic technology over to Europe. So 1 of the things that Perrigo has been setting up, but it's been 2 companies. It's been a branded company in Europe, and it's been a private label company, and there's so much similarity, but there was very little cross fertilization. So a big part of what we talked about in our Investor Day is really trying to synergize these 2 great companies and bring brands both directions and technologies across the pond. And then -- and we have organized to do that with a global skin care unit, a global women's health unit, a global Oral Care unit and that's our starting point, but exciting stuff.
Peter Grom
analystOkay. I just want to remind anyone if you have any questions. It does appear that this might be turned off. So if you do have a question, just raise your hand, and we'll call on you. But I have a few more questions that I kind of want to run through.
Murray Kessler
executiveYou have a question here.
Peter Grom
analystHere we go.
Unknown Analyst
analyst[indiscernible].
Murray Kessler
executiveAnd just in case people couldn't hear on the web -- webcast, the question was, what are the top 2 or 3 executional risks that we see within the transformation? Right now, the -- we must execute the HRA full integration well. So even though we bought it and we -- same thing with the Nestle infant formula plant, and the third is the supply chain reinvention. Those are the 3 that represent $150 million of operating profit growth or -- like the bulk of the operating profit growth. So no, there's no risk that they're going to happen. It just has to -- we can't trip doing it, right? So on HRA, we had to work through the first 8 or 9 months of work councils to be able to do the headcount changes and synergize and bring the organization. That just got done. So you have the normal cultural bringing 2 cultures together and then a big change, which will move it from their distributor model. We have a direct sales force in Europe. We call on thousands of pharmacies direct. And because of that, there's a 20% profit margin basically that the distributor would make that comes back to Perrigo by going direct. That's a big number. So, between that and headcount reductions and a few other things, by 2024, that's $50 million of synergies. And you won't see much of that synergy in '23, it will be there, but we have to take a onetime write-off against picking up inventory from the distributors to get it back into our warehouses and for our sales force to sell. A lot of that will happen in the first quarter. So we'll -- we hopefully have communicated this enough for people to understand that -- that -- there'll be a charge in the first quarter, but then it will set us up for further margin expansion and growth -- on the Nestle infant formula transition. We already make -- they were making 7 million or 8 million pounds of infant formula for us. We save the margins there. That's not an issue. Gerber is not an issue. The unions have already signed on instantly. So that went incredibly well on multi-year deals. So I would say that's just the normal sort of taking a brand. It wasn't run separately. So there's a lot of IT and a lot of technology that -- to get that separated and put into Perrigo over the next year. But listen, we do a lot of acquisitions. So we'll do that with excellence in our IT department. We'll do a great job. And then supply chain, there is a massive opportunity for us and our customers to both benefit by a simplification of our product portfolio. And that will probably -- we don't have a lot of money built in for that in 2023, but it's a massive opportunity. We have huge complexity that if simplified will result in much higher capacity for us, much higher service levels, which means more product on shelf for our customers and basically a win-win all around. So that 1 is just I'd have to spend another half hour with you, but just think of -- if we're -- if the national brand launches a SKU, we have to duplicate it for 30, 50, whatever customers, but they don't want it to be the same. So if it's -- I want it to be clear bottle. I want an opaque bottle. I want a yellow cap, I want a blue cap, I want a red cap. I want to rectangular pill, I want a round pill, I want mine to be orange. I want mine to be brown. I want mine to be white. And I don't want it packed in the same corrugated because our distribution center is different. So 2 SKUs, 3 SKUs or national brand can end up to be 1,200 for us. They don't all need to be different. Consumers want to know it's a better value. It's the same product. It's going to work as good. And if we can drive that 1,200 down to 200, it's always going to be different labels and -- but get a lot of that nonconsumer-facing variation away. We print money and that's hundreds of millions of dollars of savings for us, letting us be the low-cost producer, being able to compete service at a much higher level, and I'll leave you with 1 other fact. We run our plants 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, all of them. We do it at about 90% -- 85%, 90% utilization, which is where you want to be. You don't want to be above that. But we only run at 40% efficiency. And the difference between efficiency and utilization. Utilization is running, but you're only running 40% of what you could run through that line, if you were -- if it was -- if it was perfectly running the whole time, right? So you're at 70% or 80% efficiency, you're -- that's about as good as you're going to get. We're 40%, which means that we can improve efficiency by 10%. We can have a 25% increase in capacity without adding $1 or 1 more person. That's massive from a return on invested capital. It's massive in terms of our ability to service customers and continue to grow because we are -- we have more demand than we can fill in our facilities. So anyway, I digress.
Peter Grom
analystYes I mean -- I had a supply chain question, but -- so it sounds -- so those numbers are really impressive, and thank you for running through that. That's incredibly helpful. And it sounds like a pretty big opportunity. You just think about over...
Murray Kessler
executiveYes, but at the heart of the question was executional risk. And that -- we've got to help the customers view that their competition isn't -- the other customer, it's the national brand. And they have to pick their bigger point of difference, but -- it doesn't have to be SKU by SKU because that's hurting everybody. So -- and they'll all agree, but they'll say, change them, not us. So we...
Peter Grom
analystI was going to ask, like what are those conversations like? I mean do you feel like they kind of are starting to get it? Or has it kind of been more difficult?
Murray Kessler
executiveWell, we're just starting with those conversations. The -- they start with us on service, right? We need better service and with disruption and our shelves are empty and we're leaving dollars and I was at a Walmart presentation by their -- the CEO, Doug, and he sat there and he said, "I want to know ideas. We are losing billions of dollars, leaving billions of dollars on the table in revenues come back to me with the supply chain ideas that will keep these shelves full." So the top of the house is not going to be the issue. So it's like anything else. You need to show them why so it's a win for not just Perrigo, but it's a win for them. as well. And I believe it will be a win for both the customer and Perrigo.
Peter Grom
analystOkay. So I kind of want to shift to the balance sheet. Your net leverage is north of 5x, debt paydown sounds like a very important priority for you and the company. I guess just help us understand how you expect to achieve, I think, the target is around approximately 3x this year. Is investment-grade status important, is not? -- and just any views on kind of both debt pay down to kind of the investment grade at would be really helpful
Eduardo Bezerra
executiveYes. So talking with that piece. So investment grade today for us is not the priority. But the key priority that we have is really the leverage -- the balance sheet, that's a key question we get from investors from rating agencies on how we want to do that. And -- and even in that sense, so the rating agencies may adjust our rating 1 notch because of where we're tracking right now versus the regional expectations, but we came out on the Investor Day with a pretty clear plan -- so we ended 2022 with $600 million cash. Over the next 3 years, we're going to generate between $1.6 billion and $1.8 billion. That's going to be 70% to 80% driven by operating cash flow generation and 20 to 30 related to portfolio refinement related to assets that are noncore for our consumer self-care strategy going forward. And we're going to use that to repay our $700 million -- note that it matured at the end of 2024. We're going to continue with our capital investment between $500 million and $600 million, which half of that is tied to the supply chain reinvention. And we're going to continue with our dividend policy. So we expect between $450 million to $500 million over the next 3 years. So at the end of that period, we expect to get to consistent $500 million to $600 million in cash. So we believe that the overall value of the company will be the same, but by deleveraging that, the equity value should be at the level that we really believe it can be and it should be today.
Murray Kessler
executiveBut to be clear, while it would be nice to be investment grade at some point, we're still playing catch up. So our rating is likely to go down before it goes up, but that will have no impact on everything that we presented in our Investor Day and have no impact on the projections that we've already put out there.
Peter Grom
analystOkay. And then I guess last question from my end. Just kind of going back to the '23 guidance and the outlook. Can you maybe just walk us through the phasing of the guidance. And then I guess kind of building on that point, how should we be thinking about the phasing of the growth algorithm in '24 and potentially looking out to '25?
Murray Kessler
executiveWell, the growth will be strong every -- quarter, but the first half to the second half by design, right? We're the seasonality of our business in cough/cold and everything in winter months and then towards the back end of the summer on Compeed and hiking and everything else. So we tend to skew like sort of 40% in the first half, 60% in the second half and in the first quarter, you're going to have 2 negative variables. So you're going to -- so we're out there with a guidance range of 260. I think we'll be somewhere in the low 40s in the first quarter because you are going to -- you still have currency to deal with, right? And then you won't, right? So -- but that first quarter was still up at $1.16, $1.17 versus $1.05 or so currently. And then -- and I've also got that HRA write-off that -- a big piece of that, that distributor conversion will take place in the first quarter, but that's all in the numbers. And then even with all that, it should be strong double-digit up and double-digit bottom line growth and at least high single digits within the ranges that we've provided for our sales growth. So -- yes, I'm really optimistic on this year because it's -- everything gives sort of pieces in play and it's -- you're not hoping for trends. It's you have the HRA integration. You have 10 months of the Nestle acquisition. You have 4 more months of HRA. The synergies from HRA, we know when the distributor issues are. We have a $170 million of pricing carry and hitting the business. So it's -- it should model out, but I guess it's a long way of answering your question. First quarter should be the lowest, 40% in the -- with still strong double-digit growth should be 40%, 60%. How'd I do Chief Financial Officer?
Eduardo Bezerra
executiveYes, you did well. And then -- and just to complement. So as you ask about '24 and '25. So as we said, 30% -- 38% gross profit margin expected this year, right? So 200 basis points improvement. And then we expect that to achieve 40% in 2025. So pretty even distributed because you have the synergies benefit in 2024. You don't have that onetime event that Murray mentioned related to the distribution transition, then you have incremental value coming from the supply chain reinvention. So those things will come together on a market that we continue going to grow 3% to 4% over the next 3 years.
Peter Grom
analystWell, great. I mean, are there any other further questions in the room? Well, why don't we just -- we'll leave it there. Murray, Eduardo, thank you so much for -- for coming today. We -- we really appreciate your time, and we wish you nothing but the best of luck moving forward.
Murray Kessler
executiveHopefully. Thank everybody for their interest in Perrigo. Great.
Eduardo Bezerra
executiveThank you.
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