Philip Morris International Inc. (PM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Philip Morris International's 2021 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. The meeting is now called to order. I'm Andre Calantzopoulos, Executive Chairman of the Board. I would like to extend my warmest welcome to shareholders and employees who have joined us for our virtual meeting. I hope everyone listening today and their families are safe and well during this unprecedented time. It is my privilege to welcome our Board of Directors to today's webcast. Also on the webcast are Jacek Olczak, our new Chief Executive Officer; and Darlene Quashie Henry, our Corporate Secretary. I'm especially pleased to be handing over the CEO reins to Jacek. Jacek and I have been working hand-in-hand over the last several years to drive PMI's business forward, grow IQOS and take ever greater strides towards a shared vision of a smoke-free future. His great passion for our company and our employees and his deep knowledge of our products, business strategies and organizational transformation making him the ideal person to lead the next growth phase in the company's history. In addition, Chad Mueller of PricewaterhouseCoopers, our independent auditors, is on the webcast. It is our intention to proceed in accordance with the agenda and the rules for the meeting, as outlined on the virtual shareholder meeting web page. Our remarks today contain forward-looking statements, and accordingly, I direct your attention to the forward-looking and cautionary statements disclosure in today's presentation and press release. A glossary of terms, including the definition of reduced risk products, or RRPs, as well as adjustments, other calculations and reconciliations to the most directly comparable U.S. GAAP measures are at the end of today's webcast slides, which are posted on our website. Please note, we also include additional forward-looking and cautionary statements related to COVID-19. The secretary will now present certain formal documents. Darlene?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I present to the meeting, together with the affidavit of mailing, a copy of the Notice of Meeting, form of proxy, proxy statement and annual report, including financial statements for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2020. The holders of record of common stock at the close of business on March 12, 2021 are entitled to vote at this meeting. I am informed that approximately 85.47% of Philip Morris International's common stock is represented here today, and therefore, a quorum is present for the transaction of business.

Thank you, Darlene. Will you please file the documents with the records of the meeting? I appoint as inspector of election, Linda Piscadlo from American Election Services, LLC. The inspector is instructed to execute the oath and to take custody of all proxies and of the certified list of holders of common stock as of the close of business on March 12, 2021. A list of shareholders as of the record date is available for inspection by shareholders using the registered shareholder list link found in the materials tab on the webcast page. The inspector will certify the vote on each of the matters to be presented to the meeting. Individual proxies and ballots are kept confidential, with exceptions outlined in the proxy statement. The 3 business items set forth in the Notice of Meeting will be put before the meeting at this time, and I hereby declare the polls for voting at our 2021 annual meeting of shareholders open. Any shareholder who has not voted or wishes to change their vote may do so by clicking on the voting button on the virtual annual meeting web page and following the instructions there. Shareholders who have sent in proxies or voted by telephone or Internet and do not want to change their vote do not need to take any further action. Shareholders of record who have joined the annual meeting may ask questions by calling the number posted on the virtual annual meeting web page. If you would like to ask a question or make a comment, you will be required to provide your 16-digit control number to the operator. Only shareholders of record with a valid control number will be allowed to make a comment. At this stage of the meeting, questions and comments should relate only to each item of business as it is presented. A general question-and-comment session will follow the business portion of the meeting. Before I place the director names in nomination, I would like to say a few words about Louis Camilleri, our former Chairman of the Board, who retired last December. On behalf of the entire organization, we want to thank Louis for his tremendous contributions to the company throughout his 40-year career at PMI and its former parent. We have all witnessed with admiration his inspiring leadership, immense intellect, strategic vision and genuine passion for the PMI family. We will all miss dearly an exemplary executive and an exceptional human being. Louis set a high standard we should all aspire to. I would also like to thank Jennifer Li, who joined the Board in 2010 and completed her term this year, for her valued contributions to Philip Morris International as a Board member and Chair of the Audit Committee. The first order of business is the election of 13 directors. I would like to welcome the 5 new nominees to the Board, including Jacek. I also extend sincere thanks to Lou Noto for his excellent stewardship and guidance as interim Chairman over the last 5 months. The individuals on this slide, featured in alphabetical order, have been nominated for election as directors, each to hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders and until their successor shall have been duly chosen. In accordance with the company's bylaws, no other nominations may be made at this time. Are there any questions?

[Operator Instructions] And at this time, we do not have any question.

As there are no questions, we will now move to the second item on the agenda, that the company's shareholders approve, on an advisory basis, the compensation of the named executive officers as disclosed in the company's proxy statement for the 2021 annual meeting of shareholders. Are there any questions?

[Operator Instructions] There are no questions at this time.

Thank you. The third and final item is the ratification of the selection of PricewaterhouseCoopers as independent auditors of the company for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2021. Are there any questions?

[Operator Instructions] At this time, we do not have any questions.

Thank you. That concludes the matters to be voted on as outlined in the notice of the annual meeting. In accordance with our bylaws, I hereby declare the polls for voting at our 2021 annual meeting of shareholders closed. We have received a preliminary report from the inspector of election. Will the secretary please read the report?

Mr. Chairman, the inspector of election has completed the preliminary count of the vote, which I have now received. The preliminary voting results are as follows: each of the nominees for director has been elected; the executive compensation has been approved on an advisory basis; the selection of PricewaterhouseCoopers as independent auditors has been ratified. Mr. Chairman, that concludes the report.

Thank you, Darlene. I would now ask you to file with the records of the meeting the oath of the inspector of election, the final report of the inspector of election and the proxies. Final voting results will be included in a Form 8-K that we will file with the SEC in the next few days. That concludes the formal business. And I now declare the business portion of the meeting adjourned. Before we move to the question and comment session, I would like to ask Jacek to provide some highlights on our recent business performance and sustainability initiatives.

Thank you, Andre. I would like to thank you and the Board for this unique opportunity. I'm humbled and excited to lead PMI as we continue to accelerate our transformation into a smoke-free company. Most of all, I am incredibly proud to lead our organization and outstanding people around the world who make PMI what it is today. The resolve and resilience shown by our colleagues through the global pandemic is a real inspiration to me and the PMI management team, and I would like to again thank them for the amazing efforts. The sustainable success of our company rests with our people. It follows that my first priority as CEO is to ensure the continued provision of an inclusive work environment, equipping our teams with the tools and training they need to thrive. We have refreshed the organization with the new skills and talent from the outside. 45% of our senior management team have joined the company in the last 3 years, and over 20% of senior leaders and executives are now expert hires from other industries, notably the technology, consumer, digital and life science sectors. We place a high value on diversity, equity and inclusion. As of December 31, women made up 37% of management roles, 39% of promotions and 39% of new hires in management roles and 42% below management. We made several senior female appointments in 2020 including our General Counsel, our first Chief Diversity Officer, our Chief Sustainability Officer, and Corporate Secretary, Darlene, who you just heard from. We are an inclusive employer of choice, certified by the Top Employers Institute as a global top employer for the fifth year in a row. We are also implementing new project-based consumer-centric ways of working. This is supported by the transformation of our learning and performance management practices. Organizational excellence and consumer centricity enable us to drive strong business results. In the next few slides, I will recap some of the highlights from our full year 2020 and first quarter 2021 results communications. Despite the unprecedented disruption of the pandemic on both our consumers and our operations, PMI's 2020 performance was remarkably robust. Pandemic-related restrictions had a pronounced effect on the cigarette industry, especially in markets with a high proportion of daily wage working, such as Indonesia. Our Duty-Free business was also heavily impacted by the lack of global travel. However, the continued and consistent growth of IQOS throughout the year allowed us to deliver organic adjusted diluted EPS growth of 7%. We saw further impressive progress in the first quarter of 2021 with strong organic top line, OI margin and EPS growth despite the continuation of the pandemic. Once again, this was driven by IQOS as an increasing number of legal-age smokers switched to our smoke-free product. The strength of IQOS is reflected in the growth of RRP net revenues, which reached $6.8 billion in 2020 and $2.1 billion in the first quarter of 2021. This represents 24% and 28% of total PMI net revenues, respectively. The strong start to this year led us to increase our 2021 heated tobacco unit shipment volume target to between 95 billion and 100 billion units. This puts us nicely on track for our target of around 40% of our net revenues to come from smoke-free products in 2023, when we target heated tobacco unit shipment volumes of 140 billion to 160 billion units. It is also another strong step towards our ambition of becoming a majority smoke-free company by 2025. A key part of our smoke-free ambition is providing access to better alternatives, such as IQOS, to legal-age smokers around the world. As of March 31, 2021, our smoke-free products have been commercialized in 66 markets, of which over half outside the OECD. By 2025, we aim to be present in 100 markets. Our people continue to work tirelessly to secure the differentiated regulatory and fiscal frameworks needed to make this a reality, in addition to expanding within the markets where we are present with a portfolio of innovative smoke-free products under the IQOS brand. Turning now to IQOS performance. We estimate that there were 19.1 million total users as of March 31, representing the addition of almost 5 million adult users since the same time last year. We further estimate that 73% of this total, or 14 million IQOS users, have switched to IQOS and stopped smoking with the balance in various stages of conversion. As in 2020, this reflects widespread user growth across all IQOS geographies, including the EU region, Eastern Europe, Japan and the Middle East. The overall share performance of our HTUs continues to see excellent progress. Indeed, in international markets where IQOS has been commercialized, PMI HTUs were, again, the third largest tobacco brand in the first quarter with 7.6% share, increasing 90 basis points compared to Q4 2020. This was achieved despite not having full national distribution in a number of markets. Turning now to progress in key geographies. First quarter share of our HEETS and other HTU brands reached 5.7% of total industry volume in the EU region, and 7.7% in Russia. In both cases, this reflects stronger user growth on both a sequential and year-over-year basis. In Japan, the reported share increased significantly. On an adjusted total tobacco view, including cigarillos and excluding estimated trade inventory movements, the share for our HTU brands increased by 3 points versus the prior year quarter to 20.8%. This growth and the growth in other key geographies reflects excellent progression in the key cities where we focus our initial commercial activities. As we mentioned at our recent Investor Day, key city shares are a good indicator of the national share growth potential and bode well for the continued momentum of the IQOS brand. We are driving the continued growth of our smoke-free products with innovation that broadens the offer to adult smokers and further enhances the consumer experience. This includes our new e-vapor product IQOS VEEV, which we first launched in New Zealand in the second half of last year and which is now also available in the 3 EU markets. VEEV is a premium product with a superior experience to existing offers, and we are leveraging our IQOS infrastructure with a bespoke route-to-market approach. We place great importance on efforts to guard against youth access for all our products and target all of our electronic devices to be equipped with age verification technology by 2023. We will be further testing this technology with IQOS VEEV in select markets this year as we continue the rollout. The other major innovation for 2021 is the launch of IQOS ILUMA, the next-generation of IQOS heat-not-burn. Building on the success of IQOS 3 DUO, we believe the simple and intuitive device will support easier switching and higher conversion for legal-age smokers using SMARTCORE INDUCTION internal heating technology. We continue to plan for the launch of ILUMA in the second half of the year. Focusing now on combustibles. We continue to hold the leading international portfolio by market share and by brand strength. This gives us a formidable platform to accelerate the growth of IQOS via our commercial infrastructure, industry expertise and ability to communicate with adult smokers where permitted. It is therefore imperative to maintain our leadership position. In addition to the pandemic effects on the cigarette industry, which I already mentioned, our 2020 and Q1 2021 cigarette share performance was also impacted. Contributing factors include reduced social occasions, where Marlboro overindexes, border closures and reduced travel. This performance does not reflect our objective to maintain our share of cigarettes, net of cannibalization. We expect a strong sequential cigarette share recovery for the remainder of the year, supported by portfolio initiatives and the enduring strength of Marlboro, especially as pandemic restrictions ease. Moving now to sustainability. I would like to emphasize that our transformation is the bedrock for both business and sustainability performance. We do not have separate strategies. Phasing out cigarette by replacing them with better alternatives, such as IQOS, drives our growth and addresses our biggest impact on society. Our unique value proposition is affirmed in our statement of purpose signed by our Board of Directors and published in last year's proxy statement. Our strategic priorities are defined by a rigorous materiality assessment, which gather stakeholder perspectives and identifies our greatest impact. Transparency is fundamental in allowing our stakeholders to properly assess our performance. Our integrated report communicates progress on ESG and product impact areas by complementing traditional ESG disclosures with a set of bespoke KPIs we call Business Transformation Metrics. In addition, we have introduced forward-looking aspirational targets for our priority sustainability topics. This include our ambition to become a majority smoke-free company by 2025 and to generate at least $1 billion in net revenues from beyond nicotine products as we move into adjacent business areas, which aim for a net positive impact on society. We look forward to releasing our second integrated report on May 18. We also plan to hold a sustainability-focused webcast in early June, where we aim to further our engagement with investors and other key stakeholders on the topic. While we place great focus on ESG issues, our strategy centers on addressing the impact of the product by switching adult smokers, who would otherwise continue to smoke, to RRPs. We do this by developing less harmful alternatives to cigarettes, broadening access for adult smokers to scientifically substantiated smoke-free products and promoting full switching. We work purposefully to phase out cigarettes, while also developing products that go beyond nicotine. Despite the unprecedented challenges of the global pandemic, we have not deviated from our efforts to become a more sustainable company. While our upcoming 2020 integrated report will provide more granular information across the ESG and P areas, some of our recent achievements include AAA rating from the Carbon Disclosure Project and strong progress against our targets for carbon neutrality. I'm also proud to say that we are recognized by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index as leading on human rights and included in the Bloomberg Diversity Index for the first time. Importantly, as outlined in our proxy statement, we have also strengthened the link between executive compensation and ESG performance. In summary, our transformation is progressing well, and I will be doing my utmost as CEO to further accelerate our journey towards a smoke-free future. With the right regulatory frameworks, dialogue and support from civil society, we believe cigarette sales can end within 10 to 15 years in many countries. We are becoming a different company with our transformation into a majority smoke-free business, aiming for more than 50% of net revenues from smoke-free products by 2025. The substantial growth opportunity from the shift is illustrated by the strong business performance in 2020 despite the pandemic and robust midterm outlook provided at our recent Investor Day. We will continue leveraging our leadership in combustibles to accelerate the smoke-free transition. In addition, we have long-term opportunities in naturally adjacent areas beyond nicotine. I believe all this combined will allow us to drive superior, sustainable growth and shareholder returns, including our strong commitment to the dividend. I am honored to lead this great company, and I look forward to engaging with you, our shareholders, as we embark on the next chapter of this exciting story. Thank you, and I will now hand back to Andre.

Thank you very much, Jacek. This webcast is now open for questions and comments. For full transparency during the session, which is being publicly webcast, our shareholders will be able to ask questions live first-come, first-serve basis. As I mentioned earlier, in order to ask a question, you will be required to provide your 16-digit control number to the operator. Only shareholders of record with a valid control number would be allowed to ask questions. In order to provide an opportunity for everyone who wishes to speak, each shareholder will be limited to 2 minutes. Shareholders may speak a second time only after all others who wish to speak have had their turn. When speaking, shareholders must direct questions and comments to the Chairman and confine their remarks to matters that relate directly to the business of the meeting. The meeting is not to be used as a forum to discuss personal grievances, business disputes or to present general political, social or economic views that are not directly related to the business of the meeting. A full replay of the meeting will be available on our website at www.pmi.com for approximately 1 year from the date of meeting. We have allowed up to 1 hour for questions. Are there any questions or comments, please?

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from [ Alan Engel ].

I have been a Philip Morris shareholder since the late 1970s, and usually I start these meetings off by thanking Mr. Camilleri for the great job that he's done for us. I'm thanking you now for the great job that you have done for the shareholders. I'm very appreciative. In the past, Mr. Camilleri described the dividend as being sacrosanct. I'm very gratified to hear that you obviously feel the same way. My only criticism regarding the corporation, and I hate to criticize such an enormously successful entity, is that I feel you're missing the boat by not getting into the marijuana business. I feel that the future of this country is in marijuana and in sports gambling. And I'd like to hear your opinion regarding getting into the marijuana business. Once again, thank you for everything.

Well, thank you very much for your support as a shareholder. Thank you for your question. And you can still thank Mr. Camilleri because he has played an extremely important role, as I said, in bringing PMI where it is today, and we're all here for continuing his work. So the whole purpose of the company and of our succession is to maintain this continuity chain, and so Mr. Olczak will bring the company to new success and heights. And I confirm the dividend is sacrosanct. Now regarding your question on cannabis. I want to say that our priority as a company clearly is to switch people who smoke out of cigarettes, for the ones who don't quit, into better for them alternatives. And as we said in Investors Day, we are also looking at new business avenues that are not nicotine related. And that can include our expertise in respiratory delivery. So we're looking at respiratory drug delivery, and we're also looking at botanicals. Now I expressed myself many times on cannabis, which is a new business that clearly needs to be regulated and better understood. Having said that, there are 2 distinct routes in the cannabis business. The one is the therapeutical route when you can make claims about the product, and that brings the products that contain cannabis or based on cannabis squarely due to the pharma industry and pharma route, and they will be regulated by the appropriate authorities, the FDA in the U.S. and other authorities in other countries. As far as it concerns recreational consumer products. Clearly, there the regulations vary from country to country, and there is a number of things we need to understand still because if I take CBD, for example, we need to understand its efficacy and at which dose and dosage the efficacy is present, so people don't get misled and also its toxicity at such doses because there is toxicity in CBD. So we're evaluating all these parameters, including what the regulatory framework is and absent that, what the manufacturer should communicate to consumers, so they have clear, factual and non-misleading information. And after that, we'll make a determination which way we may or may not enter this business. And I repeat, our priority is switching consumers out of cigarettes, and that will be the thrust of the company for the forthcoming years.

The next question comes from Jonathan Chaffe.

Sir, my question is with the new IQOS products and switching our current consumers who are smokers to this product, what is our ideal number for how it's going to have health effects on our consumers?

Thank you. Look, I'm not sure I understood the question properly. But if I take the existing version of IQOS, and please correct me if I misunderstood, our IQOS product, which is a heated tobacco product, represents, because of the absence of combustion, a 90% to 95% reduction in toxicants, depending if you take extended lease or more restrictive lease and the toxicant you referred to. But it's a very substantial reduction compared to cigarettes. The product is obviously not risk-free, and it is addictive because it contains nicotine. So the new version of IQOS has exactly the same aerosol chemistry in terms of toxicities for the same reduction in toxicity. So from that perspective, nothing changes vis-à-vis the people who are smokers and switch to this product. What we have improved in the new version of IQOS, which is called IQOS ILUMA, is we took into consideration all the consumer comments and difficulties they had in using the product. So the product does not have a blade. You don't need to clean it. It's very easy to use because you just insert the consumable side, the product turns on. And then once you finish, you take the consumable out, and you are done with the ritual. And you can easily dispose of the consumables, so we can minimize littering, obviously. And that, I -- we believe, will make easier for consumers who try the product first to switch. We can retain consumers that had difficulty with the existing version of IQOS and sometimes abandoned and went back to cigarettes. So better retention, but also from a company perspective because we don't need so much time to explain the product, how to use it, how to clean it and so on. We can expand further geographically to more remote location rather than main cities with much less investment in field forces and direct consumer handholding. So overall, we think it's a vast improvement over the existing product, and that's how you should be seeing it. So an evolution in terms of health outcomes, but more on the way to retain and increase the retention rates of IQOS, which are already very high. Out of 100 people who buy IQOS, 70-plus, sometimes up to 80% of people switch completely out of cigarettes and stay with IQOS.

The next question comes from Michél Legendre.

My name is Michél Legendre. I'm calling -- representing Corporate Accountability. In July 2019, Philip Morris International's Senior Vice President for Global Communications stated, "Once IQOS is legal for sale in a country, PMI immediately stops marketing cigarettes, and that the corporation plans to convert 40 million people away from cigarettes by 2025." But time and again, and country after country, your corporation has, in fact, continued marketing cigarettes unless already existing country regulations force you to stop. People around the globe know the truth. PMI will say and do anything to keep manufacturing, peddling and profiting from its deadly products while trumpeting its supposed concern for public health. In Colombia, IQOS was introduced in 2017 during a music festival. Since that moment, the IQOS brand has been promoted simultaneously with the Marlboro brand at the same festival every year. We have evidence of young models promoting IQOS and Marlboro, employing advertising strategies as if tobacco advertising in Colombia hadn't been completely banned since 2011. There have been women promoting the sale of single sticks of Marlboro in the streets. Your Fusion Summer brand of Marlboro boast of "New flavor, ready to explore?" We have further evidence and more examples in other countries. And really, like an old cigarette vending machine that should have been retired long ago, PMI keeps its same old PR apparatus pumping out bogus soundbites about a supposed transformation. In the meantime, you continue business as usual, a deadly playbook of marketing, junk science and political interference. So my question is this, was Marian Salzman lying or will PMI finally stop all marketing, promotion and sponsorship of cigarettes and end its political opposition of cigarette regulations in the dozens of countries where IQOS has been introduced?

Thank you for your question. I think I will give some facts and numbers in the interest of all shareholders who listened. First of all, if you look at all our commercial and marketing expenditures worldwide, and mind you, we're present only in 66 countries out of 170 plus with IQOS at this stage. 76% of any money we spend is behind the reduced-risk products, better alternatives for the people who smoke and not cigarettes. Secondly, 99% of our research and development is behind these products. Our efforts are focused, when we interact with the authorities and governments, is to convince them to introduce specific regulation for these smoke-free products that will make it clear and easier for people who don't quit to move to these products. We were very clear from the beginning, we will put all our money and resources behind this product, so we can accelerate switching and the elimination of cigarettes, and that we cannot do this alone because we need the help of organizations like yours, and I'll come to this. But we also need regulators to introduce appropriate laws. So we maximize adoption by adult smokers and minimize unintended use, especially by youth. And there must be regulation. So we don't oppose a regulation, we promote regulation. The other thing is that we are still present and selling cigarettes. That's a fact. And I was very clear that if we stop selling cigarettes tomorrow, somebody else will sell them because people still buy them. And if we sell our cigarette business, somebody else is going to buy it, so we don't resolve the problem. We move the monkey on somebody else's shoulder. That's facts, okay? So I think nobody better than companies that have access to consumers, have the technology and the innovation and the scientifically substantiated products can convince smokers to switch. I don't believe, and that's a general comment, that criticizing a company for whatever they do, even if they do good things, will convince a single individual on earth to stop smoking or if we take the oil industry and we criticize them for producing oil will not convince a single person on earth to stop using fossil fuels. We need to explain to people what the problem is. We need to get them alternatives, which we are doing. We need appropriate regulation that incentivizes them and doesn't confuse them. And at the end of the day, we need the stick and carrot policies that can be phase-out policies in order for the companies to be serious about this as we are. So -- and then still, it's not so easy to convince people. It takes time. So in the NGO world -- and that's a plea I have as I leave my current position as CEO. I think criticizing companies to raise awareness about a problem companies have, and we have a product that causes disease and premature deaths, once that's raised, when the companies try to do something about this, and I think we do a lot, then I think the NGO world should move in making sure that this happens rather than continuing to criticize, in my view, because that's not very productive. So I would stop here because I think we will have the opportunity to cover this again. But that would be -- if you see somebody doing something good, don't be afraid of using -- of losing your donors or be criticized by your community because you broke the line, is to say, okay, if I take the case of cigarettes, for example, in smoking, if I believe the better products, if available, should be given to smokers and be communicated properly, then push for appropriate regulation of these products so that consumers can have access to them and understand what they are. And then if you are concerned, as many NGOs legitimately are concerned about unintended use, let's focus on post-market surveillance and make sure that companies apply the laws and regulations properly, and that can have a very positive public health impact.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Mary Vance.

Hello, my name is Mary Vance, and my question is about the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World. After more than 3 years of operation, the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World continues to be solely funded by Philip Morris International. Even now, more than a year into a global pandemic, where tobacco use is known to increase the severity of COVID-19, the foundation continues to push so-called corporate social responsibility programs to normalize tobacco consumption and new products like IQOS. In today's review of Philip Morris International's activities of the past year, executives neglected to mention the implications of a recent lawsuit about PMI's connection to the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World. If the lawsuit's allegations are substantiated, then the foundation has violated the conditions of its tax-exempt status in the United States. If these allegations are confirmed, there is no denying the cooperation between your corporation and the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World, proving what tobacco control advocates have been saying since the foundation's inception, that the foundation is an integral part of Philip Morris International's web of influence and deceit. This is also evidenced by the foundation's financial support to multiple grantees, whose research was funded to support Philip Morris International's interest. The Foundation for a Smoke-Free World is just a thinly veiled front group, pushing big tobacco's agenda. I've stood before you for the past 3 shareholders' meetings, demanding an answer to the same question. Will your corporation release its correspondence with and notes of discussions regarding the establishment of the foundation and commit to doing so on an ongoing basis?

Thank you for your question. The foundation is funded by Philip Morris, you're right, but is an independent entity that acts on its own behalf. The litigation you talk about, the foundation has to resolve it, have no involvement in this, and I read it from the newspapers as you did. Now if we look deeper into the problem, and I asked the question to myself many times, why people in the tobacco control community are so critical of the foundation? Because I have many things from the foundation lobbying, and I haven't been aware of things like this. But what does it really bother? Because here is the problem we have, to put it in a simple way. For years, I heard, people in tobacco control saying, companies like Philip Morris should do something about their product. But they don't because the product is what it is and it creates -- this is a premature death, so they should be doing something about it. Once we did, the first reaction is you cannot believe we are silent because it's produced only by Philip Morris. Then once we have the FDA and another -- I don't know how many national laboratories in Germany, in Holland, in many countries, I can enumerate them, reviewing and finding the same things about the product that Philip Morris published, then we say, but we need more independent studies, except that independent studies need funding. And if a tobacco company funds them, they are not independent. However, if people that have a very clear prohibitionist agenda, including certain foundations, fund them and they produce research that tries to prove that all the alternatives to cigarettes are bad, that's perfectly okay. If you call this independence, and we've seen many independent so-called studies flying around, and some of them being retracted because they were desperately trying to prove that, say, vapor products are as bad as cigarettes, and this is all nice and acceptable to have a scientific debate. Nevertheless, when we have inflammatory statements like the ones you make, unfortunately, very well drafted, I must say, and they go into the newspapers and that confuses the smokers who either don't switch out of cigarettes or if they are in a vapor, go back to cigarettes, I ask the question, who is accountable for that? And I think it's about time NGOs draw their sole -- start their [ soul searching ] and understand what I said previously, if you pursue the avenue of prohibiting anything that is better to people that, in my view, is illogical, the only alternative you give to smokers is to continue using cigarettes. You don't want to go down the history as the organizations that perpetuated cigarettes despite your good efforts, I would say, to reduce initiation and convince people to quit. But there are people out there that will continue to smoke. So I think both avenues and both policies are correct. If the foundation does some research in this domain that helps people eventually switching and helps regulators draft appropriate policies, I don't think that's the wrong thing. And as I said previously, you should move in this direction. I mean harm reduction is a principle that we apply in everything we do, for climate change to sugars to everything, and obviously, cigarettes. So trying to deny harm reduction principles, so lower impacted -- impacting products only in the domain of cigarettes. I think it's illogical. And you need to reflect about that. But as I said, there is an enormous role for NGOs and organizations. Once we embrace the principle that scientifically substantiated better products should be made available to people, then make sure we don't have unintended use and that the regulations are properly applied, I think we will all be moving in the right direction and have more and more people switching. But because kind of criticizing each other is not useful. And that's what I can offer. And there is nothing between the foundation that is mystical or -- and Philip Morris. We finance them. And if many people in the tobacco control community had embraced the principle of harm reduction, I think the foundation could have played a role and attract more finance. But if somebody finances any research in tobacco control that is not financed predominantly by special interest, then everybody starts screaming. And I think we have to stop this and become serious about the people smoke and try to help them.

[Operator Instructions] And our next question will come from [ Jeff Saxon ].

Yes. It's going in a different direction. There's 3 -- it's a 3-parter, all related. PricewaterhouseCoopers has been your accountant/adviser since 1998 because of a -- and then prior to that, it was Coopers, but Coopers merged with the Price Water. So are you all thinking about at any point in time having new pair of eyes by looking at different accounting/adviser firms? Second thing is that while all the directors are, for the most part, pretty brand-new, are you all thinking about having a tenure on your directors of, let's say, 10 years and then constantly rotating the Board? Again, I do realize that most of the Directors are pretty brand-new. And then the third thing is, is that under your directors' bios, I see public, but I don't see how many private companies they're on. So therefore, they might be on one other public Board besides Philip Morris International, but they could be on 10 private companies, and that takes time away from Philip Morris International. And I'd sort of like to know what other private companies that they're being a director of and/or other volunteer-ships that they're being directors of because we're paying them good money and stock options and all these other things to focus on Philip Morris International. Those are the 3 questions.

Thank you very much for your questions. Okay, the first question, I guess, there is always a philosophical debate or if and how often you need to rotate accounting firms. I would say that the right balance is between the continuity of knowing the business of the company, especially in times where we're transforming the company, and the appropriate rotation of partners and personnel from the accounting firm. And I think we're doing this pretty well with Pricewaterhouse. But it's a very good question on which companies need to reflect temporarily. Now on -- your second question is on the Board. And you're right. We are having new Board members. And this correlates very well with what Mr. Olczak said, that we also -- because of the transformation of the company, we had to change the top management. And clearly, new skills are required in many new areas, so we have to bring new directors in. And clearly, we evaluate their skills. And I think the new directors have appropriate skills to help the company in the years to come and the management. Your question about rotation, this criteria, the way the Board operates, and also your question about essentially the efficiency of the Board members and the time allocated to the company. We will -- I don't know if many private companies that Board members participate at. Nevertheless, I would say that we have evaluation of the Board every year, and we also will do an external evaluation going forward every 2 or 3 years where we look at the contribution of each Board member to the company's needs. And if a Board member has no time or no appropriate skills, then obviously the Corporate Nomination and Governance Committee and the Board take the decision to rotate Board members. And that is a practice that I think is the best practice for the company. It's based on actual contribution rather than some numbers that may indicate the person has or have no time. I've seen in my career directors that were active, CEOs or executives that at the same time spend a lot of time with the company. And I've seen directors that despite the fact that were free, contributed less. So it's the performance criteria and the contribution that is critical to me. And sometimes we have also, in terms of tenure, and I'm very open to discuss this. Tenure can be a blunt instrument when you're going to have a very high-performing director that because we have tenure criteria has to go and vice versa. So I think, to me, the best is the assessment. And the way we do the assessment is by other Board members, by the management itself that interacts with the Board and see how the Board helps the company. And then external providers. And we integrate this back, and we are on the way the Board operates and on the individual members of the Board. I hope I answered your question.

Our next question comes from [ Eric Pearson ].

I just want to say congratulations to you and your team for the incremental improvements that you've been making to the IQOS device. I think that's really fantastic as you work to find a better product for consumers. My question concerns the MRTP and PMTA approval pathways. I wanted to get your thoughts and analogies on [indiscernible].

Can you speak a bit slower because you are breaking? Can you please repeat from the middle? The MRTP and the PMTA, yes.

Yes. I was just saying that with respect to those pathways, I'd like to get your thoughts on just how those pathways are working, particularly now since you have more incremental improvements to the IQOS device and to HeatSticks. Is that the proper pathway? Should there -- would there be a better pathway that might be more efficient and timely?

Well, this pathway clearly applies to the FDA because other governments either don't have specific pathways or have different pathways, okay? So we'll speak about the FDA process. So the PMTA and MRTP are 2 different pathways. And today, for a new product, let's assume we have an upgraded IQOS device. You can elect to go straight to the MRTP or straight to the PMTA. And then you have, obviously, to submit the entire file. And if there are some modifications, outline all these modifications. And for that, you need the final, final product because the FDA inspects all the device and inspects also the premises on which the device is manufactured. I think we need to discuss and we are discussing with the FDA on how we make the process more speedy, not less, I would say, rigorous, but faster. And that's the conversation we need to have because, clearly, it can take a lot of time, and then the U.S. market will always be lagging a little bit behind the international markets, which is not great for the U.S. consumers. But for the moment, we have to go through the entire process and file. Nevertheless, wherever the data is the same, we can rely on the previous submissions to the FDA. So from efficiency, speed and cost perspective, we don't need to repeat all the preclinical and clinical work we have done with the previous versions. So if we prove substantially equivalent product, we can use the preceding data and build them. But we would work with the agency, and I hope the agency does recognize, and they do, but we need to speed up a little bit the upgrading of devices, a new consumables process. Now mind you, just now the agency is completely under PMTA review of the electronics, and time is limited. But I think once they are through this, we will find a good way to accelerate this and to make the new products available soon to the U.S. consumers.

There are no further questions at this time.

If there are no more questions, then we will conclude the question-and-comment period. And I would like to thank you all very much for joining the Virtual Annual Meeting of Shareholders. Stay all safe and healthy. Thank you once again.

The meeting has now come to a close. You may disconnect your devices. Thank you.