Q4 2003 Revlon, Inc. Earnings Conference Call - Final.

Original Source: FD (FAIR DISCLOSURE) WIRE

OPERATOR: Good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Revlon's fourth quarter 2003 earnings conference call. At the request of Revlon today's conference call is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I would like to introduce your host leading today's meeting, Ms. Maria Sceppaguercio, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Ma'am, you may begin.

MARIA SCEPPAGUERCIO, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, INVESTOR RELATIONS, REVLON, INC.: Thank you, Lisa and good morning, everyone. Including those of you listening in via the web. Early this morning we released our results for the quarter and full year 2003. If you haven't received a copy, you can get one on our website at www.revloninc.com. We also announced our program to dramatically strengthen our balance sheet by significantly increasing equity and reducing debt. The plan includes a debt for equity exchange involving but not limited to Fidelity and our principal shareholder, Ronald Perelman.

Our call today will focus first on our results of the fourth quarter and full year and then turn to the details regarding the debt reduction program. We have scheduled an investor conference for next Wednesday, February 18th, to take you through our 2004 business plan and longer-term outlook, as well as some information regarding the debt reduction program we announced this morning. We will provide you with all of the particulars regarding the investor conference later today. We are certainly hopeful that you can make it an we are very much looking forward to sharing our outlook with you. Regarding our bank credit agreements, last month we announced that we secured an amendment to the credit agreement providing for, among other things, the approval of the $125 million of senior unsecured loans from McAndrews and Forbes and the waiver of our EBITDA and leverage ratio covenants through January 31st, 2005.

Let me turn now to marketplace performance, which is usual unless otherwise noted the discussion this morning of market share and retail consumption is of the U.S. mass market according to AC Nielsen, which excludes Wal-Mart and regional mass volume retailers. This data is an agregate of The Drug Channel, Target, K-Mart, and Food and Combo stroes, and represents approximately 70% of the company's U.S. mass market dollar volume. For the year, Revlon and Almay combined outgrew the category by about 1 growth point, which is significant because as you may recall, Revlon and Almay previously had underperformed the category by as much as 10 growth points during the 1999 to 2001 period. This performance is very important to building the foundation for the future. For the quarter, the color cosmetics category continues to be soft with total consumption down 1.3% versus a year ago and for the year, the category was down 2.2% versus a year ago.

In a departure from trends in the previous five quarters, consumption for Revlon and Almay combined trailed the category resulting in a quarterly share decline versus a year ago of 1.4 share points to 22 .0%. However, as you may recall, we achieved a 2.1 point share gain in the fourth quarter last year as we dramatically ramped up our marketing investment to meaningfully reconnect with consumers after a long period of underinvestment. Importantly for the year, we achieved our objective of share growth for Revlon and Almay combined, which improved 30 basis points to 22.4%, marking the first such gain since 1998. For the total company market share of 22.5% for the year declined 10 basis points versus a year ago, reflecting a 30 basis point gain for Revlon and Almay, offset by a 40 basis point decline for Ultima, which as you will recall is currently sold only at select retail outlets in the U.S. and direct to consumer.

Before I turn the call over to Jack Stahl, Revlon President and CEO and Tom Mcguire, Revlon Executive Vice President and CFO, I would like to remind you that our discussion this morning may include forward-looking statements, which are subject to the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Information on potential factors that could affect the companys results from time to time and cause them to differ materially from such forward looking statements, is set forth in the company's filings with the SEC, including the company's current annual report on form 10K, 2003 quarterly reports on form 10 Q, other SEC filed documents and press releases, including the release issued today. And finally, as a reminder, our discussion this morning should not be copied or recorded. With that, I'll turn it over to Jack.