P&G CEO Reveals Performance Boost Plans

10/8/2013
The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) has established consumer and shareowner value creation as its top priority, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, A.G. Lafley, told the Company’s shareowners at its annual meeting this week in Cincinnati.

In a review of the business over the past year, Lafley said P&G had met or exceeded its key financial commitments, including organic sales growth, core earnings per share and free cash flow productivity. The company returned $12.5 billion in cash to shareowners. However, he emphasized that it can do better.

Lafley explained that P&G has established four areas to improve performance — value creation for consumers and shareowners, productivity and innovation, significant improvements to operating discipline and investments in research and development and go-to-market capabilities.

“The changes we are making in these four areas — reestablishing value creation as our primary measure of success, investing in innovation and go to market capabilities, accelerating productivity savings and improving operating discipline and execution — are important changes that we believe will improve performance,” he said.

Lafley emphasized that the company will focus on its core businesses, which include the leading, most profitable brands, categories and countries. P&G must ensure its U.S. business is strong and growing while investing in developing markets that have the largest size of prize and where P&G has the highest likelihood of winning. Resources will be allocated to businesses where value can be created and the Company will exit those that cannot deliver acceptable shareowner returns.

Lafley concluded: “We have taken a hard look at what we need to do and how we need to change to perform better. We’re committed to do what it takes to get P&G back to balanced, consistent, reliable and sustainable growth and value creation for consumers, customers, and you, our shareowners.”

The Board of Directors of P&G declared a quarterly dividend of $0.6015 per share on the Common Stock and on the Series A and Series B ESOP Convertible Class A Preferred Stock of the Company, payable on or after November 15, 2013, to Common Stock shareholders of record at the close of business on October 18, 2013, and to Series A and Series B Preferred Stock shareholders of record at the start of business on October 18, 2013.

P&G has been paying a dividend for 123 consecutive years since its incorporation in 1890 and has increased its dividend for 57 consecutive years.

P&G will issue its results for the first fiscal quarter ended September 30, 2013 on October 25, 2013.

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