National and global macroeconomic conditions can be uncertain and volatile. We have in the past been, and may continue to be, adversely affected by changes in national and global macroeconomic conditions, such as inflation, rising interest rates, tax rates, availability of capital markets, consumer spending rates, energy availability and costs, supply chain challenges, labor shortages, and growing recession risk. The macroeconomic conditions recently experienced were in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and global supply chain challenges.
Volatility in financial markets and deterioration of national and global macroeconomic conditions could impact our business and results of operations in a number of ways, including, but not limited to, the following:
- financial instability of our customers and suppliers could result in additional bad debts or non-performance;
- value of our investments in debt and equity securities may decline, including our investment in Post common stock;
- future volatility or disruption in the capital and credit markets could negatively impact our liquidity or increase costs of borrowing;
- an impairment in the carrying value of goodwill, other intangible assets, or other long-lived assets, or a change in the useful life of finite-lived intangible assets could occur if there are sustained changes in consumer purchasing behaviors, government restrictions, financial results, or a deterioration of macroeconomic conditions;
- volatility in commodity and other input costs could continue due to adverse macroeconomic conditions; and
- consumers could choose to purchase private label or competitive products of our lower-priced products as a result of an economic downturn.
These and other impacts of global and national macroeconomic conditions could also heighten many of the other risk factors discussed in this section. Our sensitivity to economic cycles and any related fluctuation in consumer demand could negatively impact our business, results of operations, financial condition, and liquidity.