Capri Holdings Limited (CPRI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
March 9, 2022
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Lorraine Maikis
analystOkay, we're going to get started. Thanks to everybody who joined us in the room today and everybody who's listening virtually. We appreciate your participation. It's nice to see so many faces for the first time in quite a while. We're really happy to have with us today Capri Holdings. We have John Idol, CEO; Tom Edwards, CFO and COO. And happy to have them here for a fireside chat today. Just wanted to turn it over to you, John, first and see if you had any opening remarks you wanted to make.
John Idol
executiveWell, first, thank you for having us here, and it's very nice to see everyone in person. This is our first live presentation since the pandemic started. I would also like to say that we at Capri are very much praying and hoping for peace in the situation in the war in Ukraine. We have been making significant donations to relief for the refugees and we will be making more contributions in various forms. So we believe that we have a responsibility to protect those people who are being very, very much put in a very difficult position. So I just wanted you all to know that. We're very proud to, this morning, reiterate our guidance for our fiscal '23, as well as reiterating our guidance for fiscal '22 as well. And again, in fiscal '23, we're looking at double-digit growth in revenue and double-digit growth in earnings. And that is inclusive, which Tom will maybe speak to a little bit later, the impact of our decision to stop shipping our product into Russia, as well as the impact that we'll have in some surrounding countries as tourism is affected. And then visually, I'm really proud in fiscal '22, this will be the largest revenues in the company's history as well as the best earnings per share significantly in the company's history. So when you think about Capri, I think we have evolved to a luxury company. With the Versace brand, you can see the momentum that we have there. With Jimmy Choo, there's been some, again, really strong momentum in that brand. And Michael Kors, where we started our really repositioning of the brand and elevating of the brand, that has seen an inflection as well and we are doing significantly better than what we had anticipated when we decided to shrink that business. And it's actually growing faster than we had thought, and that with a significantly higher operating margins as well. So you can really see the health of that business. So I feel very, very strong and confident about our ability to take 3 of the world's best luxury houses and grow those consistently over the foreseeable future. And I want to also point out one last thing. We have 3 founder-led brands. I've searched with Michael this morning at 8:30, looking at new real estate. We have Donatella Versace, who is very involved as Michael is as well, and we have Sandra Choi, the original founder of Jimmy Choo. So we're fortunate in that we have 3 strong visionary leaders, who continue to remain very involved in our business and give us that great creativity and excitement that makes our brands special.
Lorraine Maikis
analystSo maybe, John, can we start with discussing your recent announcement regarding the leadership change?
John Idol
executiveCertainly. So I want to, again, first start out by saying that the Capri teams are very strong. At Michael Kors, the average leader of the divisions in our company has 15 years of tenure in the organization. Some of them have been there since we started in 2003. So we have a very solid leadership team, not only domestically but internationally as well. So we believe that there's a very, very strong team executing on our strategic visions. And again, those -- that strategic vision was set out really, 2 to 3 years ago. Secondly, at Jimmy Choo, as you know, we announced Hannah Colman as our new CEO. I think the results speak for themselves. Hannah has done an amazing job. By the way, she's the third oldest employee in the company. She stepped right in, she knew exactly where Jimmy Choo needed to be and go, and she has done an extraordinary job. And again, we've seen an inflection at Versace that gives us tremendous confidence in our ability to reach the $1 billion. It will be the largest revenues for the company this year and we're very much on track to seeing our vision for that brand. And at Versace, as you know, we've seen a management change there. Jonathan Akeroyd went to be the CEO of Burberry, and we're very happy for him, and we think that's a terrific opportunity for him. I hope that in the month of April, we'll be announcing our new CEO for Versace. And as you can only imagine, it's one of the most sought-after positions in the fashion business. So we are fortunate in that we're seeing tremendous candidates who want this position for the company. Underneath that role, we have incredible leadership that Jonathan brought in prior to his departure. And in the meantime, this gentleman called Cedric Wilmotte, who I've worked on and off with since 2007, he is the temporary CEO today. So we're in great hands at Versace. In terms of the leadership change that happened at Michael Kors, I am clearly back as the Chairman of Capri and CEO of Capri and the CEO of Michael Kors as it was previously. Unfortunately, our previous individual who was in that role, Josh Schulman, did not work out for the company. And that's part of life, sometimes things work and sometimes things don't work. And so we believe we have a very solid management team, so I want to acknowledge Tom, our CFO, COO for the group. So I think Capri is in good hands, solid hands, and we're -- had laid out all of our strategic vision and we're executing against them.
Lorraine Maikis
analystSo what's the future succession plan? Are you looking now for another CEO, a new CEO of Capri?
John Idol
executiveSo the answer to that is no. I think we are -- I'm always working with the Board on succession planning, not only in my position, but in other positions inside the company. We have a very active Board, very engaged. And I think our point of view for the moment is the company is in good hands. Again, we have very clear plans that we're executing. We're super excited to see you all in July for our Investor Day. We're going to roll out some additional information, in particular around Michael Kors. There will be more elevation going on with the brand. And I think we're very clear on how we're going to accelerate the growth of that business. I think we were less clear 2 years ago. We were more focused on just really repositioning the brand. Now we feel very confident in how we can continue that repositioning and gain growth, whether that's through market share or just through the growth of the overall luxury business. So at this point in time, there are no plans to resume a search for that position. Over time, of course, there will be, because as I had said to many people on previous calls, at a point in time, I'm not going to be sitting here forever. That is not the intent for me or for the Board to do that. But for the moment, I think we feel we're in a good place.
Lorraine Maikis
analystOkay. Moving on to the second big topic. What's your exposure to Russia?
John Idol
executiveTom?
Thomas Edwards
executiveSo when we look at Russia, our exposure is approximately $100 million in revenue. And that's both to sales into Russia, which, as John mentioned, we have now stopped, and that's through partners into very, very small degree, some direct stores. And it's also sales to Russians who are traveling abroad, mainly in Europe as tourists. So we have now taken this into account, both for fiscal '22 and for fiscal '23, and removed it from our own internal planning. However, we're still restating and reemphasizing our guidance for both years. We're seeing strength in other parts of the business, for instance, North America, that continue to shore up the brands, and we're very confident in these -- this outlook. As John mentioned, I just want to reiterate, we do hope and pray for peace in Ukraine, and I wanted to make sure that is the primary point of that part of the discussion.
Lorraine Maikis
analystSo just to be totally -- you're reiterating guidance, but now it includes this pressure from [ Russia ].
Thomas Edwards
executiveThat is correct. We're reiterating it, and it does include or in other words, excluding the revenues of the $100 million related to Russia and Russian tourists.
Lorraine Maikis
analystOkay. Great. And then what about the rest of Europe? Are you concerned about the impact this may have on the rest of your European business?
Thomas Edwards
executiveWe're actually seeing strong trends continuing in Europe. In Q3, we were up in the mid-30%. And we've seen that continue into our fiscal Q4. So we see continued strength of the European consumer. They're engaging with our brands. They are buying our product. And for perspective, Europe overall is approximately 25% of Capri's business, and the vast majority is in Western Europe. So we'll continue to keep a close eye on the situation and to see if there's any potential for broadening. But right now, we're seeing continued trends into Q4.
Lorraine Maikis
analystOkay. Maybe let's zoom out and talk about the global luxury accessories and footwear category, and what your view is on the category overall?
John Idol
executiveSo let me go backwards first. When we decided some 4 years ago that Capri, which generates a tremendous amount of free cash flow every year and we were predominantly focusing that free cash flow after CapEx and certain corporate initiatives into share buybacks, that wasn't the best use of our capital. The best use of our capital was to look at acquisitions. And we were very fortunate that 2 acquisitions came very quickly, one being Jimmy Choo. And quite frankly, we didn't think we were almost ready for the Versace when it came so fast, but thank God, we did it. And I also want to point out again that the reason why both of those companies came to us, because the founders would remain part of the direction of the company. And so as we think out, we thought that the luxury goods business was the most consistent in terms of growth over the years. When you can go back to the SARS pandemic, the financial pandemic, the luxury goods dips and then it comes back and it comes back actually even stronger. So -- and of course, we've been through a period over the last 2 or 3 years, you wouldn't think this, but with the COVID pandemic affecting the whole world, in fact, many people got much wealthier and that actually took the luxury goods business and made it even stronger. So we're back to prepandemic levels in terms of the total industry, approximately $70 billion in accessories and $30 billion in luxury footwear. And we believe it's going to grow 6%, 7% again, going forward. So to be part of an industry that has historically shown year-on-year, besides financial or health crises, growth, we think that's the right place for us to be. And in particular, I think that people express part of their fashion and/or cultural expression through accessories. And again, it's proven to be an excellent area to be in. And so we believe the growth worldwide will be in that 6% to 7% range. Clearly, there could be some impact from what's happening right now, again, with the situation in Ukraine and Russia and how that's impacting the world. But again, relative to that market size versus the rest of the world, it's -- we don't believe it will significantly impact the growth of luxury business.
Lorraine Maikis
analystAnd can you talk about pricing power across all 3 of your luxury houses?
John Idol
executiveSo we started out, again, almost 3 years ago with Michael Kors, and again, I'm the architect of the Michael Kors business. As many of you in this room know, we went from $17 million to $4.4 billion or $5 billion. It's one of the most extraordinary stories in the fashion luxury business. And then we hit a wall. And some people might say you were overdistributed, or et cetera. Really what happened was we started discounting, we being us and it was not the department store that drove it, it was us. And what also happened is e-commerce came online, and we had too many stores because, again, many people said, we overstored. But we did because there were markets that needed the product. And then today, if you look at our Michael Kors store fleet versus, I would say, certain other people, we actually have smaller store fleet today. So we've rationalized the store fleet over the last few years. We still have 100 and change more to go, but -- and that's improved profitability. And so as we looked at that, we said to ourselves, why are we discounting the product? What are we doing? We're doing it to be competitive. We don't want to be competitive very long. We -- and I know that may sound a bit arrogant, but we care about Michael Kors, and we care about the brand health of Michael Kors. So we started raising prices. We are still below the competition today, as we sit in almost every market. We still have more room to go. And I hope that I sit here a year to 1.5 years from now, and we are more expensive than the competition. That's where Michael Kors is going. Michael Kors will be one of the most expensive in the more modern luxury area of the world. So that is clearly our target. That is where we're heading. And not only are you seeing that in accessories from us, but you're going to see that now in shoes. And ultimately, you're going to see that in ready-to-wear as well. And the customer has not said no to us on any of that. And in fact, we've also reduced discounts. And most of this is a North America issue and less of an issue in Europe and in Asia. And so we're seeing positive response. We've also reduced our SKU count by 30%. And so less product, more focused, more value in terms of the brand integrity of the consumer. Secondly, at Jimmy Choo, the minute that Hannah Colman took over as the CEO, she asked me why I was the architect of the lowest priced luxury good shoe business in the world. I said, I'm so sorry, I didn't architect that. We bought the company. You all were doing that. I had nothing to do with that. And we are still probably the lowest priced luxury goods. We have a long way to go in Jimmy Choo in terms of pricing. So we've already taken a number of price increases that get us somewhat close to our competitors. And remember, with Jimmy Choo, we're talking about competitors that are in the LVMH Group and the Kering Group. And the price differentiations are huge compared to where we are today. We made that move. And I can't tell you if the customer reacted or didn't react because we started that actually during COVID. But post when things opened up, our business is spectacular at Jimmy Choo. And that's also a result of our marketing initiatives. I hope you've all seen us with our new Hailey Bieber, Time to Dare campaign, which is -- it's Time to Dare. And people are back out and people want to be dressed up. And so many times, it's about trend in the business, but we're on trend right now. And Jimmy Choo is quite strong. And additionally, where we'll see operating margin and gross margin expansions with our accessories goods lines developing, and that's really becoming a cornerstone of that company. And then lastly, in Versace, I think I told you over the last few calls that we were not discussing price increases in Versace. And I think I told you in the third quarter call that that's changing. And in particular, in our accessories business, where we are now, once again, the least expensive price luxury goods company in accessories. And all of our competitors are taking prices up, as you've seen, written-up what's happening around the world. So we will be taking price increases, it's happening right now in Versace. And so there will be multiple ones. And Versace is going to move to a much higher level inside the luxury world, because there are many tiers inside the luxury world of pricing, and I'll let you all sort out what those are. But we believe that Versace belongs in the more mid- to high-end level of that pricing. And we believe that our consumer will strongly react to that, again, positioning this as a coveted, sought-after product. So we feel very comfortable in that. And a good thing we did all those things because as you know, cost of goods are rising and, of course, the transportation costs are massively rising across the world. And so had we not done those things, we wouldn't be able to offset many of the cost increases that we're seeing today.
Lorraine Maikis
analystOkay. And then last quarter, your global database rose 20%. What drove such a significant increase?
John Idol
executiveWell, the first thing I'd like to do is thank our 16,000 employees around the world, because you can have strategies, you can have great ideas, you have to have teams, not only all the leaders that I told you about who've been with the company for 15 years, but we have some of the most extraordinary people. And if any of you see this, who're watching, I want to thank you for the effort and initiatives they put on during the COVID period of time, I mean people in our distribution centers, we have people opening our stores, many of us at our corporate offices got to stay home, many people didn't. And so having a dedicated team like that out there to keep this company moving forward is nothing short of extraordinary. And I believe that as we look out into the future, many of our initiatives are going to be based around the execution of what our strategies are. And I think that our strategies have been laser clear and I think our execution is getting better and better every day of the week.
Lorraine Maikis
analystRight. And then you mentioned the pricing power opportunity at Versace. What's been driving such strong results?
John Idol
executiveWell, I'm going to once again say thank you to Michael Kors, thank you to Donatella Versace and thank you to Sandra Choi, because without their vision -- and we get the fun opportunity of sitting in meetings and whether it's Sandra Choi, telling me about a thigh high boot or whether it's Donatella Versace telling me about the coolest bustier top or whether it's Michael telling me about how a double-faced cashmere dress is going to be on trend, I mean that's what we have with these extraordinarily talented people, who are really leading the way. In Donatella's case, you have to remember when we bought Versace, this was a fashion ready-to-wear company. And in fact, it was doing 60% of its revenues in men's. And many of you in this room would have thought, well, no, that's a women's company. It's all about these runway shows. And in fact, that's what the marketing said, but that's not actually what happened in the business. And our teams have done an extraordinary job of, number one, we are turning Versace into an Italian fashion luxury leather company. That is the most important thing if you leave this room thinking about what is Versace, and that's what is starting to happen. You enter -- we've renovated, I think, close to 60% of the fleet now. And hopefully, you'll get downtown to see our new store in Soho or Uptown, we'll be opening a new one at Madison Avenue very shortly or any of the stores that we've reopened in London and Paris. And in China, we've been moving very quickly with our new store formats. But the front 30% of the stores is all devoted to accessories now, and that was never the case before. We have very large presentations of footwear inside the store. So the accessories business, as we've told you on the calls, has been extraordinary. We launched our La Greca -- I'm sorry, our La Medusa line, which has been extraordinarily successful. We launched our Virtus line, which Jen has our bag over there. And then we launched La Greca recently, which has been a huge home run for the company. And I have to tell you, it appears that we now have a code that was there, really, we didn't know how big it was in La Greca, and I hope you all looked at the fashion show that we just recently had in Milan. And we launched our new La Greca Goddess, the bag is called, which I think is a spectacular name. A bag, which we think will be the largest selling bag for the company. And so accessories is now a driving force at Versace. And surprisingly, I have to say footwear. Women's footwear has taken off, we never expected that to happen. And interestingly enough, it's not just driven by the sneaker business, it's actually driven by the dress shoe footwear business. And Donatella has reminded me on numerous occasions, how platforms do sell. And many of you may see these very large platforms in our ads and they actually are selling extremely well. So that's why you have to listen to your design partners, and they will tell you about fashion and trend and how the excitement comes around that. So Versace is now a focused company as opposed to being a company that was only about communication. Now it's a company about communication and about product. And again, I'm so proud of our teams around the world in how they're executing this because that's really where the rubber hits the road, it is can you execute against your initiatives, and these teams are doing.
Lorraine Maikis
analystGreat. And then just switching gears to supply chain. Where are we in terms of supply chain delays?
Thomas Edwards
executiveSure. Happy to help with that. So I think the important takeaway is the trends we're seeing are in line with our expectations, which we've built into our forecast. And what we're seeing is continued long delays. They're slightly improved from the height of the delays in the third quarter, but they're still extremely long, and we expect that to continue through fiscal '23, certainly compared to history. We're also seeing higher costs, as we noted in our last earnings call, and we expect those elevated costs also continue through the next fiscal year. Now when we look at it from a half perspective, I think in the first half, we'll be comparing against the lower cost than prior year, so there's going to be a little more of a headwind. In the second half, we'd expect a little more of a normalization, as some of our initiatives that we're putting in place to help mitigate costs and further reduce delays of getting products moved around come to fruition. And I also mentioned, from an inventory point of view, we've noted that we're implementing a number of strategies, in particular, ordering core inventory earlier so that we have it on hand to meet consumer demand. Within several quarters, where we have lost demand of approximately mid-single digits for Michael Kors because we did not have enough product available. So we're bringing that on in order to meet that demand. And for the next few quarters, we'll see a little higher inventory. And that, of course, will then be used through the year as we move forward. So I think, overall, we're implementing a number of strategies, but I'd expect delays and higher costs through the next year and it's all baked into our forecast at this point.
Lorraine Maikis
analystSo even with that, you have gross margins guided up [ 200 ] this year, [ 50 ] next year. What are the other drivers that are offsetting the supply chain pressures? And are those sustainable?
Thomas Edwards
executiveThat's a great question. And it's really the strategic initiatives that John was alluding to and how they've come together. So what we've seen this year and even before this, because a lot of these initiatives were put in place pre-COVID and we're now executing them going forward, they're delivering tremendous gross margin support and expansion. The first is just higher full price sell-throughs and this goes across all our brands. And it starts with the amazing product that John was alluding to and our great designers, a focused assortment as we've cut SKUs down in the mid-30% across the business, and that allows us to sell more of individual units, great communications as we monetize the database and of course, signature. That is very important for Michael Kors. As we said, we want to move that up to 50% of the mix. It's close to around 40% now. But that's also important and it's been introduced for Versace and Jimmy Choo. The second broad item is pricing. A couple of quarters ago, it was more of Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo discussion. Now we believe we have opportunity at Versace. And we have seen very little, no consumer pushback as we've increased prices and believe the strength of our brands and the design support continued growth in that area. And the final thing I'll mention is accessories. So accessories is growing for Jimmy Choo and importantly, for Versace. That brings with it higher margins. And we believe that combined, these will continue to drive results, even though there may be some supply chain headwinds, particularly in the first half of the year, underlying this, we'll see the benefits of these. And they, of course, go and continue beyond fiscal '23.
John Idol
executiveAnd I realized that I didn't properly answer your question about our digital database growth. One of the things that I'm very excited, again, you've heard me say 62 times, how proud I am of our teams. The growth of our database has really been, I think, breathtaking. I don't think if we ever sat down and said "Could you grow your database by 20-some-odd percent every single quarter" and then with Michael Kors, we'll approach a 60 million person database at the end of this year, our fiscal year. I mean that's a breathtaking number, and that shows you the health of the brand. We think that's a critical area from a KPI to look at, for us as a company. And one of the things that gives us the ability to do is really target our communication and the customer journey, which gives us the ability to drive revenues and also reduce any kind of markdowns inside the system. So as Tom said before, one of the things that you're seeing is our gross margin expand and part of that's by the ability to really have much more targeted marketing to the consumers. The reason why the databases are growing so rapidly is because the customers want our product. They're excited about our marketing initiatives and we have a lot of storytelling that we've done and that we're going to continue to do. And I hope you're all looking at what's happening on Michael Kors right now because Jet Set is back. I hope you see the new Bella Hadid campaign with her standing with the helicopter, and you're going to see some other things coming. We're really getting back to what that brand stands for and what the engagement with the consumer is, and especially a younger consumer who never experienced that original launch of this brand, some 20 years ago. So there's a lot of heritage in Michael Kors that you're going to see coming out, which we're obviously seeing customers engage with.
Lorraine Maikis
analystOkay. We've talked a lot about revenue drivers, about the margin strength, all of that leads to strong cash flow. So maybe, Tom, you could walk us through your capital allocation priorities.
Thomas Edwards
executiveSure. Happy to, and you started at exactly the right spot, which is strong cash flow. So the company, I think, has been blessed over the years with very strong cash flow. Now that's continued through this year and as we're coming out of the pandemic as we've seen in paying down debt rapidly and now returning to buying back shares. So we expect the free cash flow strength to continue into the future, certainly supported by Michael Kors, but now as Jimmy Choo and Versace margins improved rather significantly this year, and as we look at next year, continue to expand, we will see them contributing more on that side as well. Our first priority is always to invest in the business. As John alluded to, we're expanding and building out our store base for, in particular, Versace and Jimmy Choo and in Asia for Michael Kors. We're renovating stores. So Versace is well along the way, but there's still significant opportunity there and select areas for other brands. And then on the systems side, most importantly, in digital, e-commerce and omnichannel with replatforming our entire system and brands, which will be coming to fruition about a year from now and then rolling out. So that's very important as we take e-commerce and omnichannel capabilities to the next level. And of course, in the back office to bring together our brands on single platforms, as we mentioned, SAP. So investing in the business, absolutely fundamental and something that we will be focused on. Second is to pay down debt. We've done this significantly over the past few years. Our debt-to-equity ratio is at a very, very, I believe, low and very manageable 1.5x as of the end of last quarter. We will continue to pay down debt as we move forward. Importantly, we've always had the capability, due to the strong cash flow, to both buy back shares and pay down debt. And we have bought back shares now over the past several quarters and plan to continue to return cash to shareholders in that manner. Importantly, we believe our shares are a great value. We believe this through this year, we believe it today. And we've been certainly over the past few quarters, purchasing shares at increasing rates over those quarters. So that's an important use of cash going forward. The final item would be potential luxury acquisitions. While there may not be anything immediately available, we do want to be in discussions if something comes up. And that's a final use of cash as we build out the luxury portfolio.
John Idol
executiveI would add that -- Tom said, we're making investments in the business, we're spending hundreds of millions of dollars in CapEx to renovate stores, we firmly believe in brick-and-mortar retail. It's still the predominant amount of our business. The customer journey is critical and that journey starts online, probably about 80% of the time. But then that customer wants to be serviced in an omni way, whether that's in the store, from the store. We think that one of the things we learned during the pandemic was clienteling is critical, and it's become even more important. I'm sure many of you have had that experience with someone great, who calls you on the phone or has a personal relationship with you. We're doing more things in terms of sales out of the stores to local customers that we've ever done. And so having the right systems in place to do that is going to be critical for our growth. We're literally spending north of $300 million in the systems implementations that Tom is talking about and more to be invested. So this company is investing hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in its future. We're paying down debt. And we believe that we will have very little debt at the end of next fiscal year as well as returning shares -- returning cash to shareholders through share repurchases. As Tom has mentioned, I think I'd go stronger than saying our shares are at a good value. I'd say that the market may not exactly 100% recognize what we're building today and what we're going to have in the future and the stability of our company and where it stands today. And I think we'll just continue to keep our head down and deliver our performance, as I think we've been able to do and show you. And along the way, we're going to take advantage of certainly, the dislocation in value, and we think that's a great thing for our shareholders and ultimately for our EPS on the long term.
Lorraine Maikis
analystGreat. And Tom's comments indicate you have plenty of dry powder for an acquisition if you wanted it. Does the change in succession planning impact your strategy at all around acquisitions?
John Idol
executiveNo, not at all. And again, I think I've been relatively clear about this. Our belief is in luxury. We think that luxury is the place that we see the most sustainable growth for the future. And our 2 acquisitions are going very well, and the repositioning of Michael Kors is also going very well. So I think we have proven to the market and to ourselves that we can integrate companies, that we can execute on strategies and create performance from doing that. And I understand that there was a lot of question marks, can Capri do it? You're an American company, can you acquire European brands? Do you really understand luxury? Are you going to turn these luxury companies into a mass business? And I think we've proven pretty clearly to the world that that's not the case. I think we've also really positioned ourselves to family-owned businesses that we can operate with the owners inside the company. and they add value. They certainly built these companies, and they have a great view around how they think the company can go forward. In the case of myself, I'm one of the largest shareholders in Capri. Michael also remains at almost a similar identical level to me. Donatella has a huge shareholding in the company. Her daughter, also a huge shareholder in the company. So we are personal owners of these businesses, so we understand how owners feel and how they want their legacy to be dealt with. And we think that we offer a little different proposition for people in the future. That being said, I would -- I never want to say never, but for the moment, we're only interested in European luxury goods companies. And as Tom had indicated, there's very few that are available in the market. Again, I don't want to say never, but we need something that was of scale that we can move -- can move the needle for the company. So I don't think you'll see us doing little acquisitions. We don't think that's the best use of our time and energy and effort. We have this opportunity at Versace. And I've told everyone on our calls that we have a very clear path to how we're getting to $2 billion. We understand that. Now the question is how much bigger is Versace than $2 billion. And if you look at many of our competitors who are -- I won't mention names or companies, but I'm sure you all have done your due diligence, they are now all breaking $2 billion. And many of these businesses that were $1 billion before are breaking $2 billion now. And now they are clearly on a path to $3 billion. So I'm sure when we get together at our Investor Day, we're going to give you more thoughts around what that means and what that feels like. But we own some assets that clearly can be bigger. I think we will also have some views for you at Investor Day on Michael Kors. And we clearly now are going to be a bigger business than we've talked about in the past. And again, and that's not with any type of aggressive positioning. We've actually taken our wholesale business down, as you know. And that's by design and really, again, continuing to elevate the brand. So I think when you look at all that, if we saw a company that had the ability to be well north of $1 billion, we would consider it. If it didn't have that ability and if it really wasn't in a luxury world, that's not going to be in our wheelhouse. I'm sure you've read some things in the papers about things that we are supposedly a part of or not. If it doesn't fit that criteria, again, I don't want to say never, but that's -- we're going to be pretty disciplined about that. So that brings me to the conclusion that I don't think anything is going to happen in the next couple of years. But we will be ready. We will be positioned, possibly at the end of the next fiscal year, we'll have very, very little debt. So that will give us the firepower to do a multibillion dollar acquisition, if it's the right acquisition and we think we can grow it.
Lorraine Maikis
analystGreat. We are just about out of time. Any questions I should have asked that I missed?
John Idol
executiveWell, Lorraine, first off, again, I want to thank you, and I want to thank all of our -- all of you joining us here today. Many of you are owners of the company, and I thank you for your investment, and I thank you for your confidence in our company. Again, I just want to repeat that we remain very focused on our strategic initiatives. And I think we demonstrated that during the pandemic, we could have gone off to the left and to the right and done some very strange things. I think we didn't. And I think we doubled down on what we believe in. And I think you saw many of our competitors do that. And boy, have they come out strong. And so we are in a very competitive environment, but I think we've set ourselves up for success. We've got a strong leadership team in place. I am 100% fully committed to making sure that Capri will not only deliver on what we showed you at the last Investor Day, but hopefully do a lot better. Thank you, Lorraine, for having us.
Lorraine Maikis
analystThank you both for your time and thanks to everybody for participating.
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