Ceconomy AG (CEC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our Q3/9M results call this morning. With me today are our CEO, Karsten Wildberger; and our CFO, Florian Wieser. They will guide you through today's presentation. Before we start, let me address the usual formalities. Firstly, this call is being recorded. A replay will be available on our website later today. Secondly, don't forget that today's presentation and potentially some answers to your questions may contain forward-looking statements. For additional information in this regard, please refer to the disclaimer. But now let me hand over to our CEO, Karsten Wildberger.

Thank you, Hendrik, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our Q3 and 9 months results presentation. Actually, I would like to cover quite a few things today, and I will do so in 4 thematic blocks: firstly, I'll comment on the Q3 results and the market environment that we have to deal with; secondly, I will talk about our revised outlook and provide the background to the adjustment of our outlook; and thirdly, I will shed light on how we are actually managing the current challenges; and fourthly, I will give you some more insights how we are progressing and implementing our omnichannel strategy. Let's turn to Slide 4, please. While we are living in really tough economic times, for decades we haven't experienced so many negative forces happening at the same time. Clearly, crisis is part of the new norm. And we are dealing with it in the best possible manner and be assured we are doing so. We concentrate on the things that we control and that are in our own hands. So after a good start to the third quarter, the external conditions worsened, driven by persistently high inflation and increasing energy cost, the consumer climate deteriorated noticeably during the quarter. Since June, we have seen weaker demand, especially in Germany. And despite this environment, we still increased sales by 6.3% to around EUR 4.6 billion (sic) [EUR 4.7 billion] in Q3 and thereby managed to develop better than competition. Adjusted EBIT in the third quarter came in at minus EUR 109 million, and thus, EUR 16 million below the previous year. It should be noted that the previous year's results included COVID-19 government support of EUR 45 million in the quarter. This year's Q3 was affected by the rise in inflation, which pushed up buying prices and cost items such as energy and logistics services. And at the same time, we deliberately invested in advertising campaigns and special offers in times of flattening demand and intensifying competition. And Florian will give you more details on our financial performance later. Having said that, I would like to look briefly beyond the current situation. In Q3, we have kept implementing our omnichannel strategy. We've improved customer satisfaction yet again, and were able to gain market share. From that, we will benefit in the future. In addition, we completed the Convergenta transaction at the beginning of June. We have thus laid the structural basis for simplification and the further development of our company. And in a moment, I will also give you some specific examples to illustrate the progress we have made in our core strategic fields. But before that, let me explain just how much the boundary conditions have changed in the past months on Page 5, please. While the inflation rate in the Eurozone has risen sharply in recent months, driven mainly by significantly higher energy costs and food prices. It reached 8.9% in July, which is the highest level since the launch of the euro in 1999. But let's turn actually to Germany for a moment, which you see in the middle of the graph of the page and on the right-hand side. The striking figure is the price for Germany to source natural gas, which has tripled in the past 12 months. And in parallel, consumer sentiment has plummeted since the beginning of the year. For August, experts expect actually another drop of the Consumer Climate Index for Germany. Almost all sectors actually are affected by these unfavorable developments but the retail sector is feeling the pinch, particularly. Adjusted for inflation, retail sales in Germany fell by almost 9% overall in the first half of 2022 year-on-year. And this is actually the highest decline in the last 30 years. Let's turn to Slide 6, please. We recently adjusted our outlook for the current business year given these developments. And since then, we've obviously been asked why did we adjust, why did we adjust now? So let me please -- let me answer these questions. During our Q2 call, we actually informed you that the sales momentum in April was very encouraging. However, already in May, we experienced a more volatile market with considerable ups and downs from week to week. Yet we closed this month, the month of May with a positive sales growth. Then by mid of June the latest, our sales trend declined sharply and the development fell short of our internal expectations and became most profound in Germany. And based on the noticeable change in consumer behavior, we updated our estimates for the fourth quarter. Of course, a considerable slowdown in sales likewise impacts total gross profit. Moreover, it can reduce potential income from back margin conditions, which are to a considerable extent collected in September, and it creates uncertainty regarding sales-related conditions. Additionally, we had to fight harder for sales as expected, which comes with more campaigns and pressure on selling prices. And lastly, we noticed the inflation ourselves in certain cost positions, such as logistics or energy costs. Rising purchase prices are passed through to customers as far as possible in the current market environment, and I can also assure you that we are doing that. But all those elements amplified for mid of June onwards and were backed by the first weeks of July, hence, we had to update our outlook for the current financial year. Having said that, we now expect sales for the fiscal year '21, '22 to be at the previous year's level. Originally, we had expected sales to slightly increase. And we now anticipate adjusted EBIT to be in the range of EUR 150 million to EUR 210 million, whereas originally, we had aimed for a substantial increase on the previous year's figure of EUR 237 million. The previous outlook was based on clear assumptions, namely an improvement in consumer sentiment post COVID and the normalization of inflation rate against the level of around 5% in our first half. These assumptions have been superseded by the most recent developments. And our new outlook for the full year reflects a significantly altered environment. It is also based on the assumption that the effects of the war of aggression against Ukraine will not worsen further and that there will be no new restrictions on brick-and-mortar retail due to potential energy supply shortage or the COVID-19 pandemic. We are aware that you would also like to hear our view on the implications of the current situation for our next fiscal year. But as a matter of fact, given the uncertainty and lack of predictability in these unprecedented times, we cannot comment on next year at this point in time. Please bear with us until we can give you a hopefully clearer guidance, which is scheduled for the release of our full year results in December. Let's turn please to Slide 7. Ladies and gentlemen, that's the world we are living in, and we are adjusting to an environment, which might not get better soon. As I said at the beginning, we are preparing ourselves for such negative scenarios to be ready and prepared if they turn into reality. But as the future is uncertain, things could also turn out better than currently anticipated or feared. It is possible, for instance, that there will be shifts in demand from which we could benefit in individual categories. For example, for household appliances that are particularly energy efficient. But now how are we managing the current crisis? What does this mean concretely? For some time, we have established task forces to decisively work on measures in 4 areas in order to mitigate the adverse circumstances. Firstly, cost control and margin protection. We enforce strict cost discipline more than ever throughout our organization. We are reducing our operating costs wherever possible. We are very active on store cost reductions, especially with regards to rent and size. In addition, we are passing on inflation-driven costs and price rises as far as possible, given the market environment. And especially in Germany, our largest business, we have to do everything we can to strengthen our margin. And we will double down our efforts here. Secondly, creating market momentum. We are focusing on new campaign formats, which are being rolled out throughout the company. And at the same time, we will continue to run special campaigns to support our sales and protect market shares. And we closely coordinate these campaigns with our partners, who are actually very interested in us creating demand for their products. Thirdly, net working capital and stock management. We are optimizing our inventories and above all, we'll continue to reduce the share of old stock. At the same time, we are continuously in touch with our suppliers to ensure high product availability. And fourthly, we are preparing for possible gas restrictions, especially in Germany and Austria. This means, for example, being able to switch from gas-fired to electric heating, if necessary and possible. We will do everything we can to keep our stores open for our customers also in the event of a potential gas shortage. So also here, we are preparing for the negative scenario. And we have been working on reducing energy consumption in our stores for some time, and we are now doing so with even higher intensity. Let's move to Page 8. Let me emphasize the fact that despite all the necessary crisis management that we are absolutely focusing on. In these times, it is also important to stick to our strategic direction. And we succeeded in doing so in the third quarter. Implementing our omnichannel strategy. As you know, we put the customer at the center of all our activities, and we have made progress in the important areas overall. Let's talk first about customer experience. The Net Promoter Score, NPS, the key figure we use to measure customer satisfaction has improved again in the past quarters. In the third quarter, the NPS across all sales channels reached 53, the highest value since measurement began. And a key element of our omnichannel strategy is growing our services and solutions business. We are increasingly successful with our extensive services from telco contracts to financing solutions and the SmartBars in our stores where we repair or set up appliances. And this holds true for both customer satisfaction and financial contribution. And Florian will provide more details and numbers on our important services and solutions business. Let's talk about the online business. In Q3, our new web shop also went live in Italy. It went very smoothly. This means that 5 countries are now connected to our company-wide tech platform. And these countries represent about 80% of our online sales. The tech platform ensures that further developments, new features and functionalities can be made available to customers directly in all the countries. We are currently running at an online in-house share of around 25%, which is more than 10 percentage points higher than pre-COVID. Midterm, we are aiming at a share of 30%. Let's talk about the store landscape. On the one hand, we reduced our store costs by renegotiating rents, reducing space and closing locations where necessary. And we're doing this forcefully. Equally, we have also made good progress in the modernization of our stores in the past months. In this financial year alone, we converted another 100 stores to the new core format by the end of June. The experience with the new core concept so far is very encouraging with profitability higher than in the previous classic store format. And in logistics, we are also focusing on close customer orientation. For online orders, we want to offer our customers a high-density network of drop-off and pickup points. 80% of our customers should be able to reach them within 10 minutes. In Spain, we've actually come much closer to this goal. By cooperating with a logistics partner, we've increased the number of contact points for our customers to more than 1,600. And we will add another 3,000 very soon. And this concept actually we are implementing in other markets as well. And last but not least, ESG and sustainability. As you know, sustainability is a cornerstone of our strategic development and at the same time, a distinguishing proposition. In recent months, we have expanded our repair, refurbishment and end-of-life take-back services to more countries. We now offer extended trade and solutions to our customers in half of our countries in stores and also via our web shops. And this service includes not just smartphones but also tablets, laptops, so the whole suite of IT products. As you can see, even in extremely challenging environment, we are not losing sight of the important structural necessities. We continue to develop our company, and we are taking action. And that is why we remain confident about the growth perspective of CECONOMY. And with that, I will hand over to Florian, Florian Wieser, who will explain our current business development to you in more detail. Thank you.

Yes. Thank you, Karsten, and good morning to everyone on the line today. Let me guide you through our quarterly and 9-month figures in more detail, starting with Slide 10. Karsten explained the current situation earlier. The deteriorating consumer sentiment, especially from June onwards, challenged our third quarter results and even more our outlook for Q4 and beyond. To give you some color, let's recall our half year call mid of May. Back then, we highlighted the ambiguous trends around consumer sentiment, uncertainty arising from the Russian war against Ukraine, and increased inflationary pressures weighed on demand in March. In April, consumer climate temporarily brightened and we saw demand resurging. May was quite volatile, while demand dropped noticeably in June. The adjusted Q3 sales growth of 6.3% is thus a blended rate of 3 rather heterogeneous single months and [ can see us ] the underlying trend. Adjusted EBIT developed similarly to sales across the quarter. June was the main contributor to the year-on-year drop. While the blended sales growth appears solid at first glance, elevated marketing costs were necessary in a demanding competitive environment. In addition, inflationary pressures weighed on our earnings. While EBIT came in EUR 16 million below last year's third quarter, we are roughly on prior year level after 9 months. However, we had initially strived for an EBIT improvement versus prior year. So much for the development of our 2 main KPIs. Let's now dive deeper, starting with our online business on Slide 11. As in previous quarters, our online business made a significant contribution to the company's performance. Against the backdrop of the gradual lifting of COVID restrictions in the prior year period, online sales declined year-on-year as expected. The normalization of our sales channel mix benefited our brick-and-mortar business, which grew beyond 20% in Q3. With an online sales ratio of around 23% on group level, our online share remains significantly above pre-COVID levels. By rolling out our new web shop to more countries like Italy, we make online shopping more convenient and keep working towards our ambition of an online sales share of 30%. Our new webshop is now covering 80% of total online sales. The pickup ratio, a crucial proof point of our omnichannel proposition stood at 38% in Q3. We appreciate the slight trend improvement versus previous quarters and are close to our midterm ambition of 40% plus. Convenient new options, such as our 30-minute Click & Collect offering helped lifting the ratio to the targeted levels. Let me now provide you on Slide 12 with more details regarding the strategically important Services & Solutions business Karsten also talked about. Service & Solutions remained strong and grew by 23% in Q3. Backed by the recovery of our brick-and-mortar business, the share of Services & Solutions sales increased to 6.4%. This is the highest level we have recorded since the fourth quarter in 2018/'19. In terms of service categories, we saw consistently increased demand for GSM contracts and consumer finance offerings as well as generally elevated attachment rates, both online and stationary. This is proof to us that our efforts to enhance our service offerings, including improved web functionalities such as a smarter recommendation engine are sustainably paying off. As such, our Services & Solutions business was a major contributor to a positive gross margin development as shown on Slide 13. Our gross margin improved by 130 basis points and stood at 17.2% in Q3. While we appreciate the increase versus the COVID burden prior year, the level is below our initial expectations. The familiar drivers for our gross margin were as follows in Q3: firstly, the recovery of our brick-and-mortar business resulted in a tailwind from channel shift; secondly, growing Services & Solutions, as just mentioned; and thirdly, a slight but pleasing increase of the goods margin benefited our gross margin. On the negative side, a higher share of old stock slightly burdened our gross margin. Clearly, we will continue to put all efforts and focus on margin improvement. Now to our OpEx development on Slide 14. Both absolute OpEx and our OpEx ratio increased in the past quarter. A part of this increase was expected as a key driver was the absence of prior year's COVID subsidies and savings. It accounted for roughly half of the absolute increase. Despite our sustained tight cost control, the remainder mainly stems from inflationary pressures within the areas of personal expenses and energy consumption. Coping with cost pressures is unavoidable in present times, with inflation rates beyond 8%. Access and continuous cost optimization efforts, targeting the cost structures in our operations and headquarters remain key. Let's now have a look at our segment performance on Slide 15, revealing rather diverging developments across the regions. The DACH region recovered by 5% against the prior year burdened by COVID restrictions. However, there was a noticeable decline of consumer sentiment over the course of the quarter, particularly in Germany. Elevated marketing efforts to achieve the desired sales levels, inflation-related cost increases and the lack of prior year's COVID-19 subsidies weighed on the segment's earnings. Demand in Western and Southern Europe was mixed and did not match the strong sales level of last year. While Italy continued its positive trends over the last quarters, the Netherlands showed a weaker business performance. Once again, the highest growth rates were achieved in Eastern Europe, driven by strong demand in Turkey. Please note that from Q3 onwards, we have implemented IAS 29 accounting standards in order to exclude technical effects from hyperinflation in Turkey. The application of a more recent FX rate and the price index to consolidated Turkish financials affected sales by around plus EUR 66 million and earnings by a rather minor amount. These technical effects are excluded from our guidance relevant KPIs, adjusted sales growth as well as adjusted EBIT. Now to reported financials, down to EPS on Slide 16. All in all, we see a drop to EUR 0.02 in earnings per share for the first 9 months of this financial year. This is largely the result of items we record below the adjusted EBIT line. First and foremost, the valuation of our strategic stake in Fnac Darty impacted EPS. While our partial impairment reversal of EUR 150 million benefited reported EBIT in Q2 last year, we recorded an impairment of EUR 56 million in Q3 this year. Secondly, prior year's financial result was supported by dividends from METRO Properties and M.video, which were not recurring in this year. Due to the nontax effective nature of the Fnac Darty devaluation, our reported tax rate was relatively low in fiscal year 2021 and is comparably high in this year. In the first 9 months of this year, it stood at 71.1%. The underlying tax rate, excluding nontax effective items was around 48%. Tax benefits stemming from the transaction with Convergenta and related tax consolidation will only be included in our financials from Q4 onwards. Let's now turn to our free cash flow development on Slide 17, which was at a seasonal low at the end of Q3. At around minus EUR 765 million, the major driver was the typical swing of our net working capital position, which we see each summer. The net working capital change is largely characterized by the seasonal reduction of trade payables. This year, shorter payment terms following new legal regulations in Belgium, as well as our intentional shift towards direct sourcing from selected suppliers even amplified this development. In addition, the nonsatisfying stock levels and aging structure weighed our net working capital position. Regarding income tax, higher advance payments and scheduled repayments for prior years led to an increased cash outflow. Moreover, the reversal of last year's COVID-related VAT deferrals in Germany continued to impact this year's free cash flow as expected. In total, our cash flow stood at minus EUR 1.1 billion after 9 months. On the one hand, this is shaped by the usual seasonal liquidity swing. On the other hand, it reflects the still comparably high stock levels and the muted consumer sentiment end of June. Let me clearly reiterate here that our targeted action to reduce the overall stock levels during the past month are paying off, and we have less stock on board than in March and last year. We continue to pursue coordinated measures in our stock situation while ensuring sufficient availability for our customers. Karsten highlighted some of our initiatives earlier. With those, we see ourselves on a good path to achieving our goal of having a more balanced net working capital position towards financial [ gain ]. That will ultimately also improve liquidity, which typically increases in Q4 in line with our seasonality. But allow me to remind you that we have access to undrawn credit lines totaling more than EUR 1 billion and this on a long-term basis. This gives us room for maneuver. This completes the financial section, and now back to Karsten for his closing remarks.

Yes. Thank you, Florian. Let's turn to Slide 19, please. Ladies and gentlemen, in conclusion, I would like to explain what you can expect from us in the coming months. The most important thing is we will do whatever it takes to mitigate and overcome the impact from the current economic crisis. And we will also continue to consistently implement our omnichannel strategy as planned at the same time. Both aim at strengthening our competitive position and gaining market share. In our crisis management, the main focus is on our cost and protecting our margins. And obviously, there's also a lot of work going on, as Florian mentioned, on the liquidity side and cash flow. And this holds true for our German business in particular. We are adapting our cost structures to the changed market conditions, and we're also negotiating conditions with our suppliers that lay the foundations for mutual long-term success. In doing so, we trust in our strong market position and close long-standing partnerships. Another aspect is important in the current situation Florian mentioned that already. We have sufficient liquidity to stick to our course, but to also be clear, cash flow management, obviously, is front and center. Moreover, we will also take the necessary steps to further improve customer experience and execute our strategy. And here are the key deliverables: firstly, we will launch a new international brand campaign in October, which will look a little different from what you have been used to recently. And it's important to reenergize the brand and the strong brand and actually have a market impact. Secondly, we will introduce a new MediaMarkt membership program in Germany. And thirdly, we will further strengthen our online business and launch our marketplace in Austria after the successful start in Germany and in Spain. Furthermore, we will continue to expand our sustainability activities and, for example, roll out our circular economy offerings step-by-step to all country organizations. And of course, we will also continue to optimize our store portfolio in the coming months. In addition to modernizing existing stores, this also includes opening new ones, and the focus will be on our new lighthouse format after we opened our fourth tech village in Rome at the beginning of July, 3 more will follow in the course of the year and on the 1st of September in Berlin and later Madrid and Vienna. Let's turn to the next chart, please. So ladies and gentlemen, let me summarize today's call. We have been dealing with a deteriorating customer climate since the end of Q3. But we have all hands on deck to fight against the crisis. We are preparing for further macroeconomic headwinds and have crisis management up and running. We are continuing to increase efficiency in our operations in stores, online and in our logistics networks. And we are further executing our omnichannel strategy to enhance the customer experience and strengthen our competitive position. In a nutshell, we are not just reacting to all kinds of external headwinds, we are decisively taking action. Thank you, everyone, for your attention. I will now turn the call over to the moderator for your questions. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] We will take our first question from Volker Bosse with Baader Bank.

Volker Bosse from Baader Bank. I would have 3. I would like to start with the cost situation. It's good to see that service and solution came through, which contributed margin improvement. However, obviously, this was more than compensated by cost increases at other lines, I mean, you all know the cost situation all over the P&L. But if you quantify what could you switch P&L line? Is it energy cost? Is it personnel costs? Or to give us a bit of granularity, what drives the OpEx increased both the sale? And second is on the currency situation, you see the strength of the U.S. dollar. And my question would be how does that impact your sourcing [indiscernible] services done in U.S. dollar in -- from my understanding. How much are you hedged here? Or how does that affect your gross margin going forward? Could we look at this topic. And a final question is, of course, on the trading, you said [indiscernible] deteriorated since mid of May. So how was trading in July and the first date of August in comparison to last year?

Yes. Thank you very much, Volker, for your 3 questions. I think we will answer them in the order you post them. Question number one, on the cost situation and the currency, Florian will take and I will comment on the trading. Florian?

Yes, happy to do so. Let's start with the question on the U.S. dollar, which, yes, saw rising development against the euro. So directly, we have not such a strong impact. So the only direct exposure we have is regarding our own brands. So we have an own brand company called [ E.ON ], which is directly importing own brands merchandised from Asia. There we see a certain impact, and this exposure, we are also hedging. So overall, this impact is rather limited. Of course, we see an indirect impact as we are buying from our suppliers in euro. And what we have seen in the past months is that the cost for merchandise -- for buying merchandise has risen. So this impact we see, and it's a rather indirect impact on gross margin. And what we have also commented on in the Q2 call. Of course, we are also trying to pass on inflationary impacts in the gross margin to the customers. So that's a mix picture, I would say. The first question you had regarding cost increases. Let me give you some more detail here. So first of all, I think it's important looking at the Q3 development that you have to -- if you look at the figures and if you look at the cost ratios and you adjust them for COVID subsidies, we adjust the cost ratio last year for COVID subsidies, the cost ratio has been rather flat. So we have a flat cost ratio adjusted for COVID subsidies versus previous year. Looking at the different components you have been asking for, this year, I think we have been able to manage inflationary impacts quite well on payroll, which is the major component of our cost structure. We have this year, not seen a wider surge -- like a big surge. So overall wage increases have been on a moderate level. And I think the crucial question will be here how then wage or tariff negotiations will look like in the next calendar year. At store rents, we have countermeasures, so we are constantly renegotiating our rent contracts, and we are working actively on our store portfolio. And by doing so, we are optimistic that we actually will be able to further reduce location costs and to manage cost inflation here well. Looking at energy, so far, we have seen a low double-digit cost increase regarding energy. We have taken, as Karsten explained in the call, active measures to reduce energy consumption all stores. So -- and we have started this a couple of years ago, and the overall impact, I would say, has been a low double-digit euro million amount as just mentioned. So some cost inflation, we have unfortunately also now seen in the overall cost development, which we have shown the Q3 figures. But looking at the very high figures of more than 8%, I think we have managed well here. And now I hand over to Karsten for the country.

Yes. Maybe just one more addition to the cost situation, Volker, is we talk obviously about the Convergenta transaction simplification of the structure. We obviously have been working on this. And again, we will accelerate and double down on these efforts because we also look at structural cost opportunities, say, from a headquarter perspective, how we get organized and that is something that we accelerate. And we will update you on progress here in the future. But these are, of course, quite substantial efficiencies that we want to and we will realize. Now on the trading, as I said, April was actually very encouraging. May was volatile on a weekly basis. We've seen ups and downs still closed in May with the growth. And June actually went down quite noticeably. And it's more pronounced even from mid-June onwards. And in July, the kind of trend has continued. It's also important to note that, of course, the sales trends can be very different by market. And what I'm sharing now is much more the German view because the German situation is very special due to the energy situation because that is, of course, a huge burden to households, as you know. And we have also the gas situation in Austria, less pronounced though, and this is quite different in other markets. Now August, obviously, remains, I would say, similar. It's just started to July. And as I said, we are preparing ourselves for, say, the tougher scenarios from a cost perspective, et cetera. But that said, no one can look into the future if things turn out better than we anticipate, but this is, at the moment, the only data points, obviously, we have, and we have no further assumption to make why things would change in the short run. And last point I want to make, this is very important. In Q3 despite all these things and headwinds, we have increased market share, which is important. So it's always a very important balance we have to strike between getting our fair share in market and at the same time protecting margins and campaign intensity. That's something we are obviously working on.

Yes. May I add another one, as you just mentioned the Kellerhals transaction. Could you remind us on what are the next steps here? And when will and when were paid the cash component in the where we stand here?