Cettire Limited (CTT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to today's full year FY '24 results call for Cettire. My name is Sam Wells from NWR, and I'm pleased to have with me from the company today Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Dean Mintz; as well as Chief Financial Officer, Tim Hume. Both Dean and Tim will have some time reviewing the preliminary results released to the ASX this morning, including some notable financial and operational highlights. Following their comments, we will have some time for questions, research analysts can raise their hands via Zoom, should they wish to ask a durable question of the management team. All other participants are encouraged to submit written questions, and we'll enter to get to them time permitting. Thank you. And I'll now pass it over to Dean. Dean please go ahead.

Thanks, Sam. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for taking the time to join Cettire's results briefing for FY '24. Before we start, I'd like to call your attention to the disclaimer statement in our results presentation released to the ASX. That disclaimer statement also applies to this investor call. And as explained in our ASX announcement this morning due to the delay in finalizing the order process, the financial information for the year-end 30 June 2024 is presented today on an unaudited basis. I'm joined here today by our Chief Financial Officer, Tim Hume, and it's our pleasure to present to you our results for the 2024 financial year. I'm pleased to share that Cettire has once again delivered strong performance across key operational and financial metrics. We grew sales revenue by 78%. We increased profitability to $32.5 million of adjusted EBITDA. Our net cash position was approximately $79 million, over $33 million higher than last year. Our customer base grew by 64%. We achieved a record average order value and the percentage of revenue from repeat customers continued to climb. As we fore warned, there were reports of softening conditions in the luxury market and an unusual level of promotional activity in the final quarter of FY '24. This was exacerbated by clearance activity from players in the online segment exiting parts of the market. Overall, we exited the financial year having delivered strong growth while maintaining sale profitability and strong cash generation. As we move through FY '25, we'll continue to leverage the inherent agility of our business to prioritize maximizing profitable revenue growth, retaining our capital light model with zero debt, maintaining our competitive cost structure and strong unit economics and continue to grow the business while remaining self-funding. This will not only drive value for our shareholders, it will allow us to compete strongly against our peers and remain resilient through market cycles. What we've been able to prove year after year is that the foundations of our business model allows us to quickly adapt to market circumstances in order to drive growth and profitability. And once again, we delivered our strategy to achieve profitability while remaining self-funding with no debt. We've also made significant progress against other strategic priorities, including growing our customer base and lifetime value, successfully executing our localization strategy, launching in domestic China and enhancing our organizational capabilities. Moving on to demand and supply. We saw continued momentum in active customer growth with just under 700,000 customers purchasing from the platform over the 12-month period. We achieved record gross and net customer adds in FY '24. The compound benefit of this growth is the growing loyalty of our customer base. As you can see from the middle chart, the percentage of revenue coming from repeat customers is increasing and now also increasing their spend per order, as you can see on the chart on the right. Moving to slide 8. If you consider this chart which combines the moving pieces, it shows that a new customer who becomes a repeat purchaser will not only increase their purchasing frequency over time, they will likely spend more per order, ultimately increasing the lifetime value of the Cettire customer. This is a core driver of the business and in itself helps underpin the sustainability of our long-term revenue growth. Moving to slide 9. Our efforts to attract new and existing customers to purchase on the platform is supported by our marketing efforts that rely on both paid and unpaid channels. In the first half of FY '24, we increased our marketing investment to take advantage of our strong financial position and market momentum, which delivered higher conversion and customer additions. As I mentioned earlier, in the final quarter of the year, there was an unusual level of promotional activity that was exacerbated by the clearance activity from players in the online segment, exiting parts of the market. While our increased marketing investment led to an increase in marketing costs relative to sales, our delivered margin percentage remained relatively stable compared to the prior year. Moving to Slide 10. The expansion of our global footprint to other 50 countries has not only created scale. It has delivered much greater diversity across regional markets. Gross revenue from our established markets has continued to grow strongly, while revenue from emerging markets accelerated rapidly, now representing 31% of revenue. As we continue to penetrate emerging markets and gain further share via our localization strategy, any single region concentration risk diminishes. Our priority is to further penetrate both our established and emerging markets via our localization strategy, which is enabled by our proprietary storefront software. Moving to Slide 11. One of the proudest achievements over the last couple of years has been the development and the implementation of our storefront software. Not only did it mean we own the entire end-to-end customer journey and meant we could accelerate the expansion of our global footprint and tailor our offering to different regions and customers. We are now in 54 geographic markets, offering our product in 7 different languages and in 17 different currencies. Moving to Slide 12. A great example of our localization strategy in action is our recent entry into the domestic China market. We launched our direct platform towards the end of June, and we'll continue to broaden our channel proposition over time. As one of the most unique and somewhat complex operating environments where we have and will continue to be measured in how we grow our presence in this market. While it's way too early to provide any specific information, I'm pleased to say we are happy with our progress so far. Moving to Slide 13. Cettire supply chain has been the foundation of our success since the beginning. Our ability to grow a diverse, high-quality supply base has been essential to delivering a world-leading online luxury product offering with low concentration risk. With a number of brands and products we have available to us and the value of our inventory exceeding $2 billion, it's clear that our value proposition is resonating with suppliers globally. Moving to Slide 14 and looking a little deeper into the supply channel. We have continued to grow our supply chain rapidly since the business fold with the majority of this growth coming from the wholesale luxury market. Having a diversified supplier base reduces our single point concentration risk. It also provides us with significant diversity in our brand mix, reducing our risk on demand fluctuations for a particular brand. For example, the top brand in FY '24 represented about 5% of gross sales and was not the top brand the year before. While there has been commentary regarding some of the larger brands increasing their focus on direct-to-customer sales, the charter shows the wholesale market continues to represent around half of the luxury market, and it has grown significantly in value over the last decade. Due to the size of the wholesale market, it will continue to be a fundamental distribution channel for the luxury industry for a very long time and potentially even more so if demand for luxury brands was to blame. Moving to Slide 15. As our supply chain has grown, we have been careful in how we partner and have been resolute on the requirement to maintain an integrity of our offering to our customers. We have strict and enforceable terms in our contracts that include assurance on the quality of goods supply to Cettire. Building on the achievements and activity in FY '24, I think it's only fitting to talk about Cettire's growing and maturing organizational capability. Without our team of around 70 people, none of what we do would be possible. Our employee base has grown over time as the company has scaled and matured. In FY '24, there was a particular focus on further growing our engineering, operations and customer service teams with engineering now representing around 1/3 of our head count. In FY '25, we appointed a new director in July and are continuing to expand our internal capabilities in the areas of marketing, communications and commercial. As an organization that has a global footprint, we are able to source and attract people with exceptional skills and expertise from all over the world. I'll now hand over to Tim to talk through the financial aspects of the business.

Thanks, Dean. And turning to the P&L on Slide 18. Cettire's strong performance continued in FY '24. We delivered sales revenue of $742.3 million, an increase of 78% year-on-year. The refund rate was slightly higher year-on-year, particularly in the second half. In part, we observed an increase related to changes in our geographic mix. We have seen some recent improvements here, and there's nothing to suggest that the refund rate we saw in the second half will carry over into FY '25. Delivered margin increased by 63% year-on-year to $155 million. This represents around 21% of sales. Our paid acquisition cost as a percentage of sales revenue for the year increased to 9.5%, reflecting a deliberate strategy to market more aggressively, capitalizing on the momentum that we have. Brand investments remained relatively modest at $5.5 million, reflecting a greater focus on channels with near-term payback. We saw some operating leverage flow through to the business with G&A expenses, excluding foreign exchange and employee costs declining as a proportion of sales. We also earned around $2 million in net interest income, which is an increasing feature of our business as we scale. There remains much that we can do to improve our cash management to drive yield here. Cettire end of the year with sustained profitability, delivering adjusted EBITDA of $32.5 million in the period, a 4.4% margin. Looking at the balance sheet on Slide 19. We closed the period with around $79 million in cash and zero financial debt. This was a significant year-on-year increase in cash balance and once again demonstrates our ability to generate cash from operating surplus and favorable working capital dynamics. We continue to invest in our tech platform to develop new capabilities and reinforce our competitive advantage. Capitalized investments in FY '24 as a proportion of sales revenue declined to 1.9% compared with 2.8% in the same period last year. The company also purchased shares on market for the Employee Benefit Trust to manage future dilution and optimize capital management. Now turning to Slide 20. I wanted to take this opportunity to reflect on how we have benefited from our no inventory, capital-light business model that is self-funding and cash generative. For example, we've grown our sales organically 30x, 30x since FY '19 to around $750 million today, and we've done this while remaining profitable in 4 out of the last 5 years and cash generative. And as I mentioned, we have zero financial debt. Moreover, this business has had a single capital injection of $37 million, which was the net proceeds of our IPO. Now due to our cash position and minimal capital needs to fuel our organic growth, we purchased over $11 million in stock on market for our Employee Benefit Trust in the last couple of years. This is in lieu of issuing new capital to avoid dilution to our shareholders. This is the core foundation of our business model and the relentless pursuit to remain self-funding that has increased our resilience over time and enabled us to deliver our strategic objectives through different market cycles. So way to from here. What we've seen since the start of FY '25 is that this sector has continued to be impacted by promotional activity as the market cycles through the remaining inventory from the spring/summer '24 season. We have seen some clearance activity continue through July. It is a more challenging luxury market backdrop today compared with 12 months ago. However, our business model is highly flexible, enabling quick adaptation to market conditions and cycles. In the near term, we are placing greater emphasis on profitability. For the first quarter of FY '25, we expect to see continued growth. Sales through July and August are up around 20% year-on-year. As I mentioned earlier, we've seen some improvements in the refund rate. We also expect marketing investment in Q1 to be lower than where we were at in FY '24, and we expect to report a profitable quarter. Now turning to Slide 23. I want to draw your attention to what we achieved from a profitability perspective between the second half of FY '22 and the first half of FY '23. While the numbers are very different here to what has occurred more recently, this chart does demonstrate how we can adjust our model and pull different levers to support greater profitability in a very short time frame. I'll now hand you back to Dan for final comments.

Thanks, Tim. Turning to Slide 24. On this slide, you'll see our FY '25 strategic priorities and unsurprisingly, they are similar to what you've seen in the past. The foundational growth levers and profitability drivers are key to successfully executing our strategic priorities, which include delivering profitable growth, increasing supply and demand for our offering, expanding our global footprint, enhancing our organizational capabilities and continuing to generate cash and remain self-funding. On Slide 25, to summarize. We have a large growing customer base with increasing loyalty. We have high-quality suppliers providing more than $2 billion worth of products, making us one of the largest selections of luxury inventory in the world. We have a business model that was built to deliver strong profitable growth and is self-funding with no debt and a balance sheet with cash generation that provides the flexibility to adapt to any market situation. We have a wholly owned, highly automated and scalable tech stack and most importantly, a highly capable global team that is dedicated and laser-focused on executing our strategy. Cettire's extremely well positioned to deliver profitable growth in FY '25 and for many years to come. On that note, I'll hand back to Sam.

Great. Thanks, Dean. Thanks, Tim. As a reminder, research analysts can raise their hand via Zoom should you wish to ask a verbal question. We do have a few hands raised. So I'll start with Chami at Bell Potter. Chami, please go ahead.

Yes. Thanks, Sam. Thanks for taking my questions. I think first would be thanks for providing us with FY '25 to date trading update. Given August is on a pre refund basis, would that growth rate of 20% be better than that if you would do consider a refund rate, which is how sales revenue is usually recognized?

I think -- look, I think the key point here, Chami, is that we're seeing improvements in the refund rate year-to-date, right? The good thing about that is that if we're cycling a higher refund rate year-on-year, then we should see sales revenue grow a bit faster than gross revenue. I think that's what you're angling for. So what does that mean? It means that I think at least in the period between year-to-date, the numbers that we've disclosed in our trading update are on a sales revenue basis. But as I think you pointed out, we haven't fully factored in refunds for the month of August, okay. So I think there should be perhaps a modest uptick, but I don't think it's going to be material versus what we've described.

Perfect. And then secondly, I mean, you called out top conditions from the start of FY '25. But if I was to ask you how have conditions changed from May, June to July? Have they remained similarly or deteriorated a bit more?

I think the main thing that's changing right now is that we're shifting from the spring/summer season to the full winter season. Honestly, it's kind of too early to tell if fall/winter will be stronger than the spring/summer, and end of the spring summer season was. But as we sort of mentioned, we're a very agile company, and we're able to adapt very quickly to different market conditions and navigate them accordingly.

That's great Dean. And speaking of agility, I mean, I think in the past, when peers were not doing so well, I think Cettire has done really well, more seem like decoupled from macro. So what's different in this environment, I mean, are you seeing anything more different? Is it more promo driving this? Or could you give us a bit of a rundown there?

I think that the -- right now, it's particularly challenging because there is a challenging demand environment. This is quite publicly known from looking at the performance of brands that are publicly listed. But that's kind of overlaid with a competitive environment with high promotional activity. And so I think in that regard, it's a particularly unique operating environment. And whilst I think we're navigating it quite well, it is still a challenging environment to be operating in.

Thanks for that Dean and Tim. Thanks, Sam.

Next question is coming from Wei-Weng at RBC.

Just a couple from me as well. I guess the first one, the stock has fallen pretty materially in the last 6 months or so. Just wanted to see if there was any management or direct or intentions to buy stock?

I think at the moment Wei-Weng I'm not sure we're in an open trading window. So that's probably moot, right? But I don't think it's appropriate to comment beyond that in terms of intentions one way or the other.

Okay, sure. And then maybe to help us model costs better. I guess how many -- I think you said 70 employees in the call just then. But what's the impact of kind of additional staff and directors to Cettire's annualized cost base as it pertains to kind of FY '25? And can you speak to whether that will be capitalized or expensed?

I think if we look back at the last 12 months, Wei-Weng we have -- where has the focus been in our hiring. It's been on the engineering side and it's on operations and customer service. Now our operations and customer service personnel sort of go to the cost base. A large part of our engineering cost is capitalized. And our engineers are much more expensive than our rank and file operations and customer service team just kind of from a first principles perspective. The growth in capitalized costs has been relatively modest year-on-year. I think we had some data in the pack today, which showed the decline in capitalization relative to sales, right? So that said, I think you can -- it's reasonable to expect that there will be some continued investment there. So the capitalized costs would grow probably in line with sales are lower than that at a high level. If I look more broadly across the business in terms of how we think about hiring in the next 12 months. So I think the shape of that hiring will focus on other areas of the business. For example, on the commercial side, on the marketing and comms side and in the finance functions. And this is important as we develop Cettire for a fundamentally different level of scale to where we're at, right? It's a natural part of our evolution in our business. And so there will be investment there, not just in personnel, but in a more senior profile. As you know, we have 2 execs in the business today. So at some point, we'll be building out the executive capability in the business. But I don't know that, that's going to materially change the cost profile relative to sales over time, okay. So I think it's reasonable to expect that we'll continue to see some operating leverage in the business, particularly if you look at operating costs and capitalization combined. But it's an important point in our evolution and maturity. And so we'll be hiring accordingly, as I said, to get the business ready for the dimensionally different level of scale.

And then another question was, you spent, call it, $1 million on short defense in the last quarter. Can you maybe outline where that money went? And also because short interest hasn't really fallen, it's kind of probably risen. Should we expect more below-the-line costs in FY '25 as well?

So look, the primary cost categories that are in that are illegal and communications and advisory costs, all right. Will there be continued costs? There may be some additional costs Wei-Weng, how long this continues for is not clear. But also, we've internalized some of this capability in the last couple of months. And so having internalized the capability, I think you'll just see that more of this as sort of core cost base as opposed to being itemized as a separate category.

And then I guess last question before I jump back in the queue. I guess the elephant in the room is duties right? So I guess my question is, is it Cettire's understanding that duties are pass-through line items? So whatever the customer pays the government gets. So if there's a way to reduce duty over value on a product, can you confirm that, that's wholly for the customers' benefit?

Sorry, can you just clarify what you mean Wei-Weng? Are you saying whatever duties we collect are...

Correct. So if you get $10 in duties, you pay $10 to the government. And if you can somehow reduce the duties to $5, then that's for the benefit of the customer that he pays, they pay $5.

So I think one thing that's important to be very clear on is that in the third quarter of FY '24, we updated the checkout process in Australia and the U.S., which are our 2 largest markets. And as part of that, those updates to the checkout flow, duties are no longer itemized to checkout or estimated duties, I should say, are no longer itemized to checkout. So all pricing is on an inclusive basis. So there's not really a concept where we're collecting duties from customer, right. Because the customer will pay what the customer pays on an all-in basis. As a general point, I think it's important to distinguish conceptually between duties and something like a VAT or GST. And so with the VAT or a GST, your obligation as a vendor as to where those taxes are applicable is to collect those taxes or apply them to a sale. And what you collect your obligation is to remit that to the relevant authority. Duty by nature is a bit different. It's around the obligations to pay duty when duty is dutiable. So I think it's important just to make that distinction. But this is not really a feature of the business under the current structure Wei-Weng because, as I've indicated, in our primary markets, duties are now sort of presented on an inclusive basis, so we're not separately collecting duty, if you will.

Next question is coming from Julian Mulcahy at E&P.

Dean, maybe first start off with just back on to the -- of how the market is at the moment. Do you have a sort of feel for the clearance activity with some of the online sites that we're exiting are they kind of nearly done and it's really discount to the market conditions now?

I think on the positive side, we had a major player exit the market, and that's concluded. But on the other hand, general promotional activities are still very high. And so also, we're sort of pretty early in the fall winter season. So it's just kind of a bit hard to tell how the season will transpire.

And would you think that how stock levels for the winter collection are, I mean, for those that were withdrawing, would they have had much in the tank already for winter collection, which still has to make its way through the market?

I'm not quite following. So we had a player who's exited the market.

Who are the others? I mean everything in the store now was bought 12 months ago. Where would you reckon the orders were enough that there's still going to be quite -- except for this exited one for the others. Do they still have a big stockpile of inventory to move in the next quarter as well or getting towards a tail of that?

So I think are you talking from a supply perspective?

From the online retailers.

Look, I think -- like I said, I think it's a bit too early to tell how fall into winter will transpire from the clearance activity. But as I said, the promotional activity in general is still very heartened.

Just to add to that, Julian, we talked a bit about this in June. And when we had our trading update, I think there were some specific issues around the Spring/Summer '24 season, both from a product perspective and in terms of the products landing. So there were some particular issues around that season, which I think impacted not just retailers but also some brands themselves. So to Dean's point, we're early in fall winter, it's a little bit early to provide clarity as to whether the particular product issues will continue into the subsequent season. So it's something that we're obviously monitoring very closely. But it's a bit too early to call.

So just on the cost of the company -- the customer acquisition, it was up a lot for the year, spiked in that fourth quarter. Has there been like a change in the channels that you're targeting or is it just in that quarter? Was it just harder to win customers because there are just so many discount offers around?

I was just going to say that it's the same. There wasn't really a change in the channel mix there. It was a change in how -- it was a change in the cost of the current customers and the intensity that was happening in the market.

Yes. A lot of this was promo driven, Julian. And so -- and not just -- and I think it comes back to the point I was making earlier, just around some of the challenges in spring/summer. So we had a market where sort of noted challenges around a particular season. This was impacting not just retailers or third-party inventory holders, but also brands themselves. So the way that, that manifested in market is in 2 ways. One, we saw heightened promo discounting activity which, in some respects, makes it slightly harder to acquire if you're competing against heavy discounts. But also what we saw was a greater participation by brands in online marketing because they themselves have inventory they needed to move. So it was a combination of factors, which particularly, at least from our experience, particularly hit in the month of June. So I think that there are some issues that are clearly applicable to the SS-24 season. But whether it carries over into fall into '24, as I said, it's a bit too early to call. But what we can say is that we participated in that promo activity in the fourth quarter. And I think you can all see that, that impacted our margins. But we're taking a very different approach at the moment, and we're being much more conservative in our marketing investment, given we have a greater focus on profitability at the moment. So I think it's reasonable that you can expect in this quarter that our marketing intensity is going to look a bit different in Q1 versus what we saw towards the end of last year. And that should translate into some moderation in CACs as well.

So does that also going to mean a slower addition of new customers each quarter? Or is it sort of back to sort of normal CAC type rates?

I think that they go together. So ultimately, as in any business, you have a trade-off between growth and margin. And we have been operating this business through '23, '24 to grow as quickly as we can whilst being profitable and self-funding. That's the basic principles of how we're operating. Now through FY '24, I think if you think about that weighting between growth and profit, we had a -- we're lending more to the growth opportunity. You saw that in our growth rate, which was north of 75% year-on-year. You saw that in our investment profile from a marketing to sales perspective, and you saw that in our CACs and that translated into record customer adds, right. And there's plenty of data in our presentation today, which shows the value of the customers that we're acquiring, not just day 1, but over time. So we're very comfortable with the investments that we made through the course of FY '24. That said, we've indicated that in the current year or at least the current quarter per our commentary in today's releases, that we're operating with a greater focus on profitability. And I think naturally in that environment where you're not investing at the same rate, then it will translate into a more modest growth trajectory and a more modest profile in terms of gross customer adds.

And just finally, the delivered margin. How do you kind of see that playing out across the year? Because presumably, this quarter is above the 17.6% in that sort of fourth quarter. Can you confirm that?

Yes, I think it's reasonable to expect that we'll see some improvement there sequentially. If I think about how the year might shape up overall, clearly, in a backdrop -- from a market backdrop where we're seeing a heightened degree of promotional activity, it's harder to drive delivered margin. Now we will be -- where possible, we'll be more selective in terms of how we participate in those promos. But generally, the market is more challenging this year versus 12 months ago, as I commented earlier on the call. So I think you will see some sequential improvement there. I think if I think about the year looking forward overall, you will probably see or at least in the first half of this year, I think you'll probably see delivered margins, which are not at the same level as where they were in the first half of last year. But that may also be offset by marketing investment at a lower rate. I think we've indicated in our commentary today that we're investing at a lower intensity versus last year.

Next question coming from Ari at Barrenjoey.

First one from me. Just the comment on the outlook segment around EBITDA margin. EBITDA being positive or expecting it to be positive in the first quarter. Positive is pretty vague. And like, for example, there's a range of 1% EBITDA margin to 5% EBITDA margin on consensus for the first half. So could you just -- I mean, the fact that you haven't sort of quantified it, should we take that to mean that you're comfortable with where consensus sits at around 4% for first half '25? Any color there would be good, please.

Look, I'll take that one. So I think, look, the EBITDA positive language is consistent with what we said in the past. So I would keep that as context. I think as well, the other element of context here is that we're exiting a period in -- I think we've talked about June being a loss-making month, right. So we have the ability in our business to pivot very quickly as market conditions evolve, and we're a nimble business with a largely variable cost base, and that enables us to move quickly and be flexible. We have already adjusted our operating settings. And as I've communicated on the call today, we're operating with a greater focus on profit, and we have a -- we have more moderate marketing investment profile. So I think with those adjustments in settings, what you were, I think it's reasonable to expect that the profitability profile will continue to improve versus where we were in June, right. So we haven't provided precise guidance around percentage margins either in the first quarter or for the full year, as you know, but I think people can expect a decent amount of EBITDA in the first quarter. And as the -- as I said, as we change our settings, we can move quickly. Things won't necessarily change from 1 month to the next. But again, I think it's reasonable that as our settings recalibrate through the course of the year that we should be able to continue to improve on that profitability through the course of this year. Q2, as I think we all know, is an important quarter in our business.

And then maybe just a view, if any, updates around what your sustainable EBITDA margins are? So I think historically, you've sort of talked to 22.5% delivered margins, 8% to 10% marketing to sales being the growth algorithm for the margins, and they are the 2 biggest assumptions. Like how should we think about those sort of assumptions into fiscal '25 and beyond fiscal '25?

So I think from a modeling perspective, Ari, again, we haven't provided guidance for the full year this year, nor have we provided any sort of medium-term or long-term or long-term guidance. I just want to be very clear on that. What are we saying conceptually? So as we've communicated on the call, the market at the moment is a bit more promotional versus what it has been, say, compared with last 12 -- versus 12 months ago. So is it more challenging to deliver a comparable delivered margin in the current environment market environment, it is, okay. So -- but likewise, if we are not investing at the same rate, then we can recover some EBITDA margin on the marketing side. But again, there's a trade-off there with growth, as we've talked about. So I think we have levers to support the margin profile in the near term. Looking longer term, I don't think anything's fundamentally changed in terms of that algorithm that you described. We have a business which is a very large market, in a growing market. We have a set of unit economics, which are intrinsically attractive, high order values, high unit margins and high frequency. We have a customer base which is growing and demonstrates very attractive repeat customer behavior and repeat customer frequency. And none of these fundamentals have changed in our business. Even if in the near term, there may be some volatility as the markets are subject to promotional activity. So I don't think anything's fundamentally changed long term. Ari, we've grown very quickly, all organically. And we have the ability to be flexible and nimble in the near term in volatile market conditions, as we've demonstrated in the past. And we have a business which can -- which has proven over time that it can both grow and be profitable and cash generating even in different market cycles. It's relatively unique in that respect.

And just in terms of the growth cadence of your business. So is 20% per annum revenue growth the way to think about it, if say your margins are now going to be, I don't know, 4% or 5%, 3%, whatever it is? Like is that the right growth? Because I think the expectation before, obviously, and you're in a high growth phase, but yet still delivering 6% to 7% margins. But you're growing sort of 40%, 50%. Is 20% for the next few years the right way to thinking at better because the market is obviously growing over the next few years, you're winning share, you're still planning. So is that how we should be thinking about the growth at an acceptable margin?

Yes. Well, I think it comes back to this point around growth versus margin trade-off. Now I think at different points in time, we have prioritized different areas of that spectrum. And in the current market environment, where conditions are more challenging versus what they was. It's our view that the appropriate way to operate is to put a bit more emphasis on profitability. And naturally, when you're doing so, you're not going to grow necessarily on a like-for-like basis. So in the current period, I think what you suggest is reasonable. But I think if you -- based on where we sit today. But if you look further forward, if market conditions become more constructive, I don't see that there's a reason why we can't grow faster again. So I don't know that this is a scenario where growth only goes in one direction, and that's down. I think if you look at our profile over time through different sets of market conditions, our growth profile has kind of calibrated up and down. And part of that has been where we are in the maturity cycle. Part of it has been related to our investment profile. And part of it is related to what's going in the market more generally. So I think there's a lot of different moving parts here. And I think that what we've demonstrated is that we can operate differently in different market conditions. But do so in a way which is generating good amount of growth and good profit and good cash generation.

So sorry, just to clarify the comment you mentioned sort of what I suggested was reasonable. So is that sort of thinking that 3% to 6% EBITDA margin, which is a very wide range, but still positive. 20% growth is reasonable in this new phase that you're in this year, for example.

Well, again, Ari, I just want to reiterate that we've not provided full year guidance. So I don't think it's appropriate for me to give you a precise forecast for the year. So let's be very clear on that. That said, I think that the business is growing 20% year-to-date with a different set of settings, but that will continue to calibrate through the course of the year. As I've indicated, I think profitability should continue to improve. Growth may go up from there or it may go down just really depending on what happens in the market through the course of the year. So -- but what we have provided is that we expect -- we've provided you with our year-to-date growth and an indication that we're putting greater emphasis on profit this year versus revenue. And in that -- with that sort of trade-off in place, it's not unreasonable to expect to see a lower growth rate versus last year.

Next question from Sam Haddad at Petra.

I suppose the key variable is how much supplies or funding promotions versus you guys funding promotions? And that outcome determines how much more capacity you can invest in to drive top line growth. So can you give us sort of -- that's my challenge in terms of the visibility. And how is that -- and can you give us some sort of context around that, particularly through a weak macro that we see now in terms of supplies moving to invest more in terms of promotions and carry more of that weight. Could you just talk around that, please.

Sam, I think the -- look, on the supply side, our suppliers has continued to grow very, very strongly. Okay. And one of that is also it is helpful for us to be competitive in a challenging market. But that said, I think that the premise of the question that whether this is related to -- how much of this is related to promotions being funded by suppliers or not. I think it's not entirely correct. I think this is -- the reality is beside the point, the issue is that from -- that we're in a challenging demand environment from a consumer demand perspective, right. And -- that is coupled with a competitive environment with very high amount of promotional activities, both from a marketing perspective and from a promotional perspective. Some of the particularly unusual things that we saw in Spring/Summer '24 was brands themselves, doing heavy discounting on their own .com websites. So I think that is the main driver here. And the funding of promotional activities from the supply side is probably not the main way to think about it.

I'll take it in the context of the summer -- spring/summer range. It still needs to be clear and I would imagine some of the suppliers, the hot suppliers will be holding that inventory and it will be in the interest to move that stock ahead of the winter season. And therefore, we need to help to promote that's my -- that's the context I'm thinking before we get into the new season.

Yes. I think it is true that there's still a large amount of spring/summer hanging around. And that inventory needs to wash through the market. But we're also seeing some of the early stages of promotional activity even on full winter. So I think it's just without money to be vague. It's just a bit too early to tell.

Yes. And how long before do you expect that spring/summer range to be cleared through the system? Are we talking about another month or we're now in the end of that?

I think it's the way that's definitely -- the volume weighting has definitely shifted towards full winter right now. I think we'll still see some spring/summer in the months to come, but it will rapidly decrease as each months sort of goes by.

Okay. And just reflecting back on the fourth quarter where you did participate more promotions. How successful were they? Did they hit the mark? What are your learnings just to improve the returns on that moving forward?

I think the fourth quarter was an interesting period because in reality, it's the very first time that we experienced an operating environment like that. And going through that period we thought that we were able to deliver a very, very strong outcome from both a profit and a growth perspective. Unfortunately, the way things turned out is that we didn't perform as strongly that we hoped on a profit perspective. But in context from a growth perspective, the growth rate that we're able to push out in context of the market and in context of everything that was going on was very good. Was I particularly satisfied with it? Not really, to be honest, because the bath for me to be extremely sofa is very high but I think in context of the overall market and in context of what was going on, I think it was actually as strong result.

And just on the cash position, can you provide a cash bridge from December to earlier today because you're at $100 million thing at December and you have 79 today. Just give some predominantly working capital?

I think the -- we've -- there's a cash bridge in the slide deck, Sam, obviously, that's year-on-year versus December as opposed to December versus June. But the -- we have in there around $10 million of stock purchases that took place through the course of the second half. So that's essentially half of the difference. From a sort of trading profit less capitalized cost perspective, largely breakeven. So the balance is working capital. And we generally see that in the second half, Sam, because our cash moves up and down or at least our working capital moves up and down through the course of the year, just given the seasonal nature of our business, and that working capital peaks in the November-December time frame. So June is like a secondary peak, if you will, but not to the same extent as November, December. So it's relatively normal for us to see some decrease in working capital in the course of our fiscal second half.

And just final question on China and do you have any earnings following your recent launch?

Look, at this point, we're sort of testing the market, and in particular, testing various different customer acquisition channels. But it's probably too early to tell.

I think that's the question. That's all the time we have come out to the hour. Please feel free to send for any additional or answer questions throughout the day, and we'll endeavor to get back to you. And maybe with that, I'll just pass it back to Dean and Tim for any closing comment.

No, nothing from me. Thank you.

Okay. That concludes today's session. Thanks for joining today's FY '21 earnings call for Cettire. Thank you, and have a great day.