Geox S.p.A. (GEO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good evening. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Geox Full Year 2024 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Luca Amadini, Investor Relations Manager of Geox. Please go ahead, sir.

Good evening, everybody, and thank you for joining our call today. This is Luca Amadini speaking. Let me introduce you to today's call speaker, the CEO Geox Group, Mr. Enrico Mistron; and the CFO, Mr. Andrea Maldi. Mr. Mistron will start by providing you a brief overview of the full year performance, and then Andrea will delve deeper into the financial results. Following that, Enrico and Andrea will be happy to take your questions. I would like to remind you that this presentation may contain statements that do not reflect reported financial results or other historical information. Any forward-looking statements are based on the group's current expectations and projections concerning future events. Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to differ significantly from what is expressed or implied. Many of these factors are beyond the group's control or estimate. Let me now hand over to our CEO, Mr. Enrico Mistron.

Good evening, and thank you all for joining us today for the presentation on our full year 2024 results. 2024 has been a year of profound transformation for our group, marked by a challenging macroeconomic environment and continued pressure on the consumer demand. Despite these headwinds, we have remained focused on execution, implementing [indiscernible] measure to protect profitability, optimize our cost base and position the company for long-term sustainable growth. Some highlights of the 2024 results. Revenue declined approximately by 7.8% year-over-year, primarily due to weakness in our multi-brand wholesale channel, which was only partially offset by the positive performance of our direct-to-consumer channels, both digital and brick-and-mortar. However, our disciplined approach to cost management and operational efficiencies enabled us to generate significant savings of around $20 million, helping to mitigate the impact of the revenue decline. This year has also been pivotal for our business transformation as we took important steps to streamline our operation, optimize our distribution network and make some structural adjustment of our organization. I want to highlight and remember what we already disclosed that during this year, we closed the distribution in the United States, and we will prepare to come back in a different way with more focus, more energy and more money to invest. And we did also close our distribution in China. Suddenly, we reopened our distribution in China with a strong partnership with a key player, Chinese player, important player in this market that is Max Group. We are already live with a new collection in China that is performing above our expectation. So we are very positive for our future in China as well. As a result of all these business transformation actions, we incurred extraordinary nonrecurring cost of approximately EUR 30 million, which impacted, obviously, EBITDA and net income. Excluding these nonrecurring items, adjusted EBIT stood at EUR 8.8 million compared to EUR 15.6 million in 2023. Moreover, despite the challenging economic environment, we have successfully kept our financial debt under control, maintaining it substantially in line with the previous year. This has been a great result, thanks to an accurate management of the working capital, especially inventory management. Looking ahead, the new 2025-2029 business plan, which we will present next week in Milan, represents a crucial step in defining our strategic direction for the next 5 years. I want to highlight some points of our strategy that is built on 3 fundamental pillars: Number one is innovations to strengthen the product development and reinforce our market positioning, differentiating it from our competitors. The second is the style to further enhance brand distinctiveness and customer engagement. Number three is sustainability, which will become a core driver in our decision-making process, ensuring long-term value creation. Sustainability will be at the core of our strategy. By placing the consumer at the center of every business decision, we are investing a lot in product innovation and design, while continuously improving the customer experience across all the touch points through innovative and omnichannel services. With that, I will now turn it to Andrea Maldi, our CFO, who will talk you through our financial performance 2024 in detail. Thank you for joining us.

Thank you, Enrico, and good afternoon, everybody. I will try to deep dive a little bit more into the financials in order to get a bit of light on financial and economics. I suggest that we start from Page 7 of our presentation. As you can see, in 2024, the sales value stood -- the value of EUR 664 million, which is EUR 55 million below last year, which closed in 2023 at EUR 720 million. And if we look at the main impact, we can say that our wholesale distribution channel is the one that has been hit the most during 2024, both for the decline of the spring/summer and fall/winter campaign. At the same time, we need to verify the fact that we have a negative impact from a currency point of view on our sales for about EUR 5.3 million. And it's worth to notice that the perimeter effect, so the change in scope in terms of the number of our direct and indirect retail shops decreased from 655 to 616 in terms of number of shops despite -- therefore, the perimeter effect of this decrease is in the range of the EUR 20 million. I think that on Page 7, I would like to stress the fact that the decrease of the EUR 55 million of sales impacted our gross profit for about EUR 27 million, which means that we lost EUR 27 million of margin compared to the year 2023. But at the same time, it's really worth to notice that our operational made in a way to recover EUR 20 million to offset partially the decrease in sales and margin. That's why if we exclude the nonrecurring items that has been quoted by Enrico as well, which are EUR 13 million, our EBIT comparable -- our EBIT adjusted comparable with the year 2023 reached a value of EUR 8.8 million versus EUR 15.6 million of the year 2023. To deep dive a bit more into this extraordinary cost, I think that it's worth really to mention the fact that in 2024, we incurred a significant investment in -- to prepare what is going to be the fundamental and the initial new industrial plan, which will cover the period 2025 to 2029. Therefore, these costs are normally -- can be labeled under 3 main chapter. One is transformation cost. The second one is closing some of the direct operation in China and U.S., as mentioned by Enrico, even if in China, we have been able to restore immediately a new kind of -- managing the market through a strong partnership with an international operator. And then restructuring costs, which are in the region of EUR 1.4 million within the EUR 13 million that we just mentioned. So we decided consciously to invest and to spend EUR 13 million of extraordinary costs in 2024 in order really to prepare the Geox to the new path, which is -- which will be described in detail into the plan 2025 to 2029. As we -- I would like further to notice that as we discussed, at the end of the year, our financial debt reached a value of EUR 90 million, which is lower than the one in 2023 for about EUR 3 million, which closed at EUR 93 million. If we look at the debt from -- for the banks, we stayed, I would like to say, pretty much in line. We moved from EUR 91 million to EUR 103 million, which is a slight increase, but this has been really successful, in my opinion, achievement given the fact that this has been a year in which we lost almost EUR 55 million of sales. If we move to Page 9, we provided a split of the sales and details of the sales by channel, region and product. When we look at the channel, we can notice that the distribution channel, which has been most impacted, as we said, has been the wholesale, which moved from EUR 372 million to EUR 325 million, and this is a loss of roughly EUR 47 million -- EUR 43 million, apologize. While clearly, on the opposite, the -- those brick-and-mortar has been, I would like to say on line, EUR 227 million compared to EUR 236 million, including the negative effect of the perimeter that we just mentioned, which was basically at the level of EUR 13 million for this kind of brick-and-mortar channel. Clearly, it's really important to stress the fact that if you look at the like-for-like, so meaning the comparable sales in the retail channel and brick-and-mortar channel, in reality, we reached a positive results of 1.9% more than 2023 base. If we look at the sales by region, we can notice that Italy has been probably one of the most impacted country, moving the sales from EUR 201 million to EUR 188 million, while the rest of Europe, including the main core markets, which are pretty strong for Geox are seed recently pretty much stable from EUR 305 million to EUR 300 million. If we look at the sales by product, clearly, we registered a decrease both in footwear and apparel. And despite the percentage are different because we are talking about 7.6% to 9.4%, at the end, I think that both the line decreased at the same kind of piece. On Page 10, we just have a snapshot of our distribution network. This is just to represent what we just -- what we already discussed. Our shops move from -- we got a closure of 39, almost 40 shops net, moving from 655 to 616. And as we already discussed, this means that our sales just from a perimeter effect have been impacted by a decrease of EUR 19 million roughly divided in EUR 13 million into the direct shops and the rest EUR 5 million into the franchisee and indirect operation in retail I would like to quickly look at Page 12. I think that we discuss deeply the sales. We can have a look at the cost side. Our base cost, if we exclude the nonrecurring item, moved from EUR 349 million to EUR 328 million. This has been, as we said, an important achievement because this represents the cost decrease to offset the impact of the EUR 28 million of margin lost as a consequence of the EUR 55 million of sales that we registered as a decrease in 2024. Again, if we look at our EBITDA adjusted, we moved to EUR 15.6 million to EUR 8 million, EUR 9 million almost. And we introduced this concept of adjusted to represent the fact that we have a significant impact in our financial statement in 2024 from extraordinary items. From a financial, if we look at the financial element of our P&L, the financial expenses are pretty much in line with prior year. Pretty similar 2023 to 2024 is the cost of debt. At the same time, even this year, unfortunately, at the year-end, we got an important hit in terms of the exchange with the ruble that has a weight of EUR 5 million within our financial structure. This is a little bit better than last year, but again, an important negative element in our financial structure at the year-end due to the exchange rate with the ruble. Just worth to remind that the ruble at December 31 reached the value of EUR 117, which has clearly been a dramatic increase. Most of this, just again, worth to remind that most of the financial impact that we got in our P&L, it's an unrealized loss, which, therefore, will not have directly financial impact in 2025, given the fact that the currency trend of ruble improved significantly both in January and February. Page 14, just a look to our operating working capital. The operating working capital decreased. It moves from EUR 116 million to EUR 105 million. And the percentage as a percentage of sales decreased as well from 16.2% to 15.7%. I think that here, clearly, there is an impact that is coming also from the fact that we have a decline, as we already mentioned, in sales. But if we deep dive into the working capital itself, again, I think that is important to highlight the fact that our inventory decreased from EUR 276 million to EUR 233 million. In 2024, we have been able to manage the decrease of our inventory, especially to manage sales from our previous stock in our season and to get advantage from a cash point of view into the working capital. Just to look at in the same page to the bank net debt that we already mentioned. Again, to stress the point that we closed the year at EUR 10.3 million (sic) [ EUR 103.2 million ]. It is EUR 10 million more if we look at the bank net debt than 2023, but it's a very good achievement because we have been able to maintain our financial debt under control. At the same time, you might have to read at the year-end that we signed an important restructuring of our debt in agreement with the bank and in agreement with our reference and main shareholder. I think that from my side, it's all. And we can open -- sorry, before opening the question, we can have a look -- we can give a quick outlook to 2025. Clearly, this is just to address operation in 2025, but we will be very happy to go through much more detail during the Investor Day of March 13, which we will assess the 2025, but also the fundamental items or the economics and fundamental items of the plan 2025, 2029. The outlook for us is to stay in terms of sales in a low single-digit area of decrease because we are conscious of the way our wholesale campaign are now performing. We are cleaning the market. And therefore, we want to use 2025 to continue to set the basis for the, how to say, for the restart of the Geox in the next year. At the same time, given the slight decrease in sales, we think to have a decrease in EBITDA margin in the range of 80 basis points year-over-year. Thank you.

Thank you, Andrea. I think we are done with the presentation. And now we are ready to answer your questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Oriana Cardani, Intesa Sanpaolo.

I've got 3 questions. The first one is about the breakdown of the footwear sales by customer profile. So can you quantify the percentage of Geox footwear sales represented by women, men and children, and the most important customer segments in terms of age? The second question is related to the one-off cost for the exit from North America and China. How will it be divided between 2024 and 2025 in terms of cash out? And finally, I've got a question on the Russian market. What is its weight on total sales? And what is your outlook for this market this year?

[indiscernible] is strong. So regarding the breakdown on our footwear division by gender is pretty much balanced between men, women and kids. It's 1/3, 1/3, 1/3. And they -- all the gender perform, I would say, same way overall with different ups and downs during the year. You know that we did invest a lot on the women's segment because if we are 1/3, 1/3, the market is split in a different way. It's more on the women's segment. So this is the reason why we did invest a lot in terms of product, in terms of communications on the women [indiscernible]. The campaign of Penelope Cruz is, of course, and our ambassador is, of course, part of [indiscernible]. During 2025, we will continue to follow this strategy even because the contract with Penelope Cruz is still live. We have an opportunity to [indiscernible] on Penelope Cruz even on the spring/summer '25. You will see -- you will have the opportunity to see on TV on week 12, the new spots with Penelope Cruz that will -- she will use one of our hero products, I'm sure that will become one of our hero product that is the Spherica Plus. That is an innovation launched this year. It's Spherica that you can address, let me say, [indiscernible] that is already live in the market, but we vested this innovation with style. And we believe that this is a plus and an element of differentiating with our competitors. What was the other question on the breakdown on the footwear?

Yes, the most important segments in terms of age.

Yes, you're right. And thanks for the question because it is -- allowed me to explain something that we clarify even better during the presentation of our business plan 2025, 2029. Actually, our core customers are in the age of 55, 50 plus. It's a solid customer base. It represents our core customer base, and we want to continue to protect this customer base. The ambition we have is to expand our customer base and to attack the age 35-50. And we will attack this part of our future customer base with some innovative and more stylish products. Part of these innovative stylish products are already existing in the spring/summer '25 and in the following fall/winter '25 collections. But you will see definitely a big change, a big jump into this strategy with the following collections that is the spring/summer '26 that we already developed that is already visible in our showroom, and we are ready to invite our multi-brand partners since May this year. Regarding the second question, so the one-off costs, I will hand over to Andrea that will explain in detail your question.

Thank you, Enrico. I think that the question was mainly related to how much of the EUR 13 million has been cashed in 2024 and the impact from a financial point of view in the rest of the plan. The entire -- I can say that the entire portion of EUR 13 million has been -- had economic and financial impact in 2024. Therefore, there is nothing of that one that has been accrued without having financial impact. If we move for a while to Russia, which was the third question, I think that we can have a combined answer with Enrico, but just to give you a bit of number, the year in Russia closed at EUR 55 million, which represents 8.3% of the -- our global turnover, which is a decrease compared to last year, which was more in the range of 9.8%. I think that Russia has been so far an important and profitable country for Geox with good margins, both in the wholesale channel and in the retail one. Clearly, as you know, the thing that is to say the political situation environment which we are currently make Russia and stable country, and this is evident. But we are still confident that we can -- we are able to sustain our operation over there. In terms of next year, we are continue cleaning our market, especially in the web wholesale, where we have a customer that needs to be controlled in an important way from a central point of view in order to continue having the right level of distribution through the old channel and continue to maintain our brand position, which is well supported by our retail shops in Russia. In 2025, we are not going to incur any significant investment in the country because clearly, we want to get out of this political situation and see the evolution of the country. But it's going to -- I think that we are expecting to still have a strong contribution from 2025 in terms of sales, more or less apart from the cleaning of the wholesale in the same range of what happened in 2024.

I do confirm everything Andreas said. Geox -- Russia for Geox has been for years and years, an important market and a profitable market as well. During the last 1.5 years due to the war, we have been in a waiting mode, let me say, in that way. And being in a waiting mode, it has been a stable and profitable market in any case. This gave also us the opportunity to understand better this market. We are investing in our organization, and we have streamlined our organization in Russia. Now we can say that it is more part of the Geox family. We do have more transparency and more joint strategy with that market. And I believe that we have to be still in a wait mode for at least the first part of this 2025. But we are building a strategy and project in order to be ready for relaunch and continuous grow in that market that I remember has been a very profitable, very stable market for Geox.

[Operator Instructions] Gentlemen, Mr. Amadini, there are no more questions registered at this time. I turn the conference back to you for any closing remarks.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much, everyone, for participating in this call this evening. And as Andrea and Enrico already mentioned, we -- let me just give you a quick reminder of our industrial plan 2025-2029 presentation that will be held on Thursday, 3rd March, which details will be provided soon. Thank you again, and please feel free to contact me for any follow-ups. Bye-bye, and good evening.

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining. The conference is now over, and you may disconnect your telephones.