Global Fashion Group S.A. (GFG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Global Fashion Group's Q4 and Full Year 2024 Results Presentation. I'm Christoph Barchewitz, CEO of GFG, and I'm joined today by our CFO, Helen Hickman. In addition to this presentation, we have also published our annual report and People & Planet Positive report for 2024 today. All materials are available on our website. I will now start with highlights from 2024 and cover our group-wide strategic focus areas and regional segment results. Helen will then take us through the group results and outlook. After that, we'll open it up for Q&A. In 2024, we made significant strides to position GFG for long-term success and sustainable future growth. As the year progressed, consumer sentiment improved and helped stabilize NMV trends in our largest markets, with LATAM and ANZ returning by Q4. We achieved consistent quarterly improvement in gross margin, driven by stronger Retail margins as we significantly reduced aged stock levels to 14%, reduced our total cost base by over EUR 50 million while strategically investing in high-returning initiatives like our OWMS project. This created fulfillment efficiencies as we migrated ANZ on the SEA order warehouse management system. We improved adjusted EBITDA by close to EUR 40 million and normalized free cash flow by EUR 20 million compared to 2023. Throughout the year, we proactively managed our capital structure and successfully repurchased EUR 124 million of our convertible bond at a 16% discount on average. We have now addressed 85% of our outstanding convertible at attractive terms and well ahead of maturity, resulting in a stronger balance sheet. We are proud to have achieved many of our goals for 2024, including delivering at the top end of our full year NMV guidance and exceeding original expectations for adjusted EBITDA. Before we take a closer look at our results, I have an update on our geographic footprint. In Q1 of this year, we decided to close our operations in Chile due to significant post-COVID challenges and competitive pressure. Chile's weaker performance stood out from Brazil and Colombia, the other markets in our LATAM segment, where we have managed to stabilize top line performance. Despite our efforts, a successful turnaround for Chile would have required substantial investment, which is not aligned with our immediate group priorities. Dafiti Chile was relatively small in the group context and accounted for about 4% of NMV and 3% of revenue in 2024. Chile is included in our results presented today unless otherwise stated. Let's now turn to our number highlights. Our improving top line trend observed throughout 2024 continued into the final quarter. In Q4, our top line KPIs, net merchandise value, active customers, and orders all declined at their slowest rate of the year. We achieved record margins in Q4 with a gross margin of 45.6% and a positive adjusted EBITDA margin of 3.8%. This was driven by improvement in our Retail business and effective cost management. For the full year, we achieved another record on gross margin at 45%. On adjusted EBITDA, our cost reductions led to a 4.1 percentage point improvement to reach negative 2.8% margin. This was at its strongest level since 2021 and positions us well to achieve our ambition of positive adjusted EBITDA soon. Let's now turn to our strategic focus areas that have driven our 2024 performance and we'll continue to build upon in 2025 and beyond. One of GFG's core differentiators is our curated assortment of brands and products, and this remains a focus area as we ensure we are providing customers with a shopping experience that is both exclusive and relevant. We have a unique portfolio of internationally renowned brands that can be hard to find elsewhere in our region, alongside beloved local labels. We have been focusing on expanding our exclusive assortment. This includes our own brands, which made up 7% of the group's NMV in 2024 and exclusive collaboration with brands such as & OTHER STORIES in ANZ and Mango in LATAM. By increasing exclusivity at both the brand and SKU level, we are able to further differentiate ourselves in a competitive market. Another one of our key differentiators to drive customer engagement is our app-centric strategy. We have proven success with this as our app share of NMV rose 66% in 2024. SEA leads with an impressive 92% app share, whilst our efforts in LATAM, including the new app rollout, increased installs by 50% in 2024. As technology evolves, so do our front-end platforms. We constantly innovate to deliver a more curated and personalized experience. Our incremental yet impactful enhancements are central to that effort. This includes targeted app campaigns and new features like advanced sizing tools, filters and discovery option. On this page, we have the ratio of new and reactivated customers over churn presented over the last 6 years. As you can see, we experienced strong customer growth during COVID. After a period of churn from these cohorts and broader market weakness, customer numbers are now recovering, and we are optimistic that this positive trend will continue throughout 2025. Among the region, ANZ's ratio had already moved into positive territory in Q3. LATAM followed closely behind and turned positive in Q4. Our marketing cost percent of NMV illustrates how we have maintained stable marketing spend whilst increasing new and reactivated customers. This success is driven by our full funnel marketing strategy that aims to acquire loyal customers and improve payback. Our strategy ensures that paid media campaigns are efficient whilst also enhancing unpaid channels such as CRM with new tools and intelligent automation. This allows us to deliver personal and timely customer interactions. For fulfillment, our infrastructure is already well invested so we have been focused on optimizing capacity for greater efficiency, fully leveraging automation in Brazil and Australia and improving in-house software. We operate 7 local fulfillment centers, soon 6 excluding Chile, that have a total storage capacity of 24 million items. This equates to approximately EUR 2 billion of NMV capacity annually. As volumes grow, we require no additional CapEx. Our fulfillment service is highly valued by customers and brand partners who leverage our network as it excels in fashion-specific end-to-end last mile service. To enhance customer [ conversion ] we've been expanding delivery options beyond the standard front door service by adding premium services such as next-day delivery in more areas and 24/7 parcel lockers. Returns are a significant cost of business, and we have been optimizing this through various data-driven solutions as well as providing additional support for our frequent returners. There are some regional nuances to be aware of for our return rates. In LATAM, rising rates signal growing customer trust in a less developed e-commerce market, whereas ANZ's higher rates are aligned with other mature markets, offering room to [ grow ] Next on our platform transition. This remains a priority for the group, and we continue to be on track toward our future expectations. In 2024, Marketplace made up 39% of our NMV versus our longer-term expectation of around 45%. We continue to balance Retail and Marketplace to optimize choice, availability and delivery experience for our customers, meet our brand partners' strategic preferences and capabilities while delivering value to them, and drive growth and profitability in our business. Our Fulfilled by GFG and Cross-Docking models now account for 39% of Marketplace shipped items, showing we are progressing well toward our longer-term goal of 50%. Platform Services made up 3% of our revenue, remaining a small but valuable direct revenue stream as brand partner interest in our offering growth. Demand is particularly strong for advertising services and our single stock solution, where we fulfill brands' orders across multiple channels [ external to ] GFG. Moving on to the exciting realm of machine learning and AI. Though obviously a hot topic across all sectors, we've been at the forefront of the trend and integrating these tools into our operations for years, and we are committed to further innovation. From a customer-facing perspective, we've leveraged AI to enhance search functionality. The introduction of multimodal search and smart image tagging has significantly increased accuracy. It has also facilitated easier content discovery through the ability to search [ the content-based ] text and images. AI has allowed us to personalize more effectively for our customers. Our targeted promotion, complete the look suggestions, and cart recommendations are becoming increasingly precise and driving higher convert rates. In our fulfillment centers, AI continues to be transformative. [ Our ] learning algorithm within our order and warehouse management system have optimized order grouping, leading to faster collection and improved delivery speed for our customers. AI will continue to be a substantial growth and efficiency opportunity in 2025 and beyond. Now let's move on to our regional segment results. For LATAM, in this section, I will refer to our results, excluding Chile and this is -- will be the [ case in the ] presentation going forward. In Q4, LATAM and ANZ, our 2 largest regions, earned top line growth with NMV increasing 8% and 9%, respectively. This performance was driven by near-record Black Friday results, second only to 2020. Notably, this return to growth was achieved whilst continuing to increase gross margin record levels for Q4, again excluding the COVID year. For the full year, all regions achieved strong gross margin improvement despite top line declines. LATAM and ANZ's rate of decline slowed significantly compared to last year with NMV down 2% and 3%, respectively. LATAM and ANZ both also benefited from the flow-through of higher gross margin and cost actions that drove material improvement in adjusted EBITDA margin. LATAM's adjusted EBITDA margin was up 6.8 percentage points and ANZ's was up 5.3 percentage points in 2024. SEA had a difficult year and struggled to offset sufficient costs to mitigate the deleverage from [ reducing ] volume. The region's NMV was down 17% in 2024. Addressing this decline is a top priority for us in 2025, which I'll elaborate on in the next few slides. Now taking a closer look at LATAM. We have been executing our investment plan over the past 2 years. We're excited to see the efforts implemented now starting to show through in the financial results. As a reminder, our investment plan had the following priority initiatives: increase assortment exclusivity and relevance, improve discovery ease and inspiration via new a front end, drive marketing efficiency, and ensure seamless, faster delivery. The recovery in top line, strength in gross margin and significant cost actions taken over the last 2 years have resulted in an adjusted EBITDA margin of negative 4% in 2024. This is the best result since 2020 despite the reduced scale of the business in Brazil and Colombia and the closure of Argentina and now Chile. As we move forward, our focus for 2025 and beyond in LATAM is to further develop our assortment, optimize the Fulfilled by Marketplace model, shift marketing from transactional to deeper customer engagement, enhance app and CRM strategies, and drive efficiencies following our market exits in Argentina and Chile. Now moving on to SEA. The past few years have been challenging for SEA with top line declines due in part to the rebound of physical retail post-COVID, low-cost competitors and the growth of brand dotcom platform. The gross margin SEA has increased by 13 percentage points since 2019 through higher Marketplace participation and the expansion of Platform Services, of which SEA holds the largest share among our regions. 2024 was especially challenging with a 17% year-on-year decline in NMV, but SEA still achieved its highest gross margin with a 2 percentage point increase year-on-year. On adjusted EBITDA, SEA is not far off from profitability, and we are confident we can deliver the necessary cost and operational efficiencies to improve the region's financial trajectory. To address the top line and strengthen our market position, we will curate the best of international and local brands, focusing on our top 30 whilst removing long-tail and noncore categories and brands. We're optimizing marketing across all channels to drive better engagement. Additionally, we will build greater customer value through our already app-centric model and the ZALORA VIP program. To maximize efficiency, we will leverage existing assets and focus on core business models. And finally, we are committed to reducing costs across all areas, including through the increased use of automation and AI. Now looking at ANZ. In 2024, ANZ successfully regained its peak margin profile from 2020 despite facing a small top line decline. We are thrilled to report that NMV growth returned in the fourth quarter, thanks to several strategic initiatives that we will continue to build upon in 2025. First, the Got You Looking master brand reset led to a 34% increase in unprompted brand awareness and a 9% rise in purchase intent from September '23 to September '24. Now in 2025, we have just launched the next phase of this campaign. We overhauled ANZ's legacy warehouse management system, integrating SEA's OWMS successfully. This has increased automation rates and improved inventory accuracy. November and the Black Friday period, the ANZ fulfillment center achieved a record 115,000 items shipped in a single day. Our investment in AI and our tech stack have profoundly impacted the business and improved the customer experience. For example, as one of the pioneers in [indiscernible] multimodal search in the region, we have eliminated frustrating [indiscernible] searches. In line with our group strategy, ANZ is also expanding brand partnerships and product range, scaling the Fulfilled by Marketplace model and enhancing delivery speed and service. Overall, we have proven our ability to turn around the top line in our largest markets and simultaneously improve their margin profiles. We will continue to deliver on our goals in each region, so all can contribute to the group's longer-term financial ambitions. I will now hand it over to Helen to take you through our group results and outlook.

Thank you, Christoph, and good morning, everyone. As we highlighted earlier, the rate of decline in all our top line KPIs, including active customers and order frequency has continued to slow. By the end of 2024, our active customers declined by 9% year-on-year. Our order frequency reduced by 3% to 2.3x in 2024, primarily driven by weaker performance in SEA. In Q4, NMV slowed to its lowest rate of decline since 2022 and orders similarly slowed to their lowest level since 2021. The marginal decline in NMV for the group in Q4 was driven by SEA and nearly fully mitigated by growth in both ANZ and LATAM. Average order value grew year-on-year for both Q4 and the full year. This was primarily driven by inflation, followed by shifts in regional mix as the ANZ business represented more of the group in 2024. Now looking at revenue and margins. Our revenue for '24 was EUR 744 million, declining 9% year-over-year on a constant currency basis. In Q4, revenue declined by a significantly lower rate at just 1.2%. We drove continued improvement in retail margin, supported by better quality inventory and reduced discounting levels, which ultimately delivered improved gross margin in both Q4 and the full year. Gross margin improvements, coupled with cost efficiencies, led to an improved adjusted EBITDA position, achieving a 3.8% margin in Q4 with every region profitable in the quarter. Now turning to costs. We reduced our total cost base by EUR 56 million year-on-year, representing a 9% reduction on a constant currency basis. In '24, the majority of our cost reduction was delivered from fulfillment and tech and admin cost lines. On fulfillment, we executed efficiency projects like OWMS, packaging cost reductions, and implementing further automation to reduce order picking times. On tech and admin, we continued streamlining resources, including lowering external vendor costs. Overall, group headcount reduced by about 20% year-over-year. Our cost initiatives made up the majority of this reduction. These were -- there were minimal external impacts as reduced volumes broadly offset inflationary increases. Looking ahead, we'll maintain our cost efficiency programs whilst managing incremental increases in variable costs as volumes recover, particularly in fulfillment and marketing. In 2025, efficiency gains are expected from the centralization of our group technology team in Vietnam and fulfillment and marketing optimization projects. Alongside our cost focus, we have maintained a prudent approach to inventory management. By the end of '24, inventory levels were down 10% year-on-year on a constant currency basis as we continually focused on optimizing our assortment and demonstrating effective working capital management. We're particularly pleased with the reduction of stock older than 180 days across all regions. For the group, our aged inventory share reduced by 5 percentage points year-over-year to 14% at the end of December. We are entering 2025 with a healthy inventory profile, which will continue to support improving gross margins. We will continue to monitor our inventory carefully throughout the year, ensuring we're well positioned to meet demand. To conclude on our group results, I will cover our normalized free cash flow and resulting year-end cash position. In 2024, our normalized free cash flow improved significantly, driven by the EUR 38 million improvement in adjusted EBITDA. We maintained strong working capital management throughout the year, generating a EUR 38 million inflow. Although this is lower than the previous year, it remains substantial due to reductions in inventory and improved payables as a result of enhanced payment terms and timing benefits. Going forward, this inflow will significantly reduce as we annualize over actions taken in 2024 and broadly maintain current inventory levels. After adjusting for operating tax and interest payments, we had a normalized free cash outflow of EUR 45 million, representing a EUR 23 million improvement compared to 2023. Turning to our pro forma cash balance. We closed the year with EUR 222 million in pro forma cash and EUR 164 million in pro forma net cash. Throughout the year, we successfully repurchased the vast majority of our outstanding convertible bond at an average discount of 16%. Our net pro forma cash position excludes the remaining EUR 55 million convertible bond liability and other smaller loans. We remain open to opportunities to further reduce our outstanding convertible bond liability whilst considering our overall cash needs. Lastly, there was a EUR 26 million other cash outflow, which is typically in the single-digit millions. This was elevated as a result of our decision to reduce LATAM receivable factoring in Q4, along with a reduction in external borrowings. In 2025, we expect to return to typical levels of factoring in LATAM. As Christoph mentioned at the start of today's presentation, we've made the difficult decision to wind down our business in Chile. Starting in Q1 '25, Chile will be classified as a discontinued operation with 2024 P&L comparatives restated to exclude it. As our guidance will look -- and outlook will be presented on an ex-Chile basis, I wanted to highlight the impact this has on our key metrics. In 2024, Chile generated EUR 42 million in NMV. Excluding its contribution, the group's NMV declined by 7% for the full year compared to the reported 8% decline. Excluding Chile, our adjusted EBITDA margin improves by 0.3 percentage points, and our normalized free cash flow improved by EUR 4 million. Now moving on to 2025 guidance. Similar to last year, we remain focused on prioritizing profit and cash flow over top line growth. With the customer and NMV trends observed in Q4 and the first 2 months of 2025, we expect stronger NMV performance than in '24. And in a positive scenario, we see potential for the group to return to a modest growth this year. For NMV, we expect a range of negative 5% to positive 5% on a constant currency basis, which translates to EUR 1.0 billion to EUR 1.1 billion of NMV at December '24 closing FX rates. Our primary objective for the year is to reach adjusted EBITDA breakeven despite the challenges in predicting the top line due to external factors. Lease costs are expected to stay around '24 levels of approximately EUR 19 million. And we anticipate working capital to be closer to neutral compared to last year's EUR 38 million inflow as we cycle through timing benefits and align inventory with demand. CapEx is expected to reduce by about 1/3 to around EUR 20 million as we have no sizable investment projects planned for this year. Looking at our longer-term ambitions, we remain focused on achieving positive adjusted EBITDA and breakeven normalized free cash flow. This page outlines our goal for a financially sustainable GFG, one where we achieve both of our ambitions. Our ongoing platform transition is central to these milestones. To date, we're at 39% marketplace share versus our target of 45%. This platform shift will increase our gross margin to 47% and build upon the 45% already achieved in '24. These improvements, combined with continued cost efficiencies, will drive profitability. As we return to growth, our stronger margin profile and capital efficiency across CapEx, working capital and leases will enable us to reach breakeven normalized free cash flow. To track our progress, we've clearly outlined the key steps on this page. We are on the right trajectory towards positive adjusted EBITDA. Once profitable, we will further improve margins and deliver cost efficiency benefit as NMV growth returns. We then expect to reach breakeven normalized free cash flow as group adjusted EBITDA margin reaches approximately 6%. Whilst work remains to achieve this financial profile, our track record demonstrates our ability to meet ambitious goals. Importantly, we have sufficient cash to support this journey as we close 2024 with EUR 164 million of pro forma net cash. From a regional view, excluding central costs, ANZ already achieved positive normalized free cash flow in 2024, SEA was breakeven and LATAM remained negative although has continued to improve. We entered 2025 well positioned to continue on the right path, paving the way for sustainable future growth. We will now open the call to your questions. [Operator Instructions]

[Operator Instructions] We have our first question for today from Anne Critchlow from Berenberg.

I have a few questions. Shall I ask them just one by one perhaps? So the first question would be on the shape of trading from Q4 into your current trading in January and February in the different markets, and where you think the consumer sentiment is in those key markets and perhaps what the outlook might be for 2025.

Thank you, Anne, for the question. I'll take this one. So trading in the first 2 months of the year has broadly continued similar to what we've seen in Q4, so a more positive trend in LATAM and ANZ and a more challenging trend in Southeast Asia. One thing to call out is that, obviously, as you know, Q1 is a quite small quarter, let's say, for us anyway, especially since also most of our markets are Southern Hemisphere. And we have now, in March in Southeast Asia, key trading events around the Raia season as well as our birthday sale. So actually, the biggest month in the region has just started. So that's probably where I would say we are for the year-to-date. In terms of the broader sentiment, I would say there's kind of mixed signals overall. We have some positive trends. We definitely feel Australia is doing better from that perspective. In Brazil, it's more mixed in terms of data points, consumer sentiment. But I think where we are quite confident is that we've done a lot of our homework in terms of having a fresh assortment. You've seen the data on a low share of aged inventory, those types of things. So I think in terms of positioning into the sentiment, we feel very confident of where we've started the year and therefore, the outlook for the year.

Very interesting. Then turning perhaps to the turnaround that you achieved in LATAM and how you're going to implement this into SEA. You've got a kind of blueprint there, but are there any reasons why you wouldn't be able to implement that blueprint into SEA? Are there any particular features of that market that might hinder a turnaround?

Yes. Thanks, Anne. So yes, there is, if you want a blueprint but I also really want to stress that there's a vastly different market. I think the #1 thing that I would call out in terms of our business that is different is that in Latin America, we really had very localized markets, i.e., a completely single-country assortment, single-country fulfillment center setup and also our commercial organization, marketing organization, much more localized on a just country level. Whereas I would call Southeast Asia a much more integrated region where we have, as you know, 3 fulfillment centers. Stock in those fulfillment centers can generally be sold in multiple geographies. And therefore, it's much more, I would say, an integrated web of commercial and operational relationships and also our organizational setup reflects that. We have a very strong team in the region, which I think really combines very deep roots and understanding of the quite different market needs in each of our 4 key countries, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and also Singapore with, I would say, best-in-class expertise. And one thing that we're definitely doing is leveraging the experience that we have, as we have done historically, but we're making a renewed effort around that from across the group, including from Latin America, where certainly some of the market characteristics around discounts, pricing, competitiveness, even some of the specific competitors are similar and leveraging that experience from Brazil into Southeast Asia and kind of cross-pollination in that sense. And so that is, I think, how we're approaching this. What I think is also important to point out is that we -- while we are slightly EBITDA negative, it's not the same structural lack of profitability that we had in LATAM 2 years ago. And so in that sense, I think it's more a challenge around the top line turnaround and how we really leverage our strong asset of fantastic brand, a good assortment, big reach, very high app installed base into driving customer acquisition, reactivation and engaging of the existing customers to drive up loyalty and drive up order frequency. So probably a little bit more weighted towards the top line turnaround than it was in LATAM.

Perhaps I could go on to the competitive environment in your 3 different regions and also perhaps talk a bit about your expectations for price inflation and what you're seeing there.

Yes. I'll maybe take the competitive environment and let Helen comment a bit on what we're seeing around inflation. So competitive environment, I think we, overall, would describe as rational. So I think it's been widely seen that many of our competitors, especially the general merchandisers, have really focused on profitability and optimizing that on their side. And I think that is helping because some of that more, let's say, irrational, highly subsidized activities that we've seen in past years has a little bit subsided. At the same time, we see a crowded competitive environment between, on the one hand, the general merchandise players who are obviously very, very large multi-category and not deep fashion experts, but then on the other side, very strong presence from the brand dotcoms. So it is a crowded place but I think we feel that our positioning as a multi-brand pure player is still fairly unique, and we really want to play to that strength and also sharply focused on our 4 fashion sport and lifestyle categories in all markets because I think that's really our point of differentiation that we need to kind of dial up even further. Our own brand, to some degree, plays a role in that as well, especially in Australia and we made some further investments there. So I think it is really a very clearly defined position in the market, even though there is clearly quite a bit of competition. Helen, do you want to comment on inflation?

Yes, thank you. Yes, so we're continuing to see price inflation across our regions and it's the main driver driving our AOV. I would say, overall, we expect inflation to continue to moderate or decline in this coming year across most of our regions. I'd say the most notable exception would be Brazil, where we're seeing inflation relatively high at sort of about 5% and the inflation rate likely to potentially increase in that region.

Okay. And sort of going back to the idea of inflation, I guess, as inflation recedes a little bit in the other regions, you would need to drive active customer growth more strongly. I'm just wondering what are the key levers that you'd see to do that? For example, is it on the marketing side or is it sort of the AI benefits that are coming through?

Yes. Maybe I'll start and let Helen comment a little bit on the marketing spend side here. So fundamentally, I think what is very important is that our active customer numbers are backward-looking. So it's customers who've placed an order in the last 12 months, so it's clearly a lagging indicator. And that's why we included the information in the presentation to show that actually when we look at how many customers we are winning as first-time customers or reactivating relative to the number of customers that are churning out, we are now in ANZ and also in LATAM in positive territory. So the leading indicator, if you want, has actually already turned positive in ANZ in Q3 and LATAM in Q4. And we obviously -- while there will always be volatility and there may be some quarters where this looks different, but directionally, we think we feel confident that we are in those 2 regions in now positive territory, and that will also mean that the active customer number, while it will be quite delayed, will eventually turn into positive territory. So that gives us confidence there. In Southeast Asia, we still need to achieve it. How do we do it? It is a tailored marketing strategy obviously in every geography. In ANZ, it is much more what we've done on reenergizing the brand and I would call more the top of funnel. What we do everywhere is a strong focus on the CRM side because what we are seeing is that with the opportunities that are coming from AI and automation, CRM is really seeing a reinvention, and that is something we really want to invest behind and drive through that a much more tailored segmented approach to engaging customers, active customers as well as reactivated or to be reactivated customers. Helen, do you want to comment on the marketing spend?

Yes. Thanks, Christoph. We expect that marketing costs may rise slightly in this coming year, and as Christoph mentioned, to continue to attract new customers and continue to reduce the churn of our existing customers. We feel it's the right time to invest. But as I say, that will only be sort of broad sort of marginal year-on-year, and especially in places like Australia with things like the Got You Looking master brand campaign that's been very successful this past year.

[Operator Instructions] There appears to be no further questions at the moment, so I'd like to hand the call over for any questions via the webcast.

First question from the webcast from Julius [ Creed ]. What is your cost reduction outlook for 2025? Are you targeting a reduction of 5% to 10%?

Thank you. I mean, we're continuing our cost reduction program as we've been very successful in 2024. We have got strong tight controls across P&L and also across our CapEx as you can see from our guidance, which will be delivered really from significant cost reduction activities across fulfillment, tech and admin. So we expect to see significant reductions year-on-year.

The next question, why was the Chile operations not closed earlier? And are you planning to shut down additional regions?

Yes. On that one, obviously, we tried to turn around the performance in Chile in parallel of what the work we have done in Brazil and in Colombia. And I think as we went through 2024, we saw that while we were succeeding in turning around the top line and substantially improving profitability and cash flow in Brazil and Colombia, that wasn't the case to the same degree in Chile and that's why we made the decision now. So clearly, in hindsight, it's always a good question to ask, should we have done that earlier? But I think we strongly felt we had a good chance to actually turn it around. And I think also one thing that I think is critical is we've been able to clear a lot of the stock that had built up in Chile when we had expected a stronger performance in '23 -- '22, '23, in the course of '24. And so when we're looking at the overall cash outflow from that market between the cash flow in '24 and the cost of winding down the business, we feel actually comfortable that this has been the right decision and the right timing of the decision. And just to the -- in terms of additional markets, we're not currently planning to close any other markets. But obviously, we are always reviewing the performance in every country, every category and making adjustments depending on the results that we're achieving.

And do you expect a positive group EBIT in Q4?

Well, if we look at this year, we've had a positive adjusted EBITDA in Q4 and definitely expect that seasonality trend to continue into 2025. Based on an EBIT, if you think about this year, our group EBIT is closer to EUR 80 million. So our primary objective is the adjusted EBITDA breakeven for the group for the year. Positive EBIT will follow thereafter.

Next question is from Russell from Edison Group. The low end of the range of NMV guidance for 2025 likely implies challenges in SEA continue. Can you give some specific insight into which countries are perhaps more challenging from a competitive perspective? Can you give some examples of what strength in the fashion and lifestyle position means and how differentiated the product will be versus competitors?

Yes, thanks for the question. So the 4 key countries, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore in SEA all have their own unique challenges. There isn't a situation where we would say 1 or 2 countries are really the ones that are the most challenged and the others are doing really well. There's unique challenges in each, and they're quite different, given that it's vastly different environments from a customer perspective, scale of the country, spending power, et cetera. Therefore, from a competitive perspective, clearly, what we see is Indonesia is clearly the biggest market and in that sense, a highly competitive one. But we do see intense competition even if the nature of that competition is slightly different between the different markets. What we mean with strengthening fashion and lifestyle position is really to fully focus on those categories. In particular, during the COVID years and subsequently, we had really broadened our assortment into more adjacent categories. These are a small part from an NMV perspective, and we will not continue operating in categories that are not part of the core proposition. And within the core proposition, it is very important that we really have a distinct assortment, so brands that are not widely available or within the brands that are obviously the big international brands, having an assortment that is clearly differentiated, comes as close as possible to the brand dotcoms and really puts a clear good point of difference into our assortment relative to what is available on the general merchandise platforms. And I think that's a big focus, and that will mean that we will really pay attention to our top 30 brands, in particular, who we work with both through the Retail model and the Marketplace model. In the region, we have a fairly even split between those 2 business models, and we'll focus on making sure that we have the most relevant assortment in the core categories.

We have no further questions from the webcast. Thank you all for joining today. If you have any further questions, please reach out to the Investor Relations team directly.