Hugo Boss AG (BOSS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders. First of all, let me briefly introduce myself to you. My name is Hermann Waldemer. I'm the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of HUGO BOSS AG. In this capacity, I hereby open today's Annual Shareholders' Meeting of HUGO BOSS AG and in accordance with the Articles of Association assume the Chair. On behalf of the Supervisory Board and the Managing Board, I would like to extend a warm welcome to you. I welcome all those who are following today's Annual Shareholders Meeting online. In particular, I would like to welcome all shareholders and shareholder representatives. I would also like to welcome the ladies and gentlemen of the press, whom I thank for their coverage. As you can see from the notice convening this year's Annual Shareholders' Meeting, the Managing Board of HUGO BOSS AG has decided with the approval of the Supervisory Board to once again hold this year's Annual Shareholders Meeting as a virtual meeting and thus, without the physical presence of shareholders and shareholder representatives. By organizing this meeting as a virtual meeting, we want to give all shareholders in Germany and abroad the possibility to attend. Some people are unable to attend during a physical meeting because they might live too far away. Apart from that, there are sustainability efforts of HUGO BOSS and the claim to have a leading role in digitalization, which are the most important reasons for this decision. With this measure, we are making use of the possibility that the legislator, with this new rule about virtual AGMs has enabled companies to organize. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you very much for your understanding. I would like to start by welcoming Mr. [indiscernible] the notary public, who is taking the minutes of today's Annual General Meeting. I can also confirm that all members of the Managing Board are present as well as all of the members of the Supervisory Board are present. Finally, the proxies nominated by the company are present. In order to enable you to fully exercise your rights at the Virtual Annual General Meeting, the company has opened up various possibilities. You can, for example, exercise your voting rights by postal vote or via the proxies appointed by the company. Voting rights can still be exercised via the online service for the Annual General Meeting until the start of voting at today's virtual Annual General Meeting. I will expressly point this out to you in later, so that you have the opportunity to cast your vote in good time. In addition, you have the opportunity to address questions to the Managing Board, which the Managing Board will then answer in detail. In so far as your questions concern the area of responsibility of the Supervisory Board, I will answer those questions. The answers will be given in agreement with the Managing Board. In any case, please note that you can only make use of your right to information by means of video communication. In other words, your questions and any follow-up questions must be asked by taking the floor online, please. There is no other possibility to ask or submit questions. In addition, you have the opportunity to submit comments on the items on the agenda in advance of the Annual General Meeting by our online service. Objections to resolutions of the Annual General Meeting can be declared by shareholders until the end of the meeting via the online service for the Annual General Meeting for the record of the notary. The notary has satisfied himself of the proper functioning and reliability of the system. Now before we talk about the rules of this meeting, I would like to make a few comments on the procedure. As in previous years, we will provide simultaneous translation of the entire meeting into English. You can make the appropriate setting on the website. Furthermore, I would like to point out that today's event will be broadcast by 2 video streams. Firstly, you will find a freely accessible broadcast on the company's website. This broadcast will end after the Managing Board's speech. Secondly, registered shareholders will have the opportunity to follow the entire Annual General Meeting via the online service. If you, as a shareholder, wish to make use of this option, you must log-in to the online service with your shareholder number and access password and select the live broadcast there. You will find the link to the online service on the company's website as well as a reference to it in your invitation letter. Ladies and gentlemen, here on site, it is also possible to follow the live transmission of the Annual General Meeting so that the notary in particular, who is personally present, can obtain a comprehensive picture. We have carefully examined the technical arrangements required for the live transmission together with the external service provider. We are convinced that we will be able to conduct the virtual Annual General Meeting from here in a technically correct manner. The notary has also had the technology explained to him in detail and has been able to see the technical arrangements for himself. We, therefore, expect to be able to transmit the Annual General Meeting to you through the Internet without any disruptions. However, should technical problems occur, please check your Internet connection. If the transmission here from Metzingen is interrupted, please be patient. If the connection cannot be restored, we will provide you with further information on line on our homepage. In advance, I would also like to expressly point out that it is not permitted to make any audio or video recordings of this event. There are stenographers in the back office to professionally record your questions. They do not make a verbatim record of the proceedings. Let us now deal with the formalities. Ladies and gentlemen, the convening of this meeting was published in due form and time in the Federal Gazette on the 29th of March 2023. The print out from the Federal Gazette is available to the notary and will be attached by him to the minutes as an annex. According to the declarations of the Managing Board, the notifications required by Section 125 of the German Stock Corporation Act were sent in due form and time to the intermediaries, shareholders associations and shareholders directly. The required documents have been available for inspection by shareholders on the company's website, since the date of the announcement of the convening of the Annual General Meeting and during this Annual General Meeting. They are also available here in the meeting room. Ladies and gentlemen, first of all, a few explanations on the voting procedure. Voting rights at today's virtual Annual General Meeting can be exercised by postal vote or by issuing powers of attorney and instructions to the proxies nominated by the company. It is still possible to submit corresponding declarations via the online service until the start of voting. Until that time, you can also change or revoke the declarations you have already made via the online service. At the appropriate time, I will remind you once again to exercise your voting rights. But I would like to remind you to cast your votes in good time, please. It is also possible to authorize a third party to vote on your behalf up to the start of voting. Please note, however, that this third-party can also only exercise voting rights by postal vote or by authorization and instruction to the company's proxies until the start of voting. Further information on voting options can be found in the notice of this year's virtual Annual General Meeting. The proxies appointed by the company will vote in accordance with your instructions on the individual agenda items. This will be done by releasing the votes in the system. All of the postal votes which have been received in due time will also be taken into account in determining the voting result. The entire process of voting and counting is monitored by the notary present here. Before the meeting, the notary has verified that the technical requirements have been met. Following the report of the Managing Board, we will hold the debate in the form of a so-called general debate by a way of video communication. In the common interest of a speedy conduct of our Annual General Meeting, I therefore ask the participants who wish to speak to present their comments and questions on all items on the agenda in the form of a request to speak, if possible. I would like to ask all shareholders or shareholder representatives, who wish to speak to use the online service as early as possible to submit their requests to speak. Even if you wish to speak on a point of order, I would ask you to register your contribution, your comment via the online service. Please indicate a keyword, so that I can decide appropriately, whether and when I will give you priority to speak on your point of order. Let us now turn to the agenda. The full text of agenda items 1 to 8 is contained in the notice convening the Annual General Meeting. The invitation, including the proposal for the appropriation of net income was published in the Federal Gazette on the 29th of March 2023. In addition, the invitation is available on the company's website. Together with the letter of invitation, we sent you a corresponding reference to the place, where the convening notice can be accessed. I therefore assume that the agenda is known to you. I note that no motions for additions to the agenda. All nominations for election have been received. Insofar as the company has received counter motions in the run-up to the Annual General Meeting, I will refer to this separately in the context of the voting. Let me move to agenda item 1, presentation of the adopted annual financial statements of HUGO BOSS AG and the approved consolidated financial statements for the period ending 31st December 2022, the consolidated management report of HUGO BOSS AG and the HUGO BOSS Group for the 2022 fiscal year. The report of the Supervisory Board and the explanatory report on disclosures pursuant to Section 289a Paragraph 1 Section 315a, Paragraph 1 of the German Commercial Code for the 2022 fiscal year. I hereby note that the adopted annual financial statements as of the 31st of December 2022 and the approved consolidated financial statements as of the 31st of December 2022, the combined management report of HUGO BOSS AG and the group for fiscal year 2022. The report of the Supervisory Board, the proposal for the appropriation of net retained profits and the explanatory report on the disclosures pursuant to Section 289a and Section 315a of the German commercial code have been available online, since the 9th of March 2023 and can also be accessed there now. The documents are also available here in the meeting room. I also note that the annual financial statements and the management report prepared by the Managing Board, the consolidated financial statements and the group management report have been audited by the auditors elected at the previous year's Annual General Meeting, Deloitte GmbH Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft in [indiscernible]. I note that the audit did not give rise to any objections and that the auditors have accordingly issued an unqualified audit opinion dated 2nd of March 2023. I also note that the Supervisory Board has also examined these documents and has had no objections. During the Supervisory Board meeting on the 7th of March 2023, the Supervisory Board approved the annual financial statements and thus adopted them in accordance with Section 172 of the German Stock Corporation Act and approved the consolidated financial statements. All documents, including the audit reports were submitted to all members of the Supervisory Board in good time before the meeting. As representatives from the auditor, Mr. Ko, Mr. Reitmeier and Mr. Fox attended the Supervisory Board meeting and answer the questions of the Supervisory Board members in detail. The Supervisory Board approved the Managing Board's proposal on the appropriation of net income. The auditors also examine the content and form of the compensation report prepared by the Managing Board and the Supervisory Board issued an unqualified or the auditors rather issued an unqualified audit opinion on the 2nd of March 2023. The compensation report has also been available online, since the 10th of March 2023 and can also be accessed there now. The report is also available here in the meeting room. The Supervisory Board has reported in writing on its activities in fiscal 2022. The report is available on Pages 17 to 23 of the annual report. In addition to this written report by the Supervisory Board, I would like to inform you of the following: the Supervisory Board held a total of 5 meetings in fiscal year 2022 to perform the duties incumbent upon it in accordance with its obligations. As usual, a 2-day meeting was held in September. Furthermore, in May, a resolution was also adopted by circular vote. During the meeting, the growth strategy CLAIM 5 was discussed as well as its impact on collection development, sales, marketing and operations as well as plans for the further digitalization of the business model and corresponding corporation opportunities. The further development and adjustment of the compensation system for the Managing Board was also discussed. In addition, the concepts for the new marketing campaigns for BOSS and HUGO were important topics in the past fiscal year. The Supervisory Board also dealt with the Ukraine-Russia conflict and the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic intensively so. The Managing Board regularly provided the Supervisory Board with timely and detailed information in written or verbal form. It also submitted to the Supervisory Board all transactions requiring its approval. These were approved at the meetings of the Supervisory Board after appropriate review. Supervisory Board also advised the Managing Board on the management of the company and monitored the conduct of business. All members of the Supervisory Board attended all of the 5 meetings with the exception of Anita Kessel, Martin Sambeth and Bernd Simbeck, who didn't attend the extraordinary meeting in December. However, they had issued written proxies and participated in the adoption of resolutions. In fiscal 2022, there was no member of the Supervisory Board, who attended only half or fewer of the meetings of the Supervisory Board and the committees to which he/she belongs. The efficiency of the Supervisory Board's work was also reviewed last year. During the Supervisory Board meeting in December 2022, the review was presented by an external provider, and the results were discussed and analyzed in detail. The Supervisory Board has formed a Working Committee, an Audit Committee, the Nominating Committee and the Personnel Committee as well as the Mediation Committee, which is required by law. The Audit Committee met 4 times in the past fiscal year. The Personnel Committee met 5 times and the Working Committee was convened 5 times as well. All of the members of the committees attended all of the meetings. The Nomination Committee and the Mediation Committee did not meet in the past fiscal year. The Chairman of the committees reported in detail to the Supervisory Board on the meetings and their results. The declaration of conformity for 2022 required under Section 161 of the German Stock Corporation Act was discussed in detail during the Supervisory Board meeting in December 2022 and was discussed and then adopted with the required majority. On behalf of the entire Supervisory Board, I would also like to thank Anita Kessel and Martin Sambeth, once again for their efforts close ties with HUGO BOSS. Anita Kessel will retire from the Supervisory Board at the end of this Annual Shareholders Meeting due to her age. Her mandate will be taken over by Daniela Liburdi as a substitute member. Martin Sambeth has resigned from his mandate at the end of this Annual Shareholders Meeting. Mr. Sambeth's mandate will be taken over by Andreas [ Flore ] Trade Union Secretary of IG Metall District Manager -- a district of Baden-Wuerttemberg. Mr. [ Flore ] has in the meantime, been appointed as a member of the Supervisory Board by the Stuttgart district court. On behalf of the entire Supervisory Board, I wish Anita Kessel and Martin Sambeth all the very best for their future. With this, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to conclude my remarks on the report of the Supervisory Board. And on behalf of the entire Supervisory Board, I would like to express our special thanks to all employees of the HUGO BOSS Group. Your tireless commitment and great passion lay the foundation for the long-term success of HUGO BOSS. Ladies and gentlemen, before I give the floor to Daniel Grieder and Yves Muller for their report of the Managing Board. I would also like to thank you on behalf of the entire Supervisory Board for the good cooperation with you, dear Daniel and indeed with the entire Managing Board. Daniel, you have the floor.

Dear shareholders, ladies and gentlemen, I'm very pleased to welcome you to our 2023 Virtual Annual General Meeting. Also on behalf of my fellow managing Board members and all HUGO BOSS employees. As you've already seen from the invitation to this year's Annual General Meeting, we have again decided to hold the Annual General Meeting in a virtual format. Well, the reason why we do this is that we are particularly interested in enabling all our shareholders in Germany and abroad to participate regardless of their place of residents and the associated geographical distance or possible other restrictions. In addition, our sustainability efforts played a key role in this decision. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your support and understanding with regard to the chosen format. So today, I'm standing in front of you once again in this virtual format, and I'm very proud of what we have achieved at HUGO BOSS over the past few months. The past fiscal year was a very special one for HUGO BOSS. We made important progress in the execution of our CLAIM 5 strategy, in particular, with regard to our successful branding refresh, laying the foundation for a strong, operational and financial performance. As a result, 2022 was truly a record year for our company. What impressed me most, however, was the outstanding motivation and strong stream mentality of our around 17,000 employees, who are relentlessly executing CLAIM 5 with great passion and dedication to make HUGO BOSS even stronger, more sustainable and more resilient than ever before. They're the backbone to our company and impressively demonstrate day by day that we can accomplish anything if we trust and support each other. On behalf of the entire Managing Board, I would like, therefore, to extend my gratitude to all our teams for their exceptional commitment. Together as a team, we will continue with all our power and all our passion towards our ambition to ultimately become 1 of the top 100 global brands. It's a great pleasure for me to work with such a talented and dedicated team. What can you expect during my presentation? First we'll look back on our highly successful fiscal year 2022. I will discuss our key strategic initiatives that have contributed to the success of HUGO BOSS over the past year and highlight some current and upcoming initiatives that will pay off in the continued successful execution of our CLAIM 5 strategy. Yves Muller will then lay out our operational and financial performance in fiscal year 2022. He will also discuss our expectations for the current year. And you won't be surprised the rigorous execution of CLAIM 5 will once again take center stage in 2023, but more about that later. Dear shareholders, our vision is and remains to become the leading premium tech-driven fashion platform worldwide. In doing so, we not only want to take advantage of the many benefits of digitalization, but also take over a leading role within the industry. Because, as you know, one of our key strategic priorities is lead in digital. With our digital campus, which I will talk about later, we've already come a long way towards achieving this ambitious goal in the past year. As an international fashion and lifestyle company, however, it is our ambition to constantly evolve on all levels. We want to be a leader in our industry and revolutionize it, thanks to our strong innovative skills and design expertise. True to our motto, we love fashion, we change fashion. Meanwhile, our ambition remains unchanged. We want to become 1 of the top 100 global brands and turn consumers from all over the world into true fans of BOSS and HUGO with an ambition and yet realistic goal, when considering what we have achieved so far. 2022 marked an extremely successful year for HUGO BOSS and thus represents the first important milestone along our midterm growth journey. Our strong come back is clear testament to the power of our brands and the strength of our CLAIM 5 strategy that we first presented almost 2 years ago. Thanks to its rigorous execution and our impressive branding refresh beginning at last year, we have significantly fueled the relevance of BOSS and HUGO within a very short period of time and successfully expanded market share around the globe. This led to record sales of EUR 3.7 billion in 2022. Most importantly, our momentum was broad-based across all brands, all regions and all consumer touch points. This was accompanied by significant profitability improvements and a strong increase in EBIT amounting up to EUR 335 million, which corresponds to an EBIT margin of 9.2%. We raised our sales and earnings targets for the full year twice, and ultimately, we even exceeded the increased forecast. While this clearly shows that with CLAIM 5, we've introduced the right strategy at the right time. A strategy that will enable us to unlock the full potential of HUGO BOSS. So let's take a look at our key strategic highlights, starting with our 2 brands. If you recall what I told you last year, CLAIM 5 is all about consumers, as we put them in the center of everything we do. Anchor our position in consumers' minds and significantly enhanced brands relevance, we ushered in a new era with our highly successful branding refresh. In particular, the spectacular launch of our record-breaking campaigns has put BOSS and HUGO into the spotlight, while ensuring to keep up the pace throughout the year. Fully in line with our first strategic claim, boost brands, [ helped us ] noticeably increased brand heat, attracting consumers from all over the world for BOSS and HUGO, especially in key metropolitan areas, and of course, also in social media, we generated great enthusiasm with our international all-star cast. Most importantly, BOSS and HUGO are now coming with a new modern brand identity appealing to a younger and more global demographic. In this context, BOSS is focusing on millennials, and HUGO on Gen Z. The remarkable increase in brand relevance was also fueled by a spectacular fashion events and inspiring collaborations. To name only a few of my personal highlights for BOSS, we hosted unique fashion events in the Dubai desert and at the Milan Fashion Week. At the same time, we celebrated strong comebacks in Formula One at the legendary Hahnenkamm Races and also in tennis at the BOSS open here in Stuttgart. With HUGO on the other hand, we celebrated the music festival season in Palm Springs with a very successful HUGO house and generated additional excitement with an own fashion show in Milan. I'm particularly pleased that thanks to our various activities, we've been able to noticeably increase the relevance of both brands in a very short period of time. Above all on social media, the success became clearly visible for BOSS and HUGO. With around 1.5 million new followers, BOSS was by far the fastest-growing premium apparel brand on Instagram, the channel that is of particular important for millennials. And HUGO left all other brands far behind on TikTok, the leading platform for the increasingly relevant Gen Z, underpinned by an extremely strong increase in follower growth by 900%. Even more importantly, both our brands recorded significant double-digit sales increases in 2022. Driven by the successful brand Refresh, our BOSS Menswear business grew a strong 27% currency adjusted, while our BOSS Womenswear business was up 21% year-on-year. HUGO was in no way behind also recording significant sales increases of 27% adjusted for currencies. What strikes me most is the fact that growth was well balanced. We recorded double-digit improvements across all wearing occasions, from formal wear to casual wear, to shoes and accessories. This in turn means that we are now perceived as a true 24/7 lifestyle brand. Following our brand successes in the past year, we are fully committed to keep up the hype also in 2023. Further fuel brand relevance and strengthen our strong top line momentum. And if we be clear in saying that we have a lot of exciting initiatives in the pipeline to further strengthen BOSS and HUGO over the next couple of quarters and provide them with additional tailwind. In early 2023, we launched our latest campaigns for Spring/Summer 2023, including superstars such as Naomi Campbell, Gigi Hadid and Lee Min-ho. And I can assure you that also these campaigns are perceived extremely well by consumers. We continue to dominate social media with 5 billion social media impressions in only 6 weeks, clearly speaking for themselves. But have a look for yourselves at our latest BOSS campaign based on the motto, bosses aren't born, they are made. [Presentation]

Most successful event to date was the spectacular BOSS fashion show in Miami in March this year. They see now by now event reached almost 3 billion views of social media, making it even more successful than our BOSS fashion show in Milan last fall. To keep brand momentum going, we will continue to collaborate with inspiring personalities and strong partners. A few examples. In 2022, we launched several capsule collections with our brand ambassadors, Khaby Lame, Matteo Berrettini, and Alica Schmidt, all of which were highly successful. And in January this year, we continued seamlessly as BOSS collaborated for an exclusive collection with the young yet already very successful skiwear brand, Perfect Moment. We also unveiled another collection co-created with Porsche that was presented by the Colombian singer and superstar Maluma. But that's not all. At the end of April, we announced our partnership with the American Football League and NFL, an extremely exciting collaboration that we are particularly pleased about, and that will help us to strengthen our current top line momentum in the U.S. Also with HUGO, we celebrated huge successes last year. Together with the Japanese Street wearbrand MR. BATHING APE, and the Italian denim specialist Replay, HUGO had Gen Z buzzing all year long. If this put particular emphasis on product groups such as denim, outerwear and bodywear, all of which still offer great potential for HUGO in the future. Let's take a quick look at the current HUGO campaign. [Presentation]

Ladies and gentlemen, in today's world, it is important that our many product initiatives also span into the digital world. And that I'm excited that HUGO successfully entered the Metaverse last year, launching its first ever NFT collection. This digital collection sold out within minutes and significantly exceeded our own high expectations. We will continue to build on such successes in the future. Speaking about collections, true to our second strategic claim, Product is King, our products are at the heart of our company, and that's an essential part of our Branding Refresh. Above all, the new more modern image of BOSS with a focus on the characteristic colors black, white and camel ensures a high level of recognition. The positive global response to our new brand image, combined with improved -- with an improved value proposition has led to strong full price sales already in 2022. At the same time also, demand from consumers and from our wholesale partners increased noticeably. This is a trend that continues seamlessly with the launch of our Spring/Summer 2023 collections. Thanks to our strong and diverse product mix, today, we live up to our promise to perfectly dress our customers from head to toe and for every occasion, 24/7. Particular highlights in this regard were the successful relaunch of our brand lines, BOSS Black, BOSS Orange and BOSS Green and the introduction of the exclusive BOSS Camel line, which is developing excellently and whose enormous potential, we will fully leverage in the coming years. And we'll also fully leverage the potential that the digital world offers us in the future. In line with our third strategic claim, lead in digital, we remain fully dedicated on taking a leading role in digitalization within our industry. First, this means continuing to digitalize our business activities along the entire value chain and maintaining a strong focus on leveraging the power of data. The HUGO BOSS digital campus is at the core of our digital activities. Building on the successful global relaunch of hugoboss.com in January 2022, the campus will particularly ensure the maximized use of data analytics. This is not only aimed at reducing complexity, but also to increasing transparency and further enhancing efficiency across our business activities. But that's not all. In the coming years, we will link the shopping experience in our stores even more closely with our digital points of sale, enabling a first-class fully comprehensive omnichannel experience for our customers. The digital campus will also play a central role in this. Turning to omnichannel and as to our fourth strategic priority, rebalance omnichannel. In 2022, we have made substantial progress in pushing ahead with the upgrade of our global retail network and creating a best-in-class consumer experience. This includes, besides the aforementioned successful relaunch of our digital flagship, hugoboss.com, the most recent upgrade of the HUGO BOSS app. Our new app strongly enhances the mobile shopping experience as it offers our customers several new functionalities, such as a try-on function for sneakers, convenient live chat capabilities as well as the seamless integration of our CRM functionalities. In this context, I'm all the more encouraged that our digital business continued its double-digit growth trajectory in 2022. It fueled above all by record sales in our online store. Despite a rather difficult market environment in the digital sector, our digital business grew by 15%. As a result, we have significantly outperformed e-commerce in general and have thus been able to gain market share. Whether in the virtual or the real world, we always pursue 1 goal as part of our omnichannel strategy, transferring our regained brand power to all consumer touch points. On that note, we have made substantial progress in 2022. In particular, we pushed ahead with the upgrade of our global retail network as customers can meanwhile experience our Branding Refresh together with our innovative retail concepts in over 200 points of sale worldwide. Our new BOSS flagship store on London's vibrant Oxford Street is a clear standard in this regard. But taking this retail experience to the next level, and created a blueprint for the future of our physical store network, brand-led, consumer-focused and digitally-oriented, all in one. Another great example is our BOSS store on London's Regent Street, which we recently completely redesigned and reopened. With the following video, I would like to present our new store concept a little closer. [Presentation]

We're also very pleased with the performance of our new store concept in terms of revenues. The enhanced customer experience is leading to higher full price sales and a significant improvement in store productivity, which we're able to increase by an impressive 29% to almost EUR 12,000 per square meter in 2022. We'll therefore continue to push ahead with the global rollout of this highly successful concept. This year alone, we plan to renovate around 100 additional points of sale. This includes our important BOSS stores in Amsterdam's Leidsestraat and in the Dubai Mall in the Emirates. We not only celebrated an extremely successful comeback in our own retail business, but also in brick-and-mortar wholesale with currency adjusted revenues up 33% in 2022, thanks to our 24/7 lifestyle positioning and continued robust demand from wholesale partners for our collections. We significantly improved the visibility of BOSS and HUGO in Europe and in the U.S. And I'm pleased to report that the robust momentum in wholesale is set to continue as we look back at successful order intakes for the current Spring/Summer and the upcoming fall season. With a firm commitment to our fifth strategic claim, organized for growths, we have embraced the powerhouse organization in the past years and established a flexible operations platform to ensure our company's success well into the future. In particular, we have made great progress in transforming our supply chain into a full digital twin, technology-driven, state-of-the-art platform. This enables speed and growth and is an important prerequisite for continuing to serve customer demand in the best possible way in the future. At the same time, we ensure that we have a reliable and resilient supply chain that actively supports our strong sales momentum and ensures product availability at all times and worldwide. With nearshoring, we are pursuing the goal of bringing our local sourcing activities even closer to our sales markets. Already today, 46% of our merchandise is sourced in EMEA that is Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and 14% of our total sourcing volume is produced at our own production facilities. Our largest own production site in Izmir, plays a key role in this. In 2022, we successfully expanded its capacity by opening a fourth plant on site. Well in the past, we primarily focused on producing formal wear in Izmir, thanks to recent investments, casual wear now accounts for around 20% of our total production volume there. In this context, around 1,000 new jobs were created in Izmir over the course of 2022. This has brought us even closer to our largest sales region, the European market and enables us to respond even better and faster to our customers' needs. Let me take a closer look at the topic of customer needs. At the heart of CLAIM 5, always lies our unwavering commitment to sustainability because that not only plays a key role for our customers, but it's also an essential to our corporate responsibility. Those has continue to drive innovation and sustainability to deliver measurable impact for the environment and society alike. We have set ourselves ambitious goals such as decreasing our carbon emissions by at least 50% until 2030 and aiming for net zero by 2050. Promoting and implementing a circular business model is of particular importance in this regard, as we are committed to is using high-quality recyclable materials, thereby extending product life cycles and minimum waste in the years to come -- minimizing waste to come. Among other things, we are working intensively to replace environmentally harmful fiber such as polyester and nylon with sustainable, recyclable alternatives. Recently, we successfully launched the first BOSS polo shirt made of around 90% from highly innovative and fully recyclable Aeoniq yarn, obtained from bio-based cellulose and that's from renewable raw materials. In addition to circular products, we will continue to place great emphasis on particularly sustainable materials and manufacturing processes in the production of our collections. And in this context, we aim to significantly expand our range of responsible styles. Their share is to be expanded to 60% of the total product range by 2025. And while these were just a few examples of how we aim to lead change in the fashion industry, it clearly shows, where we're headed for a better future. And we are encouraged by the fact that our efforts are always being -- are also being recognized externally. In late 2022, HUGO BOSS was included in the important Dow Jones Sustainability Index World for the sixth time in a row with the second best overall score in our industry. Among other things, we were named best-in-class in the categories innovation, tax management, tax strategy and environmental and social reporting. On top of that, HUGO BOSS was named Green Ranking Champion, as its score base among the 50 German MDAX companies. With us performed best in terms of the 60 most relevant global sustainability rankings and awards. However, we are by no means resting on these achievements. Quite on the opposite, standing up for our planet and society and being bold is and remains a central responsibility and an important matter for us. We will thus continue to work passionately for greater sustainability and actively tackle the challenges in the industry together with our partners. But this, of course, also includes the fact that compliance with human rights, labor and health standards is indispensable for us. Therefore, also make our supply chain even more reliable and transparent. To strengthen our commitment to sustainability, we have also established our own charitable foundation for the first time in the history of our company. In future, this foundation will pool our social commitment and significantly expanded, particularly into the important areas of climate and environmental protection. Along with strong partners, we will actively support and fund important projects around the world and we will also closely involve our customers by making a donation of EUR 0.05 to the foundation for every product we sell. We also take our social responsibility very seriously in the context of other crisis situations around the world. For example, HUGO BOSS provided financial support following the devastating earthquakes in Turkey and Syria or the flood disasters in Bangladesh and Pakistan. And in view of the devastating war in Ukraine, which supported the German Red Cross, among others, to help refugees from Ukraine during this very difficult time because we have a particular responsibility towards our employees. We want to offer them the best possible working environment. For this reason, we invest not only in the strength and sustainability of our brands, but also in our people and teams. Last year alone, we created around 3,000 new jobs worldwide. In addition to the aforementioned strategic expansion of our capacities at Izmir side, we further strengthened our global retail business, in particular, as well as important functions in Metzingen, for example, in digital as well as in research and development. We also want to make our vibrant campus as modern and attractive as possible for our employees and create a working environment in which they can develop their ideas and creativity to the fullest. In addition, we already offer our employees a comprehensive range of services to strengthen the compatibility of family and career. This includes our recently opened HUGO BOSS Day Care center here on our campus, which offers capacity for around 50 children. After all, we are convinced that an attractive working environment plays a decisive role in ensuring that our employees are highly motivated and passionate about making their contribution to the successful execution of CLAIM 5 every day. In order to give our employees an active share in the success of the company, we also launched an employee share program for the first time at the beginning of the year. This offers employees the opportunity to participate in the company as shareholders. The program has been very well received by our employees worldwide, which we are particularly pleased about. And I'm sure that quite a few employees have already logged on today to exercise their shareholder rights at this year's Annual General Meeting. Dear shareholders, it is and remains of great importance to us that you participate in the success of CLAIM 5 in this context. In this context, we are particularly pleased that the successful execution of our strategy has also been well received on the stock market as reflected in the strong outperformance of our shares in 2022. In an overall volatile and challenging market environment, HUGO BOSS shares proved to be extremely resilient. Thanks to the successful implementation of CLAIM 5 ending the year up 1%. By contrast, important indices and the shares of all -- almost all relevant competitors recorded an often stronger negative share price performance. And Asia has continued to perform extremely positively this year. Since the beginning of the year, it has gained 27%, closing yesterday at EUR 68.98. Of course, we also want you to participate in the success of HUGO BOSS through an attractive dividend. In lieu of our stellar operational performance, our very robust financial stance and our confidence in the continued success of CLAIM 5, we, therefore, produce -- propose a dividend of EUR 1 per share for 2022. This represents an increase of 43% compared to the prior year and results in a payout ratio of 33%. This is fully in line with our target payout range of 30% to 50%. This concludes my presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, our company has never been better and stronger position than it is today. Thanks to the rigorous execution of our strategy, HUGO BOSS has made a real kickstart and achieved enormous progress in a very short period of time. And we also have ambitious plans for the current fiscal year, which will also be characterized by our growth strategy, as you will see from the following presentation by Yves Muller. I would like to thank you for your attention and now hand over to Yves Muller. Yves, the stage is yours.

Thank you, Daniel, and good morning, dear shareholders, ladies and gentlemen. Let me also welcome you most warmly to this year's Annual General Meeting. What can you expect from my presentation? I will start by elaborating on our operational and financial performance in fiscal year 2022. And following this, I would like to take a look at the first quarter of 2023 and discuss our expectations for the current fiscal year. Last but not least, I will hand back to Daniel Grieder for a brief recap. So let's start with a closer look at our top-line and bottom-line performance in the last year. For HUGO BOSS, 2022 was without a doubt an extremely successful year. Thanks to the relentless execution of CLAIM 5, currency-adjusted revenues increased a strong 27% year-on-year to EUR 3.7 billion, which means nothing more than record sales for our company. We thus exceeded the EUR 3 billion mark for the first time in the history of HUGO BOSS. Compared to pre-pandemic levels, this represents a robust increase of 26% currency adjusted. Equally important, we recorded significant bottom-line improvement despite investments in our brands, our products and the digitalization of our business model. Overall, EBIT increased a strong 47% to an amount of EUR 335 million, leading to an EBIT margin improvement of 100 basis points to a level of 9.2%. Supported by our stellar performance in the final quarter of the year, we ultimately exceeded our full year 2022 targets, which we had revised upwards twice. This is all the more remarkable considering the high level of macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties in 2022, including global supply chain disruptions, the implications of the war in Ukraine and pandemic-related restrictions in China. Let's, therefore, take a closer look at our top-line performance. Driven by the relentless execution of CLAIM 5 and thanks to our highly successful Branding Refresh, top-line momentum accelerated from quarter-to-quarter during the year. This has ultimately led to currency adjusted revenues in the important final quarter being up 15% and 29% versus pre-pandemic levels. This means that for the first time, we have generated more than EUR 1 billion in sales in just 1 quarter. I'm particularly pleased to see that growth throughout the year was high, with high quality in nature. This means against the backdrop of increased brand relevance, we succeeded in noticeably increasing our full price sales. And in this context, in keeping the discount level well below the prior year level. More importantly, as laid out in CLAIM 5, growth was broad-based in 2022 thus BOSS brands as well as all regions and all distribution channels contributed to our strong sales performance. First, let's take a closer look at the regions. Our business in EMEA recorded an exceptionally strong performance, fueled by the successful execution of CLAIM 5 and robust consumer sentiment, both with local consumers as well as international tourists. In our largest region, currency adjusted revenues were up 32% spurred by double-digit improvements in the U.K., in France and Germany as well as an exceptionally strong performance in the United Arab Emirates. Momentum was equally strong in the Americas. We achieved revenue growth of 29% currency adjusted with all our markets recording strong double-digit improvements. This also includes the important U.S. markets, where we successfully fostered our 24/7 brand image and has noticeably expanded the visibility of BOSS and Hugo across all customer touchpoints. Currency adjusted sales in Asia Pacific grew 6% in the past fiscal year. Thanks to significant double-digit improvements in Southeast Asia and Pacific, we were able to more than offset pandemic-related sales decline in Mainland China. In this context, we are all the more encouraged by the most recent recovery in China following the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions. Recent weeks and months have provided impressive evidence that we are now back on a robust growth track in China. We, therefore, have every reason to be confident about the further development of this important market both in terms of the current fiscal year and our midterm ambition because, as you know, our brands still have considerable growth potential in China. Let's now turn to our distribution channels. I'm particularly pleased that all consumer touchpoints recorded double-digit growth in 2022. Sales in brick-and-mortar retail grew a strong 29% currency adjusted, supported by double-digit improvements in store productivity. In other words, we're now generating significantly more sales per square meter than we ever did and than even last year. The brick-and-mortar wholesale revenues, as already mentioned at the beginning, grew 33% currency adjusted, fueled by our partners' strong demand for both our brands collections. In achieving this, BOSS and HUGO were able to noticeably improve market presence at key wholesale partners in Germany and internationally. Our digital business grew by 15% currency adjusted despite a rather difficult market environment in the digital sector and despite being up against a particularly tough comparison base, the latter being due to the strong top-line momentum of previous years. I'm particularly pleased that we were again able to record a significant double-digit increase at our own website, HUGO BOSS in the past fiscal year. At the same time, we also achieved significant improvements with our digital partners globally. Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, we were able to further accelerate our top-line momentum last year, building on our superior brand power, but we also made great progress in terms of our bottom line. Let's therefore now look at the remaining P&L items. At 61.8%, our gross margin remained on a par with the prior year level. Despite significant product investments, all aimed that are further optimizing our value proposition, gross margin does remain at the upper end of our midterm target range of between 60% and 62%. The several external factors weighed on our gross margin in the prior year. First and foremost, this includes significantly elevated sourcing and freight cost levels as well as unfavorable currency movements. And therefore, the more encouraged that we're able to fully offset all these factors, thanks to our high-quality top-line growth, underpinned by strong improvements in full-price sales. Operating expenses increased by 29% in the past fiscal year, driven by our investments into the business as part of CLAIM 5. This first and foremost, includes our step-up in marketing investments, up 41% in 2022. This largely reflects our successful brand campaigns and fashion events, which we have already elaborated on today. As a percentage of group sales, our market investments now amount to around 8% of group sales in line with our midterm ambition. At the same time, we further invested in the digitalization of our business model with digital investments up 15%. The latter reflects important strategic initiatives such as the implementation of our digital campus, the successful relaunch of hugoboss.com are the global rollout of our digital showrooms. Despite these investments, we brought our operating expenses down by 100 basis points to a level of 52.6% of sales, that's well below pre-pandemic levels. This development was first and foremost driven by our strong top-line performance as well as noticeably efficiency gains in brick-and-mortar retail. The latter is related to the further optimization of our global store network, which helped reducing the retail cost by around 1 percentage point. Compared to 2019, the decrease was even 4 percentage points. As mentioned earlier, this led to a strong 47% increase in EBIT to an amount of EUR 335 million. Net income attributable to shareholders even increased by 53%. In this context, a higher level of net financial expenses, mainly reflecting unfavorable currency movements was thus offset by positive one-off effects within taxes. Let's now turn to the balance sheet. Starting with inventories, which increased 58% currency adjusted compared to the prior year. Against the backdrop of the global supply chain disruptions, we had already intentionally increased inventory level in the course of 2022 to ensure product availability for upcoming seasons. The vast majority of the inventory position is related to core merchandise that can be sold over several future seasons as well as new merchandise for current and upcoming collections. At the same time, the inventory buildup is aimed at supporting the ongoing strong top line movement also going forward. In this context, let me clearly emphasize that the aging structure of our inventory has even further improved year-on-year and will continue to benefit from robust top-line momentum. We'll also take advantage of the noticeable easing of global supply chain disruptions in recent weeks to reduce inflows of core merchandise. Overall, therefore, expect a gradual normalization of our inventory position by the end of the current fiscal year. Moving over to the free cash flow, which amounted to EUR 166 million in 2022. Improvements in EBIT were more than offset by an increase in trade net working capital caused by the inventory buildup I've just outlined as well as higher capital expenditure of EUR 191 million. The latter aims at supporting the successful execution of CLAIM 5 along our distribution network. In particular, we accelerated our investments in brick-and-mortar retail as we opened 38 new freestanding stores in 2022, which we also remodeled more than 100 points of sales to fully reflect our brands' new look and feel. Last but not least, and excluding the impact of IFRS 16, our net financial position reached a strong level of EUR 38 million at the end of 2022. This, in turn, means that we were once again not only debt-free, but effectively cash rich at the year-end, providing us with a strong foundation and further flexibility, when it comes to investing in the years to come. You will thus continue to grasp growth opportunities and continue to rigorously execute our CLAIM 5 strategy. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes my remarks on fiscal year 2022. Let's now move over to our expectations for the current fiscal year. Fiscal year 2023 is set to be a further important milestone in achieving our midterm financial ambition. We're fully committed to making further progress towards CLAIM 5 also this year, with a determined execution of our strategic initiatives clearly taking center stage. All our strategic initiatives will be from a brand or a product or distribution perspective are aimed at further fueling the strong momentum of the previous year. In this context, we will continue to invest into brand building activities and our diverse product offering to further drive brand relevance of BOSS and HUGO and strengthen the 24/7 lifestyle image. In addition, we will push ahead with the digitalization of our business model and make further progress in expanding our omnichannel activities. We'll continue to focus on the modernization of our global store network, putting strong emphasis on realizing further efficiency gains. This will allow us to make further progress also this year towards our 2025 EBIT margin target of 12%. Last week, we published our first quarter results, which I would like to briefly discuss. As you may have taken from the press, we look back on an extremely successful start to fiscal year 2023. Following the steady acceleration in sales growth last year, I'm particularly pleased that we were able to seamlessly continue our strong financial and operational performance in the first quarter. This has led to significant improvements in both sales and earnings. Group sales in the first quarter amounted to EUR 968 million, corresponding to currency-adjusted growth of 25% compared to the prior year. Revenues thus once again significantly exceeded pre-pandemic levels with momentum even further accelerating compared to the final quarter of 2022. And it will have come as no surprise to you that growth was again broad-based in nature with double-digit sales increases across both brands as well as all regions and consumer touchpoints. As you can see, trends seen in the previous year continued seamlessly at the beginning of this year. But also from a bottom-line perspective, we're very pleased with the development in the first quarter. EBIT improved a strong 63% to EUR 65 million. This, in turn, enabled us to improve our EBIT margin by 160 basis points to a level of 6.7%. This performance is mainly attributable to extremely robust top-line growth, more than compensating for a slight decline in gross margin as well as the ongoing investments into our business as part of CLAIM 5. Following the successful start of the year, we also raised our sales and earnings guidance for the current fiscal year last week. This means nothing less than making 2023 yet another record-breaking year for our company. By building on our superior brand power and our excellent start to 2023, we once more aim to outperform our industry this year and thus capturing further market shares. Consequently, we now expect group revenues in fiscal year 2023 to increase by around 10% to about EUR 4 billion with both brands, all regions and all channels once again set to contribute. As we, therefore, aim to achieve our midterm sales target of EUR 4 billion already this year, and thus significantly earlier than originally anticipated as part CLAIM 5. With regard to our bottom-line expectations for 2023, we are now forecasting EBIT to increase within a range of 10% to 20% to a level of between EUR 300 million or EUR 400 million. Ongoing investments in our products, in our brands and digital expertise as part of CLAIM 5 are said to be more than offset by an at least stable gross margin development as well as further efficiency gains. This means in turn that our 2023 EBIT margin is expected to increase to almost 10%, bringing us 1 step closer to our midterm ambition in terms of profitability. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes my part of the presentation. Thank you very much for your attention. I would now like to hand back to Daniel.

Thank you very much, Yves. To our shareholders, 2022 was a tremendous success for HUGO BOSS in many respects. However, despite the stellar performance, we must not forget that the previous year was extremely challenging from a macroeconomic and social perspective. It has significantly changed the lives of many people around the globe. The implications of the pandemic, persistently high inflation and in particular, the devastating war in Ukraine have affected and burdened the lives of many people. Given these challenges, our strong operational and financial performance, which mainly reflects the strong team mentality of our employees is all the more remarkable. Our teams are key to our success. Together, we will ensure that thanks to the determined execution of our CLAIM 5 strategy, we will make 2023 yet another record-breaking year for HUGO BOSS. Our strong start to the year impressively demonstrates the continuing success of CLAIM 5 and thus of HUGO BOSS. On June 14 and June 15, we will therefore present an update on CLAIM 5 and our midterm financial ambition as part of this year's Capital Markets Day. Even though I cannot reveal any details to you here and now, I would like to emphasize that we will not deviate from our success trajectory. Quite the opposite, we will continue with our passion and power to do our utmost in delivering above average and sustainable revenue, revenue growth also going forward. In addition, we will strive to achieve further efficiency gains to drive further improvements in EBIT margin in the future. Allow me to conclude by briefly summarizing the most important points. Fiscal year 2022 impressively demonstrated that with CLAIM 5, we introduced the right strategy at the right time. The rigorous execution of our strategic priorities made 2022 truly a record year for our company, with broad-based growth across all brands, across all regions and across all customer touchpoints. In particular, thanks to our successful Branding Refresh, BOSS and HUGO are more relevant and stronger today than ever before. We have thus laid a strong foundation to fully exploit the great potential of HUGO BOSS also going forward with the relentless execution of CLAIM 5 taking center stage. And we will build on our regained brand power to maintain our robust sales momentum. Thanks to our excellent team and a winning formula CLAIM 5, who make 2023 yet another highly successful year for HUGO BOSS, and thereby achieving our midterm sales target of EUR 4 billion already this year, 2 years ahead of plan. And beyond that, we will leverage the enormous potential of HUGO BOSS with all our power and all our passion. Thus taking us 1 step closer to our ambition of becoming 1 of the top. Our ambition of becoming 1 of the top 100 global brands. Shareholders, thank you very much for your attention and your confidence in our company. I would now like to hand the floor back. But before I do this, I would also like to bid you farewell with this video. [Presentation]

Many thanks, Daniel and Yves for the comprehensive explanations. I wish the Board every success in the further implementation. Ladies and gentlemen, as announced, we are ending the freely accessible broadcast of the Annual General Meeting on the Internet. From now on, only registered shareholders can follow the further course of the AGM via the online service. I would like to thank everyone else who followed our remarks on the Internet for your interest in our company and say goodbye to you. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]