Jumbo S.A. (BELA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Mina, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Jumbo conference call and live webcast to present and discuss the first half 2023 financial results. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Apostolos-Evangelos Vakakis, Chairman of the Board of Directors; Mr. Polys Polycarpou, Executive Director; and Ms. Amalia Karamitsoli, IR Officer. Mrs. Karamitsoli, you may now proceed.

Thank you, Mina. Thank you for the introduction. Our first 6 months results were announced yesterday. To facilitate today's discussion, a short presentation has already been posted through our website. As been announced, sales in the first half of the year was increased by 20% at EUR 425 million. Gross margin decreased by 174 basis points at 55.3%. EBITDA increased by 24% (sic) [ 27% ] at EUR 146 million. Net profit increased by 36% at EUR 106 million. Net cash position was at EUR 389 million. And at this point, I want to remind to everybody that there was a full repayment of the EUR 200 million common bond loan during the first half, while the CapEx [indiscernible] at EUR 50 million. Now I would like to give to Mr. Vakakis the time to answer your questions rather than [indiscernible] with the presentation. So I would like -- Mr. Vakakis, would you like to make a first statement or to start the Q&A?

I believe we can start the Q&A in order to save time.

The first question comes from the line of Stamatios Draziotis with Eurobank Equities.

Can I start with the top line guidance? Just wondering what made you trim the projected performance for the full year because it seems to imply that the remaining period sales will grow only by a mid-single-digit figure. So that's my first question. And the second one relates to operating expenses in the first half, which we saw grew by only a low single-digit percent. If you could tell us where your cost efforts are focused on and maybe provide some granularity about occupancy costs, please.

Sorry, but we have an issue with the sound. I could not hear your full question. So we will have to adjust the sound. And unfortunately, you will have to repeat the question once we have the correct sound so I can hear what you asked.

No problem. I hope you can hear me well now.

I can hear you better, but not crystal clear. So it would be much more helpful if you put one question at a time so I can give you a clear answer, and then you can follow the next question.

That's no problem. So the first question relates to your top line guidance, which you trimmed from plus 15% to plus 12% for the full year. Just wondering what the reason behind this revision is because this seems to suggest or to imply that the remaining period sales, i.e., in the remaining 4 months of the year, will grow just by a mid-single-digit figure.

I believe that everybody understands that whether we like it or not, we are entering a recessionary period. And as a result of that and due to the big discrepancy between the disposable income and especially the price of food, it is a prudent exercise to adjust our budget accordingly. In order to achieve the 12%, we really have to work our backs out. But for budgetary reasons, we believe that this is reasonable.

Just to clarify, so in the first whatever weeks of September, have you seen anything -- any change in the pattern regarding run rate, which are a reason for extra caution? Or is it just your approach expecting a slowdown...

Definitely, we have seen signs. The numbers that we will produce for September would be closer to our first guidance, but the trend is downwards. And as a result of that and due to the fact that we have seen a secondary round of inflationary pressures not in our industry but in the market as a whole and especially in the food sector, we believe that this will hit the disposable income and the discrepancy between what is asked as prices and what consumers have in their pocket to spend. We have seen that coming from all parts of our activity with the exceptions of the franchisees where we are doing a better job this year and we are counterbalancing a little bit of the lost turnover. But all in all, this is a trend that like-for-like, the sales momentum, whether we like it or not, is weakening.

Okay. That's clear. And second question, just basically asked about the operating expenses because I noticed there was just a small increase in H1, just the low single-digit percent. I'm referring to operating expenses. Could you tell us where you're focused on in terms of cost containment or mitigation and give us some more detail about occupancy costs, maybe utility costs, et cetera, so things you've been seeing there?

I'm not a magician. I cannot know the future. But since we are improving the profitability, I see no worrying signs from this area. So we believe that whatever increases in various expenses will be counterbalanced by a better gross margin. So all in all, at the end of the exercise, we are going to have a better end result than the original anticipated for '23.

Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further audio questions. At this time, we will now proceed to the webcast questions from our webcast participants. The first webcast question is from Mr. George Athanasakis with Pantelakis Securities. And I quote, "How is Israel performing, please?"

How is...

Israel performing.

I'm sorry. I will repeat. "How is Israel performing, please?"

Against all logic, they are doing much better than expected.

The next webcast question is from [ Johannes Schwarz ] from [ MSC Invest ]. And I quote, "Can you please elaborate on your dividend policies going forward?"

The strategy that we have followed and we intend to follow if we get authorization from the general assembly is that we are going to distribute approximately EUR 400 million this year. As we go forward, our desire is to keep the dividend policy healthy, but a lot will depend on how Europe will end up the year. It is too early at this stage to preannounce a dividend policy for '24. However, all secured liquidity that was generated is going to be distributed at the end of '23 in order to secure that the taxes would be as efficient as possible for the people who will receive this dividend.

The next webcast question is from Maksim Nekrasov with Citi. And I quote, "Dividend payment in 2023 have been quite generous. How should we look at dividends in 2024? What level of cash balance do you see sustainable? What is driving smaller gross margin decline 2023 according to your new guidance compared to old guidance? Were there any one-offs in terms of SG&A in first half 2023? What was driving such strong cost control?"

As far as the first part of the question, I have already answered. As the environment deteriorates, our suppliers are doing whatever is humanly possible to reduce their costs in order to make their products more accessible, more successful in the markets that we serve. This trend, we see it steady. So as far as our industry is concerned, we see definitely a deflationary price policy from our suppliers. However, on the other hand, we see a disproportionate increase in prices on the food sector. This is something that we have not anticipated neither the magnitude or the consistency of such a phenomena that was further enlarged by the fact that certain distressed conditions existed in many parts of the world. So all in all, what I can say is that we cannot sort of see the future, but we can prepare for it.

The next webcast question is from Dimitris Giannoulis with Researchgreece. And I quote, "If I am not mistaken, there seems to be a delay around the new store in Cyprus. Can you tell us the reason for this, please?"

We only obtained the license to go ahead a couple of months ago. And it's true that this process took us much, much longer than originally thought. As we are today, we have the authorization, and we are going ahead full speed to execute what needs to be executed in order to start operating. We believe that we will have the store operational after the summer period.

Our next webcast question is from Jorge Robles Rada with WhiteOak. And I quote, "What would be a normalized gross margin level in the business? Do you plan to keep investing in consumers through prices?"

The strategy of Jumbo has always been the correct price and not the lowest price. So it was a combination of product specification and the asking price for this specific product. I always -- we anticipated that in the long run, gross margins would decrease. But due to the turbulent world that we are living in, unfortunately, this cannot happen. We don't have the efficiencies that are necessary in order to grow through the top line and not through the gross margin. As a result of that, gross margins are protected still. Because of this fact, we don't have tailwind. We only have headwind. And therefore, since we are very sensitive with numbers, we cannot go more aggressively in gross margin reductions.

The next webcast question is from [ Luca Orsini ] with [ One ]. And I quote, "Can you give us some color on how the expansion in Israel is? How is it going? Is the expansion going as you were hoping?"

As I said, the effort that we started in Israel was faced with a lot of [ thieving ] problems. However, the strength of the market is so big that against all logic, as I said before, we did phenomenally well on our first store. This will allow Fox Group to expand quicker but at the same time focus to try to adjust their systems to take account of our needs in order to have the results that Jumbo can produce in a country like Israel. So early stages yet, but very successful the first store introduction.

We have another webcast question from [ Johannes Schwarz ] with [ MSC Invest ]. And I quote, "Congratulations on the excellent numbers. Can you tell us more about your expansion strategy over the next few years?"

Our expansion strategy is basically focused in Romania. Romania is a country double the size of Greece with the same disposable income. As a result of that, the expansion strategy there is limitless for the time being. It is prudent to focus on this area rather than move quicker to a new area. At the same time, definitely, we are going to exploit the other markets that we are in. But these markets are more or less saturated, and the pace by which we can grow store-wise is a store every 2, 3 years in each of the other markets.

From Mr. Iakovos Kourtesis with Piraeus Securities. And I quote, "When do you expect to complete the deployment of 25 stores in Romania, first phase of expansion in the country?"

This is a difficult question to answer. We have stated last year that due to the imbalance in the market, we have a tendency to avoid building new stores due to the fact that we believe that the cost of constructing a store is not in our favor as things start today. So what we are doing is we are exploiting places that had different tenants, which we remodel and move into it. This is a more difficult exercise to locate them because we have to locate them at the correct cost and most of the time at distressed prices in order to keep, let's say, our numbers healthy. I keep repeating to people that for me, we have no intention, either in the present or in the future, to buy growth. We want to achieve growth but without putting into question costs or profits or margins or the rest. So it's out of the question to buy growth.

Our next webcast question is from Ameya Karambelkar with Breakout Capital. And I quote, "What is the broad revenue growth construct for full year 2024: mid-single digit or double digit?"

What is the what?

The [ growth sales forecast for ] 2024.

It's too early. It's too early. I mean we have not gone through the strong quarter. So for me, it is very dangerous to give a first guidance for '24. And definitely, we are a much stronger company than what we used to be. And definitely, we will do better than our competitors. But we are not more strong than the market itself. This is something which is anybody's guess. I mean if you hear half of the economies say one thing and another half say another thing. So unless we have tangible results from the last quarter, it's irresponsible to start talking about '24 numbers.

We have one more question from Jorge Robles Rada with WhiteOak. And I quote, "Have you seen any changes in the competitive environment year-to-date? Is there any competitor in Europe you admire?

The competitive environment in Europe in general always intensifies, and this is happening by default. Our competitors are not necessarily better. They could also be more desperate in the environment that they are asked to operate. We hear stories of many strong competitors that have restricted their CapEx and their budget for '24, feeling that a recession is imminent. We, on the contrary, we have never had such a strategy in our mind. Our strategy is generic growth, do what we know how to do but only better all the time. If I admire other companies, I can say a few. I can say about the group of Inditex, or I can say about the group of Lidl or Aldi. These, in our opinion, are, let's say, companies that really demonstrate a clear and visible competitive advantage.

Our next webcast question is from Iakovos Kourtesis with Piraeus Securities. And I quote, "Do you plan to continue the second phase of expansion in Romania with another 25 stores?"

As I said, Romania is double the size of Greece. So it is, let's say, a one-way street towards that. Already, the disposable income of Romania is the same in Greece, so there is no logic not to.

We have another question from [ Johannes Schwarz ] with [ MSC Invest ]. Concerning the dividend policy, is there a certain percentage amount of free cash flow or earnings you are targeting for the dividend?

As I keep saying, our dividend, the tendency is, in bad years, to offer better dividends than expected. But to try to find, let's say, a formula that would standardize this, we have indicated from the past that this is the choice of the management of the company, which if it feels secure enough, of course, it prefers to [ pay ] the dividends and compensate for the turbulent times that we are currently living. But to preposition ourselves about the future with, let's say, ratios and things like that, in my opinion, doesn't serve the best interest of the shareholders. One thing to add to that. We have no intention to sell the company. We have an intention to offer an investment opportunity over the years for all of our investors. There is no such thing as, let's say, running the company like a rocket or things like that. Our vision is to be as steady and as efficient as possible, repeating once more time that however we are -- the size of our company cannot influence the market. The markets, the continents are stronger than our influence.

One more question from [ Luca Orsini and One ]. And I quote, "Where is labor cost inflation? And what do you expect it to be next year, for example?"

The cost of labor has not followed the huge increases that consumers have to face in the current environment or in the past. Therefore, we still believe that it is not a permanent exercise, but it is still a transitional exercise, this. If economies were going to pay the real need for cost adjustments, most companies would have gone south. I would say that costs for next year would be in line with inflation but will not recover the huge price increases that the economy faced in '23. It's not going to be a factor. The problem is on the disposable income. The real problem most European economies face is that there is a discrepancy between disposable income and the price of goods [ asked ].

Our next webcast question is from Kendall Marthaler with Axiom Investors. And I quote, "Have you seen an increase in sales when you lower prices? Or are consumers slow to respond to your pricing cuts given lower disposable income?"

If we didn't see any [ growth sale ], we wouldn't decrease prices. It's a common sense exercise, this. The question is how much the volume increases as a result of the price reduction. And we have a rule of thumb which says that it has to increase to an equal rate at least to the price reduction. And the answer is yes, consumers don't have the luxury not to respond to that.

Our next webcast question is from Carlos Botelho with Limiar Capital. And I quote, "How is the rollout of online business in Romania going? How many SKUs are you offering? How long are the delivery times?"

The question is?

Romanian e-business, e-shop, how many SKUs are we offering and the delivery times.

Yes. We are running a delivery time of no more than 2 days, which means that our capacity is much higher than the orders we keep receiving. So this works in our favor due to the fact that as we started in the summer months, we have still [ thieving ] problems, especially with the software in the country. And the real test will come during the last quarter when we would start seeing the strength of the certain business and the strength of the market all in all. Sorry, I don't know if I answered the number of SKUs. I said that the number of SKUs are around 30,000 [indiscernible].

Our next webcast question is from [ Michael Srive ], private investor. Is discount retailer Action, owned by 3i, a future competitive threat?

I don't understand the question.

I will repeat. Is discount retailer Action, owned by 3i, a future competitive threat?

By 3i?

[indiscernible] Action.

Who?

Action, the discount [indiscernible].

I have never heard of it. I don't know this competitor.

We have another webcast question from Carlos Botelho with Limiar Capital. And I quote, "What are your thoughts on the potential of Turkey as an expansion country?"

I don't feel [indiscernible]. Turkey is the right country to be positioned and run Greece as a satellite. But due to factors that are outside our control but very visible to the world, they have lost this direction. Turkey is gradually distancing itself from Europe.

Another webcast question from [ Johannes Schwarz ] with [ MSC Invest ]. And I quote, "Can you please elaborate on the competition in Romania? Are there larger competitors? Or is it more granular? How difficult is it?"

Competitors are everywhere and especially in Romania because it is very price-driven. And our competitors are smaller and, theoretically, more active when it comes to the pricing policies. However, our system is such that unless you have the infrastructure, you cannot follow it. And therefore, the efforts, after a while, weaken. Definitely new ones come into the picture, and then these ones as well are weakened. All in all, and once people see what we are doing in Romania, they would see that we have a very solid growth, which really beefs up the numbers for the group. So if one wants to make a guess, I would say that Romania will be the country that will help us achieve the 12% overall group result on top line.

We have another question from [ Luca Orsini ] with [ One ]. And I quote, "Can we expect more openings in Israel?"

In Israel, they are very happy, and they intend to introduce new store -- 2 new stores in '24. But as I have already prementioned, they have to iron their act because opening stores without improving infrastructure may be pleasant but not very profitable. Only when they achieve the degree of efficiency of the mother company then they would start to see solid numbers on the profitability as well. Today, they have very solid numbers on the top line, but I question how much of that is on the bottom line.

Our next webcast question is from Fani Tzioukalia with Euroxx Securities. And I quote, "Could you please provide us with some color on the performance of Greek online store year-to-date?"

The what?

The Greek online store year-to-date.

We are hovering around the 15% growth mark. But as I have prementioned, the tendency is for this 15% to lower itself especially after the rains and the floods. This momentum is very [ visible ].

Our next webcast question is from [ Jonathan Bock ] with Citi. And I quote, "Do you view Pepco as one of your key competitors, especially in Eastern Europe?

The answer is no. Pepco is a different system, marginally successful, and we don't see it as a competitor or as a threat. On the contrary, it awakened us in some areas where we need to be better in order to make sure that they remain so.

A follow-up question from Mrs. Fani Tzioukalia with Euroxx Securities. So is online growing at the same rate with offline?

The what?

Is the online growing at the same rate with offline?

Yes, I would say that this is a fair comment.

The next question is from the line of Reuben Scherzer with TimesSquare Capital Management.

I hope you can hear me. I have a question with the intention of reducing prices for customers. What's the expectation on the impact that will have on gross margin and revenue growth going forward?

We have preannounced that we have an intention of lowering 150 SKUs every day. This is our capacity in price reductions since, as I said, our industry is in the position to do it. However, this commitment that we have is not followed by the rest of the market. And the gap between disposable income and, let's say, the average basket of the consumer is not shortening. This is the worry that we have that although we will be as successful as possible, the market as a whole will move, whether we like it or not, into a deflation due to the fact that there won't be enough money in people's pockets.

Yes, I'm just trying to -- that's like more of a description of the economic outlook and consumers' economic status. I'm curious, yes, the strategy is to reduce price of 150 SKUs. But what's the impact in terms of the revenue growth outlook for the company then? Should investors and analysts expect...

No, we only reduce prices in order to beef up the revenue. As I said before, we will never reduce the price of an item unless the expected growth in turnover is by an equal amount as a percentage. It doesn't make sense if this cannot happen, then you drop the line. You drop the product. But having said that, we live in a world that it costs more and wages do not follow this. So by common sense, something needs to happen in order to find a new equilibrium. What would happen in Europe is anybody's guess. Today's leadership in Europe is a little bit frozen regarding the impact of reality into the daily lives of people. If one does not react, then recession would be a certainty. But my feeling is that we are led by clever people that sooner or later, they will understand the obvious because I'm sure it doesn't fall of their attention what is happening. They decide to play stupid for a period of time, but this is a finite period. You cannot play stupid forever because then you are really stupid, which I doubt that they are.

Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Vakakis for any closing comments. Thank you.

Thank you for participating in this conference. Our commitment as a company is to improve productivity, to improve efficiencies. This is something that because of our size and our commitment, it is achievable. We don't want to do something else. We only want to do what we do better. And gradually, we have to turn every aspect of our business because there are areas that you really have to find a new way of thinking in order to be able to achieve what we have put as a goal. We have demonstrated that in good times and bad times, we are better than the average, and we hope to continue to do so. Thank you very much for participating, and good afternoon.