Lindex Group Oyj (LINDEX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Together with me here in Helsinki, Stockmann Lounge, I have our Chairman of the Board, Lauri Ratia; our CFO, Pekka Vahahyyppa; and our CEO for Lindex, Susanne Ehnbage, is joining us through web from Gothenburg. So welcome, and we are happy to share our half year financial report. As we communicated, our corporate restructuring proceeds started in the 6th of April, and we've been moving very fast and in a good manner throughout these weeks and months. So as stated early on, we will draw up our restructuring program by the 11th of December this year, well on track. Well, as we can see in our results, COVID-19 has affected the performance dramatically during the first half. If we look at March, April and May, they were very difficult times for all businesses, and everybody has been impacted by the COVID. The group sales in January, February were on a healthy level, but then in the first week of March, the coronavirus affected and changed our business performance situation. We saw a clear decline in customer volumes, and sales decline was massive. Both Lindex and Stockmann's online stores are performing very well with the improved sales growth, but unfortunately, they cannot compensate the massive sales decline we've been facing in brick-and-mortar. If we look at the group results for the quarter 2, the group's gross margin was 54.1%. Our revenue was EUR 183 million and was down by 23.2% in comparable currencies. Gross margin declined both in Lindex and Stockmann. Adjusted operating result was minus EUR 1.8 million. And the key reason is the coronavirus that has affected heavily our sales. But fortunately, we are seeing already signs in June that customers are coming back and slow recovery has started. Lindex revenue was EUR 122.1 million. It was down by 20.7%. The growth in the online stores was 102%. Operating costs were down by EUR 12.8 million. And adjusted operating results declined by EUR 2.9 million. Taking into consideration the difficult circumstances, I think Lindex has managed the situation extremely well. Stockmann revenue was EUR 60.6 million. It was down by 31.4%. And also, on the Stockmann side, the online store crew was -- the growth was 128.5%. We were able to drive down our operating costs by EUR 10.2 million. And adjusted operating results declined by EUR 14.6 million. Same applies to Stockmann, people who were working from homes, not visiting the city centers and shopping centers, and that has been the main reason for the situation as we speak. If we look now more closely about the Stockmann division. As I said, the revenue was EUR 60.6 million and was down by 31.4%. And the key reason for the decline is the corona situation. The online growth has been really, really good, 128.5%. And now the online share of the sales is close to 28% for the quarter, comparable with last year 8.3%. Gross margin was 35.6%, and it declined mainly due to the coronavirus situation, which affected the rental income from tenants. It has been also obvious that there is a lot of goods available, so the market has been very volatile in terms of rebating the products, and that we can see also in our results. Operating costs, we were able to do, together with our people, a saving of EUR 10.2 million, and this is a good result which we achieved together with our employees. And that leads to operating result of minus EUR 17.8 million for this quarter. If we look at some of the highlights during the quarter 2, the revenue development was better than expected. And we clearly see that June was improving rapidly after the restrictions in restaurants and cafeterias were taken away. We have a good development in online store. And in May, the online sales already achieved the same level as we achieved in the full year 2019. We've done good results from the cost saving measures, and our cash reserves strengthened clearly. The amount of capital tied up with stock is significantly lower than last year. And we launched over 50 new brands under the first half of the year, and we can see that our employee satisfaction is improving all along. How do we see the future? We will continue to build Stockmann as a source of inspiration for urban life with fashion, home and beauty. The restructuring program proceeds, as I said before, well, and that we are aiming to finalize our rental negotiations with improved terms during the quarter 3 this year. The restructuring program will be filed by 11th of December this year. We will continue adopting our cost structures in views of the situation in our operating environment. But at the same time, we will keep investing in the inspirational shopping experience, both on brick-and-mortar and online. We will launch our new webstore in -- during quarter 4, slight delay because of the corona, but well-moving against the targets. We are, as we speak, renovating our flagship here in Helsinki, especially for the women's department, which will be ready by the beginning of this autumn. And we are renovating our Jumbo department store. And at the same time, we are developing our loyal customer program, and we will have more, with details in the coming weeks and months. And now as we have been managing our stock well, we are ready to launch the autumn fashion and new collections and will continue improving our services, together with our customers. Now I would like to hand over to our CEO, Susanne Ehnbage about the details within Lindex. Susanne, please take forward.

Thank you, Jari. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Great. So let's take a look at Lindex' financial performance then for the second quarter, a quarter where we as well as the retail industry were heavily affected by the ongoing corona pandemic. And during the quarter, we went from having closed stores for the majority of our markets, during the end of June being able to open up on all of our markets again. It has been an extraordinary quarter, where we really had to challenge ourselves with fast and effective cost-saving actions and a really strong [ Q2 ] growth. And we have minimized the consequences [ and during the quarter we saw ] that stands well against last year's very strong results as well as the current situation. So Lindex revenue for the second quarter of 2020 was EUR 122.1 million, and that is a decrease of 20.7%, in comparable currencies down by 18.4%. The decrease mainly came from the loss of sales in April and in May, and sales were more stabilized in June, where the sales almost was on par with previous year. During the quarter, we have also had a very positive development of our online sales. Our e-commerce stands for a share of 16.2%, which is more than double the -- compared to the 6.6% that we had previous year. So gross margin decreased to 63.3% from previous year's 64.3%, which is an effect of more campaigns to drive online sales in the beginning of the quarter. Operating costs decreased by EUR 12.8 million, mainly thanks to cost-saving actions implemented due to the corona situation. And the operating result amounted to EUR 17.2 million. And then I think we can take the next slide, please. Looking into the highlights for the quarter. It has, as I said in the beginning, been an extraordinary quarter, where I can concur that flexibility and quick actions have been more important than ever. And I think that our organization had really delivered on this. And this has made it possible for Lindex to adjust our business in order to support our strong online growth and the changed customer behavior. Our effort delivered a great result, where we increased our online sales in all markets. We doubled our e-comm sales in Norway, Finland, Czech and Poland, and tripled our e-comm sales in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the U.K. This was possible thanks to our flexible way of working, where we, for example, increased our focus on converting brick-and-mortar customers as well as fully implemented our new e-comm platform and adopted our warehouse capacity for our e-comm. We have also, despite the pandemic, continued to our growth with our third-party partnership, where we have made a soft launch with Zalando in June, and we will launch more sites within a couple of weeks. In the beginning of the quarter, we were focused -- we were forced to close the physical stores in 15 out of 18 markets due to governmental decisions. So at the beginning of the quarter, we had 366 stores open compared to 459 in the end of June. And it is gratifying that the development is beginning to turn for our physical stores as well and that the sales in June are at the same level as last year's despite the fact that we have had closed stores in some of the markets also in June. It's also very positive to see the strength in online sales continued also when the brick-and-mortar reopened. As I mentioned, we have worked fairly, with quick and effective cost-saving actions to meet the corona effects. We have done actions such as implemented temporary layoffs, rental reductions and also reprioritized all noncritical costs. During the quarter, we have worked thoroughly to keep our stock well balanced, and we have ended up with the quarter to have a decreased stock value compared to the previous year. We have taken advantage of possible sales opportunities and also implemented these ones really quick, such as testing a new store concept that we call good deals as well as a new outlet store in Czech Republic. We have also successfully tested inspiring live shopping events for our customers, which has also been very well-received. During the quarter, we published our sustainability report for 2019. And we -- and the work is something that we are really proud of. And this commitment is something that we also continue to focus on and also prioritize also in these challenging times. And in June, we also launched an inspiring design collaboration with the Swedish designer, Joy Zandn, and this was an online exclusive collection and it was very appreciated by our customers. So by the end of the quarter, our store network consists of 460 stores in 18 countries, of which 38 were franchising stores. And then we can take the last slide, please. So looking then a little bit more forward. So the recent months have been extremely focused on our daily operations, securing cash flow and profitability and cost-saving actions that have had immediate effects as well as our digital development. Since we can currently see a more stable situation, we have now started to look into our next steps. We have reviewed and reprioritized our strategic investments and also our long-term strategy due to our new reality of the corona. This means that we are looking into our cost levels also in a long-term perspective. This means that the work to optimize our store network and to secure a profitable store portfolio will be a very high priority for us. In order to position ourselves and remain strong in the future, we continue to develop our strong customer offering, while continuing to work on our strategic investments in digital development, in our sales channels and also in sustainability. This especially includes strengthening our e-commerce and omnichannel setup. We will continue to optimize our inspiring and sustainable -- and more sustainable offer, focusing on the customers' needs and wishes. For the autumn, we will increase our online editions. For example, we will more than double our women's wear online editions. And in August, we are launching a Better Denim collection made of more sustainable materials, more sustainable washing processes and cleaning, drying processes. Another exciting thing is the prelaunch for our new underwear brand, Closely, that is also coming up. Closely has successfully started to recruit test pilots in London and Amsterdam and Paris, Berlin, Copenhagen, Stockholm and in Gothenburg. And in August, the test pilots exclusively will be able to start placing orders. And the broad launch is planned for October 1. So after a period with an extreme operating -- operated focus, we are now preparing ourselves for taking the next steps. And our ambition is still very, very clear. We shall be the company handling this situation in the best possible way. And this will be possible, thanks to our focus on continued development and action, enabling a strong performance and a resilient Lindex moving forward. So thank you, and I will leave the word for -- over to Pekka.

Thank you, Susanne. Good morning on my behalf as well. Let's look at the group level figures. Our revenue during the quarter declined by EUR 60 million and amounted to EUR 183 million. Our gross margin declined by 4.5 percent points and amounted to 54.1%. We managed to reduce our costs, both in Lindex and in Stockmann, all in all, by EUR 30 million. Our profit, comparable operating profit, declined by EUR 13 million despite of the cost reductions, and was a negative EUR 3 million. During the quarter, like Jari also mentioned, our cash position has strengthened clearly and our total cash, end of the quarter, was EUR 125.5 million. Looking at our interest-bearing net debt, we have been reducing our debt for, I mean, quarter after quarter after quarter. And as per end of this quarter -- or second quarter, our interest-bearing net debt was at the lowest and that was about EUR 360 million. Looking at our balance sheet and key figures, beginning from the bottom. Our assets and liabilities amounted to EUR 2.1 billion, are pretty much at the same level that it was in beginning of the year and also end of the second quarter last year. Our investments in the fixed assets during the first half was EUR 10 million, below what it was last year. Our cash, like I said, was EUR 125.5 million. And our inventories, level of fixed goods, went down by EUR 10 million and amounted to EUR 140 million -- EUR 135 million. Our cash flow was clearly positive and well better than earlier. Our key figures, meaning equity ratio and net gearing, remained healthy, especially our equity ratio. We have a very solid balance sheet. At this point, we are repeating our guidance. There is still uncertainty in the market due to COVID, and we'll come back to our guidance when the situation is more clearer. But still, at this point, we need to -- I want to say that we are in the process of preparing our restructuring program, and that will be delivered to the District Court during December. With these words, I would like to invite Jari also to the stage, and we are open for questions and answers.

And Susanne is also available from Gothenburg through the web.

Yes. The first one is from [ Goe Polekti ]. How would you describe the sales performance of Crazy Days this year compared to last year?

I mean we did -- if we -- the question is about the spring Crazy Days. So Crazy Days, we did only online. It grew, but obviously, as in all our sales, the brick-and-mortar share of the Crazy Days is so big, so it couldn't cover that. But it's well managed, and the stock has disappeared. So we've been able to manage the stock situation very well.

And how big was the impact of having Crazy Days only online?

I think we said that in the Stockmann division, the revenue during the second quarter declined by 32 percent points. So quite a big amount of that comes from the Crazy Days.

Also, you said you have seen customers coming back to the stores from the beginning of June. Summer sales time is usually busy. How would you describe the situation this summer related to customers coming to stores?

Well, we can clearly see that our regional stores, Turku, Tampere in Stockmann, they've been performing well. The Flagship in Helsinki is suffering from the lack of tourists. Clearly, we don't have the international tourists, the same amount. But also Helsinki city center is suffering from the fact that people are working from home and not being in offices. But June has been clearly better than we expected. And our loyal customers have returned back to Stockmann, so that we can see clearly in all our stores. So a big thank you to our customers.