LPP SA ($LPP)
Earnings Call Transcript · June 11, 2026
Highlights from the call
In the first quarter of 2026, LPP SA reported a revenue of PLN 5.2 billion, reflecting a 10% year-over-year increase, although it fell short of expectations due to adverse weather conditions impacting sales. The company achieved a gross margin of 58.2%, exceeding last year's target by 4.5%. Management indicated a cautious outlook for the remainder of the year, maintaining guidance for EBITDA and profitability despite a reduction in store openings from 950 to 750 by the end of 2025, signaling a more selective growth strategy.
Main topics
- Revenue Performance: LPP reported revenues of PLN 5.2 billion, which represents a 10% increase year-over-year. Management noted that 'despite such conditions, the increase in profit is good', but acknowledged that weather challenges negatively impacted sales performance.
- Gross Margin Improvement: The company achieved a gross margin of 58.2%, which is 4.5% above last year's target. Management stated that 'the gross margin was writing off nicely the volume of our clients in the stores', indicating strong pricing power and cost management.
- Store Openings Strategy: LPP plans to reduce its store openings from 950 to 750 by the end of 2025, reflecting a more cautious approach to expansion. Management emphasized the need for 'profitable openings' and mentioned that 'the ball is in our court' regarding future growth.
- Logistics Challenges: The company faced logistics issues due to a warehouse fire in Romania, which affected its supply chain. Management noted that 'we are slowly catching up with the situation' and expects improvements as new distribution centers become operational.
- E-commerce Performance: E-commerce revenue growth was flat year-over-year, attributed to reduced marketing spend and logistics problems. Management indicated that 'the dynamics slowed down', but they are targeting a recovery in the second half of the year.
Key metrics mentioned
- Revenue: PLN 5.2 billion (vs PLN 5.5 billion est, +10% YoY)
- Gross Margin: 58.2% (vs 53.7% last year, +4.5% YoY)
- EBITDA: PLN 1.2 billion (inline with expectations)
- Store Openings: 121 new stores (vs 150 planned, reduction in future openings)
- CapEx: PLN 600 million (8% below last year)
- Net Debt to EBITDA: 1.2 (slightly improving from last year)
LPP's cautious approach to store openings and the challenges faced in logistics and e-commerce growth may weigh on near-term performance. However, the strong gross margin and commitment to dividends could provide support for the stock. Investors should monitor the execution of management's plans and the recovery of logistics capabilities as key catalysts moving forward.
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Operator
OperatorGood afternoon, Monica Shabrovska. I would like to welcome you at the conference LPP conference results -- on the results of the first quarter. With me here is Marcin Bojko, CFO; and Magdalena Kopaczewska, Investor Relations representative. We presented the results from the first quarter, how they reflect the reality in our activity. We will talk about to you in a moment. We would like to present to you our plans for this year, but also we would like to refer to our plans for the next three years regarding our development of our stationary network. During this meeting, we would like to present to you our financial goals for 2026 and '27 and the entire meeting will end with Q&A. You can ask questions via chat that is visible on your screens. It's already active, and it will be active till the end of today's conference. After the conference, if you have any additional issues or questions, please contact our Investor Relations department and lpp.relationsalpp.com or via our media lpp.com.
Marcin Bojko
ExecutivesSo let's move on to the results from the first quarter. Thank you. Traditionally, the summary of the first quarter, let's start with most important operational events. In the first quarter of '26, we opened 121 new stores, 102 in Sinsay brand according to our plans for this time. At the same time, we spent already PLN 600 million for investment within the first quarter. Close to PLN 3 million was allocated for logistics. This year is not going to be a record-breaking year, but constantly, we've been investing in the area that is most profitable for us, a good return on investment. And in the next quarters, that will be visible. At the same time, our comfortable financial standing, very good EBIT to 1.2 net debt relative to EBITDA makes it possible for us to invest in CapEx and share with you, our investors, the profits and the dividend that was suggested by the management is PLN 900 per 1 share. This is according to our net profit. So constantly, we would like to share profits with you. The operational situation, when we look at these events, was positively stable, but what was not stable and very dynamic. These were profits on every level. We are very happy about these results. The first quarter with improved profitability. Profit of revenue increased slightly, we will -- only 10%. We will go back to it. When we look at EBIT or EBITDA here, the dynamics were more significant, and we are very happy about them. This is what we target, and this is what we delivered last year. So we are very proud about it. Another element, apart from financial aspect is the development of our strategy as Sinsay chain. You remember last year, we accelerated the development based on Sinsay brand. We are very happy that everything goes according to the plan. 121 new stores in Sinsay brand and the first quarter, 2,500 new stores and the entire group, 3,841. This is the value also including closed stores because we are optimizing our network within all our brands. We are very happy about the profits and the development according to our plan, but we also feel happy about profitability in our development and KPIs. This translates into our plan. Before the acceleration we decided that we want to develop really fast, but we want this development to be a quality-based development. So mislocations, when we opened 300 stores was not -- was a different percentage. So we have the quality that we are -- that is stable. So EBITDA to Sinsay, that is around 30% or EBITDA year-over-year when we talk about the stores and profitability per 1 store. So they remain at a very good level. Let's move on to details. This detailed section, I would like to start, honestly, when we look at the last three years, weather slide becomes a must in our presentation. So this was similar in the first quarter. Here, you can see the deviations from the historical average you can see that it's clear in February, definitely lower temperatures compared to historical average in March, the weather was pretty warm. It was reflected in the results. And in April, again, not really convenient weather conditions. We are going to move on to like-for-likes and sales. So we need to look at the following slides from this perspective. So the weather affected not only LPP, we are monitoring market information and statistical data as for detailed consumption, we know that the weather was very demanding. We saw that at the very beginning, despite such conditions, the increase in the profit is good. So we move on to traditional slide sales in LFL stores. A difficult quarter with challenges related to weather. So the first quarter in '26, that is minus 2.8 for the entire group. Reserved Cropp House Mohito positive, plus 2, plus 2 and Sinsay a minus 7. Some of the challenges, operational challenges are going to be described further later on. But when we look at the like-for-likes from the perspective of the weather, we assessed the tendency. So had it not been for the weather conditions 3, 4 percentage points would be better. So that would be positive, below our ambitions, still, but this shows the scale of the challenges that we are facing recently asked for the sales in the first quarter. When we add to the online channel and all the stores, not only like-for-likes, in the first quarter, our dynamics amounted to 10%, almost PLN 5.2 billion. It's not what we wanted, but when we include the weather factor here, we believe that it's a good result. We did what we could have done. When we look at two challenges we were facing, and they were growing and they were accumulated at the end of last year and the beginning of this year. So the firehouse -- the warehouse fire in Romania. So our logistics was not working properly. The goods that we transported to Romania had to be re-transported to Poland. So the Polish was -- warehouses had to deal with these goods. So this was a challenge for us. We are slowly catching up with the situation. I'm going to refer to that later on in the first quarter results, that was really a significant burden for online channel. We focused definitely on profitability. So the agility of our organization, we didn't want to have a lot of difficulties in the cost and performance marketing. This is what we try to optimize with low spendings kept on a lower level. We generated significant increase. With such a demanding environment, this level was not efficient. So we entered the quarter with lower spending we spent 16%. Last year, marketing to revenue. Recently, it was 7 -- around 7%. So this optimization was there. And in the first quarter, we had to face this issue as well around 1% of our dynamics. This is not what we wanted, but we have a clear plan for the next part. In total, we were looking at the broader picture despite a difficult conditions for sales, gross margin, the second element in the plan. This worked really well with lower temperatures, we practically sold out the entire winter collection. Because of this lower temperatures, we didn't have any markdowns. So later on, the sales was lower. So we started single days or periods with markdowns. These were not really effective because there was no traffic in the stores and in online as well. So we withdrew from that. So the first quarter closed with a record margin 58.2%, 4.5% above the target from last year. When we add to that a very strong zloty against the dollar and well negotiated freight for this year, then the gross margin was writing off nicely the volume of our clients in the stores. And the third element, the cost here, as I said, in 2025, we optimized our conditions. We wanted our organization to be agile to reduce the cost indispensable level. So now it's very comfortable. We can add to it. We focus on discipline related to cost, not just a strict reduction in the cost. So you could see that in numbers, 9% improvement of cost per square meter. And here, the significant leverage is the logistics. This is what I mentioned at the very beginning, high CapEx. So we invest in robotics. This is the one that is improving our situation and also a simple discipline in corporate costs, we believe that every lot is carefully spent. We think about it before we do that. That's why such a good result, and this is the strategy that we want to continue when we combine these three elements, sales, OpEx and margin, we have a very dynamic improvement in the profit growth. What is good is the profitability and EBITDA growing by 4%. So these are the results that we want to see. That we want to focus as our goal last year. And as the management, as the organization, we are very proud of it. The profit is nice. We are pleased with it, and we are even more pleased with operational indicators that we generated in the first quarter. And inventory was under control. The challenge that we generated and we faced in the first quarter of last year, we addressed nicely in autumn/winter 2025 season, and we continued the good work this quarter. And you can see this in the numbers. We are pleased with that, PLN 1,400 per square meter. Do we expect an improvement? No. We are -- we will be stocking up before the autumn/winter level, so we will go back to 1,500, 1,600 probably, but we improve turnover, and we can see it in the bullet in the comments on the right, improved by 8 days, and this is a good indicator of our inventory management quality good. Inventory management is also working capital under control negative indicator rotation cycle is 28 days. We keep our good level. Our operating cash flow is gradually growing. And what you are also pleased with because it is another strong foundation of our financial position is the factoring limits used only 40%. We can focus on developing the offer business and on growth. We have quite a lot of room for maneuver here, financing the working capital is also ticked off from the back office and financial side. And this is another thing that enables us to focus us on the core business. CapEx in the period, nearly PLN 600 million, 8% below last year, but this falls into the direction that we communicated in March, which is the peak CapEx more than PLN 3 billion last year. Well, it was the peak last year, mainly because of logistics, where we spent more than PLN 1 billion on expenses in that area. Now we are fetching our main investments distribution center in [ Breisky. ] We are working on a new location in [ Chef, ] and we are continuing implementing robotic solutions. The last slide in this section shows -- and it looks the best for me as the Financial Director because the development investment and sharing profits with shareholders is at a very debt level, the 1.2 leverage is slightly improving compared to last year even. To sum up the first quarter 2026, we can say that we are where we wanted to be. We develop fast and in a profitable way, our profits are growing very dynamically. We can see some challenges moving forward. But all the tools are at our disposal. The ball is in our court. We have strong financial foundations, so we can focus on the core business. We can focus on the initiatives to improve the customer experience and develop the offer. And this way and for these reasons, we are very optimistic about the coming quarters. And moving into the future and looking into the future because we are on midyear now in the second part of the presentation, we want to tell you about what we have now. And as Monika mentioned, what we are looking in the longer perspective. And looking at the hard numbers after May and a couple of days of June, 20% of sales on the group level, online channel bounce back after the first quarter, 17% growth is a level that we target long term and 4% like-for-like. What is also a good thing that the bounce back is at a good gross margin higher than last year. It's not the level of 4, 5 points that we saw for the first quarter, but it is still going in the right direction. We started into the certain markdowns for Sinsay, and we will be starting markdowns for the other brands. We will see how where this goes, but this good management of inventory plays well for us. We have -- so we have room to maneuver with the margin and to adjust the needs by maximizing the gross margin. And the last thing about 350 new shops. This is the plan for the first -- half year according -- as was announced before. So everything goes as we planned. These are the numbers that we can see for now. But if we go on back step back, and we look at the big macro, the global economic picture, we would like to comment on the trends and market behaviors. The trends in the market that we see in the key areas, countries and regions for our development. Starting with Poland, we will move to the right clockwise. Poland, has good macroeconomic environment, strong consumer weather aside. In the first quarter, the market is behaving in the right way. Our new openings are aligned with our plans, all the conditions are met. We have no reasons to reduce or to speed up. We will be focusing on the direction that we set for ourselves this year. Ukraine, we have a very strong position there. We built it gradually for the last three years. This is our second market in the capital group. Romania has fallen down to the third place. And the strong position in Ukraine gives us market comfort it means that we can a little slow down a little bit there. We can focus on the best locations because the market is profitable, like-for-likes are normalizing, but still it remains an area that has its challenges. Unfortunately, the conflict, the ongoing contract, the war is still going on there. So we have to use common sense at this stage with our scale of more than 500 shops in Ukraine. So we need to be continuing development in more selective locations going down Central Asia, very prospective markets, very good outlook, both economic and the demographic growth, the first shops that we opened their last year showed good profitability, but we observed in recent months was that some shops in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan when the weather was already warmer, they still had winter jackets on store. So our logistics is quite spread. And after the fire in Romania, we have our challenges in Poland, both, and in the region, but all deliveries are accumulated in Poland. And then when they get -- once they reach Poland by sea, we send them back to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan by road. This is not optimal in terms of cost or time, so slow development there. And before we open the new DCFC next year, we will be focusing on the best shops. And once our logistic abilities in the region are on the level to enable us to shorten the logistics. We will start the DC and all the deliveries from Asia will be related in China and send by rail to Kazakhstan. South Europe, here, we focus on two main markets, Romania and Bulgaria. Very simple short come and very simple comment. Some of you during the regular meetings communicated us that economically-wise, Romania is slowing down over the last months in our like-for-likes. We've not noticed that yet. Probably, our strong position prolonged the good sales for us. But indeed now, what is happening with the grosometic stick product dynamics that is slowing down significantly in these two countries. Some of the -- this means that some of the -- our opening projects are on the border profitability. We do not want to push it at any cost. We will be focusing on the most profitable openings. The forecast says that a year and year and a half maximum tiers and the situation should start improving. The entire market region is in the same situation there in South Europe. If something moves there. We will be watching it close, and we will be accelerating Italy. Western Europe is a new direction. New openings generate positive profitability there, but it is slightly below our expectations. So what we do is we slow down strategically. We focused the entire opening pipeline. On the south of Italy -- the center of Italy, and we will be improving our offer there. We will be improving our presentation in shops there displays. And until we have sorted that out the potential offered by half of the country, in fact, we will be leaving that for later as soon as we see better profitabilities. And it's not much that we miss, it's about 4%, 5%. Once we have that, we will go back to development. And Central Europe, by which we mean Czechoslovakia and Hungary here, especially in Czech and Slovakia, we can see economic development, the same as in the south of Europe. We already noticed that before and reflected in our profitability, and we communicated that to you. And this is the moment to actually push on the brakes a little bit harder. And what we see and what we do is what we call control cannibalization because in the region, we have very good recognition of the brand. We have been there for quite a long time. But because of that, we have quite high saturation in some of the regions, about 55% to 60% in some of the regions, and there, the like-for-like sales is slowly cannibalizing. We have provided that for a -- we see that in the KCF and in profitability, the incremental shops that we add are continuing to add positively to EBIT, but we have to be more selective here, especially given what's happening in Czech and specifically in Slovakia. A very brief summary of what we see in the macro scale in our regions. What does it mean for our plans moving forward, 950 shops that we set for the end of 2025, we limit that to 750 and same number of openings for Sinsay is our assumption for the next year. We believe that this is the optimal number of the opening of new stores. As we have always said that we want to grow grow fast, but we want to grow in a profitable manner. And to give you a comment -- an illustrative comment after the half year when we focus on Sinsay we said that we moved to Formula 1. So probably, we are on the 20th lap of the race, and there are 40 more to go, and we are not working for the record in 1 lap, but I want to be the winners of the race by the end of the season. This is the way we look at our development. So we want to grow and develop long and sustainably. So this is the reason for our decision. So this is the number that we are comfortable with moving forward. So far about the new stores, new openings and looking for the next years, but we -- remember about our like-for-like shops because new stores is one thing, one part of the story, they accelerate the development. But in Sinsay, we already have more than 1,800 like-for-like stores. It's the biggest share of the like-for-like stores that have been with us for more than 14 months. And here, looking at this, the like-for-like that we generated the results on comparable stores. We set ourselves or identified five main areas for ourselves, that we want to focus on in the next future. We believe that these areas will improve the dynamics and our sales. So very briefly, let's move on to what we understand by all of these collection. In Sinsay -- all initiatives related to Sinsay, value for money. This is what we see from the second half of last year and the beginning of this year. In value for money segment, we focused on money, meaning the price, but this value component is slightly missing, or we can't see that. So we had some hits. We were not able to order more. So we moved away from fashion heritage a bit. And how do we want to work with that looking forward. We have this action back to fashion. So we focus on smart approach to value. It was not going to be a lowest price, but a trend-related product the latest fashion-related products. This is our strength. This is how we do it, and we know how to do it. So we want to go back to it. So this is what reserved two years ago. They went back to their basics, identified the clients in the region. And right now, as the only brand generates for the 8 or 9 quarters, very good like-for-likes. So this is the new approach, the new path for Sense. It seems like a new part, but this is not really a revolution. This is going back to where we are good at to the core of our business. So this is what we are going to focus on in the newest future. The second area, a customer experience. As I mentioned before, in '25, we focused on significant cost optimization. So to be a very lean organization focused on the development and the cost was not problematic for us. And the stores were hit bluntly saying, so the budgets were limited, what it meant in a practical aspect, you signaled that to us. The presentation in the stores of our collection, our windows were not really good in quality like compared to two years ago. So we want to change that. So there are use fewer staff translated into more queues. So we are going to increase the budget in the best source. We are verifying that. On an ongoing basis, we add personnel to these stores. So this experience, this customer experience is going to be improved. So we add on top of that, the marketing budget, better presentation, better windows, displaying our collections, the fashion side of our business. And we also implement self-service checkouts. We have them in 350 stores at the end of this year, we want to have 1,100, 1,200 stores with self-service checkout. This will free time for our personnel in our stores. Another area of performance marketing. This is what I mentioned at the very beginning, in '23 and '24, we spent a lot in this area. And at the end of '24 and '25, we've been using that. So this snowball was still rolling and generated significant dynamics, and we generated also a good profitability in e-commerce [indiscernible], it was comparable to our stores. We can see that this potential is slowing down. Those who are with us on a regular basis asked questions. We commented on the -- that we have this, these resources. We have these P&L resources, so we can spend more on advertisement on the internet that will be like 1 -- plus 1 percentage point year-over-year related to the revenue. Another area that we defined for our initiative for next years, this is home. In '24, that was 60% growth. So it was the novelty. So we built a very broad offer. So it contributed to like significantly. But now naturally through the development of this department, we see we need to focus on the development for '26 winter and fall, we owe that less than 20% of these roll colors. So we crossed out not profitable aspect. We omitted the products that are cannibalizing each other. So in Sinsay, you won't have 17 different pillows in the shape of a pumpkins, but the best ones and the best -- the most profitable ones. Online, the offer is going to be definitely broader. And in traditional stores, we are also changing our furniture. Fashion heritage is a strong element of LPP. Home was being developed constantly. And in the stores, the manner of presenting also makes sense. So we started with Sinsay stores, the best ones when home is from the beginning of our stores. So we are going to improve this aspect in Sinsay stores. So it will be refreshed. So we had a small department of Home, and now the sales speed up. The first results are going to be there. We are not waiting for them. We are just summing up. This situation for you in a brief form regarding the initiatives we are going to focus on. So this is our day work. First results are visible already. The best orders, the best -- the improved quality in the Sinsay, this is the only department that had positive like-for-likes, and it is continued. So this is the direction we are going to focus on. And the last area, last leverage, logistics. It is also the core in this group when we have a good offer, then you can provide good products for the clients reliably, and we had some issues with the fire in Romania with lead times and with products in the stores with the stock from 4 to 5 days. It prolongs up to 15 even. So the client can accept it once or twice, but in the third time. So this is something that we had to face. We did what we could. So the dynamics here on the southern market slowed down, but this is the area on our size. So we select the new locations. We have the new [ FC ] in Romania from October. At the beginning of July, we are going to have the new distribution center in Romania, so -- in place of the one that [ get ] fire. We are going to use this location, and we are going to speed up in November this should reach the target level. So we go back to the port in Constanta to stock in Romania. So now from the ports in Constanta, we are storing up our new warehouse. So these were difficulties we had faced last year. So everything is going back on track combined. With other initiatives in time, we will regain the trust of our clients. At the end of the day, what does it bring positive like-for-likes, the increase in e-commerce on the internet from the P&L point of view. It is not affecting our estimation for OpEx in this year because these activities whether performance marketing or improved budget in the stores. This increased cost on the one hand, but this operational leverage and our discipline regarding corporate cost is significant. So it is compensated. So we don't have any indication to to adjust that for OpEx and for CapEx. This is just the change in the home department in our stores. When we look also at our CapEx, this is not a very significant amount. So target for this year regarding investments is a bit lower than what we described or what we planned. What is also crucial for us. So here, you have the notes in what area, what initiatives should be operational or -- so LFLs understood as e-commerce and stores. Sinsay here, this is 3 omnichannel. So we believe that through this leverage the synergies here are going to be greater than the result of single initiatives. So through omnichannel, in our case, in Sinsay, 2 plus 2 is going to equal 5 this time. So this leverage for the entire group is going to work perfectly, diluting a little bit OpEx. Let's look at the numbers. So this is an important aspect. What does it mean? So the openings and all the initiatives, what does it refer to? Slide update us for '26 related to P&L. With lower stores, new stores and a weaker first quarter dynamics in [indiscernible] forecasted a bit lower. Looking at the margin, looking at the best forecast and the data that we have for the second half of the year. It's really comfortable situation. Gross margin is going to be -- to reach around 56% costs at the same level. So basically a little bit less revenue, a bit -- a very good margin, EBITDA, and no change, profitability. Slide change. As for '27, this is similar versus the numbers we presented to you in December '25. And less revenue, better margin cost discipline. And finally, at the end, when we look at the profitability, we have the same result. As expected, of course, reduced by fewer openings and the financial stands very comfortable. The systematic -- the leverage will systematically be going down? 2027 for us is not a goal in itself, a street 3-year strategy 2025, say, 7 -- this will be the last year or strategy. But for us, it is not the target, but milestone rather, and we continue looking ahead, and would like to show you now a framework plan for 2028. How we look into the modest future and what our strategic vision is for the off-line stores is positive like for likes above inflation. Theres [indiscernible] there. If we have a good situation there, the automatically business works very well there. Like numbers 2028, we can see that we will be able to maintain the 750 openings of Sinsay. And starting from 2029, we will be focusing on 350 openings per year, the best projects and selectively the is very big, but the potential is 10,000 stores. Can we yield the whole potential? Probably not, but will it be 60% or 65%. There still will be a lot to be done in that area, and we will be focusing on the best. As I already mentioned, the macro Hungary is a very good example. The last two years was a very difficult market in Hungary. Previously, we already slowed down the openings there. But with every coming quarter, we see better profitabilities, better information reaches from the market. So if we wait another two quarters, then and the improvement is constant. We will go back to dozen or so more projects on that market. The other brands, the heritage brands, Reserved Cropp Mohito will be focusing on opportunistic development there are not many new shopping galleries for us to open new reserved stores, but it's not that there are none. For example, Upper House last year is a good example. We are monitoring the situation. We are focusing on that. And all the brands, the Sinsay and our Heritage brands, we will be focusing on closing unprofitable stores because this is not generally it improves the image of the entire network and enables us to generate better profitability in the e-commerce leg. We targeted 15% to 20% growth. And here, we see a lot of room for generating the dynamics, still looking at online penetration versus Western Europe and other markets, still our penetration is quite low compared to them. So this channel will be growing in importance. We, as LPP, are open in 27 markets -- operate in 27 market most of them, our e-commerce is nonexistent. So the result of potential to use the channel synergy that I mentioned is also accelerating and driving the channel in the marketplace. This year, we want to start in back-to-school period, August, late August, we will start with small steps, but we have high hopes about this project, we focus on complementary project that will naturally supplement and support the Sinsay brand. This will be more marketplace -- quality marketplace, we'll not be focusing on volume but on quality more, and how it presents to generate natural synergies. Speaking of financial result, minimum margin is 35%. Looking at history, without the macro effects, this is the level that we can comfortably ensure the cost discipline LPP is known for cost discipline, and we will not be changing anything here. This is our strength, and we combine it with good like-for-likes, good margins, stable margin and cost discipline, then we are certain that we will be able to systematically quarter-by-quarter, year-by-year, improve our profitability. This will mean -- but the free cash flow, but also a potential to pay out the dividend because we are a dividend company after all. We used to be, we are and we want to continue to be in the coming periods. How will we do it through our people with the passion of our people in May this year for celebrated the '25 years on the Polish Stock Exchange. It's thanks to people who have passion. Some of them -- most of them are still with us. They worked on the success for the last 25 years. And our stocks grew by 50% in value. We know how to do it despite the challenges we experienced many successes on which we will fund our development for the future years. Whether we'll meet in 2 years or 12 or 20, I'm certain that LPP will still be continuing as gradual development, and this is what we wish for ourselves. And with the technology that we are using and developing and ring on recently, I'm sure that our development will be even faster and more visible starting with the coming quarters. This is the end of our summary of the results and the look ahead. And we can move on to the Q&A session.
Marcin Bojko
ExecutivesLet's start with the question about the gross margin. How how much -- what was the influence of freight on foreign currency and improved pricing on the gross margin, 4.5% of positive deviation year-over-year 3 percentage points is the macro effect, the freight and the foreign exchange and the rest is the effectiveness. Next question is about like-for-like of House and Mohito. House generated 15% LFL, while Mohito, minus 16%. Could you comment on the factors that caused the different results of the two brands. The house brand -- well, it's a very good question. Thank you for asking it. Beginning from second half of last year, our model has slightly changed. Before starting the season, the purchasing budget, that we allocated to brand to purchase new collections is used less in the sense that House does not contract models at 100%, but leaves a certain buffer. I will not tell you exactly how much the buffer is, but it's quite a high margin buffer. And when the season starts, House works on the trends observed in social media has AI tools to scan the social media to identify the trends and they react in real time, and they contract several fashion proposals in reduced number of items. And when it comes to say about 10 models, 3, 4 of them sell very well, generate very good margins and like-for-like, and then we stock up on them fast, and this is the model of House that House operates in, and this is reflected in the results. They know how to do it. But we also want to scale also to other brands as well. As being LPP, we are conservative about that and result of -- is a different scale of Mohito, but probably this is the reason that -- of the House is like good likes. But for Mohito, we rediscovered ourselves with this brand. This is the brand only for women two years ago, that brand was an example of, for others, how to develop, how to generate positive like-for-like beginning with 2024. Our collections did not catch up the expectations of the customers. So now we bet on better quality materials. In autumn, you will see the best effects. We have a new team that that is doing a great job there. They have ideas. They will be using the solutions developed by how the new approach. So I think that we need to be patient about Mohito. But the full picture, well, it's still a very profitable brand. Two years ago -- a year ago, it was the most profitable right now, it is at the level of reserve, maybe slightly below. But despite the challenges and the poor like-for-likes, it still is a very good result at the EBIT level. Next question is about e-commerce revenue from e-commerce remained unchanged year-over-year, while the average dynamics of growth over the last two years was about 23% plus. Please comment on the reasons for the result. How was it affected by limiting the expenses on performing marketing and whether the current quarter should be regarded as a onetime deviation. And additional question was Sinsay brand result behind -- the cost behind the result. Yes, let me repeat what I mentioned during the presentation, we look at the dynamics, 1% dynamics in the quarter scale in the e-commerce area, about 5%, 6% of the dynamics was taken away by the weather, but 6%, 7% is a poor result compared to historical results, we target more at 15%, 16%. And the other effect, 15%, 20% and the other effect is the performance marketing reduced costs and our logistics problems and to give you the sense of the importance of the logistics problems after the fire in Romania, we maintained sales, our organization. It's not the our organization is comparable and the logistics should be praised. But yes, the dynamics slowed down, specifically in Southern Europe, Romania, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Greece, the markets that were served by the warehouse in Romania. The other areas grew but like-for-like and the economics was below last year. And we can see that I do not want to give you specifics on what the impact of the respective factors. But the logistics is improving with our strong P&L, we can safely add to the performance marketing budget. We are waiting. We -- this is hard work before in front of us we have to convince our customers that they will once again receive their products in 3, 4 days rather than 2 weeks. So we are targeting the third, fourth quarter where new location will have full operational capacity. Next question is about settlement of the losses, the damages for the loss property in Romania, what was the receivables and the balance of -- the liabilities of the balance at the end of April, what is the insurance. Were you wanted to claim insurance in the report. You say that you have additional costs and lost sales. So I assume the numbers are quite high. As for the insurance, we have a PLN 350 million reserve booked last year after the fire. And out of that, over 2/3 the money came to our bank accounts. The rest in our assets and stock, we are still working with the insurers so this settlement takes time. So we provide documentation, and we've cooperating with the liquid data, but some business interruption and the lost profits that ended at the end of March. At the beginning of May, we sent the documentation. I'm not going to give you the exact number but this covers what was in the question. So lost margin that we assessed at that particular period and additional costs related basically to inefficiencies related to logistics. So on an ongoing basis, we are going to provide information for you. So the liquidation and the talks with the insured are ongoing. So please give us some more time. Please give us details as for the economics of the latest new openings in Sinsay stores. What's the profitability and return on investment related to the new stores opened in Sinsay compared to those opened in the recent years. When we look at the results from last year and the first quarter of this year, payback period prolonged by 2, 3 months. So from 13 months, we entered 1.5 years, the level of 16, maybe 17 months, but this is definitely below our benchmark that we defined 24 months. So everything goes according to the plan. We tried on the slide presenting macroeconomics, give you more details. How do we look at that? How do we read region by region, what is going on. So this is just case-by-case scenario. This is how we react, and we globally at Sinsay result as a brand, and the results are really good, especially compared to the pace of development. Another question refers to competition. How the management assess the SHEIN and Temu competition compared to situation from which segments are more sensitive. When -- where are the most significant advantages related to LPP. So probably you would need a number and customer traffic. So we can summarize it as we saw platforms that entered Poland, especially at the beginning, they grew significantly, but then they stabilized -- the situation stabilized. Naturally because of these price-related benchmark, this is similar to Sense. So omnichannel leverage being present in both channels, good up, good quality security related to our stock. This is our advantage. Quick logistics. Well, for the Southern Europe, this is not really the case, but we are working on it. And this is a task that we can improve easily when the warehouse is fully operational. So these are our advantages. This is what we want to compete with, and we can compete with. Based on one quarter, it's difficult to extrapolate the results we've been growing 20%, 25% on the internet. So we still have tools and still have reserves to grow. And this is what we are going to do. So we are going -- getting back on track. We have a lot of initiatives doing that. When we look at the recent results, we can see that everybody is just experiencing a certain stabilization, especially with Tomo platform. So the number of users was like 20 million. Now it's 17 million. So they all have challenges. We are convinced that through these strong points, we can compete with them and with other players in off-line and in online. Also a question related to TikTok shops starting in June in Poland. The question is, what kind of impact do you expect -- impact on the company. At this point, we are looking at one of the platforms where you can purchase one of the tools. We had also examples from our domestic market. impost also showed new solutions. So I believe that this is one of the means for the client to make it possible to reach different brands. It is, I believe, too early to give precise numbers or precise impact exactly for LP or for the market as such. A question related to guidance. In guidance for '27 in the upper level of gross margin, there is a comparable level to '26 despite high quarter in '26. So we can see the level when you can cover the results from that, yes, the lower level indicated is there because we predict, or we hope for a normalization of the situation in '26 is an exceptional year because a lot worked well in the margin and all the factors coincided with each other. So when we look at like-for-likes and history, we can see from the operational point of view, we still have some buffer zone. So with better like-for-likes with better collection, this is what we see in house. Price reductions if they hit trends very well, then the markdowns are not necessary at such level. So the product is very successful. So thanks to that, we can see space for balancing the cost of right because the other a difficult year for the sector. And with oil price, the price increases are going to be there. will translate into the purchase, but we believe that the dollar is going to be pretty much stable. And thanks to our effectiveness, we can balance that. Another question about guidance, the revenue part for 2026, 2027, what is the reason for the significant cut. The main factors include fewer openings, assumption of lower likes in brands because of the listings that suffering the dynamics -- the e-com dynamics below the 25% that we assumed for e-com, but we are improving. August will be the first month that the logistics center in Romania will be operational at 40%. And in autumn, it will reach 80%, 90%. So we are realistic about guidance. We want to share the best numbers. And after the first quarter, the second quarter, speaking honestly, in terms of sales, it will be very demanding, May was very good. But last year after for May, we had very strong June. But with a strong base this year, June will be normalized. But with the good margin and lower markdowns, we are certain that the margin, year-over-year, will be high, and we will repeat the situation of the first quarter. So we see that in the top line because the operational challenges will lag something, but it will be compensated by higher margins. So the quarter in terms of results will be good, but the full initiatives that we listed in today's presentation and the full effect and full scale is expected for the second half year. Revision down of the number of opening in guidance after 2025 suggests several potential reasons. First, lower than initially assumed absorbability of the market, higher operational challenges with managing multiple regions, stronger competitive pressure, higher cannibalization effect or availability of attractive locations, which of these factors have the strongest impact on your decision. I would have to look at the least one more time. But the way we look at it, there are a number of factors, and I could add economic challenges to at least the customer sentiment in different countries. Logistics channels in Central Asia, but we look at with sensitively at the [indiscernible] pipeline is 10,000 Sinsays. This is the maximum potential of market. Right now, we have 2,500. Over the next 3 years, we will add another 200. So we will be practically at the level of a saturation of 45%, 50%, then naturally, this is a level where cannibalization start, and we'll have to be careful about, and we'll have to focus on the most profitable projects. And gradually, we assume reaching about 55%, 60% of the full potential. This will involve lower CapEx, of course, we will be optimizing our network. We look more from the perspective of the entire organization. We want to be healthy and sustainably profitable. But the way we did it last year. And now we will be opening in such way that long term, not in two years, not in 2027, but in 2037, LPP remains to be a healthy financially sound organization, is systematically improving profitability. So in a year or two, the 300 -- well, the situation has been dynamic in the last couple of years. The only constant is change. So we will be telling you -- updating you on the numbers. This is our best knowledge at the moment, and we are happy that the bottom line, the profit level is not changing. And what we declared, and what we said at the end of last year, we maintained to deliver. Next question is about the turnover. What is the turnover expected for marketplace in Sinsay? I think it's too early. Let's start the project in the second half of August. We will see how it goes, how the ramp-up goes. And the new customers that we acquire. And then I think in September, we have a conference in December. We have another conference. We will share the first effect with you then. But what we'll be repeating will start slowly with good quality in mind. So that the merchants and the offer that reaches the Sinsay marketplace is a natural synergy and has the complementary effect and complementary nature, where there no [indiscernible] toys or cat or dog food, pet food or cosmetics. This is what we are targeting, but this will not be tires or tools. It has to align with the Sinsay vision. The Sinsay concept and have a positive incremental overall effect. And last question, there are many today but we'll answer all the questions after the conference, but the last conference is about dividend. You mentioned dividend in the next years. Will there be a new official dividend policy or maybe it already exists? And you -- could you comment on it? No, we are working on the new dividend policy. It will be presented and accepted during the shareholder meeting in July, but do not expect any surprises. And this was the last question in the Q&A session. Thank you for your questions and for your presence. The next meeting is scheduled for the mid-September at the beginning of autumn. So let me do wish us and you the fewest weather anomalies and have a good holiday relaxation and come back safely to us in September and see you in 3 months at the results conference for the first half of this year. Thank you, and see you.
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