Matas A/S (MATAS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Matas H1 Interim Report for 2023/'24. Today's call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] Speakers, please begin.

Thank you, operator, and welcome, everyone, to the call covering what is a milestone quarter for the Matas Group. It is one for the history books. It is the first time we are reporting as a Nordic company. I'm joined by Per Madsen, our CFO, and we will cover the news and events of the quarter. I will start out with a few comments on strategy. I will do a quick peek into KICKS Group, and what we have learned from being together with KICKS Group. We are reporting 1 month, the month of September for KICKS Group. And then I will hand over to Per to cover the financial results, and we will take questions on the Q&A, knowing that there will be a lot of questions around the acquisition of KICKS, and how that impacts the numbers. This was a very good quarter, not only in terms of making the acquisition and becoming a Nordic company, but also looking at the numbers despite the fact that there is macroeconomic uncertainty, despite the fact that we had a very wet summer, despite the fact that consumers traveled more than ever, we actually saw really great growth in the business. So even correcting for KICKS, we lapped DKK 1 billion in the Danish part of the business in the summer quarter for the first time, of course, one of those symbolic milestones as well. But DKK 1.28 billion for the combined business, an uptick on EBITDA before special items of DKK 17 million, up to DKK 177 million, up from DKK 160 million last year, of course, affected by the acquisition. I think the one number that stands out, of course, is the organic revenue growth of 8%, driven by spectacular, I can say, online growth of 33%. Our margins came in perfectly in line with our expectations, 13.8% before special items, reflecting that we are investing in growth, we are investing in our assortment expansion. And one other number that stands out is the transactions, of course, affected by KICKS in there, but even taking out KICKS, we see a growth in the number of transactions, and that is the healthiest way to grow, more customers or customers shopping more frequently with our businesses as they take advantage of our broader assortment. So we are very happy and very pleased with the performance, the underlying performance of the company in the summer quarter. And that leads us to maintain our guidance. And of course, with those kinds of sales numbers, that we are comfortable about that guidance. We are looking into the 2 biggest months of the year, the Christmas and Black Friday months. We are very new to KICKS, so we want to understand that business. But of course, just the numbers make us quite comfortable in reiterating the guidance we gave at the end of August. Revenue guidance of DKK 6.4 billion to DKK 6.6 billion, EBITDA margin around 15%, and CapEx of DKK 500 million to DKK 525 million, excluding M&A. And that, of course, reflects that we are breaking ground on our Matas Logistics Center and also our KICKS Logistics Center is opening. Again, I just want to remind you that this is a different company. This is a company operating in a much bigger market. We now have 5 million club members across the Nordics that we are serving. We have 500 stores. We have a business that is -- around 1/3 is an online business, so a true digital company. We have a shared SKU base or a product base of more than 60,000 SKUs that we can eventually cross-sell across all markets. We have close to 4,000 colleagues that are trained advisers that interact with the customers every single day. So really a Nordic market leader with lots of potential. As we look into the strategy, and I think that's one more highlight of the quarter that growth and performance is really driven by the execution of the growing Matas Group strategy. We are seeing that what we set in motion in August of '21, we are seeing that pay off. We are seeing growth being driven by what we do more than by favorable market conditions. I will get back to the assortment expansion. I will get back to the e-commerce growth, which is really notable. And just want to say that one of the things we're seeing this quarter is that our stores are really starting to take advantage of being able to sell the widened assortment -- the widened online assortment through their mobile POS. So on the shop floor, they can give advice to customers, they can order products from our vast selection online. Also of note, a good growth in our private brands, our Striberne, despite actually not that much sun in the quarter, so 18% of retail revenues in Matas was from our private brands, private label. And we're also seeing expansion of our distribution in Germany, now reaching 225 doors for Striberne. And our makeup brand, Nilens Jord, is introduced in 70 doors in Germany. And one of the big things and one of the expensive things happening in this quarter, but also one of the very, very important things because it is our platform for growth, is that we have broken ground on the Matas Logistics Center, just 10 minutes from where I'm standing right now, outside of Allerød, and the KICKS Logistics Center went past the final milestones and actually opened mid-October and is now serving product to customers just outside of Stockholm, 2 very, very important assets that will give us the platform for future growth. Our strategy. The growth strategy that we have is to sell more to the existing member base. Customers really like shopping with Matas. They really like shopping with KICKS, bringing a broader and broader assortment to our members and making them aware that they can find new brands, new categories that fit with their perception of what Matas and KICKS does is a growth driver that is not dependent on macro or competition. It's really dependent on us educating and inspiring the customer to buy from our wider assortment. We have seen -- since we introduced that strategy in August of '21, we saw it work early on, and we're just seeing that strategy scale with every quarter, and actually, it's driving half the growth that we're seeing in this quarter, it's actually driven by the introduction of new brands. We introduced 44 new brands in the quarter, but really seeing that initiative living up to the promise that we hoped it would, and customers are really happy about being able to find those brands that they might have shopped elsewhere. They do like to shop them with Matas. And of course, this is one area for KICKS as well. Now with the warehouse that they have even better platform for looking into assortment expansion. One highlight, and I think this should not be missed on a day like this. We, of course, as many, many other companies saw tremendous online growth during COVID, with the consumer staying at home, shopping online, I think most of the online markets, many, many online players have seen declining growth rates or even falling growth rates, the online market as such is not growing at the pace we were used to. So being able to say that we, on top of the peak during COVID, have been able to grow 19% is I think that the -- maybe the strongest proof that the strategy what we're on to is really working. So 19% and, of course, 33% online growth is a number that we are truly proud of. On the acquisition of KICKS Group, we closed 31 August. And we have spent time on one thing, and that is getting ready for Christmas. It is for us in Matas and even to a large extent for KICKS being more premium, the Christmas season is the season. So I think 95% of all our attention goes into delivering a fantastic customer experience on Black Friday, in the Christmas weeks. This is our high season. So that's what we're spending most of our time on. And the last 5% of our time, we are spending on getting to know each other, understanding each other's businesses, creating personal connections between people. And I'm happy to report that this acquisition, and I will give you the headline numbers, just to remind you, is off to a good start. This is the market leader in the Nordic beauty and well-being market. We acquired the company for DKK 692 million, an EBITDA multiple of 4.7%. We expect DKK 140 million in synergies from both improvements and synergies and the deal was fully debt financed. It is off to a good start. We are seeing KICKS Group to perform in line with expectations. We have appointed a new management in KICKS, and they are running from day 1 and really happy to collaborate with the KICKS management, very capable team on the KICKS side. We have opened a new logistics center. And of course, that is the beginning of everything, having that platform will allow us to expand the assortment in KICKS as well in -- starting from where KICKS is today. We have established an integration office. We have a very clear plan to deliver on the improvements and synergies. And we are actually seeing the first synergies and the first improvements already coming in. You won't be able to tell that in the numbers we report today, but we are seeing tangible results from the integration of Skincity. We are seeing tangible results being delivered on the supply chain transformation. So we are off to a good start with both the core performance, but also the integration on the sort of more hard side of the integration. But I think even more importantly, on the people side of integration, I think we are really, really happy to have gained good motivated, capable colleagues in Sweden, Norway and Finland. And of course, at this point in time, we're also happy to say we have seen no major surprises in -- on the inside of KICKS. We had a very, very thorough due diligence process and things are the way we expected. So we are very much in line with expectations as to the KICKS acquisition. It is a busy time with Christmas and Black Friday and all of the dreams and hopes we have for the joint company as well, spending time on that. So with that, I will hand over to Per to cover the financial results before we open up for questions.

Thank you, Gregers. Yes. And as Gregers said, this is the first quarter we're going to report, including KICKS, which is also what you will see in the numbers. So let me just try and take you through the numbers. And as you will see in our report also, you will see the difference between the reported growth numbers and the underlying growth as Gregers also was referring to. So on the revenue side, what we're looking at is 30% growth, but underlying 8% from the Matas Group. Margins pretty much in line with last year. This is also a reflection that the KICKS business is delivering roughly the same margins as we are doing. And this small reduction compared to last year is a reflection of our continuous assortment expansion, where you know as we were saying earlier that we will have a slight impact in the beginning when we launched new brands and then it will improve over time. From a cost side, again, these numbers include KICKS, and the increase we are seeing is basically KICKS, then it also reflects, as we said, the investments that we are doing in growing Matas Group. And that is impacted by 2 ways, both in terms of the assortment expansion. But as we're growing the online basis with 33%, that also has an impact on our cost base, no incremental freight and also the handling in our webshop, basically driving some incremental costs delivering that very, very strong growth in our online business. From an EBITDA perspective, delivering DKK 177 million, an 11% growth from last year. The EBITDA margin is, of course, a reflection that KICKS coming into the Matas business joining, and their EBITDA margin, as you recall also from our introductions when we launched the acquisition is -- they're coming in with a lower EBITDA percentage, which of course, is giving the average as we're seeing in the second quarter. Inventories, I know this is a key topic, and we talk about that every quarter. As you will see in this quarter, again, inventories are growing significantly. They are now at DKK 1.7 billion, and that's an increase of DKK 750 million, basically coming from the KICKS acquisition. And then as we're growing our business with the speed we are growing right now, of course, that means that we need extra inventory levels, which is basically what you're seeing in the DKK 70 million that we have increased inventories. If we compare from a last 12 months, you will see exactly the same level as we had last year, around 23%. So just reflecting the normal level of inventories prior to going into the third quarter. From a cash flow perspective, normally, we would be looking at very positive cash flows. I just want to remind everybody this quarter we acquired KICKS. And that, of course, has an impact on our free cash flow. Working capital, as you will see, is also a negative. That is also a reflection of KICKS coming into the business, with a working capital negative for the quarter. All in all, as expected, also on our cash flow. And that basically brings me into our leverage because closing the second quarter, our leverage is 2.8 and that is based upon, of course, the full acquisition of KICKS, and it's well within our long-term target between 2 and 3, but it's also reflecting that the funding of our biggest acquisition in the time of Matas is actually funded from within, and as explained when we did the acquisition with a small bridge financing from our financial institutions. And with that, I will then open for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question will be from the line of Sebastian Grave from Nordea.

Sebastian here. So just first on, as you probably guessed, on KICKS, it contributed DKK 217 million top line and DKK 102 million gross profit for the September here. How does that -- how does these numbers compare to last year's performance? Can you give some insights here?

Well, if we compare KICKS to last year and the growth we're seeing in this quarter, it is without a doubt that it is the Matas Group who is actually driving the growth with the 8% underlying growth. But we are also seeing growth in the KICKS business, not to the same extent for the month of September, as we've seen in Matas.

How about the gross profit margin KICKS now versus last year?

Roughly the same level as the Matas. So when you look at the numbers where we report 44.5%, KICKS is performing in line with their gross margins from last year.

Yes. And then adjusting for KICKS, so Matas stand alone, I get to a number of 44% gross margin for the quarter. Could you help me bridge that to the last year's 44.8%, how much of this is discount? How much is revenue mix, product mix, et cetera? Could you help me sort of give some color to this and then try to bridge from last year?

So I think there are 2 factors affecting. One is that, of course, the overwhelming part of the growth is coming from online. And as you know, online on a gross margin level is dilutive when we have the growth online. So there is a channel effect going into the margin. It's not major with 33% growth. I think that reflects that it's not a super impact we're having from that. And the other big part is, of course, as Per mentioned, it is the assortment expansion because as we go into new categories, we don't have the same gross margin once we introduce because volumes are small. We don't discount too much. We don't maybe have the best terms because volumes are small. So this is an area where we are investing with open eyes and saying, this is part of the game of expanding assortment, you introduce new assortment, you market the assortment, you accept the lower gross margin. And then as the business scales, you get that gross margin expansion.

That was very clear. And then just my last question here, and I will go back to the queue. You state that Skincity will be fully integrated into KICKS' platforms and operations by year-end, which, as I recall, is part of the DKK 40 million stand-alone improvements in KICKS as you previously guided. So just to understand here, will that mean that we should expect some of these synergies to materialize in Q4? And how much synergies, just to clarify, are baked into the guidance for the full year?

So everything is baked into the guidance. And of course, the Skincity integration is something -- not something we have set in motion as new owners. It was something that was already well underway in KICKS and Skincity, and Skincity physically moving to the KICKS location, tech integration, organizational integration has been going on for some time. So this is just to let you know that integration is going according to plan that the benefits that we are expecting or were expecting from that integration is actually materializing. So -- and it is in the guidance of the 15% for the year.

So all DKK 40 million is in the 15% guidance or...

The DKK 40 million is from a combination of Skincity integration and the supply chain transformation. And we're not giving out sort of the details of what is what. But of course, Skincity came first. So you will see that materialize and the supply chain transformation. We only now open the warehouse, and we're only now talking to suppliers for improved terms on taking over the inventory from suppliers. So we won't see that materialize in any major degree this year.

[Operator Instructions] The next question will be from the line of Mads Quistgaard from Carnegie.

Congrats on the strong first quarter with KICKS included. So my first question goes to the current market sentiment. Can you maybe talk a bit of what you're seeing especially in the Swedish market today? You see any signs of down trading, weaker sales, or what are you seeing today?

So we don't comment on current trading. So I will limit my comments to what we saw in the financial quarter. Of course, macro picture in Sweden is more gloomy than macro in Denmark. However, we are seeing the beauty market perform well in Sweden. We are seeing, as we are in Denmark, actually consumers shifting their spending from big ticket items into small ticket luxury. So we are seeing a quite good appetite for our product categories. And this is, of course, pattern that we have seen throughout many recessions that people do take care of themselves, they do spend on their own personal luxury. We're seeing a new generation of beauty consumers, quite frankly, younger consumers that are even more into beauty than their predecessors. So it is an attractive segment to play in even in gloomy times.

Perfect. Clear. And then a question on the new warehouse in KICKS Group, will it be able to use that for the Christmas season? And what is sort of your plan to cross-sell between the private label shares and with -- let's take [Indiscernible] and Striberne, for example. So can you use that to sort of leverage your existing product base?

Yes. So the way we approach the Rosersberg facility, we cut the ribbon on October 12. The first products have been shipped actually this week to the consumer, and we started out with Skincity. So what's happening right now is that we have a parallel logistics setup in Sweden, Norway and Finland with what we've been doing historically. And now we are starting up the Rosersberg facility only with Skincity. And of course, with plan A, B, C, D and E, to make sure that we deliver on Christmas. But for now and for this quarter, it is mainly Skincity, and it is mainly a test phase, and we will, in the new year, start to roll on assortment from KICKS more broadly. And from the new year, of course, we have the option to expand assortment as well.

Okay. Perfect. Then my final question is on the underlying adjusted EBITDA margin. Would you be able to split adjusted EBITDA? You can give me absolute number on the Matas stand-alone and the KICKS Group?

I think, and that is one thing that takes a lot of getting used to for all of us that even though it sounds easy, then, of course, we are now starting to share resources across the 2 companies. And we're not doing a KICKS contribution, Matas contribution, head office. So giving out the EBITDA for Matas and KICKS, we would have to put in more thought how to create that transparency because, of course, you need the contribution from the 2 companies. But right now, we are adding resources in Matas to support the integration that is not reflected in the KICKS numbers. So it would be misleading to actually share that number.

Okay. But maybe to follow up on Matas standalone. Is there any surprises to the salary inflation we see in the quarter, or is there any surprises? Have you sort of increased investments into your e-commerce business in Matas standalone in the quarter?

No. We have seen no surprises to start out. So salaries increasing with inflation and mitigation efforts that we have made. They are working as expected. So we are fully in control with that situation. If we see opportunities to grow the business and to win market share, we are not shy to grab those opportunities. So the mindset is not just spend what's in the budget. If we see an opportunity to grab market share online, and we have clearly, clearly, clearly gained market shares in Q2 quite dramatically, even -- and we have data to support that -- internal data survey data to support that, and that is the mindset. If we see opportunities for growth for market share gains, we are ready to invest more in marketing, add those resources in the warehouse, bringing in the SKUs, do all those things because that's our strategy, frankly. That is educate the consumer on the great assortment that's there, don't be shy to invest in growth if the market is ready to take.

Very clear. And maybe just a final question. Sorry, then I will jump back to the queue. On trade payables, is there any difference in the payment terms on the suppliers between Matas and KICKS Group, what can you do sort of to improve this ratio?

Just a quick one on that, Mads. As you know, right now, 2 things is going on. On the KICKS side, we are moving from a delivery to all the stores from the suppliers to a central delivery with our new warehouse. And in conjunction with that, we are certainly -- we will, from that day onwards, carry the inventory, and that will have to be reflected also in the terms of payment. And that is ongoing negotiations right now with our suppliers. And then in addition to that, after we come into a more aligned operation after we delivered the Christmas quarter, we will, of course, talk to our suppliers and get joint agreement for the full group. And in that -- in connection with that, of course, terms of payments will also be an element. I don't think it's going to be the most critical element, but it will be an element that we will also align through the group. But I think the biggest change right now is actually that KICKS is moving from a full delivery to all stores by the suppliers to a one-stop supply at the new facilities in Rosersberg. And that, of course, will have to change the dynamics in the contracts.

And then it's a good thing for us. It's a good thing for consumers. It is also a good thing for suppliers. So this is really one of those initiatives that's not -- it's full of things we need to do, but it's not full of conflict. This is really getting to the model where we can execute on the customer experience better than we were used to.

The next question will be from the line of Sebastian Grave.

So just a follow-up on KICKS here. So in terms of seasonality, given that KICKS is a larger share of high-end beauty, will there be any sort of difference in KICKS' seasonality compared to Matas standalone, I guess, maybe high-end beauty, and there will be more of gift -- be more of gifting or high-end beauty compared to Matas markets. So will there be any difference here, or should we think of a sort of same seasonality as in Matas?

It's definitely different seasonality. So you can get some sense of it by just looking at Matas' historical numbers and seeing that, of course, high end has seasonality as well in Matas, but it's even more pronounced for KICKS. So the Christmas season is really important for KICKS, both for the gifting occasion, as you mentioned, but also that's where high end is really -- has its prime time. So yes, there is more seasonality in KICKS.

The next question will also be a follow-up from the line of Mads from Carnegie.

Just one, on the special items, do you still plan to book DKK 100 million?

Yes, DKK 100 million integration cost that is covering 2 financial years. So you won't see everything in this financial year. But yes, that is still our expectation.

All right. What -- can you comment around the seasonality between what you're going to do in the third versus the fourth quarter?

Yes. No, I'm afraid not. We don't give that.

No one else has queued for questions. And now I therefore hand it back to the speakers for any closing remarks.

Thank you, everyone. A quarter for the history books, I think both the transformation of the business, but of course, also seeing strong underlying performance in a kind of a gloomy market is very comforting. A good start with KICKS, really enjoying having new colleagues and fully ready for a Christmas season that is always important and even more this year. So thank you so much for joining. We are happy to take follow-ups and deep dives because, of course, there are many detailed questions to the impact of KICKS into the numbers. But thanks for joining the call and see you next time.