Max Stock Ltd. (MAXO) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

So again, good morning and good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm Talia Sessler, Chief Corporate Development and IR Officer. And with me on the call today, as always, is Nir Dagan, our Deputy CEO and Head of Finance.

Hello.

I will start the highlights of our fourth quarter and will be presenting the second part of the presentation, and Nir will be presenting the main financial part of the presentation and give you all the details. Before we start, as a reminder, there is a presentation accompanying today's prepared remarks and the slides are available, as always, on our IR site at ir.maxstock.co.il And Slide #2, I think you are all familiar with it, is our standard disclaimer language. So starting on Slide 3. We are very pleased with our strong finish to 2023. We delivered fourth quarter revenue of about ILS 272 million, representing growth of more than 8% from the fourth quarter of 2022. The strong revenue growth was driven by three primary factors, steady growth in store traffic and comparable store sales, along with the addition of 5 new owned stores. We also delivered very strong gross margins with an expansion of 160 basis points versus the prior year period. These factors were the main drivers behind a 4.8% increase in the adjusted net income attributable to shareholders in the fourth quarter. And these results are particularly noteworthy, given the onset and navigation of the ongoing Swords of Iron War during the period, of course. So Slide #4. As we mentioned in the past quarter, the company's stores were closed at the outbreak of the war on October 7. And gradually, we reopened the stores with a reduced scope of operations over the next 2 weeks. This resulted in comparable store sales for the month of October being down 16%. However, for the months of November and December, all but 1 owned and 1 franchise stores -- all other stores were fully open and operational. And we saw a very strong bounce back in sales with comparable store sales for the final 2 months of the year up 11% compared to November and December last year. This resulted in a 2.6% increase in the overall comp store sales for the fourth quarter. More importantly, long-term impacts to our business have been very minimal, while shipping costs haven't increased and shipping times have extended by about 20 to 30 days. Employee staffing levels remain above prewar capacity. The NIS depreciation experienced at the onset of the war has rebounded with the current exchange rate even below that on October 6. And given the limited disruption, we moved forward with all our current plans, including store expansion and the addition of 4 owned stores and 1 franchise store since the onset of the war. And Nir will give you all the additional highlights. So I'll turn the floor over to you, Nir, to go through the financials in details, please.

Slide 5. On Slide 5, you can see our revenue CAGR from fourth quarter of 2019 to the fourth quarter of 2023 is 11%. And we continue to expand gross margin now at 42.8%, expansion of 290 basis points from the fourth quarter of 2019. We see the same trend for the adjusted EBITDA which excluded the impact of IFRS 16 and the stock-based compensation, which has grown at a CAGR of 17.5% since the fourth quarter of 2019. And similarly, adjusted EPS attributed to shareholders has grown at a CAGR of 13.9% since 2019. Slide 6. Turning now to Slide 6. For the full year 2023, steady store traffic, store expansion and a 2.4% increase in same-store sales drove a 6.7% increase in revenue compared to 2022 to a record of ILS 1.1 billion. We also saw very strong margin gain in 2023 with margin up 190 basis points to 41.8%, the highest level in the public history of the company. And given the current shipping costs, exchange rate and the continued expansion from cost duties on consumer goods, I believe we can achieve an annual gross margin of at least 41% this year, and that is despite the additional cost from the transition into our new distribution center. As a result, for the year, adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 40 basis points to 13.5%. We delivered a 26% increase in net profit and operating cash flow increased 9.1% compared to 2022. Slide 7. Turning to our long-term trends on Slide 7. 2023 was an acceleration of our strong history of operating results with total revenue growth at 10.8% CAGR since 2019. Gross margin expanded 220 basis points compared to 2019. Adjusted EBITDA, which excluded the impact of IFRS 16 and stock-based compensation, has grown at 10.8% CAGR compared to 2019. And adjusted EPS attributed to shareholders has grown at a CAGR of 8.8% from 2019 to 2023. Turning to Slides 8 and 9. We are very pleased with more-than-double growth we've achieved in revenue and gross profit over the past 7 years, along with doubling of adjusted EBITDA and near doubling adjusted EPS during the same time period. Also note on Slide 8 that over the period, despite the changing macro environment -- economic environment, our annual gross margin, we've been between 39% to 41%. And this year, as I previously mentioned, for the first time we have -- we were above the trend. Turning to Slide 10. Our operational strategy of rapid growth coupled with moderate CapEx result in very strong operating cash flow for Max Stock. As a result, we've been actively returning value to shareholders through annual dividends and stock -- and share purchases. Since 2017, we have returned approximately ILS 370 million to our shareholders, including ILS 60 million in 2023 with planned dividend of about ILS 60 million in 2024 with a record date of April 2, representing an LTM dividend yield of about 5.3%. We had net cash at the year-end 2023 of ILS 95.8 million, providing ample liquidity and financial flexibility. Turning to Slide 11 to outline our financial targets in the short to mid-term. In 2023 we opened 10 stores, including franchise stores and owned stores in Portugal. We expected our store opening pace to remain 3 to 5 owned Max store annually. Annual comparable store sales grew with 2.4% this year, close to our target of 3%. We expect our top line to grow at low to mid-teens pace, including potential benefits from new growth engine like Portugal or other new concepts. This year, we exceeded our 13% target of pre-IFRS 16 adjusted EBITDA margin. And we continue to believe that as we grow top line in the longer term, margin -- may expand margins by an additional 100 basis points. This year, adjusted annual EPS attributed to shareholders grew by 8.3%, slightly above top line growth. However, we still expect EPS to grow at a similar pace to revenue. Now I'll turn the call to Talia.

Thank you, Nir. On Slide 13, I wanted to highlight four major elements of our business and financial model. First, we are a resilient retailer. We have said that for a while. And we remain relevant with consumers despite changing macroeconomic environment. Additionally, our 12 seasons in the year and the highly seasonal nature of life in Israel acts as a constant traffic driver that maintains a high level of demand throughout the year. Second, our prudent but aggressive owned store expansion strategy has been a significant driver of Max Stock for many years and will continue to be a top priority in 2024 and beyond. As we continue to expand our stores, we will continue to focus on comparable store sales growth with a target of roughly 3% per year, as Nir mentioned. Third, Max Stock's superior store economics provide the highest level of sales per square meter compared to other best-in-class publicly listed value retailers in the U.S. and in Europe. And lastly, Max Stock's low capital intensity and modest working capital needs generate a substantial level of cash flow, allowing us to simultaneously reward shareholders and invest in our business for future growth, and adjusting our latest ILS 60 million dividend that we've just announced. We'll now go into each of these drivers in a little more detail. Slide 14, so starting with our resilient economic model. Here on this slide, you can see that since 2019, it seems that each year has brought its own significant headwind. Each had a different story but we continue to outperform over the period. Whether it was the pandemic impact of 2020 or the supply disruptions of 2021 or the high inflation in 2022 or Swords of Iron War and the legislative process in Israel in 2023, we have continually preserved (sic) [ persevered ] and reached new heights. Total sales have grown at a CAGR of 10.8% and EPS have grown at a CAGR of 8.8% over the last 4 years. And additionally, we expanded gross margin 220 basis points, grown average unit value by almost ILS 3 million even as we have expanded our store count by 9 owned stores. On Slide 15. As I mentioned, adding to the resiliency of our operating model is our unique rotating seasonal assortment that provides a degree of fresh demand centered around 12 distinct seasons, a very different cadence compared to typical seasonal rotations for retailers in the U.S. and Europe. Now turning to Slide 16, our clear top line growth drivers. You can see the evolution of our store expansion strategy and a significant white space opportunity that lays ahead. As of the end of March 2024, we have about 65,000 net square meters, representing growth of 60% versus our 2019 figure. Looking ahead to 2030, we believe we can expand our current footprint at additional 70% to 110,000 square meters with a total of 72,000 meters including our existing stores and pipeline. This long-term target would result in 2.7x expansion of Max Stock over a slightly more than 10-year period. That is a truly exceptional growth. Next, on Slide #17. Our 2024 plans also include moving to a new logistics and distribution center to help enable the next stage of growth for our company. We've updated that on the prior quarter. We've signed an agreement with a new DC partner, a JV jointly held by Mega Or and Kibbutz Shomria. And this new about 30,000 square meter location will allow us to consolidate our 3 existing distribution centers into one at roughly the same logistics costs. While this will initially require an estimated ILS 30 million CapEx investment, this action will support our future growth in Israel while potentially extracting operational efficiencies including the elimination of needed TPLs, centralized operations and other logistical streamlining. The 25-year rental agreement is expected to commence in May of this year. So we are on track with our plan with a monthly base rent of approximately ILS 1 million. And subject to various terms being met, the site will further increase by another 10,000 square meters to a total of slightly over 40,000, which will allow us to more than double our capacity of our distribution center versus what we currently have. Next on Slide #18. So along with this exciting logistics enhancement, we plan to continue our store expansions into 2024. In 2023, as I mentioned before, we added 5 new owned stores and 3 new franchised stores for a total of 67,000 net square meter. And already this year, we've added an additional 2 stores: one in Yavne in February and one in Kiryat Yam in March for a total of 3,400 net square meters. Next on Slide #19. Our pipeline -- as we look at the pipeline over the next 3 years, we expect to open an additional 5 stores and expand 1 existing store, adding a total of approximately almost 7,000 net square meters. We plan to add 2 of these locations and the expansion location this year, and that will total approximately 3,800 gross square meters in increasing selling space. Next on Slide #20. That's one of my favorite slides to cover, our third driver, superior store economics. So I'm always amazed by how efficient we are in terms of sales per square meter, and we clearly compare ourselves to all best-in-class value retailers in the U.S. and in Europe. And you see the great names listed here: Five Below, Dollar General, B&M and Action. And our concept captures elements from all these retailers and combine them in a very unique way. The breadth of selection, the treasure hunt experience, all of them help us to grow and retain our strong customer base. And at the same time, this has been really, really effective, and in the value retail space we delivered the highest annual sales per square meter of a store of any North American and European players. Next on Slide #21. As you see, this excellent sales per square meter metric, they have also been robust over time. And what you can see on this slide is that we were able to maintain our best-in-class annual sales for owned net square meter and comparable store sales metric as we expanded our owned store footprint by 2.5x since 2017. Next on Slide #22. I'll cover quickly the final driver, cash generation. Nir also spoke about it earlier. Our operational strategy of rapid growth coupled with moderate CapEx and working capital results in very strong operating cash flows for Max Stock. And since 2017, we were able to grow operating cash flows by nearly 5% from about ILS 40 million in 2017 to almost ILS 200 million this year. And over that period, we've been able to convert on average 76% of adjusted EBITDA into cash, allowing us to single times reward you, our shareholders and invest for future growth. Before we move into the Q&A session, I wanted to close our prepared remarks by thanking all of our Max Stock team members for another excellent year of strong financial results, even as the operating environment in Israel posted a significant headwind. As we finished the year, our dedicated teams persevered and helped the company rebound and finish the year on a high note. As we look to 2024, we remain encouraged by the near and longer-term trends we see in our business. We are excited about the opportunities we see for us in the year ahead and look forward to updating you on our progress. So we are now ready to take questions.

Are there any shifts in Israeli holidays this year that will impact quarterly comparison versus 2023?

No, not really.

It's actually even this year...

Last year, Passover was in the first quarter. This year, it will be in the second quarter. And anyway, we always have in the financials what is the -- making the -- between January to April.

Yes. Okay. Can you highlight the drivers of gross margins in the year? What were the most significant drivers of the strong performance? And how do you see the drivers of gross margin ahead? So I think as Nir mentioned, there are a few elements that contributed to this robust gross margins. I'll list all of them. The things that were more internal to the company included our procurement team. They did a great job, and we are now able to buy inventory at lower prices than [ 20 ]. The second thing is being more efficient with our storage and logistics and enabling -- and actually eliminating some of the TPLs that increased our logistic costs in the past. So these are the most -- the more endogenous factor. In terms of exogenous factors, we certainly had a benefit from a reduction in shipping costs. We can speak about it a bit later, I'll give you a bit more detail. And there is the reform of -- or the exemption of duties on various consumer goods that is still ongoing and also provided some minor benefit. And as Nir mentioned, because -- oh, and sorry, the exchange rate is always a factor. When we think about all the blended impact of these factors, as Nir mentioned, 2024 could, as we see it, be at 41% gross margin and even above that. This is on an annual basis. On a quarterly basis, there could be some fluctuations. Given that we are moving to a new distribution center, that will give -- will create some pressure on gross margins in some quarters. But overall, the exchange rate is good. Shipping costs have slightly moderated versus the peak they had a few, I would say, months ago or they're still at a reasonable level. The exemptions from customs is continuing. And then we have all our internal efficiencies, logistics and our great procurement work. That can all contribute to this robust gross margin to continue. Okay. Let's see, I think there was something -- one moment. Okay. Well, actually nothing.

This one.

In the closing of one of the stores in Portugal -- is the closing of one of the stores in Portugal indicative or there's a change in the company's outlook for expanding? Okay. So no, we mentioned last quarter that we are evaluating our store in Porto. We were wrong with the selection of the location. It's a location that has very strong traffic but it's made out of touristic traffic, which is less applicable for us. So no, we're still in Portugal 2 stores currently and we are continuing our progress there. I think that's it, right? Okay. All right, guys, do let us know if you have any questions. Okay, let me see if there's anything else in the chat.

No.

Okay. How should we think about wages and SG&A going forward? I think very similar to what we saw this year. There is nothing material going on. I mean, inflation -- if you remember like January 2022, inflation in Israel was above 5%. Now the LTM rate is 2.6%. So inflationary pressures are now much more moderate, as you see also in the U.S. and in other developed countries in the world. And overall, SG&A should be...

Quite the same.

Yes. Got one more, one second. On behalf of the Israeli consumer, any color around changes taking place lately in your consumer? And what is your outlook for 2024? So let's take that first. I can just refer to the overall macro environment. Actually at the onset of the war, GDP has contracted dramatically and the economy was significantly impacted. But as we -- as the war progressed, actually many things have rebounded. Many of the industries have reverted back to normal operations. And there are a few indicators like, for example, the activity with credit cards that is even more vast than prewar level. Also know that it's a little bit similar to what we had in COVID. People are staying in Israel, less frequently flying abroad and then more focused on consuming in Israel. So that's a positive for all the retailers in Israel. And in terms of the outlook, I can quote the Bank of Israel outlook. For this year, GDP growth is expected to be around 2%. And then next year, they expect a rebound and a growth of about 5% in GDP. And inflation is no longer an issue at the moment. So overall, I think from an economic perspective and the consumer perspective, it's actually quite good.

Same store...

Very impressive store productivity per square meter. Can you discuss the factors that contribute to your relatively very high productivity? I think there are various factors. The first one is the Israeli consumer. The Israeli consumer loves to shop and there are many, many occasions in Israel that creates, I would say, shopping events. It's part of our, I would say, DNA and part of our -- of the dynamics in our population. And the second thing is that we know our consumers really well and we know how to provide them with great products, great prices. Because the price differential is so significant, when people enter our stores, they simply buy not just what they initially intended and really, really need but they buy what they want to buy. So it's always, I would say, more generous rather than -- as compared to more traditional retailers where you see people buy only what they need and only very prudently. So I think those things overall. Anything else?

No.

All right. I think that's it. Please contact us. We would love to speak with you over Zoom, over the phone and potentially also in person when we are in New York or London. So do stay in touch. Thank you all.