Mister Spex SE (MRX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for standing by. My name is Gail, and I will be your operator for today. At this time, I would like to welcome each and every one of you to the Mister Spex First Quarter 2025 Results Call. [Operator Instructions] It is now my pleasure to turn today's call over to Irina Zhurba. Please go ahead.

Beautiful. Thank you so much. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our Q1 2025 update. The presentation, as always, will last around 30 minutes, and then we'll follow with 10 to 15 minutes for the Q&A. As always, you can find the presentation, the report, the financials on the Investor Relations website under Reports and Presentations. With me here today, I have Tobias Krauss, the CEO of Mister Spex; and Stephan Schulz-Gohritz, the CFO of Mister Spex, who will guide you through today's presentation. That said, let me hand over to Tobias to begin today's call. Thank you.

So good morning to everyone. Thanks for taking the time. So the agenda for today's call will be, I'll highlight some of the topics and numbers from Q1. After this, I will jump into the CEO agenda, and will say some words about myself and the plan, which I will together with Stephan, follow up on in the next months, quarters and years to come. Then Stephan is going to give us some insights into our financials with the financial update and the strategic update, then we're going to have some closing words and remarks about the guidance and Q2, and then we will jump over to Q&A. So let me start with the Q1 2025 highlights and insights, starting with the financial performance. We saw a 13% like-for-like store growth in Q1, which means that we ended up with a Q1 overall revenue of EUR 45 million, which is a 13% decrease year-on-year, mainly based on the rebalancing of the marketing channels and thereby our online business. Nevertheless, we achieved a 441 basis point gross margin jump in Q1, basically ended up with a gross margin of 56.4%. Altogether, we achieved a EUR 3 million improvement in EBIT, ending up with minus EUR 6.3 million, which is a way better position than starting or compared to Q1 2024 with EUR 9.3 million. Speaking about the operating cash flow, we ended up with plus EUR 2 million in operating cash flow compared to minus EUR 0.3 million in Q1 2024, a EUR 2 million cash out in Q1 2025 compared to minus EUR 5 million in the previous year. And the cash and cash equivalents ended up end of Q1 with EUR 70 million, starting from EUR 72 million. Speaking about SpexFocus, the restructuring program, a big focus within this program was on stores and store performance. So in the previous year, 19 of our stores have been EBIT positive. We turned 15 more stores EBIT positive in the last year. So end of Q1, we ended up with 34 stores EBIT positive. What else is there to say about, especially our retail operations? We will start with eye health checks in June with the rollout. We tested it in several shops. It picked up very good, and we're looking forward to the rollout in summer this year. And a very, very important strategic pillar for us is subscription for prescription and sunglasses rolling out next week, which is the first attempt to start recurring revenues for Mister Spex. Speaking about the CEO agenda and some of the aspects and topics, we already saw capitalized within the Q1 numbers for this year. We will push even harder and push even forward. Let me summarize the CEO agenda in 3 words, which would be stabilize, strengthen and scale. What do I mean with stabilize? Basically, 3 things: find additional potential for cost improvement within the structures and processes of Mister Spex of our off-line operations, as well as headquarter. Number two would be to transfer the whole company and its structure into a process-oriented structure based on 2 business units, which will be online and off-line and all the other departments and processes within the company serving these 2 business units. And number three, we will further push our restructuring efforts by using best practice approaches and playbooks to make it more intense and bring numbers up even quicker. What is there to say when we speak about strengthening the company? Like I already mentioned, a very important part for Mister Spex and the transition of Mister Spex will be to push harder on to bottom line accountability for the 2 business units, which will be accounted in the new organizational structure, which is already effective and will be enhanced even further in the next months to come. A major part of this reorganization will be to further automize processes, so we create a more scalable organization. And last but not least, working on building, as we call it, an M&A machine for bolt-on acquisitions to come latest in 2026. Last but not least, what do we mean with scale? Well, at the end of the day, make revenue grow faster than costs. This is why we're looking at our infrastructure, our IT infrastructure to further enhance it to make it more scalable, to use AI wherever possible. This is one of the most important initiatives we are currently working on to set the future frame for Mister Spex and scalable growth, and of course, to even better exploit existing partnerships and especially trying to find better ways to capitalize on our partner opticians as an example. Speaking about SpexFocus, like I said, we will continue to push further for more restructuring results. Nevertheless, let's have a look back to what has already been achieved. Starting from left to right, we had roughly EUR 9 million one-offs in 2024, which we would have to invest in order to get to the safety buckets. These safety buckets consisted out of 4 major groups, which will end up with an overall profit impact of more than EUR 20 million in 2025 with the full effect in 2026. So let us jump into these 4 buckets real quick. Number one, improvement in store performance and lower discounts. So store performance improvement is based on a new retail playbook as we call it. We hired a very experienced operator who will be heading the off-line or retail business unit now, who brings a lot of experience in how to run and how to further improve these operations. So I think that the first results of these initiatives and efforts have already been seen in Q1, speaking about retail. And on the other hand, lower discounts, mostly in online, and of course, in off-line, too, which are reflected in the decrease in net revenues for Mister Spex, it is no strategy to have revenues with a negative profit impact, and this is why we stopped this. Number two, variable cost improvement, inclusive purchasing, of course. As you know, gross margin is key to us, and this is why we try to improve our purchasing conditions with our partners, with our suppliers. This is not a project. This is an ongoing initiative, and we see some more potential here in the next quarters and years to come. And already finalized is the store portfolio rationalization. As you know, or as you may know, we closed down all of our retail operations outside of Germany because we did not see any way for us to make them profitable in the foreseen future. That's why we closed them down and we even closed down shops in Germany, and we will be going on closing shops in Germany if we don't see that they are going to live up and work up to the standards, which we set for these shops within our retail playbook. Last but not least, rightsizing and cost cutting, of course. Like I said already, this is not a onetime wonder. This is an ongoing process. So we are always in the process of strengthening our cost position, improving our cost position. Final remark to this is that, we are in the process of turning this SpexFocus project to a process of continuous improvement. We use best practices in order to do this. So we apply lean management methods and techniques. We put the company on a rigid process of strategic planning, which started in autumn last year. And as a result out of this strategic planning process, we implemented a tool called policy deployment, which makes sure that we're not only following up on the budget and the plans we have for the year we are in, but also takes into account working and following up on initiatives which will be of strategic importance for the future. Two more remarks regarding SpexFocus. As you can see on the left-hand side, of course, improving cost and operating efficiency was the main focus of this very much cost-focused and SpexFocus initiatives. As you see, gross profit went down in total. That is due to the, as we call it, internally discount detox initiative we started. So this is a managed process. And this is the way we wanted it to be. Same with personnel expenses going down, other operating expenses going down and marketing expenses going down as well. Speaking about these marketing expenses, this also is a managed process by redefining our marketing strategy, reallocating marketing budget to channels, which actually do not only generate revenue, but also generate profits. The right-hand side is once again, speaking about retail. As you saw already in the summary, this is a huge highlight to us because retail is important and will be even more important in the future, and this is why we are very proud that we turned more shops into an EBIT positive position and more to come in the next quarters and years. Last but not least, recurring revenue will be very important for us. And the first initiative regarding recurring revenue is the subscription model, which we call Mister Spex Switch. What's Mister Spex Switch? Basically, you can buy 2 or 3 pairs of glasses. They're not going to be discounted at all. There's going to be no upfront payments for the customers. The subscription model starts at EUR 9 per month with a 24-month contract, which adds up to a basket of at least EUR 220, which is a good number for us. And when we look at the pilots we already had within several shops, the baskets are much bigger, which gives us a very good perspective for this program. The customers have the opportunity to exchange 1 of the 2 or 3 products every year and then the contract gets renewed for another 24 months, which creates a nice lock-in for us into our customers. And this is not the only way for us to lock into our customers because in addition, they get an eye health check every year. So we would want to see them every year because once you have the eye health check and you see something, probably just changed quality in sight. There's always a huge opportunity to turn this into a new pair of expensive glasses or best case, a renewal of the 24-month contract, which we call Switch. So I hand over to Stephan for the financial update.

Yes. Thanks, Tobias. Good morning. Great to have you in our call, and I will give you an overview of the financial update in a couple of minutes to come. I think the key message of Q1 is that, we achieved a big step ahead in our P&L, specifically on EBIT, but also on cash flow. But it came at an expense and the expense was that by implementing the discount detox and the price repositioning, we went down in the top line by 13%. Germany, minus 5%; and international, minus 38%. However, and this is the highlight, the like-for-like growth of our stores is double-digit positive by plus 13%. And that pays directly into our strategy to grow profitably with our off-line business in the future. The free cash flow has improved by EUR 3.2 million versus Q1 2024. So overall, it was at minus EUR 1.5 million. And it pays off on the basis of the improved operational performance, the cost structure, the store performance, the better product mix that we have, the price repositioning and the overall cost reductions that we have implemented. And therefore, this positive effect is also reflected in the cash equivalents, which are at EUR 70 million, which is minus EUR 1.8 million versus Q4 2024. Then let's have a look at the business segments that we report, Germany as our core business and international. Germany overall, if you look at the top down, went down by 5% as we have seen before. Here, it is important to understand that specifically the online business suffered by 13% from the discount detox, whereas the off-line business improved by 13% like-for-like. If you look at the different categories, we see that prescription glasses is growing, and this is specifically important as it is our high-margin business where we strategically want to grow, whereas sunglasses is down by 22%, basically coming from the drop in online and contact lenses going down by 5%, driven by the discount detox as well. If we look more into details, we see that specifically prescription glasses grew over proportionally by 15%, and that was driven by our new product, SpexPro, which is our premium private label lens that we introduced last year in September. The AOV, and it's also remarkable, grew by 26% in Q1, crossing now the mark of EUR 200 per pair of glasses. And also sunglasses improved off-line. Store sales grew by 6% and the AOV grew by 14%. We also worked on our store network. One store, the Nürnberg Franken-Center store was closed end of February. From that perspective, the store restructuring is now finalized. Of course, we are on a regular basis reviewing the performance of our stores. And if there is a need for a structural change, then we're going to implement it. But for now, the stores are performing. So from that perspective, there is no need for further measures here on this side. Let's have a look at International. Here, the discount detox and price repositioning had an over-proportional impact on our business as we are here operating in very much price-sensitive countries like U.K. and others. So from that perspective, overall sales was down by 38%. On top of this, we closed the international stores, which additionally hit the top line. So overall, we went down by 38%, predominantly driven by sunglasses, minus 72%; prescription glasses, minus 36%; and contact lenses, minus 16%. Nevertheless, and this is important to understand, we let business go. We let business go that hasn't been profitable. And that is being reflected now in the margin improvement. Under prescription glasses, it's 410 basis points. And under sunglasses, the gross margin improved by 1,500 basis points. Nevertheless, of course, we want to regain momentum internationally in our International business. And therefore, we are now focusing on targeted Google Shopping on additional social media channels and a seasonal push for sunglasses specifically. Then let's have a look at our P&L a bit more into details. We have mentioned already our gross profit is down by EUR 1.4 million, driven by the price repositioning and the discount detox. You might think we overdid it with the discount detox, and that's why the margin is negative, but we have to take into consideration that those net sales were margin negative after marketing expenses. And on the marketing expenses, we saved EUR 1.7 million. So overall, the measure of discount detox was net positive. The gross margin overall improved to a level of 56.4%. Personnel expenses went down by EUR 0.5 million. We reduced our headcount by approximately 160 full-time equivalents in the last 9 months. So from that perspective, you might think that the reduction is a little low. We have to take into the consideration here that we have additional one-times for additional separation agreements. So from that perspective, there's EUR 1 million more of one-off that we have to take into consideration so that the overall saving like-for-like is EUR 1.5 million. Marketing expenses, as already explained, down by EUR 1.7 million, specifically driven by a reduction of very expensive low-margin channels like Google Shopping. Other operating expenses also down by EUR 1.3 million. That's specifically freight, fulfillment and other services and cost reductions in all areas. Depreciation and amortization also down by 1.3%, driven by 2 factors, one of which is the depreciation at year-end 2024. And the other element is that we significantly reduced investments. So overall, that gives us an EBIT -- positive EBIT impact of EUR 3 million. So let me summarize. We clearly set the foundation for further improvements to come. As we now see the sign of progress coming from our program, SpexFocus that we started in August last year. The program overall, as we have introduced it, has a run rate impact of more than EUR 20 million per year bottom line. And most of that should become effective in 2025. If you look at the first quarter with the improvement of EUR 3 million, then it already gives us a run rate of EUR 12 million improvement. And that means that in the first quarter, we have made a big step ahead. But of course, there have further improvement to come in the remaining year 2025. Overall, that's the second important element in the Q1 result is that we have a significant margin improvement despite headwinds in the market. And overall, the revenue declined by 13% year-on-year. However, we grew in our offline network in Germany 13%, and that demonstrates a strong demand in the German market, number one, and demonstrate number two, that we have very much improved -- significantly improved our business operating model offline. And number three, that's also a very positive element, a significant improvement in the free cash flow, which reduced our cash burn rate to EUR 1.8 million in the first quarter 2025. So overall, a big step ahead. And having said this, I would like to hand over again to Tobias to conclude and to give the outlook to the year 2025.

Thank you, Stephan. To conclude, we confirm our guidance for 2025 with a net revenue decline between minus 5% to minus 10%, and EBIT margin between minus 5% to minus 15% and cash and cash equivalents with 60 plus/minus -- EUR 65 million plus/minus EUR 5 million. Q2, well, it remains affected by store closures, of course, executed in half year 2 in 2024. We will re-ramp and ramp up the marketing activities. This is an ongoing process to optimize this, and this has to take in respect that the marketing mix will have to adjust to the new strategy, which is very different from the strategy in the past, much more focused on optical expertise, becoming the opticians of life for our customers, and this is why this is a big repositioning and taking into account new perspectives when it comes to our marketing mix. Nevertheless, and together with this new marketing activities, of course, a huge focus will be on market, our Spex subscription, Mister Spex subscription program called Switch with the idea to have, of course, and if possible, one multifocal pair of lenses be part of this Switch packet to further push the basket for Mister Spex when it comes to revenue and, of course, gross margin. Once again, further improvement in our cost position by pushing even harder into our new organization and managing capacity down wherever it is not necessary and not relevant to our customers. And of course, finally, and once again, learn from Switch and then transfer what we learn from Switch when it comes to other ideas we already have in our pipeline regarding recurring revenue for the next years. Thank you very much for your attention.

[Operator Instructions] So your first question comes from the line of Cédric Rossi with Bryan Garnier & Co.

I have 3 questions, please. The first one is regarding your eye health check program. Could you give more color on the relationship you have with ophthalmologists? Are you going to set up an ophthalmologist partner program like you have for opticians in Germany and other countries? My second question is regarding the sunglass category. So with the 22% decline in Germany in Q1. So I heard you, Stephan, about the negative impact from the online channel. But could you split out the impact between the discount detox and maybe also the brand portfolio optimization that had a negative impact as well? So that's my second question. And the third one, I was curious to have your view on the consumer mood in Germany with the new government coming in and the potential stimulus programs that will be implemented in the coming months. Are you a bit more optimistic about the German market for the remainder of the year?

So thank you, Cédric. Speaking about eye health. So there's many opportunities for us to capitalize on the eye health check. So number one would be that the eye health check, of course, is an enhanced check of your power to see, which adds, of course, to the possibility to sell glasses, meaning that the conversion rate once you have the eye check, even the general eye check is very high. And we see the same potential with the eye health check, of course, because it's basically the same results with much more information, of course. So number one, sell more glasses because we have more eye health checks. And with these eye health checks, we have the regular checks, which is a big push to our revenue and to our margin. Number two, of course, is, yes, there is the possibility for us to partner with -- it's a heavy word, that's why I say eye doctors, so I don't get it wrong. But this would be on horizon too for us. First of all, it's, like I said, selling glasses and number two, getting locking into our customers by having them do the eye health check once a year.

So I'm going to answer the question on the drop in sunglasses. Well, at the end, it's difficult to really exactly determine why customers don't buy. But our estimate is that approximately 80% of the sunglasses business that went down came from the discount detox and approximately 20% from the portfolio.

Your next question comes from the line of Ralf Marinoni with PrivatBank.

Sorry, one question was on the German market. This is right now a very difficult question to answer. You would have to have a kind of crystal ball as the situation is quite volatile politically, economically and how that impacts consumer sentiment. This is very difficult to judge. We expect right now that we don't get any tailwind from the consumer side in 2025. Hopefully, this might change, but this is our estimate. So we remain cautious.

So this is Ralf Marinoni from Quirin PrivatBank. Some questions from my side. First, you mentioned in your presentation that 34 stores are EBIT margin positive compared to 19 last year, which is a good progress. However, what are your measures to improve profitability of the remaining 23 stores? And the second question is about your SpexPro lenses. Can you quantify the contribution from your premium SpexPro lenses among prescription glasses?

So number one, thank you, Ralf for the question. So we put all the stores on a very ambitious set of KPIs and we measure them basically on a daily basis. So we do know all the profit and revenue drivers for our stock portfolio and for each and every shop. So it's not like it's a one-trick pony for all of these 23. But in general, we need to push more traffic into these shops because one of the problems we saw by also decreasing the marketing spend is we, in some regions, lost a little traffic which makes it harder for us, of course, to have the eye checks. And once you have the eye checks, you sell a pair of glasses. So traffic is number one. Number two, of course, is pushing the high-margin products like, for example, SpexPro, which has picked up very good in all stores. So this is a general fact. So pushing into higher-margin products and last but not least, and this is one of our main initiatives for 2025 is to have the right set of people in the shops. This is why we have a huge initiative to find opticians, find the best store managers, have the best team in place. But for example, the best optician is probably not the best store manager. And this is why we put a lot of effort in finding the right teams for the shops. And this especially accounts for the 23 shops, which are not EBIT positive because the impact of having the right team in the shop is huge.

And it ties also directly into the next question because one of the drivers of store profitability is SpexPro, which specifically in the stores has a share of approximately 35% depending on the store, some stores more, some less, but overall, approximately 35%. If we take our online business, here, the share is approximately 10%. So overall, more than 20% of our customers choose SpexPro as the premium glass and the impact is significant as the AOV is almost twice as high as for white label product at a higher margin. So from that perspective, this is a significant driver for profitability. And the next step for us is to even expand our portfolio here with branded lenses to additionally push top line margin.

Okay. 35% is quite high.

Thank you, everyone. That concludes our Q&A session for today. I will now turn the call back over to Tobias Krauss for the closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Well, thank you for, again, taking the time. I think that Q1 has been very important for this company. It has been very important for all the people living -- not living, working, some of them live here because it got so intense that many night shifts had to be taken. But I think that Q1 was very motivating not only to probably our investors, hopefully, our investors, but it has also been very motivating to our team because we see that not only the numbers pick up, but also the spirit and the power of the organization picks up. Number two is we are not done yet. So this is just the start of an ongoing journey, and we will push harder every month. So we have a structure in place, which will question all we do and all the numbers on a monthly basis, and this will create a culture and DNA of continuous improvement within this company. And we're looking into Q2 2025, we're going to go on adjusting the marketing channels. We're going to pivot into ideas. We're going to pivot out of ideas. So we are -- especially when it comes to our marketing mix to our product mix to the omnichannel play because online is very different from offline, and we have to find the sweet spot so we can really capitalize on the huge amount of customers we have from our online business. So this work will go on, and we'll get back to you with more information after Q2. Thank you very much.

Thank you also from my side, and thank you specifically for your interest, your support and your trust, and I'm looking forward to seeing you on the road during the course of the year. Thank you.

Thank you.