Modivo S.A. (MDV) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to welcome you very cordially to the quarterly results, and this means at the same time the full year results. So I'd like to ask Lukasz to go ahead and walk us through the results.

Thank you very much, Mr. President. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Good afternoon. So we'll begin by presenting the key events, which had an impact on what took place in Q4. Above all, we want to draw your attention to the following facts. One, that the revenue of the group is up by 4%, while at the same time, the consumers' purchasing power is being rebuilt. So at the same time, we can see that the CCC group has generated a revenue result in above of PLN 2.5 billion. So this is a historical result. The second thing that we're very proud about, and this is key in terms of talking about the results from the last quarter, we've been able to improve the gross margin of the group by 4 percentage points, above all by improving our margins in CCC at HalfPrice by 8 and 6 percentage points. The third thing, we have a very high EBITDA profitability result for another quarter in a row of 20% in CCC and 19% at HalfPrice. These are levels which I believe are very good, topnotch levels for leaders in the retail industry. Number four, we've been able to optimize the inventory of the stock in the Modivo group very effectively. This is something we've said that we were going to do over the last few quarters. And we said that we wanted to have our inventory below PLN 1 billion at the end of the quarter, and this is something that we've been able to accomplish. And the price or the cost was the fact that we had a lower margin, lower results in Modivo. But at the same time, this is not something that surprised us. This is something we were reckoning with. And as a result, we have a very good structure of inventories in Modivo. And it's quite new and young, and that means we've got a foundation built for delivering better performance in upcoming quarters in Modivo. And the fifth thing is that this is the fifth quarter in a row during which we've been able to consistently reduce the debt in the CCC business unit, so in CCC and HalfPrice. So we've reduced debt by 3% quarter-on-quarter and on a year-on-year basis by more than 30%. And so this is a very robust result, which we're very proud of. Let's go ahead and walk through the discussion of the specific results, and we'll begin with sales, the top line. So if we look at sales in Q4 across the group, as I said, it was up by 4 percentage points year-on-year. And so we can say that the rate of growth was a little bit higher than in Q3, and sales has topped the watermark of PLN 2.5 billion. So what contributed to that growth? HalfPrice above all. And its rate of growth was 53%, and it's growing by -- as a result of both motors -- both drivers. So we have the number of store adds. So we have 32 stores added. And something that we're particularly satisfied by is that we have a very robust like-for-like sales performance, and it's in excess of 17% in the most recent periods of quarter. And so this shows that HalfPrice is a very solid target and something that we were proper to do that. And so we have growth of sales in CCC by 2%. And so it's something that we've been able to do by reducing -- while reducing the floor space by some 2% year-on-year. And so we have a higher performance. And so we have a very significant increase in the margin. If we look at the Modivo group in turn, we do see sales decline, which I referred to previously, which is primarily the result of the eobuwie. And so this is one of the costs of optimizing the structure and magnitude of our inventories in Modivo, and this is something that we've been able to achieve. So results in subsequent quarters should be substantially better or markedly better. So let's go ahead and discuss the sales results under the various brands. So the first one is CCC. As I said, we've seen growth of 2% year-on-year, and this was done in off-line as well as in the online channel. What is particularly important and something we draw your attention to is that we've been able to improve the gross margin by leaps and bounds by 8 percentage points year-on-year. We have a much better product offering. And I think the CEO is going to be able to address that a little bit later. We've also been managing actively, first, prices. We have a more sparing approach to giving discounts than purchases of new collections. We have on a macro basis better exchange rates, lower cost of freight. All of these factors have contributed to a higher margin in excess of 55.5%. And I think we haven't had the final word in terms of where we're going to be in terms of improving our gross margin. And so we're also continuing the program, the cost-savings program under CCC. And so our EBITDA result has improved dramatically by some 13%-plus. And we've exceeded the -- we have a watershed moment because we've broken through the watermark of 20%, which is what's seen amongst the leaders in the retail industry. If we look at our HalfPrice, so we have seen sales growth of 53%, as I mentioned. And this is driven by store adds as well as very strong like-for-like sales growth. If we look at HalfPrice, it's not only -- this is important, but we've also seen gross margin improvements in excess of 6 percentage points. And in Q4, we have come close to 50%. And for an off-price player, that's a very good level because in this sector, this industry, we can say that the typical range is 40-plus. And now we're coming in -- coming closer to 50%. So this is good news. And this is also a result of the fact that we've seen some phenomenon in the first 2 quarters of the year that HalfPrice was supporting Modivo in terms of liquidating stock. And this is no longer needed. And so this will transform into better margins in HalfPrice. So we also see that we have gross growing at a slower pace than revenue. So that means we're coming closer to the 20% watermark. And so as I said, it's grown by nearly 8%. And if you look at the Modivo group, we see that, that revenue is down primarily because of the decline in revenues in eobuwie. In Modivo itself, we have a slight 2% increase. During previous quarters, we said that this revenue decline and the decline in margin is a result of liquidating stock. And this is something that was needed to refresh the structure, the composition of our stock or inventories. And so we've been able to reduce stock by more than PLN 300 million, and this is the goal that we set for ourselves. And we're satisfied with this performance. And the cost of that what we had to invest in performance marketing, and all of that meant that the result in HalfPrice year-on-year is down, but we believe it's softer. We believe that Q4 was the final quarter during which we had unsatisfactory results in the Modivo group. And so we should see market improvement starting in Q1. Now let's take a look at the results from the point of view of the overall group and what's key here. So if you look at revenue, I've discussed revenue, we have a record-breaking level of more than PLN 2.5 billion for a given quarter. So we're up by some 4% year-on-year. And at the same time, which is quite important, we've been able to reduce costs on an unwavering basis. We've reduced the cost by 1%. But there's a gigantic reduction or optimization that's taken place in CCC. So we've been able to reduce costs by 12% in nominal terms. In HalfPrice, we opened 32 new stores. So we were able to add 32 stores, even though we stepped back costs by some 1 percentage point. So on the cost side of things, we can say that the results were quite robust, and they form a great foundation for the ongoing development and growth of profitability in 2024. And so we've been able to improve our cost ratio by some 2 percentage points. And that means that EBIT result is up by PLN 150 million. And so it's nearly PLN 100 million in Q4. And EBITDA has tripled, and it's PLN 243 million. So it's up by more than PLN 150 million year-on-year. So now let me say a few words about what's happening with cash flow, and we can break that down by brands. If we look at CCC, just as in the previous 3 quarters, there's good trend that kicked off in Q2. So CCC is delivering a big chunk of the EBITDA result. This is nearly PLN 700 million in CCC. And so as we optimize working capital and we have a relatively low level of inventory or stocks for SS '24 compared to the sales and the changes in payment terms, so this means that over the last 12 months, we've had nearly PLN 700 million in cash flow generated over the last 12 months. And this means we can finance ongoing -- we can finance more investments into the development of HalfPrice. As I had said, we had 32 store adds. And so we have some positive impacts coming from reducing inventory in stock, and this is improvement of the cash flow position and the working capital by some PLN 300 million. How has this affected our debt structure? As I said at the beginning, we're deleveraging in an unwavering fashion. We're -- in Q4 compared to the previous quarter, we're down by 3%. But if we look at the previous years, so Q4 of the previous year, we're down by 35%. So this is a very good result. And so if we look at SS '24, the level of cash has dipped a little bit. So if we look at net exposure quarter-on-quarter, so this is something that's growing. But we can say that things are radically better. Here, I think we should mention that the covenants and the bank ratios, like net debt-to-EBITDA or net exposure to EBITDA, we can say that we're back in the game. So our ratios are truly bankable, and this is part of the plan that we put in place some time ago in order to improve the results in order to be able to refinance. And as a result, the refinancing activities are highly advanced. And so over the next 2 to 3 months, we'll be able to finalize them. So in Modivo, the debt position is quite stable year-on-year. And the prevalent portion is formed by bonds from SoftBank after we adjust for them. So the net debt position is PLN 174 million. And so this PLN 174 million, so this is down 7%. So that's more or less it in terms of Q4 results. But since Q4 ends the financial year, we'll go ahead and present to you the preliminaries or tentative results for the full year. And we'll begin with sales. So sales across the year have grown by 4% year-on-year just like in the Q4. So having in mind the fact that the overall macroeconomic environment is not something that is conducive, and we have a lot of challenges for the overall industry, and there are certain specific issues linked to stocking for Modivo, we believe that this is a pretty decent result, which I think gives us a good basis for our springboard for continuing to growth in 2024. So HalfPrice was the driver. And so revenue was up by nearly 70%, not only because of store adds, but also because of the above-average like-for-like sales growth in excess of 17%. And so as we look at the industry, the competitors, we see that the satisfactory result would have been around 10%, 11%. We came in at 17%. So this is something that actually outpaced our forecast and expectations. If we look at CCC, we have a slight sales decline, especially in the early quarters of the year. But in CCC, we've optimized floor space. So we can say that we reduced floor space by 2%. But for CCC, the most important thing is margin. We're not maximizing top line, but we're maximizing the margin. There was no reason for us to reduce stocks. We didn't have to do any of this at the expense of the margin. And so this was something that we've been able to achieve. If we look at Modivo, the lower levels of revenue were linked to reducing stocks and optimizing the structure, the composition and magnitude of the stock. And that's why we had some regress in the sales performance. If we look at -- we had a -- across our sales, we see a slight step back in terms of the share accounted for by e-commerce by a couple of percentage points. And that's more or less it in terms of sales. Now if we go ahead and take a look at the overall results, the financial results. I think I can say, and this would not be -- we haven't wasted last year. We worked hard on profitability in every one of the areas of the business. So we improved our margins across the board, and we made radical savings, cost savings. As a result, if we look at the EBIT result, it's PLN 185 million, and that's an improvement from the minus PLN 50 million. So it's an increase of nearly PLN 240 million over the previous year. If we look at EBITDA, it's nearly 50%, up to some PLN 800 million. This is a little bit lower than what we had said we were going to deliver a few months ago. We thought that we were going to be delivering PLN 800 million, PLN 800-plus million, but the results of Modivo were slightly depressed. But HalfPrice and CCC outperformed the guidance we gave to you several months ago or shared with you. So if you look at Modivo, as I've said, we've built a strong foundation in order to bolster, strengthen our results in subsequent quarters and next -- the following year, what we're particularly proud of is this very rigorous cost discipline at CCC. We've reduced nominal costs by 15% year-on-year. This is a good achievement. We've reduced our structures. We've turned it into a leaner structure. We've taken -- we've scrutinized marketing expenditures to spend. We've worked on the stores costs. We've optimized head count. We've negotiated rental expenses. We actually turned every rock, every stone, and this is something that has contributed to the results we're discussing today. So now moving on to a summary gradually to our recap. Let me refer to the key factors which stood behind the results we had in 2023. And this -- these things will have an impact on the results for 2024. So the planned reduction in investments in working capital in Modivo group, we said to you previously that we want to drop below PLN 1 billion at the end of the year. That meant that we had to reduce working capital by PLN 300 million. We've been able to accomplish that. As a result, we've been able to freshen our collection. And so the ratio, which speaks to the amount of new stock in total stock, has moved up from 67% to 84%. So this is up by 17 percentage points. This is a critical factor so as not to reduce prices, not to give discounts and to save money in performance marketing. And this is something that we've done in order to reduce the costs of Modivo by 2 or 3 percentage points year-on-year. Another thing that we've been doing is deleveraging the CCC business unit, so CCC and HalfPrice over the most recent 5 quarters. Well, here, we've reduced debt by nearly PLN 700 million. And so we're coming down to a gross debt level of roughly PLN 1 billion, and this process will be continued. What we've done up until now certainly predestines us to being able to conduct that refinancing we've discussed, where we want to have more factoring lines of credit and guarantees. And so if we think about net debt-to-EBITDA, we're thinking about coming to a ratio of 1 or below 1, depending on what sort of components of the debt will be incorporated in that calculation. So we can say that these are bankable levels, and this shows that we're in a healthy position in terms of obtaining that financing. The next thing that's linked to financing and we're proud and happy with, and we want to share this with you, and that we've been able to, of course, achieve some of our sustainability goals. We have a good AA rating in ESG. This has been awarded by MSCI. We're the first entity in the retail industry to achieve a AA rating. We did this sooner than we had anticipated. This was a strategic objective. We were able to do it -- achieve it 2 years in advance. This is not only a matter of the perception. There's a better and better offering of green financing. And so the financing that we're working on is going to be linked strongly to ESG. It's going to be green finance. And so the improvement in the upgrade in our rating is linked, of course, to the refinancing. And what has been widely appreciated is the improvement in reporting nonfinancial reporting governance, also reporting the carbon footprint in terms of emissions of -- from goods that have been purchased and then reduction in energy consumption. We have a large number of initiatives where we've modernized the management of our utility usage. So as I gradually wrap up my portion of the presentation and thinking about moving further into the future, we also wanted to share with you what we anticipate and expect 2024 should bring to us. Of course, the CEO will speak to that in greater detail in just a moment. But we can tell you a little bit what we're thinking about internally, how we perceive the business environment in 2024. And you see here a slide on the screen. This is something that we used at the end of H1. So we assumed that the consumer would become stronger, as you can see, this has happened. And if you look at the leading indicators, there's above the current indicators, and so we can see that the improvement of the consumer is something that's still in front of us where that economic demand factor will improve. This is not something that we have influence over, of course, the CEO will talk about some of the internal factors. And -- but this is something that will enable us to achieve our goals in 2024. There are a number of things that will support or should support consumption in 2024 as a result of certain fiscal factors like raising minimum wages and raising, of course, pension payments to pensioners and also certain shields for electricity costs and things like that. And so this means that the consumer should be even more buoyant than up until now. And how will this transform into -- what impact will it have on our results, what our expectations are here, well, the CEO will address that issue in his portion of the presentation. He'll do a short summary.

Thank you very much, Lukasz. So maybe I'll say a few words. Well, this year was very important to us, whereas the CCC group, we made a lot of changes in the organization. It was a special year for me, particularly important because I've come back to the position of being the CEO after being away for 6 years. And so I wanted to talk about the most important events that took place in the past years. So we may -- had to make changes in the corporate authorities of Modivo and CCC. This was part of the reducing costs. And of course, issuing shares to obtain capital, reducing debt by leaps and bounds. We're quite happy here. And so we've been improving the brands of CCC and HalfPrice in order to generate satisfactory levels of profitability. This is something that's happening so we no longer have a market or a store that would be unprofitable. We've renegotiated most of the rental agreements. So more than 50% of our rental agreements have rental fees, release fees tied to sales performance. And this is something that comes from COVID. And these are low values that are quite safe for our margins. So if you think about the stock in Modivo and we're solving that problem and the technology there. So this is quite important, and that we launched the refinancing process. And we have a lot of optimism as we gaze into the future about its implementation. This should reduce our financing cost. We need different instruments, so factoring lines of credit as well as guarantees in order to start working with new partners and then licenses. And so we have a large number of global licenses with great brands on good terms. These are things that we've signed. And this enables us to produce, of course, under supervision so we have to say a few words about what we're doing and which factories we're doing it. And so we're able to sell well-recognized global products for 1 of 5 global partners. We have the Rebook partner, we've Kappa and several others. We've nearly 17 well-known brands, reputable brands in Poland, and this enables us to attract much higher margins than using our own products as our brands. And so these brands will be very well recognized outside of Poland. And so this gives us the basis for continuing to grow our exceptional business model. So maybe you could show the model. I displayed the model so I can say a few words about it. And so for you to understand what we've been able to do over the last few years, so the HalfPrice channel is something that's growing very fast. We have nearly 130 big stores that we've put in place over the last 2.5 years. This is an unheard of pace. So there's quite a bit of controversy whether or not this project would be a successful one. So it has been successful for sure. But nobody in Europe has been successful in doing that. This is an American model where 20% of the businesses in the U.S. are based on off-price. So it's off-price model, so lower quality of products. So in Europe, this model doesn't exist. We have TK Maxx, which is managed by the English people, and it's only present in some of Europe. But if you look at Southern Eastern Europe, this business model hasn't been promulgated. So we have quite a bit of success. We can say we're selling a little more expensively in other countries besides Poland, and we're present in these stores 7 days a week. So it's not an e-commerce model. It's a brick-and-mortar approach. So as in CCC, Poland is the most profitable market, whereas HalfPrice, Poland is the last one in terms of profitability. So we've opened this business in 10 different countries, and it's working very well everywhere. So we have great prospects for growth. What does this model give us? So we have full-price channels, so Modivo, eobuwie, and CCC, where all the unsold collections or things with lower turnover ratios, we're able to sell that to a lower channel and we can sell it half the price or 40% off. And we have, in fact, a margin that we want to receive in the first channel, so 70%. So we're able to earn quite well in our HalfPrice channels. So had we not had to move products from Modivo channels to here, we would have had better performance. So what does that mean? So we always have fresh, new products. So we'll never have problems with old shoes, let's say. We assume that 10, 15 collections might be left over. We won't sell. We won't sel these in the full-price model. So in Modivo, so the difference between this old and the new collection was a 20% difference in margin. So the client knows that it's older collection. Where in eobuwie, the difference in margin was 12%. And so if we can get rid of the old stock through HalfPrice and through other channels, that means that Modivo and eobuwie will have much more profitable -- much higher profitability as opposed to the peer group in the industry. So the scale of the problem in Modivo was much bigger than what had originally been indicated. So we had to reduce stock more quickly. So as you can see, we have reduced stock by PLN 350 million. So we have stock of nearly PLN 1 billion, where 84% of that is nearly new. And so that means products that have been delivered for this upcoming season. So we also have some full year products. So we should not have to drop below a 40% margin in this e-commerce branch. We're talking very seriously with the brands about support, so about shifting some of the products to the HalfPrice channel with their support. So we wouldn't have to reduce our margins, we should have the ability to achieve a full margin in eobuwie, and we should be able to achieve an additional margin in HalfPrice. Up until now, this was done on our bags. Of course, we look at the partnership in such a way that both partners have to earn money. We're not going to sell things that don't generate a profit in Modivo. I can promise you that. And we're going to be back above 40% of profitability in Modivo. I can promise you that. And so of course, the benefit from operations is the same so we're going to avoid less expensive products. We don't want those channels to be off-price channels. So you know that in eobuwie that was happening. This was partially -- was driven by competition. And the second reason was because of the aging of the collection. Well, this is not something that should happen again. We've got clean stock. You can trust us, which we're much better prepared and poised the SS '24 season than in the past. So if you look at the CCC and HalfPrice channels, we can do a lot more. You're aware of that. The dollar costs PLN 4 and PLN 4.5. And freight is less expensive because it was happening in Suez channel at one point prior to the problems. We had freight costing $1,300. We've got good contracts secured. We've hedged the dollar exchange rate at good values. So we're counting on superior, very high margins. And we should get used to higher margins in CCC and HalfPrice. If you look at licenses, this is not just for CCC, it's for all of our channels. And that's why we're a good partner because we can sell footwear as well as apparel like Modivo and HalfPrice. And we also have the right to produce. So all of the licenses should improve our margins across all of the channels. I want you to be aware of that. So that means, we shouldn't come to you with the results softer than what has happened up until now. That's our duty. So what do we want to achieve in the new year? We want to grow the revenue of the group by double digits. This is a race not to top line growth but to profitability. We have a large segment of the market. We're the clear leader with a market share of some 30-odd percent in total footwear sales. Nobody in the world has such a high chunk of market. And so we want to improve the gross margins in every business line, without exception, and we want to improve or be even more rigorous in our cost discipline. Lukasz said, we've looked under every stone. I think we've looked under every big stone. And so we want to improve our finance expenses. We're talking with banks. I hope that we're going to have as many limitations on CapEx and spending. And we're going to be able to continue delivering our strategy on a profitable basis. So we think it's going to be a very good period for HalfPrice. So there's a lot of stock goods. We have contacts across the world. We have a large number of offerings. We have many times more offers than we need to have, and so there's expansion. There are not many companies that believe in retail business. And so with higher expenses, e-commerce, marketing, performance, shipping costs, it turns that this is a -- it turns out that this is an effective model, and this is something that we're going to continue to do to the extent that we're able to. We want to open more than we earn money. So as we look at the expansion of double digits in floor space, we've got fixed -- expenses fixed. We don't need anything more. So we'll be able to grow our sales performance and profitability. And so HalfPrice, CCC, we're halfway there. We're pleased with the results we have. But realistically, we should deliver even more satisfaction to you on our results. And then Modivo is on the -- in the black. And so these are our main objectives. Let me add that this model, I don't think I've said that, is the only one in the world. Nobody has created a model where you would have a full price and a half price model within the same group. So of course, you can go one level higher. There are not many players that have an omnichannel approach. We have 50-50, where you have e-commerce and brick-and-mortar stores. So if you believe in retail, it's usually the case that you wouldn't have such a strong e-commerce slate. So we're selling on a 50-50 basis. And so you can check our costs and you can see which channel should sell better. So we don't have to sell anything with a 40% discount. So 20%, 30% discount is basically the highest amount because we have an off channel -- off-price channel, if something hasn't been sold at first price. This is something that's very important. We've created a closed body, so a circular economy, if you will. So we have production capacities where we can produce things without any intermediaries and we're going to be able to generate and attract much higher margins than our competition. And what's important is that we have a very strong foundation here in order to conduct our business. If we look at the Modivo group, the problem turned out to be bigger than we had anticipated. I've already said that. So we're going to buy products from across the board with a lot of new brands. We're not Allegro or a store that has 20 different categories. We have footwear. So there were shoes that were purchased at the wrong price or people pay cash for them. And so we had shoes that sat in the warehouse for 300 days. So we're buying more deeply. We're selling brands that sell, and we've stepped back from agreements with at least half of the suppliers. And so we have a smaller bin, you might say, of products. So if you will have the full depth, you will have the full size potential. We had the same thing in CCC. We wanted to have a large number of things. So we've reduced the product range by 50%. So we always have the full extent of sizes. Sometimes you like a shoe, but you don't have the size, and customers don't like that. So we want to have greater depth, and this is something that's delivered results. So generally speaking, I think I've said enough on the subject. Thank you very much. So now, ladies and gentlemen, we have some time for you here in the room to pose any questions. So if you could raise your hand, and we'll deliver a mic to you. We also have the opportunity for you to pose your questions through the chat function if you're an online person.

So we have the first questions here in the room.

So I'm from mBank. What type of CapEx growth are you assuming in Modivo and CCC in 2024?

In terms of Modivo, we don't assume that CapEx will grow. We might even assume that it will step back a little bit, fall. If we look at CCC, it a little bit depends on what's going to happen with our talks. Some of our contracts at present have a lot of limitations linked to CapEx. But it won't be an increase by leaps and bounds. We want to make sure that things are aligned, especially in HalfPrice to the business that we have. And so if anything, it's going to happen, maybe 20%, 25%. So we want to have 30 store adds in HalfPrice, 30-some odd in CCC. So we're waiting for the model to become even more mature. So we'll come back to you, and so we want to develop, if we're going to have a 25% EBITDA in HalfPrice. So in terms of wanting to grow more strongly, so we have a large number of proposals and offers. So we're able to sift through them and select the bad ones. We're not looking for proposals. Proposals are looking for us.

I'm from BOS. I have a question about the room you have to reduce expenses. You're going to look -- turn every stone. Is it the case that in CCC, you still have a lot of stones to overturn? And what about Modivo? So it seems that costs are quite high, at least if you look at the revenue side of things.

In CCC, we see some potential, especially abroad. If you think about profitability and cost ratios, we're going to work on the stores abroad, and we have that potential. And if we're looking at the results and if we compare 2023 to 2024 ratios, so we should say that we should see the full realization of the activities that we undertook in the previous year. So when we annualize those results, the overall impact should be even greater. And so if we think about the impact of changes to leases, that's something that's going to be quite attractive. And the full result will be revealed in 2024. So if you look at Modivo, what's critical here? As I mentioned, performance marketing is quite important. This is a significant cost component. So the costs at Modivo are in excess of 17% of income. So we'd like for that reduction to be at least a couple of percentage points, but we don't have the feeling that the costs are highly overstated in Modivo because if you look at the fixed expenses, we've been able to cross them -- reduce them. And so we've also reduced some other costs linked to sales. And so we can say that the costs are quite good for logistics, under 7% threshold, quite good results for the industry. And so we'll continue to reduce costs in performance marketing, and that means we should have more newer products in the stock. And so we had to sold -- we had to sell old shoes, old footwear. And that's why we had to spend more, and so we'll be able to drop that back by at least 3%. And we want to sell brands that have more power. I'm not sure what you have in mind if you're talking about costs. So we'll be calculating that versus what happened in the previous years, first 2 quarters. So we had terminations and things like that, which cost us money. And so for the next few quarters, we should watch closely, the costs. We're going to continue working on our rents. So we're introducing brands stated as a percentage of turnover. So we have a lot of returns. And so this will have an impact, of course, on our rents. We're not going to let anything go.

I wanted to talk about sales in CCC. It grew by 14%.

Well, that's not the way you should look at it because we have January, February. So it's in the report. If it comes in on the 31st of January, but not -- if it comes on the 2nd of February, it's not in the reports. We don't feel comfortable with that. So we have good stock, and you'll see that in the spring in the stores. So that's not something that we can reflect in the revenue. So we have footwear at -- that's branded at better prices. And this is because of the dollar exchange rate, freight costs. But to a large extent, it's thanks to saying goodbye to agents and intermediaries and reductions in prices in Asia. So prices in Asia have fallen somewhat. And so this is a matter of several factors. We have good collections, good-looking products. I see we have a question here in the front.

I'm from [indiscernible]. I have 2 questions. I want to give an opportunity to others. So you emphasized that profitability was quite important this last year and this year. If I think about maybe not the forecast, but the prospect that you want to have an EBITDA of 14%, and it was a little bit above 8%, in what sort of growth do you anticipate this year? Are you -- is your ambition to have 10%, 15%? Or can you say a few more words about that?

So if we think about precise guidance, that's something you expect. It will be a good moment when we look at the annual report, which we'll publish on the 5th of April. In our tradition, this is when we give that type of guidance at that time. So we certainly want to be above 10% to 12%. That's absolutely true.

One second question. There were some changes -- quite a few changes last year in terms of what happened in the corporate authorities, changes in the CEO of Modivo. You came back. Why were those movements amongst the leaders of the organization necessary? Why were there some sort of accusations or allegations against previous managers? If things were running well, there wouldn't be any changes, right? I wanted to ask you about the potential for adding new stores of HalfPrice in the 10 markets. What sort of store adds do you want to have over the next 3 to 5 years? What's happening with TK Maxx. If they've got 50 stores? Are you familiar with their plans? And what their plans look like compared to yours?

TK Maxx, I think, has 52 or 53 stores. The company wasn't growing too fastly. It's taken them some 15 years to do that. Based on what I see and hear, they have the idea to grow in some of the smaller cities. But TK Maxx, based on what I understand, wants to grow in markets where it's already present. So realistically, we're the only off-price in the rest of Europe. If we're talking about competition, 363 stores in the U.K. So that's 1 store per 180,000 residents. That means we should have 200 stores. We're not going to make things as dense as that.

So there's -- is there a lot of potential?

To be frank, I don't think so, unless we're going to go into cities with 50,000 inhabitants. But if you look at Spain, I'm not -- I don't want to scare anybody, Italy, France, where you've got 60 million people, and you can have 300,000 -- or 300 stores. So we're selling things 50% more expensive and we're selling better. Well, you have to remember that, that are stores that operates 7 days a week. So you don't have e-commerce. We'll maybe do a pilot. Maybe we'll sell a franchise operation for abroad. We're going to do a different thing. We're going to think on our feet in order to grow the business. So in Italy, people are capable of driving 100 kilometers to get to an outlet. An outlet has 1 or 2 brands. HalfPrice has 2,000, 3,000 brands. They've got accessories, a variety of categories. They've got home, beauty, perfumes, food, footwear, apparel, toys. So whatever they want to buy less expensively, we're able to sell. It's a little more difficult with furniture because furniture doesn't have that level of turnover. We're quite flexible and we're able to switch product ranges. We've got good analysis. If we see that something is not generating turnover, then we can change it with something else like food. And so the model is not perfect. We continue to learn about this model. Plus the time we have, there are new attractive products and new attractive brands and contacts where we're buying these products.

I'm from the TFI company. My first question is about your FX hedge. For what period have you done this FX hedge? And the second question. You mentioned production that under the licensing approach, you're able to produce according to the standards set by the licensor. But I understand that you don't have any factories in your books. So I wanted to ask how you are doing that?

We don't have any factories, and I'm very pleased with that. So in Pokowice and in Slupsk, those factories have been shut down. And I have to say that our partners in Poland are producing footwear. So you can say I'm happy with that. Because shoes produced in India or Bangladesh are much less expensive, much longer terms of payment with totally different margins. Well, these are not our factories. We don't own them, but some of these factories are producing solely for us. So if an -- even it's not 100%, it's a large percentage -- prevalence of their production run. So I can say I'm frequently in Asia. When I see the store prices, I don't think I'm going to buy anything. The other question was also about FX hedging. Here, the maximum period we think about is 6 months. So that's the limit we have in our consortium agreements. So if you think about the spring collection, most of these things have been done. So we have an exchange rate of PLN 4. That's an increase of our margin by 4% -- sorry, by 3%. And so we're able to basically capture that growth potential in every single area. So in -- during COVID, the exchange rate was PLN 4.8. So we were able to sell products at that level because we float. Some of that cost is shared with the consumers, are passed on to the consumers. It's worse if the exchange rate is too low because then competitors can go crazy with prices. So everything has to be done with moderation.

I have a question about Modivo. HalfPrice and CCC have very good results. My first question is about your e-commerce statistics. The number of baskets, the number of visitors, was it up or was it down? Are you capable of responding?

So I think above all, if we look at Modivo, what we're working on and what we find missing is conversion. The other parameters are satisfactory in 2023, 2024. So we can show or say that what's missing is the conversion in eobuwie, so efootwear. And so in Modivo, we want to increase traffic, so basically developing the customer base. So these are parameters that we're working on. But if we're looking at the basket, here, the levels are satisfactory.

Well, what's related to this question? I'm not an expert, but I always thought that e-commerce was an off-price channel. And how will you compete for customers if price is not used in that channel? How will you build traffic in that channel if performance marketing is more and more expensive?

So it's not competing, it's burning cash. We don't want to fight for customers with price. We have to have unique products. We want to be an expert in footwear. We want to have an omnichannel approach in brick-and-mortar stores. These are areas in which we want to reduce costs or have savings. Most e-commerce operations don't have basically their own stores. They don't have return centers. So both in eobuwie and Modivo, we have to be prepared for that. That's something that's future-looking. I think partnership relations, we're sitting in this more and more deeply. So in every single brand, we're working together. We're the #1 player in this portion, part of Europe. And so we have to get good terms and conditions. So if you look -- so you have the distributor in the wholesale. So that distributor has better brands or has people running stores. So if you're buying something for e-commerce, you have 50%, 50% margin. If you're buying for your stores, it's 60%, 65% margin. So we want to be the distributor, and this is where the battle is being fought -- is being waged, so we can get much better brands -- sorry, margins from the very get go. That's a fight we've begun. And I think over the next few quarters, we're going to be able to finish that and talking about building relations, partnership relations, distributing products and to get the best possible margins that are possible. That's not something that had happened in eobuwie. They were buying a lot. They were buying very broadly, 2,000 different brands. Now we're going to drop down to maybe 300 brands. But we want to do this very well, and we want to do that at high profit.

So the CEO has already said everything.

It's not possible for me to have said everything, Lukasz.

But you said quite a bit. In terms of the breadth of the offering, this is something that we look at the marketplace with Modivo. So it's growing quite dynamically. So customers who are looking for niche products, they'll be able to find that in our marketplace with merchants. But you can't offer a wide offer of products at a good price because those 2 things are mutually exclusive. We can't compete in -- we don't want to lead to a situation which Modivo is competing with HalfPrice. Modivo is about innovativeness, it's fashion. So we're talking about new things. If some things have been around for 6 months or a year, you should sell it at the expense of the brand to the HalfPrice. And that's the model that we have in place. We're almost -- we're tweaking it. I don't want to work with the brand. We're not earning a sufficient amount of money. And we're trying to set the thresholds. We should start thinking about how much money we want to make, and I want to earn a lot of money on these things. So that's quite important. And since I'm a big player, I want to earn a lot. So if -- when we go to shopping galleries, we're the key lessee. And so as we open up HalfPrices, we expect at least EUR 300 for renovations of stores or we expect basically specific terms and conditions, so EUR 300 per square meter. So these are very good achievements for people in the industry. If you're on the other side, you understand what sort of lease fees you can generate. So we have a long line. And the other thing that's blocking us right now is CapEx. If we have OCR, if we're paying 2% for rent, 10% for employees and the rest is for transport and other things like that, and if you have a 60% margin, then you can imagine then what the store-level EBITDA is.

Any other questions here in the room or maybe something from the chat? We have many questions from chat. I'll allow myself to read a few, which is -- haven't been post. Is there a positive scenario in which you would buy -- redeem the bonds from SoftBank as opposed to converting them? Because if they're converted, this would dilute others. Is it possible? Is a scenario possible if we think about floating Modivo?

If we're thinking -- we don't want to speculate. There's a lot of speculation out there, and you can create new things. Well, the base scenario is that we have the SoftBank bonds with an extended maturity up until 2026. And that's the period we have at our disposal for the IPO of Modivo as well as to reach some arrangements with SoftBank to find a different way of settling that. So IPO plus conversion at the time of the IPO is the baseline scenario. So we want to give the next year to Modivo, and we'll see where we're. So whether or not this company is fit for the stock exchange.

We have another question from the chat. If I calculate well, you have reduced -- or you've fired 5 members of the subsidiaries, Management Boards. Will the organizational efficiency suffer as a result?

If we're -- so if you include the movement of margin to eobuwie, we're talking about 8 changes. And we also had strategic managers who were also let go. So as the founder of this organization and now the CEO and the main shareholder, I'm fully responsible for what I'm doing. And I think the organization is much lighter than it was in the past. There is less -- fewer initiatives, less spend, lower spend. We have to be light, a lean and mean machine. We have to be comparable to what we were like before. We're a trading company, and we have to understand that product is the basis for what we do. And this is something we're going to stick to. You'll see changes in the product and the margins we're going to command in the upcoming periods. So meet here in a year, and we can then respond to the question at that time whether or not that was a good choice. So I'm working 120%, maybe 100 -- even more than 100%. I'm everywhere. Well, it's not -- I put my finger in and I pull it out. And we're poking everywhere, and we're trying to synchronize the work. We're doing what we need. We can't run as many organization and initiatives at the same time because the organization is not capable of doing it. I think things are okay. Well, you can see I've been in the position again since May, and things are a little bit better than they were.

If there are no other questions from the room, I have one more question from the chat. Could you say that on licensed products, your gross margin is higher than on your own brands? And the second part of the question, licensed products will squeeze out on brands from the CCC brand?

Well, that's a good question. We have 6 leading brands: Lasocki, Jenny Fairy, Sprandi, those are our top brands, which do 50% of the -- Badura, Gino Rossi, DeeZee are less important. Then we have 10, 15 smaller [ regional cuisines ] to go -- something like maybe you don't even know these brands. They're not generating major volumes nor will they be as reputable or as well known as the licensed brands. So in Poland, when those brands are well known and reliable, well, that's -- it's not so sweet abroad. Well, our expansion, that wasn't successful in some of the Western markets. This was because our brands weren't well known. Nobody believed in our products that -- they didn't know our shoes were leather, but they didn't want to buy because they didn't believe it was leather. So I hope that these new brands will help us improve our sales density per square meter, so in Bulgaria, Hungary and [ Palau ]. So our brands and the licenses will be sold in greater quantities. I mean, there will be some squeezing out. But.... And the second question is about profitability. So if we look we have profitability is higher by 5 percentage points even after you pay the licensing fees. And my own products are also quite profitable. So basically, we have to get rid of some of those partners we're not earning any money. And so in the most recent quarter, we've replaced products with better, profitable or more profitable products. So if the margin is up by 10%, 15% and you have PLN 100 million in revenue, well, this will give you a substantial impact, some mathematics in policies. And so brands are more important in Modivo. Some are less important in CCC, but they're the draw horses. But I think we've been able to do this quite successfully. Let me tell you what's important. Thanks to these licenses, I'm thinking about Reebok and Kappa, we have much better conditions -- substantially better conditions from other sports brands, which is also quite important because I thought they were afraid that there wouldn't be room in our stores for their products. So I prefer to have a brand that's generating 70% profit as opposed to 40%, so I can steer things because we have a lot of traffic. In e-commerce, it's different because they're -- in e-commerce, they're actually looking for brands. It's a different approach. But in CCC, people come in to buy footwear, and then they buy the brand. So the CCC brand is what attracts people to the stores. So it is more profitable, it's more recognizable, and it can generate a pretty big chunk or account for a big chunk of the market.

Are you counting on trading some of this coming back?

Well, this is an interesting question. We've learned to live in this rigor that exists. In HalfPrice, we're doing very well. In CCC, it's neutral. So 30% of our sales come from e-commerce. And that's not something that any of the retail players have. And if we look at Modivo and eobuwie, this is something that could do damage. We have a neutral approach that -- a neutral stance. So an employee should earn twice as much on a Sunday. So we have a neutral stance on that. But in HalfPrice development, we should select those markets where they work 7 days a week. So a good flagship store will generate 100,000 a day, so in Romania and Czech Republic. And so that means you have a margin that's up by PLN 3 million, so per annum. That's a lot of money of additional profit per annum. So we're not going to kill ourselves for these Sundays. So I think we've exhausted all the questions from the chat. All the other questions are being rebuilding. So I'll be here for a few more minutes. And once every 6 months, I'm going to want to meet with you here in the other quarters. So in the odd quarters, Karol Poltorak will be meeting with you, so he and Lukasz. So I'll be joining you once every 6 months. I'll enter it into my calendar, and I'll be present in order to field your questions. So thank you very much for this portion of the presentation and the meeting. So thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. [Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]