Pierce Group AB (publ) (PIERCE) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the Pierce Group Q3 2024 presentation. [Operator Instructions] Now I will hand the conference over to the speakers, CEO, Goran Dahlin; and CFO, Fredrik Idestrom. Please go ahead.

Good morning. This is Goran Dahlin, CEO of Pierce Group, and with me is Fredrik Idestrom, our CFO. Page 3, please. So before we go into the results of the quarter, I would like to spend a few minutes on Pierce and the market we are operating in. Pierce is a leading e-tailer in the European market from Gear, Parts and Accessories for motorcycle riding. The European market was estimated to some SEK 100 billion in 2021. The market is still very fragmented, mainly served by traditional offline retailers, while well suited for e-commerce. We judge that it's highly likely that the market will consolidate as there are significant economies of scale. Pierce is a clear leader in the off-road segment and one of the largest e-tailers in the on-road segment. We're also the only true pan-European company in the industry with local presence in 16 markets. Pierce is a uniquely attractive assortment, offering a wide grade of top brands with the largest range of own brands in the market. We have a turnover of approximately SEK 1.5 billion and 320 employees across Europe. And to the right-hand side, you can see some basic information. 2/3 of our sales are outside the Nordics. Almost 2/3 of our sales are off-road, 1/3 is on road and 5% is other, which is primarily Sledstore. 20% of our sales are Parts and Accessories for each, and we have an own brand share of 40%. Page 5, please. So the competitive -- the market for Gear, Parts and Accessories are divided into 4 segments: Gear, Parts and Accessories and Streetwear. Gear is basically everything that you have on your body when you ride motorcycle, Parts is everything that goes into the bike and Accessories is everything that you need when you do motorcycle riding that's not on the bike or not on your body such as tents, pit mats, et cetera, and 20% of the market is constituted of Streetwear. All of these are well suited for e-commerce. We can offer a wide selection, a very good availability and convenience. And long term, another growth driver for the online and the off-line market is that we have an increasing base of motorcycle riders. So the total market in 2021 was roughly SEK 100 billion, and the current online market share is around 20%. Since then, since 2021, we think that the market has declined, but there is no official market data available. Next slide, please. So the competitive landscape is fragmented and constituted in -- of 5 different segments: leading online retailers, such as 24MX, XLMOTO. These are mainly our direct competitors. Then we have general and diversified online and marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay, leading European omnichannel retailers. They have their sales split and similar portions between physical retail and e-commerce, brick-and-mortar, these are typical small local physical retailers. However, many of them since COVID have some online presence. Then we also have a direct consumer segment. The brands in the market mainly sell through distributors and directly to large retailers. Some are also operating their own web shops and sell directly to consumers. The right-hand side, you can see our main direct competitors. We have 8 of them. I will not go through all of them, but state some key points. I want to stress again the Pierce's unique position. We are the largest e-commerce player in the market. We are the champion in the Nordics, and we have a clear leadership in off-road across Europe. We're also the only true pan-European player with local sites in 16 countries. That includes local language, local payment options, customer service for local language and local delivery partners. We're also the only player with a pan-European long-haul logistics setup, where we have Pierce dedicated long-haul transportation across Europe that injects products into the local injection points. The other players in the markets are primarily local champions in the main European markets, most of them operate in on-road segment. Many of them have financial owners, which we think will facilitate a future market consolidation. Page 7, please. So going into the results of the quarter. Quarter 3, together with quarter 1, is normally seasonally the smallest quarter. When we had the last call, we talked about the diminishing or decreasing consumer sentiment at the end of Q2. We saw this continue a weak consumer sentiment throughout quarter 3. Looking ahead, the global geopolitical situation gives a continued uncertain customer sentiment as well as in freight prices. Our gross margin increased versus last year with 14.8 ppt to 45.5%. The increase was 2.7ppt, excluding the extraordinary increase in the provision for slow-moving inventory last year. Main drivers are price increases, lower shipping costs and minor reversal of the obsolescence provision. Our EBIT improved slightly versus last year. We reached a breakeven EBIT for the quarter to compare with last year's EBIT of minus SEK 3 million, excluding the extraordinary SEK 44 million increase in the provision for slow-moving inventory that we did last year. We were satisfied that the efficiency program implemented during the fourth quarter of 2023 is delivering according to plan. Our overhead cost decreased to SEK 65 million compared to SEK 67 million in the previous year. Despite the underlying inflation and investments in the modernization of our IT infrastructure as part of our transformation journey. At the end of the third quarter, our cash position was solid at SEK 261 million, which is a significant increase from the SEK 171 million we had in the previous year. However, we anticipate a seasonal fluctuations, an expanded offering of our private label products and initiatives to ensure product availability and deliver precision in line with our strategy will require higher inventory levels moving forward. Page 8, please. So looking at some of our key KPIs. We have a strong own brand offering, and we have a very stable situated share of private label sales. Our private label brand -- our private brand share was 40% compared with 40% in quarter 3 last year. Looking at the KPIs to the right. We follow the Trustpilot scores and that's also very stable on a high level across Europe, we ran 4.3 out of 5. Next slide, please. Our customer base is stabilizing. We have since the end of COVID, we have experienced a decrease in our customer base. We're satisfied to see that this is stabilizing, which is, of course, extremely important for us. On the right-hand side, you can see that the AOV continues to rise, which is of offsetting the lower order volumes. We have grown the AOV primarily due to price increases. With that, I hand over to Fredrik.

Thank you, Goran. Good morning. This is Fredrik Idestrom and I'm the CFO at Pierce. So as Goran mentioned, Q3 showed continued growth in local currencies, which means that we are year-to-date growing, following several quarters of decline in 2023 and 2022. As Goran also mentioned, Q3 is one of -- together with Q1 is one of our smaller quarters, which is also clear from the graph. Growth in the on-road and off-road segments, respectively, were similar in Q3. And from a market perspective, the Nordics were weaker than outside the Nordics. We continue also in Q3 to improve profit after variable cost versus previous year. This is mainly driven by improved prices to customers, lower in freight costs and a minor reversal of the obsolescence provision. Part of the explanation is further that in Q3 2023, the profit was negatively impacted by an extraordinary change in the obsolescence provisions. The metrics excluding this factor can be seen in the middle bars for reference. So in summary, profit at the variable cost increased in Q3 versus last year with 1.1 percentage points, mainly driven by the off-road segment and year-to-date, with 2.7 percentage points if the extraordinary provision from last year is excluded. During the quarter, our adjusted EBIT improved from minus SEK 47 million to 0 or from minus SEK 3 million to 0 versus previous year if the extraordinary provision is excluded. As Goran mentioned, our operational efficiency program implemented in 2023 delivered in line with the plans and successfully mitigated the underlying inflationary trends and costs associated with our tech stack modernization. Breaking down the improvement in adjusted EBIT in Q3 versus previous year, we can clearly see improvements coming from gross profit in terms of lower in freight costs and other gross margin factors as well as a small reversal of the obsolescence reserve. These, together with overhead cost improvement that drives EBIT. The direct costs during the period were, however, higher than in the previous year. And direct costs includes marketing and freight out to customers. Looking at the underlying gross margin trend to the left, we see that our gross margin remains higher compared with previous periods. Gross margin improved also slightly in Q3 versus Q2. The positive development has generally driven by price increases and lower shipping costs, as mentioned. And in 2024, the gross margin has also been positively affected by obsolescence provision reversal. As stated, we made an extraordinary increased provision in last year. And this year, we have been successful in our work with overstock and slow-moving stock, which means that we have been able to reverse part of the provision. Adjusting for the obsolescence reversals, we still see a positive underlying gross margin trend going from 42.8% in Q3 2023 to 45.2% in Q3 2024. On the right-hand side, you see that shipping cost in relation to revenue is 0.5 percentage points lower than 1 year ago, and it remains on the same level as it has done in Q1 and Q2 to 2024 as well. With the current geopolitical situation, the uncertainty connected to shipping rates is high. And during 2024, market rates have been higher than in 2023, but also much more volatile. There is a risk of potential increases and more volatility in the coming quarters due to the ongoing situations in the Red Sea region and also other geopolitical factors, including the U.S. election. We're monitoring this closely, and our teams are actively working to mitigate where possible. As mentioned a few slides back, the outcome of the efficiency program we launched last year is in line with expectations. And thanks to the savings, our OpEx remains at the similar level as last year despite underlying inflation pressure such as salary and cost increases, as well as costs associated with the execution of our strategy to modernize the tech stack. The percentage in Q3 is higher versus Q2 as Q3 is a seasonally smarter -- smaller quarter. The costs associated with the tech stack upgrade will disappear over time. We are, however, not providing any guidance as to how much and when. The net working capital increased in the quarter but remains lower than the same quarter last year. The increase is in line with seasonal fluctuations and our strategy to expand both the width and depth of our stock inventory, which is providing greater delivery precision and shorter lead times to our customers. We now have the largest stock range in Europe within our industry. And we plan to continue expanding this to ensure the best possible shopping experience. We, therefore, expect that stock levels will be higher going forward in support of this. Our financial position remains strong with SEK 261 million in net cash at the end of the quarter, and we have a solid equity position of over SEK 600 million. I will now hand over to Goran for some final remarks.

Thank you, Fredrik. We have been saying in some calls now, we have identified 7 strategic objectives that guide our efforts on our journey to become the undistributed leader in e-commerce for motorcycle equipment and accessories across the European market. I would like to explain a little bit more on what we have been doing to achieve these goals. So the first one is to achieve uncontested leadership in the off-road segment and drive profitable growth in the on-road segment. And here, what we have done is that we have increased the number of MX riders in our organization to improve, especially on our technical assortment, where we have lost some momentum in the last years. We have also rebalanced our marketing resources more towards 24MX. And when it comes to XLMOTO, we are driving growth, but we are doing it primarily in the profitable markets and the most profitable products and suppliers. The second strategic goal is to attain the highest customer loyalty in the industry. And here, during the quarter, as Fredrik mentioned, we have done one of the largest improvements ever in our stock assortment. We have increased the number of stock articles with close to 50%. We have now one of the largest stocks ranged in Europe, where we have the largest stock range in Europe. We have also implemented a more amicable and swift way of treating our customers in our customer care. We have made large improvements in delivery transparency, and we have launched our first-ever loyalty program, which was done in our 24MX store. The third strategic objective is to develop a simple and effective go-to-market strategy. This is pending our new tech stack. The fourth goal is to be the best in the industry in pricing and procurement. During last year, at the end of last year and during this year, we have worked hard to implement a new state-of-the-art pricing software, and we can confidently say that we are one of the best, if not even the best player with the most advanced software and the best pricing specialist in our industry. We have also, and we are implementing a new approach towards our partner suppliers where we try to come closer to them to attain mutual gains. The fifth goal is to establish a market-leading value for money own brands. We have consolidated our own brand portfolio into 3 brands, and we are now preparing for the largest expansion of our own brand that we have ever done. This is to be launched during Q1, Q2 and Q3 next year. We are also going to build a modern and scalable IT platform, and this is a complete change of our tech stack. This is progressing. It's not an on-road smooth journey, as you can imagine. This is more of an off-road bumpy journey, but we are working hard, and we're implementing state-of-the-art modular and cloud-based systems. These exhaustive changes take time. That's why we have said that 2024 is a year of transformation. We expect the project to continue throughout 2025. The seventh strategic goal is to culture a lean and agile organization. And we made a major reorganization at the end of last year. So we have established a much leaner and more agile and fast organization. So to finalize, just to repeat, looking forward with the increasing geopolitical tensions in several parts of the world, the upcoming presidential change in the U.S. and general economic uncertainty, the outlook remains uncertain. We are, however, keeping full focus on our operations, what we can control, and we remain fully committed to our vision and strategic objectives. That ends our presentation for today. We are now happy to answer your questions.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Adrian Elmlund from Nordea.

A couple of questions from me. Could you give any more color on how the loyalty program has been received so far?

Yes. We are very satisfied with the reception of our loyalty program and we have launched what we call loyalty program 1.0. We still -- we are building in our new tech stack more capabilities to take the next step in the loyalty program. But what we did was that we have launched the loyalty program, 24MX and that you can win a motocross and [ Stark Varg ] as you see on the picture and also membership weekends with increased rebates, et cetera, et cetera. This has been received very well, and we're very satisfied with the development so far.

Okay. Maybe if we touch more a bit the subject for the declining number of active customers. Is this maybe a way to reverse this? Or what are the reasons for the drop? And how do you expect to mitigate it ahead?

Yes. The primary reason for the drop in customers according to the research that we have made is the general economic situation and the weak consumer sentiment, together with the boom during COVID. So this is mostly a post-COVID effect. Then also during that situation during the post-COVID, we entered into a situation where we had a lot of overstock and we were focused on selling out the overstock and we could not stock enough new interesting products. We're out of that now, and we can improve our -- and we have improved our stock and our assortment. So we have done many actions to try to reverse the declining customer base. And I think that we're starting to see some effects in this with the fact that the decline is flattening out.

Okay. Perfect. Moving on maybe to some net working capital. It is now at 8.1%. Historically, it's been around maybe 14% to 17%. And when you mentioned that it will increase going forward, are you referring to historical levels or only when compared to today?

It is when compared to today. So we are not providing any guidance as to the future levels in relation to net revenue.

Okay. Last question. When referring to the efficiency program, when are you expecting it to be finalized? And maybe how much more cut costs in overhead?

We are finalized with that program. We are -- compared to last year, we are now seeing the benefits in the OpEx. At the same time, as we are talking about, we have inflation and then also a general quite high inflation. And together with that, we are driving a lot of change, which consumes quite a lot of OpEx. So when this -- when we're out of this transformation period, we should see some more clear effects on the OpEx.

The next question comes from Tommi Saarinen from Inderes.

Looking at the end of the year and the black month, what are you seeing right now? And what are you expecting for the coming months?

So when it comes to commenting on the current quarter, that is something we don't do. So we don't provide any guidance or any information as to the current trading.

All right. Could you elaborate a bit more on the assortment expansion? Did you add any more new brands? And if you did, were these mostly your own brands?

We have not added that many new brands, but this is rather that what we said that we have had come out of a situation where we had a tremendous overstock during 2022 and to some extent, 2023. And during 2024, we have gradually been able to increase the width of the assortment from -- primarily from our partner suppliers. This is also a way for us to partner closely with our largest suppliers to gain mutual benefits. But we've also deepened the assortment and increased our safety stock on some of our key products where we have had some stock-out issues during the year.

Is this mostly in the off-road segment? And is it Part, Gear or Accessories?

This goes across all segments.

All right. You touched a bit on the competitive landscape in your presentation. Question regarding the brand owners, have you seen an increased interest towards the direct-to-consumer business model?

Yes, the -- well, we -- of course, it's a little bit difficult for us to say anything with certainty, but what we hear in the market, we believe that, that is increasing, but it is still at very low levels.

There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

That was all from us. Thank you, and we wish you a good continuation of the day. Thank you.

Thank you.