Puig Brands, S.A. (PUIG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and thank you for joining us this morning for the presentation of our results for the first half of 2024, our first presentation as a public company. Today, we have with us our Chairman and CEO, Marc Puig; and our CFO, Joan Albiol. Marc will share an update on the business through the lens of our performance during the first half of 2024 and our expectations for the rest of the year. Joan will not comment in great detail on our financial results.

Good morning, everyone. Today, we present our first ever earnings call as a publicly listed company, which we have been looking forward to. We have had an [ eventual ] first half of the year, as you know, most notably punctuated by the milestone of the IPO, an achievement that required a big effort from our teams. But first, let me remind you the strength of our portfolio of Love Brands. Our brands operate across 3 business segments: fragrance and fashion, makeup and skincare. And 3 of these brands, Rabanne, Carolina Herrera and Charlotte Tilbury; with EUR 1 billion ambition. Today, our own brands represent 96% of the net revenues from our Love Brands. Shortly, I will walk you through the performance of the business for the last 6 months and tell you why I am confident in the outlook for the rest of this year. To start with, we have a short video that summarizes the highlights of our performance over the first half and speaks about our commitment to innovation and creativity, while maintaining the values that have defined Puig for last 110 years. [Presentation]

We're pleased to report a robust first half of 2024, demonstrating the success of our strategic choices. We're driven by a focus on premium beauty while prioritizing our own brands, building a unique niche fragrance portfolio and successfully diversifying into makeup and skincare. We continue to outperform the market. Our net revenue for the first 6 months grew to EUR 2.2 billion, which is a 9.6% increase over the first half of 2023 on a reported basis and 8.5% growth like-for-like, in line with our medium-term guidance of high single-digit like-for-like growth provided at IPO and well ahead of the premium beauty market. We achieved these while delivering a record gross margin position, which was 75.8% for the first half, a 70 basis point improvement over the comparable period in the first half of 2023 and reflects well the continued [ premiumization ] of our portfolio and the strong execution capabilities at scale. Our adjusted EBITDA margin for this period was 18.9%, well on track to deliver our guidance of 2024, being in line with 2023 levels for the full year. Our margin was 40 basis points lower than the first half of 2023, mostly due to a 2 percentage point increase in A&P investments, which was partially offset by improvements in gross margin and distribution costs. I would like to mention that our business is managed on an annual basis and this result is in line with our expectation for the period as we experienced some seasonality and phasing of our cost across the 2 halves of the year and also in line with our launch calendar. Joan will discuss this in further detail later in the presentation. Our adjusted net income came in at EUR 238 million or 11.0% of sales, implying EUR 0.46 per share. In addition to the half-year results, we are further encouraged by the performance of Puig in July and August. All this confirms our confidence in the guidance that we provided at the IPO. Now let me explain the results in more detail. We start with the net revenues. The EUR 2.2 billion of net revenues were a result of 8.5% growth like-for-like, 1.4% from the acquisition of Dr. Barbara Sturm and a negative 0.3% impact from foreign exchange. This result is ahead of the premium beauty market growth, thanks to the desirability of our brands and our portfolio becoming more premium. We have been able to continue capturing value market share in our core markets of EMEA and Americas, and we continued our diversification into skincare with organic growth, complemented with the incorporation of our first niche skincare brand in our portfolio. Now we're looking at a very high level at our business segments. Our fragrance and fashion segment grew 10.7% on both reported and constant perimeter basis. Having generated EUR 1.6 billion in revenues in the first 6 months, this segment represented 73% of our total sales for the period. Our makeup segment contracted by 1.8% on both a reported and constant perimeter basis. This segment contributed 15% of our total sales for the period or EUR 334 million. And our skincare segment grew 25.2% on a reported basis and 11.6% on a constant perimeter basis. Having generated EUR 256 million in revenues in the first 6 months, this segment represented 12% of our total sales for the period. We will now look at each of these segments in a little more detail. First, we start with our fragrance and fashion business segment, which is our largest segment, and generated nearly EUR 1.6 billion in net revenue, growing at 10.7%. Our strong performance in this category can mainly be attributed to continued execution of our core business, and is proven by our value market share position for the first half of 2024. According to our estimates, globally, we achieved an impressive 11.3% of value market share or VMS, which is a 60 basis point improvement upon our VMS position of 10.7% for the 6 months ending in June 2023 in [ selective ] fragrances. We achieved 8.9% VMS in North America, reinforcing our position in this region, 26.5% in Lat Am and 11.6% in Europe. In Asia Pacific, we navigated a challenging environment. The region is relatively small part of our business today, and we play in this market selectively, leading with our niche brands. I would like to highlight the key drivers for this performance. Now first, outstanding success of Jean Paul Gaultier. 30 years after entering the fragrance category and for the first time in its history, Jean Paul Gaultier rose in the top fragrance brands globally, joining in Rabanne and Carolina Herrera. So now we have 3 brands out of this top 10. Gucci has always stood for revolutionary self expression, with diversity and inclusivity at its core. No other brand has been as consistent in this purpose and vision for over 40 years. And now it has successfully captured the imagination of a new generation of young fragrance consumers. And it is also interesting that TikTok has been one of the channels where the new generation has been discovering and building an emotional connection with this brand that is so rich in heritage. The second driver is that our core lines continue to perform, with franchises like Good Girl continuing to capture positions in highly competitive markets like the U.S. and maintaining its #2 ranking in [ feminine ] fragrances globally. One of our strengths that has helped us grow market share over time has been our ability to innovate and bring newness to consumers. Our growth in this segment is complemented by new stage launches over the first half of 2024, such as the Intense version of Fame and Phantom by Rabanne. Charlotte Tilbury also launched the first fragrance collection, which came to market in April. We also continue innovating in niche. For example, at Penhaligon's, we launched AlUla to reinforce the brand for our Middle Eastern consumers. Now moving to our makeup business segment. This segment generated nearly EUR 334 million in net revenue, 1.8% less than the comparable period last year, which is below expectations. A few factors contributed to this result. While our overall exposure to Asia Pacific, and specifically China, is limited, we felt the impact, the most in our makeup segment, specifically with Christian Louboutin, which is -- which has higher exposure to the region and resulted in a decline in its sales. To a lesser extent, the exposure to APAC also impacted Charlotte Tilbury makeup, which combined with destocking at certain retailers during the first half resulted in an overall flat net revenue performance for [ city ] makeup. Charlotte Tilbury makeup continues showing strength in the market with double-digit sell-out growth in core markets. In that sense, we continue our leadership in the U.K. market with Charlotte Tilbury as the #1 makeup brand and gained market share in the U.S. where the brand has now become the #2 makeup brand for the first half of 2024 for the first time. In Charlotte Tilbury makeup, we mentioned the entry into Ulta in the U.S. at the beginning of 2024, which is performing well, and we continue to see ample room for growth. In our key markets in EMEA, we are seeing strong traction. For example, we recently expanded in the DACH region through [ Douglas ]. We saw continued performance across all of our [ hero ] products lines along -- with good early traction for our new launches. With respect to the remaining brands in the category, we are in the early days of building out the makeup offering of Rabanne and Carolina Herrera, and we continue to invest in these efforts as it relates to both innovation and also distribution. These are still at a smaller scale within our business and we'll not rush in their expansion. As we explained during the IPO, we're very selective with the brands we develop into 3 axis by preserving each brand's equity and unique position in each new category. These are long-term projects. Finally, moving on to skincare, our fastest-growing segment. Skincare generated grew EUR 255 million in net revenue, 25.2% growth over comparable period last year on a reported basis. In January, we announced the acquisition of Dr. Barbara Sturm, which contributed to this growth. On a constant perimeter basis, this segment grew 11.6%. Our performance in skincare was driven in particular by the strong growth in our derma brands, with Uriage in double digits, led by [ hero ] products like [ ChemOS ]. We are in the early stages of scaling our skincare wellness brands Kama Ayurveda and Loto del sur, as an example. We are seeing good early feedback for the U.K. prototype for Kama Ayurveda, which we will use as a case study for its international expansion. Very much in line with our strategy to execute [ curated ] and selective M&A., we are excited to welcome Dr. Barbara Sturm to the Puig home of Love Brands. While we are in the very early stages of integration, it is off to a [ good ] start and performance is in line with expectations. We intend to take our time to develop the future strategy to prioritize sustainable growth for the long term while protecting the desirability of the brand. Now with the addition of Dr. Barbara Sturm, we now have a portfolio with diversified streams within the skincare segment for the longer term across niche, derma, skincare wellness and prestige skincare. We plan for skincare to continue experiencing a strong performance for the second half of the year. As we have been mentioning, this year, our launch calendar is heavier towards the second half. We pride ourselves in being a home of creativity, and we work hard to innovate across all business segments and categories. While we will not mention them all, I want to take a moment to talk about a few examples that illustrate the newness that we're bringing into our market in the second half of 2024. Most notably, within our Prestige fragrances, we are delighted to -- for the launch of Million Gold and Million Gold for Her from Rabanne. These new fragrance universe from Rabanne with [ habit ] as a phase of the feminine franchise. We're also incredibly excited for the new La Belle and Le Beau, [ Le Parfum ] from Jean Paul Gaultier. Unlike Prestige, where we tend to have a few large launches, we have several smaller launches in niche to preserve and build upon the exclusivity that these brands represent. This week has been quite busy for us with launches from Penhaligon’s, Byredo and Dries Van Noten. Charlotte Tilbury has been at the forefront of innovation in makeup with the latest example in Exagger-Eyes Volume mascara and the revolutionary foundation stick, Unreal Skin. Lastly, in skincare, I wanted to highlight some new innovations in the form of new products in our Hyseac line from Uriage, focused on acne solutions. Now turning to our performance by region, summing up some of the color we have provided you in the discussions of our segments. Our core markets, EMEA and North America, continue to show strength. EMEA, our largest geography, contributing 53% of net revenues for the period, delivered a significant 12.1% growth on a reported basis and 10.5% growth on a constant perimeter basis. The Americas, our second largest geographical segment, contributing 37% of our net revenues; grew 8.6% on a reported basis and 7.0% on a constant perimeter basis. The U.S. delivered a very strong performance well in the double digits. In Lat Am, the growth has been more moderate due to the fluctuations in foreign exchange, in particular, in Argentina. In Asia Pacific, which is our smaller region, representing 9% of our net revenues; we delivered mildly positive growth of 0.7%, both on a reported and constant perimeter basis, as we navigated a more challenging market backdrop. We have recently transitioned our [ bidding ] model in some markets from a distributor to a subsidiary, for example, in Japan, India and South Korea; and expect to see the benefits of these transitions building up in the future. We expect to continue to see strong momentum across our core geographies in EMEA and Americas, while we believe that Asia Pacific will continue to remain soft for the remainder of the year, in particular due to consumption levels among Chinese customers being below expected levels. Our business has grown exponentially over recent years and so has our global presence. In the first half of 2024, we inaugurated the new Puig Tower in Barcelona, including an innovation center, in a ceremony presided over by Their Majesties, the King and Queen of Spain. We also innovated our new London headquarter in Covent Garden and reopened our renovated offices in Brussels. In the Americas, we inaugurated our new U.S. office in the iconic Rockefeller Center in New York. And in Asia Pacific, the first half of 2024, we officially established our subsidiaries in Japan and in India to further our commitment to invest in these geographies for the longer term. To finalize, there are 3 events I would like to talk about and that reflects how we do things at Puig. One, on May 3, we became a publicly traded company, a very important milestone for Puig and the reason why we are all here today. The IPO came after 110 years of company's history, a history that would not have been possible without the contribution of all Puig employees. At Puig, we wanted to recognize their dedication and effort, and we granted to our Puig employees an extraordinary IPO bonus that amounted to EUR 94 million in aggregate. Second thing I would like to highlight is an event that will take place in a few weeks here in Barcelona, which is the first feminine Regatta in the [ 173 ] years of history of the oldest trophy in sports. We're very proud sponsors of this event that will be named Puig Women's America's Cup. And the third topic I would like to mention, which has been an ongoing effort at Puig for over a decade, is our ESG agenda. We strive to be at the forefront of ESG in our industry, and it is a core element of our long-term strategy. We have had some recent developments in this front. In the first half of 2024, our net zero target has been approved by the SBTi, where we committed to reduce greenhouse global emissions 90% by 2050 from our 2022 base year. We were recognized on CDP's A-list for climate change, and we were awarded at 20.7 score by Sustainalytics, which is #1 -- #9, sorry, in the household product industry out of 105 (sic) [ 104 ]. Finally, Kama Ayurveda has recently been awarded the Butterfly Mark by Positive Luxury. I will now hand over to Joan for his comments on the financial performance.

Good morning. Thank you, Marc. We'd like now to spend some more time on Puig's financial performance during first half 2024. I would like to start providing you with a summary of our income statement for the first 6 months of 2024, where we can highlight. Our net revenue increased to EUR 2.2 billion, which represents a year-on-year growth of 9.6%, of which 8.5% corresponds to like-for-like growth ahead of the beauty market. The position of our premium brands, our scale and our best-in-class operational efficiency allowed us to reach record 75.8% gross margin during first half of 2024. This is 70 basis points higher than last year half of 2023, at the high end of the beauty industry. We delivered an attractive EUR 410 million of adjusted EBITDA or 18.9% adjusted EBITDA margin during the first half, in line with our expectations, considering our confidence in the delivering of a stable adjusted EBITDA margin for the full year in line with 2023 levels. This all resulted in a EUR 238 million adjusted net profit for the period. Focusing on the top line first. Our strong brand portfolio continues to drive growth ahead the premium beauty market, with our Prestige brands contributing meaningfully to this growth. Out of the like-for-like growth of 8.5%, we estimate that approximately 5% is due to price increase. The acquisition of Dr. Barbara Sturm during first half of the year had a EUR 28 million positive impact or 1.4% of the growth year-on-year. Exchange rate effect has a negative EUR 6 million or a minus 0.3% impact, mainly driven by exposure to some emerging markets, offset in part by the British pound. Moving into the profitability indicators. We managed to maintain our strong adjusted EBITDA margin around 19%, primarily driven by strong gross profit margin performance, reaching 75.8%, driven by continued premiumization and the desirability of our brands, coupled with efficient cost management and operating leverage. We also improved 50 basis points year-on-year on our distribution cost from normalization versus early 2023 levels. These positive impacts were offset by a 200 basis point increase in A&P during first half as it was planned. We expect this impact to smoothen out over the course of the year as we manage the P&L on an annual basis. Based on the results, our launch calendar and given the typical seasonality patterns in our business, we are confident in our adjusted EBITDA guidance. As explained earlier, the increase in A&P across our portfolio to maintain the desirability in our brands drove down our operating margin across our 3 segments when compared to the first half of 2023. Looking at each segment into more detail. Our fragrance business remains the largest and most profitable segment, thanks to its unique scale and competitive positioning on a global basis, which allows for better efficiency on our A&P and SG&A costs. Our makeup segment profitability was impacted by high A&P investment to support the makeup exercise for our fragrance-led brands, which are in the early stage of the growth. This was further impacted by a lower profitability in Christian Louboutin beauty. However, Charlotte Tilbury maintained a stable profitability level. Lastly, our skincare segment was impacted by the integration of Dr. Barbara Sturm, which we acquired in January, and had a marginally dilutive impact as anticipated. Over time, as we gain scale in makeup and skincare, we expect to continue generating efficiencies across our business. Similar to our comments with respect to adjusted EBITDA, we manage our P&L on an annual basis, and we expect to improve overall in the second half of the year. Focusing on the bottom line. we managed to maintain our double-digit adjusted net profit margin, reaching 11% or EUR 238 million. Reported net profit of Puig decreased 27% year-on-year, mostly impacted by nonrecurring items. These items are the IPO cost, M&A expenses, another adjustment, which net of taxes amount to EUR 84 million. The largest of this adjustment was an extraordinary one-off IPO bonus that Marc has mentioned, give to all Puig employees, amounting in a total of EUR 94 million in cash. Moving into the cash flow. Before we enter into the details, we would like to provide you with some operational context. In our business, in order to serve the heavier demand during the holiday season in the second half of the year, the business requires an increase in working capital during the first half. During the first half of 2024, our free cash flow from operations remained similar to the first half of 2023, improving by EUR 4 million, despite the growth of the business. This improvement is due to better working capital management and CapEx remaining in line with the first half of 2023. This is at 3% of net revenues. Operational cash flow worsened to a negative EUR 257 million, mostly due to the negative impact of nonrecurrent IPO-related outflow. As we had explained at the time of our IPO, we executed some important transactions during the first half of 2024. These transactions, along with the IPO itself, have impacted our capital structure, which we'll discuss in further detail shortly. To recap these events in order, in January, we announced the acquisition of a majority stake in Barbara Sturm. Ahead of the IPO, we form agreements with BDT and Manzanita Capital and [ Benoch ] to accelerate their exit of their minority stakes in Charlotte Tilbury and Byredo at what we believe to be attractive terms. Both payments were largely denominated in new Puig shares that were delivered at IPO, subject to standard [ lockups ], while the rest was funded in cash. Lastly, we listed on the Spanish Stock Exchange on the 3rd of May. Our net financial leverage currently stands at 1.7x net debt to adjusted EBITDA, which is below our 2x medium-term target, allowing to maintain both operating and financial flexibility. Focusing on the evolution over the past 6 months, our net debt was stable in the first half of 2024, relative to full year 2023, with various factors contributing, in particular, the positive impact of EUR 1.4 billion of capital raised at IPO, offset by EUR 863 million M&A cash outflow related to the acquisition of Dr. Barbara Sturm and cash paid for the stakes of Byredo and Charlotte Tilbury acquired; EUR 184 million dividends paid to shareholders, which is 40% of the reported net profit of full year 2023, this was paid before the IPO; negative EUR 257 million operational cash flow generated during the first half. As a result, we now have a more strengthened capital structure post-IPO. As we previewed during the first half of 2024, we simplify our balance sheet by accelerating the put and call options of some of our minority partners. We now own 100% of Byredo. We also accelerate the remaining stake held by financial investors in Charlotte Tilbury. These 2 transactions decreased our liabilities from business combination by EUR 1 billion. Following the acquisition of Dr. Barbara Sturm, we have also recorded EUR 161 million liability on our balance sheet related to the subsequent put, call options for the remaining stake that we don't already own. As a combination of these activities, our liabilities from business combinations were reduced by a net amount of approximately EUR 800 million. Furthermore, not reflected on the chart at this post first half 2024, on July 25, Puig also executed a call option of our minority interest in Charlotte Tilbury, amounting to EUR 215 million, which further increased our ownership stake in the company to 78.5%. In conclusion, our performance during the first half of the year, coupled with the continued momentum into the second half, give us the confidence to confirm our medium-term guidance. To recap the key messages, we delivered a record net revenue of EUR 2.2 billion for the first half, growing at 9.6% reported and 8.5% like-for-like, while lapping a year of very strong growth in an uncertain market. We increased our value market share in core categories and geographies, reinforcing our competitive position. We achieved adjusted EBITDA margin of 18.9%, which allowed for virtuous investment into our brands, on track for our full-year target. We delivered adjusted net profit of EUR 238 million. Further to it, we executed several transactions to simplify our balance sheet. And with the IPO, our leverage reduced to 1.7x net debt to adjusted EBITDA by end of June 2024, in line with the medium-term leverage target below 2x, and we expect to see further improvement over the course of the year. We recap here our medium-term outlook, maintaining what we said at the IPO. We target high single-digit like-for-like net revenue growth well ahead of the premium beauty market growth. Our adjusted EBITDA margin is expected to remain stable in 2024 with upside potential in the medium term, allowing for virtuous reinvestment in our brands, maintaining a capital structure where the net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio does not exceed 2x. Our intention is to maintain 40% dividend payout ratio on reported net profit, in line with our track record. We intend to remain highly selective approach to M&A while maintaining our capital structure targets. With that, we conclude our comments on financial performance.

Thank you, Joan. With that, we come to the end of our prepared remarks, and we will begin the Q&A session. The first question comes from Celine Pannuti from JPMorgan.

So my first question is on fragrances, which did extremely well in the first half. Could you give us a flavor of what Q1, Q2 performance was and as well performance by main brands? I understand that Jean Paul Gaultier was very good, but what did Rabanne, Carolina Herrera and Byredo do? And also, how do you see the remainder of the year in terms of the fragrance market? Is there a deceleration that we should be aware of for H2? My second question is on makeup. You said that Charlotte Tilbury -- or the performance was impacted by destocking. Are we done with this destocking? Where does destocking end? Can you provide -- you said the sellout was double digit in main regions. Am I right to believe that U.K., U.S. and Europe were up double digit? Or if you could give us the sellout?

Thanks, Celine. Regarding fragrance, we have heard other companies mention a certain deceleration of the growth. It's true that the growth that we saw in the years right after COVID was very extraordinary. And -- but during IPO, we mentioned that our hypotheses, our expectations is to see growth for the next few years through 2027, into between 6%, 7% growth. And we are, at this point, maintaining that as our basis of the growth of the market. In our case, we have had spectacular growth or -- Gaultier, but we see strength over all our brands. And as we mentioned, we have a very strong second half. So we are confident with our guidance. That's what we can say regarding fragrance. Regarding makeup, yes, we said that Charlotte Tilbury sellout grow double digit in the core markets, meaning Europe and Americas. And there's certain destocking, and we feel that there is going to be the reduction of this gap between sellout and sell-in over the next months.

The next question comes from Jose Rito from Caixabank.

So I have two questions. The first one on the E&P investment in H1. You have these 2% of points.

What, sorry?

A&P, yes. So there is 2% of points increase on the A&P in H1. And in the presentation, you also mentioned that you expect a strong launch in the second half. So my question is, what are the company's expectations in terms of A&P investments in the second half? And if this pose any risk to margin -- I think that the company is reiterating the margin for the stable margin for this year. So my question is, based on the investment in H1 and the fact that you expect an increase in H2 or at least a strong launch is -- should we assume that eventually post these investments, we should expect a sales acceleration that should mitigate these investments? So that this will be my first question.

We run the company on an annual basis. And normally, this very harsh and -- analysis of the first half is something that we normally don't do. So that's what was also a first exercise in that sense. Our expectation is for the overall year to come up at [ similar ] EBITDA margin, which means that since we are improving gross margin, maybe there's more investment in A&P. But the fact that we have a strong second half of launches, doesn't mean that we will be maintaining an extra effort in [ NAV ]. We have a high diversification of brands, markets and sometimes the combination of certain investments or certain upfront investments or launches that we are expecting for the second half, but maybe we launch it in June already or May or April. So that's -- we shouldn't conclude that because we have a higher A&P in the first half and we're launching in the second half, then we will all maintain that A&P now. We're planning for the year to end up as we anticipated.

The next question comes from [ Fernando Brill ] from Alantra.

I would like to ask about the gross margin. So big expansion in first half. So my question is -- or at least I thought that makeup was above the average of group. However, in the first half, it had a worse performance compared to the other business lines. So why of this improvement in the gross margin? That's the first question. And then secondly, just wanted to understand seasonality in terms of working capital because I saw a smaller consumption in working capital in first half. I was wondering if there could be an improvement in second half or even a working capital generation for the full year, so reversing past trends as well.

Let me start with the second one, and maybe Joan would like to add or maybe comment. After COVID, we saw -- there was a lot of difficulties in supplying the increase -- the big growth in the business that we had, and that happened for the industry as a whole. So we were forced to anticipate and increase our delays or anticipate the demands and build overstock and not been as efficient as we used to be before COVID. As this has been normalizing, and it is normalizing in the industry, and we saw that in the glass manufacturers, we saw that in some specific components and suppliers; we said during the IPO that we will be normalizing also our working capital needs in the balance sheet as a percent of sales. And that's what we're starting seeing in the first half, and we will continue seeing for -- in the coming future. In terms of gross margin, the makeup doesn't have a lower gross margin than the other categories. It's -- the truth is that when you don't have a scale and when you don't have -- when we have some of the brands that we are initiating in this category like some of the makeup efforts that we're doing with some of our Prestige brands, initially, that's costly. And that's why the operating profit for the category is lower. And we did say in the IPO that, yes, until we don't get critical mass, it will be a higher effort than the others, no. And maybe Joan, if you want to add?

I think on gross margin, you are right, it's in makeup and especially Charlotte Tilbury is having a higher gross margin. And as I said, overall, the profitability of Charlotte Tilbury is maintained. What we see is that the mix of premiumization of our brands is helping us to increase gross margin. And remember that, as I mentioned, we estimate that the price increase has been 5%. So all in all, we had a good result in gross margin. Also for us, the dollar strength, it helps us. So on this, we were enjoying the [ disability ] of our brands and the premiumization of our portfolio. And on stocks, you are totally right, it's what we said during the IPO, is that we're expecting 18 months to go to more cash conversions of EBITDA of around 50%. We maintain that guidance, and we expect to see in the second part of the year, a good reduction on level of inventories. But because of the strong demand of our brands, we wanted to build up all this inventory level for the first half of the year.

The next question comes from Olivier Nicolai from GS.

Just a follow-up on makeup -- actually two, please. Some of your peers are seeing a slowdown in makeup category in the U.S. Do you also share that concern? And do you believe that's what's driving retailer to somehow destock on brands like Charlotte Tilbury? And then secondly, a bit more longer-term questions, again, about makeup and mostly about the U.S. But are you concerned about the rise of [ dupes ] in makeup? And do you think it could effectively damage the growth of Charlotte Tilbury? And what kind of measures do you take against that?

We have heard from some peers that there is a slowdown. But our presence in the U.S. still make up in terms of market share. On the whole, we have a very strong brand, but it's quite small. But as long as we do a good business, we see good prospects for growth for growth, still, for those brands. Regarding [ dupes ], yes, it is frustrating. When a company like us prides itself of innovation and creativity, I guess part of the price you pay is that some look at what you do and sometimes they take advantage and maybe frustrating. But our response to that is that we just have to keep being leading and finding newer ways and new solutions and new responses to the needs of the consumer. And that's the only way to be one step ahead, is the only way to compete for [ dupes ].

The next question comes from Jeff Stent from BNP Paribas Exane.

Just one quick question -- can you hear me?

Yes.

All right. Okay. Sorry, apologies for that. One quick question. You said that the performance in July and August was encouraging. Should we expect a sequential acceleration in like-for-like growth in Q3?

We said that our second half is -- has a strong pipeline of encouraging launches that we -- the fact that first half has been 8.7% like-for-like, if I'm not mistaken, we are encouraged by the trends of July and August, and we are confident with the guidance of this high single-digit growth for the full year. So we see a second half that is encouraging.

The next question comes from Mariano Szachtman from Santander.

First on makeup, let me -- I want to follow up on the [indiscernible]. If you could provide a bit of more color on what could we expect in the second half? You mentioned that there should be a reduction in this gap. If you could provide more color, what are you seeing from retailers? Are they more conservative in terms of buying? So that's my first question. And my second question is on Charlotte Tilbury on the fragrance line. If you could provide some initial feedback on this new line launched in the second quarter, what is the reaction from consumers? And how do you expect this line to weigh on the overall portfolio?

No, look, in makeup in general, the biggest brand in that category for us is evidently in Charlotte Tilbury. As we said, in the sellout for the first half, it has shown a strong double-digit growth in the core market. And yes, there has been some gap between sell-in and sellout because some destocking of some distributors and retailers. But we do expect this gap to reduce. And then we see a second half that will be improving from the first half performance. In terms of the fragrance line, it's still early days. It was launched in April. The distribution was relatively small compared to, for instance, what we have in some of our Prestige brands. So as I said, early days. Lets see what happens in Christmas, a high point of the fragrance campaign. In any case, as we mentioned in the IPO, the extension on the 3 axis for our -- any brand, we are very careful. In our case, we have -- basically, only allowed, let's say, or taken the opportunity to go into 3 axis with the 3 biggest brands in our portfolio. And as we said in the IPO, you have to be patient because that takes time. And it is not necessarily you do that the first day. So encouraged, but early days.

The next question comes from Tom Sykes from Deutsche Bank.

Firstly, I just wanted to ask about consumption trends versus mix trends in fragrances. So are you able to say anything about sort of the physical amount that you're selling and sort of [ liter rate ] of volume and the growth of that versus things like shift to smaller bottle size, higher concentration, et cetera? And how that -- those trends are developing and their contribution to the fragrance growth, please? And then you mentioned the launches. And obviously, you've seen very strong growth in Jean Paul Gaultier. How much of your growth is coming from sort of hero SKUs that have been available for 3-plus years? And how much is really coming from new launches? Is the growth skewed really at the moment to kind of hero SKUs, please?

In general, the fragrance category has been enjoying big momentum at COVID. And one of our reads on that is because human beings are social animals, and we've been stuck -- or we were stuck for many months at home. And when we went up back again to the road and had an opportunity to interact with our peers, fragrance is a way for many people to give them confidence in that interaction or for others to express who they are. And we believe that that's something that has increasing their priorities on the way they behave and on their daily routines. Now we've seen growth in premium brands, premium products and sophisticated fragrances because for some people, fragrance is a way to express who they are, and they want to have the differentiation, something that is exotic or different. And so we've all seen, for many years now, the growth of the, what we call, niche territory. But we have also seen the entrance of a new consumer, much younger, particularly in the male 12 to 15 year old, that have started to participate in this category in ways that we have not seen necessarily the past. And in that sense, Gaultier has been one of the winners in this trend. And what we have is -- when you call hero products or new launches, basically, what we have is, we call them, within a brand, you have lines. For instance, in Gaultier, you have Le Male and you have the male shape of a bottle, and you have what we call Classique, which is a female ship of a bottle. Now within those lines, we have newness, Le Male Elixir. And that every year, we come up with new proposition, and we take out one of -- one, let's say. And that's so it's building up innovation within existing lines. In the case of Gaultier, we have only 4 lines, Le Male, Classique and we have Scandal for men, Scandal for women. And we have -- within those lines, we keep bringing new shifts, new shapes, new -- a different version of the fragrance. And overall, that's a very solid proposition because there's no cannibalization of all lines. It's a whole line that is growing. And that's a brand that has seen -- for instance, Le Male was a line that was launched in 1985 and Classique, the female, was even early, in 1983. So it's growing through the solid basis of the brand portfolio.

We are open for further questions in the room. We have another question from Jose Rito from Caixabank.

Yes, again -- just on the makeup, just a question. If -- you mentioned the destock in H1 has been one of the reasons to the division to perform slightly below expectations. So my question is if your brands are maintaining market share, so the performance only related with the destocking or eventually some of the brands had some decline in the market share?

We mentioned one of the brands that has declined during the period has been Christian Louboutin because this brand, we took over the license -- is one of the few licenses we have in the portfolio. In 2018, and it had a very high penetration within the small size of the brand or the relatively small size of brand in China. And we have seen in the last -- in the first semester, the performance in that market has been not disappointing, and that's one of the reasons why our overall makeup category has shown the smaller regression this first half.

That was our last question. Thank you all for your questions today. We will be publishing a brief sales update at the end of October with some of our comments for our Q3 results. I will now pass it back to Marc Puig to make some quick closing remarks.

Before finishing, I would like to leave you with a video where the sailors that will participate in October in the historic first ever Puig Women's America's Cup explain what this trophy will mean for them and for the sport. We are proud to support an event that embodies so many of our values and that takes -- that talks about our commitment to Barcelona, sailing and equality. Thank you for joining us today.