Shaver Shop Group Limited (SSG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Shaver Shop's Results Presentation and Investor Conference Call for the 2026 financial year. Please note that today's call is being recorded. There will be a presentation followed by a Q&A session. Presenting today will be Cameron Fox, Shaver Shop's CEO and Managing Director; and Larry Hamson, Shaver Shop's CFO and Company Secretary. If you wish to follow along with the slides, Shaver Shop's presentation has been lodged with the ASX and is also available from Shaver Shop's Investor Center website. I will now hand you over to Cameron Fox. Please go ahead.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us today as we present Shaver Shop's annual results for 2026. Just one housekeeping item before we get started. As always, please note our disclaimer in the appendix to the presentation around forward-looking statements. In terms of agenda, we'll first revisit our strategy and some of the factors that make Shaver Shop's business model unique in the market and well placed for the future. I'll then cover off some of the key financial and operational highlights before handing over to Larry, who will run you through the financial results in more detail. Lastly, we'll touch on FY '27 priorities and provide a brief update on trading over the last 6 to 7 weeks. Let's start with a snapshot of Shaver Shop on Slide 4. As many of you know, we are one of the leading specialty retailers in Australia in personal care appliances. This is an addressable market that spans all age brackets and demographics. The categories we sell are constantly evolving with significant R&D by major global brands, meaning there is a continuous stream of innovation. Shaver Shop now has 120 stores across Australia and NZ and a strong online offering, which means our customers can easily shop with us regardless of where they live. Our business model is highly differentiated. Firstly, we pride ourselves on our product knowledge and being the trusted adviser for each category. Secondly, we have the deepest and broadest range in our core men's grooming categories with a high percentage of our sales coming from products that are exclusive to Shaver Shop. This means customers know they have the best chance of finding what they need and will leave our store with the right product for whatever their grooming need. Thirdly, we are a specialist retailer, which means we live, eat and breathe our categories. This passion helps us quickly spot upcoming consumer trends. And because we're still relatively small and nimble, we can adapt quickly to capitalize on the opportunities we see. Our core categories in men's grooming are particularly attractive given men are increasingly choosing to follow a beauty regime. And generally speaking, there is less competition versus, say, the likes of female beauty category. We have an experienced management team with more than 12 years average tenure in the business. We have a solid balance sheet with no debt, and we generate strong cash flow. This has enabled us to pay an attractive dividend while continuing to reinvest in growth opportunities for the business. Slide 5 speaks to our strategic growth initiatives, which are underpinned by strong business fundamentals I've just discussed. Now there are 3 key pillars to our growth strategy. First, strategic category management; second, range expansion; and lastly, store network optimization. Each part is complementary to and reinforces the others. Strategic category management means providing customers with a truly unique and engaging shopping experience by ensuring we range products that you simply cannot find elsewhere. This is through breadth of range as well as having a significant proportion of products that are only available through Shaver Shop. Transform-U is now a key component of this initiative and an area that has significant future potential and more on that later. Secondly, we are looking to expand our offering into new categories that are complementary to the core as well as adding new and innovative brands. We are fortunate that there is no shortage of new brands and products coming to the market each year. Lastly, we are focused on optimizing the returns from our store network. This means adding new stores where it makes sense, relocating stores to better areas and shopping centers to optimize profitability and lastly, refitting stores so that our customers have the best possible shopping experience. It also means potentially closing stores where it is the right call commercially. Our store network across Australia and New Zealand is now relatively mature, but we still see the opportunity to grow the store network to around 130 to 135 stores, of course, if we are able to get in the right locations at acceptable rentals. With our business overview now covered, let's move on to how these initiatives transcended into our financial and operational highlights last year. Slide 7 provides a snapshot of our financial highlights. We generated record sales of $225 million, up $6.5 million or 3% on last year. We also delivered record gross profit margins of 46.3%, up 80 basis points, which led to a record gross profit contribution of $104.2 million, up $4.7 million. This is the first time we have cracked the $100 million mark in terms of total gross profit. Importantly, the performance of Transform-U was the key driver of this result. Earnings before interest and tax or EBIT was up 1.3% to $22.8 million, leading to net profit of $14.8 million. We generated operating cash flow of $32.4 million, which was up $8.9 million compared to 2025 or up 38%. Now this has enabled us to pay out fully franked dividend of $0.103 per share and end of the year with net cash of $4.6 million with no debt. So overall, we delivered another very pleasing set of financial results for FY '26. And let's now turn our operational -- our attention to operational highlights on Slide 8. Of course, our financial metrics are underpinned by how well we execute operationally. In-store sales conversion was a standout last year at 47.1%, a record for Shaver Shop. Our NPS score was 89.7, again, a record for Shaver Shop. And our customer experience score was ranked 9.7 out of 10. Last year, we processed 2.1 million transactions across the store network, up 4.1% and increased basket size at the same time. Our online channel also performed well with site visits up 6% and sales increasing 1.2%, sales conversion increasing 1.2%. This led to transactions through our websites and online marketplace stores increasing almost 10% to $0.4 million and online sales increasing 9.1% to $54.3 million. So in summary, we executed well both across our online and store channels, and this was a key driver of our solid financial performance in 2026. Slide 9 illustrates our quarterly sales performance in FY '26 as well as our annual sales trend over the last 5 years. Now pleasingly, we grew sales in each quarter. Quarter 4, however, was a standout with an exceptional end of financial year sales promotion, driving strong sales growth in June and for the quarter overall. Now we are seeing consumers being increasingly value conscious and focusing their shopping activity during the key promotional events like we saw in June. This is leading to an increase in sales volatility across the year. Pleasingly, we were able to more than offset a drop in average transaction value with an increase in sales volumes. Both online and in-store delivered sales growth last year, leading to total sales being up 3% to just over $225 million, the highest sales level achieved in the company's 40-year history. As mentioned before, we also generated our highest annual gross profit and gross profit margin. This is shown on Slide 10. One of the key drivers of the 80 basis point increase in gross profit margin was the continued success of Transform-U. We expanded and deepened the range over the last 12 months, which helped the brand generate just over $18 million in sales last financial year. This is a fantastic result, and we continue to be excited by Transform-U's potential. In addition, we launched Mangroomer in Australia under an exclusive license and continue to exclusively range brands like Skull Shaver and Epilady. We'll look to add additional exclusive brands over time now that we've proven it can be successful for both Shaver Shop as well as the brand owners. As mentioned earlier, having exclusives is a critical aspect of our go-to-market model and strategy. Not only does it provide a unique customer value proposition, it also supports our margins. Once again, almost 50% of our total sales and nearly 60% of our total gross profit dollars came from exclusive lines. Importantly, the growth in gross profit margin was delivered despite mix shifting towards some of our lower gross profit margin categories like hair styling, oral care and long-term hair removal. When you look at the last 5 years, we have expanded margins by 240 basis points to 46.3% in FY '26 with a fairly consistent trend being evident across each period. Let's spend a bit more time on Transform-U given it's become such an important part of our business in a short space of time. Now remember, we only launched the TU brand around 20 months ago. The intent was then and continues to this day to be filling identified gaps in our range that could not be filled by our global supplier partners for whatever the reason. In the 20 or so months since launch, Transform-U has grown to become our fourth largest brand, generating just over 8% of total sales in FY '26, up from 3.4% last year. We sold more than 300,000 Transform units last year across more than 100 SKUs spanning hair cutting, shaving appliances, wet shave, consumables and accessories. Our deep domain knowledge in the sector has enabled us to quickly identify product offerings that resonate with customers. We see further growth opportunities for Transform-U, having launched its own website and social channels in the second half. While sales through the site are still quite small, we are focused on building Transform-U brand awareness. We're also going to expand the range in existing as well as new categories. We'll be able to share some exciting news later this year as these launches occur. We're also considering whether the Transform-U brand could work in additional markets, both domestically and overseas, noting that if this expansion does make sense, we'll be adopting a test and learn philosophy rather than placing any big bets upfront. Now the next slide shows some of the social and promotional activities we've run for Transform-U over the last 6 months. We fully stand behind the quality and value of the Transform-U range, and this is also recognized by consumers and evidenced by very high independent product ratings for Transform-U products on our website. In addition to social activity, we are also planning to use traditional advertising channels to make Transform-U more of a known quantity across Australia and New Zealand. As I mentioned earlier, we're very excited by what's to come for the Transform-U brand, and we look forward to informing the market of these initiatives at the right time. Our key objective is for Transform-U to help drive top line sales growth for Shaver Shop overall and not just an opportunity to drive incremental gross margin. With that, I'll now hand over to Larry, who will run you through the financial results in more detail.

Thanks very much, Cameron. As Cameron mentioned earlier, Shaver Shop set a number of new record highs in 2026. A number of these are reflected on Slide 14. Firstly, sales increased $6.5 million to $225 million. Pleasingly, off the back of a softer year last year, online sales maintained the momentum from the first half of 2026 to close out the year up 9.1% and represent just over 24% of our total sales. In-store sales were up 1.2% or $2 million to $171 million with 2 more stores in the network by the end of the year. The record sales and gross margin has already been discussed by Cameron, so I won't belabor the point, but these factors led to gross profit being up $4.7 million or 4.7% to $104.2 million, another new record. Total operating expenses or what we refer to our cost of doing business rose 5.2% to $63.3 million. The biggest impact here was the effect of the minimum wage award increase in Australia of 3.5%. In addition, we had incremental postage costs related to the online sales growth we delivered as well as 2 additional stores, which have their own fixed and variable expense bases. This led to EBIT growth of 1.3% to $22.8 million and delivering an EBIT margin of 10.1%. Lease expenses increased in 2026 as we renewed a significant number of leases in the year with the average remaining lease tenure -- average remaining lease tenure, I should say, now exceeding 2 years or up around 19% compared to 30 June last year. With the increase in average lease tenure, this leads to a commensurate increase in lease liabilities and lease interest, all else being equal. You'll see the corresponding increase in lease liabilities on the next slide. The increase in the store portfolio by an additional 2 stores is also a contributing factor leading to the increase in lease depreciation and interest. At the bottom line, our NPAT was basically flat, down around $100,000 or just under 1% to $14.8 million, leading to diluted earnings per share of $0.113, also down just under 1%. Moving to our balance sheet on Slide 15. Shaver Shop's financial position remains very robust. We ended the year with net cash of $4.6 million, which is up $600,000 compared to last year. We have no debt and undrawn debt facilities amounting to $30 million at the 30th of June. These facilities are due to expire on the 31st of July, but we expect will be renewed well before that time. Stock levels rose $1.7 million to $30.9 million, reflecting our incremental investment in the Transform-U brand as well as increased stock from our exclusive distribution relationships. With all of these exclusive brands, including Transform-U, purchase order lead times are longer and minimum order quantities are larger given we, Shaver Shop act as a local distributor. Property, plant and equipment increased by $1.5 million as we opened 3 new stores, completed 3 full store refits and relocated 4 stores. That's a total of 10 full store fit-outs last year. And as I mentioned on the last slide, right-of-use assets and lease liabilities increased due to the significant number of renewals we undertook in 2026. Incidentally, lease liabilities are now roughly back to the levels we had in 2020 when the new lease accounting standard came into effect. For those interested, 7 years of balance sheets and profit and loss statements are included in the appendices to the presentation. You may recall that due to the uncertainty around COVID-19, we chose at that time around 2020 to have shorter lease terms on renewal and increase the number of leases in holdover until we had greater comfort and clarity around trading conditions as well as tenancy mix within shopping centers. Now that those concerns have abated, we have reverted to a more typical lease renewal process, which has led to a corresponding increase in right-of-use assets and lease liabilities. And finally, on the balance sheet, our net asset position remains relatively constant around $90 million. Let's now move on to our cash flow. Shaver Shop continues to generate significant operating cash flow, which we are using to reinvest in our strategic growth initiatives like Transform-U as well as return capital to shareholders by way of fully franked dividends. Operating cash flow was up 38% or $8.9 million to $32.4 million last year. Remembering that in the 2025 financial year, we had the inventory build from Transform-U in particular as well as Skull Shaver following the exclusive distribution relationship that we built with them. So this operating cash flow was used to establish, move or refurbish 10 stores as well as return just over $13 million back to shareholders through fully franked dividends, a very solid outcome. Speaking of dividends and capital management, Slide 17 reflects our dividend trend for shareholders. The Board today declared a $0.055 fully franked final dividend for 2026, which again brings total dividends to $0.103 per share for the financial year. We have now returned $0.51 to shareholders over the last 5 years by way of fully franked dividends, which represents a significant proportion of the share price. Our dividend policy remains to pay out 65% to 90% of underlying net profit after tax with the intent that we balance the need to invest in and drive growth of our -- drive our growth initiatives as well as continue to deliver a strong dividend yield for our shareholders. This year's payout ratio represents around 90% of underlying NPAT at the top end of the range, but at a level the Board continues to be very comfortable with given our solid financial position and strong cash generation. That now concludes my section of the presentation, and I'll hand you back to Cameron.

Thank you, Larry. I'm now moving to Slide 19, which summarizes our key priorities for the coming year. As you can see on this slide, the customer is at the center of everything we do at Shaver Shop. We have 4 key priorities with several sub priorities and action items for the coming year. Firstly, we are striving for operational excellence, which translates into exceptional customer service and an engaging and enjoyable shopping experience regardless of the channel being used. We strive to educate and empower customers on the tools they choose and how best to use them so they feel comfortable when at home using the products we sell. Our sales and service metrics are tracked across every store and all team members, so we know exactly how we are performing at all times. We're also striving to minimize stockouts across the network and drive increased efficiency into our daily processes. Secondly, we continue to see enormous potential for Transform-U, both through range and category expansion as well as expanding into markets not currently serviced by Shaver Shop. The team has done an exceptional job growing sales to date, but the Transform-U brand is not well recognized outside of Shaver Shop. We want to change this over the course of the next few years so that Transform-U is recognized as a credible player, offering compelling value without sacrificing product quality. Another priority is Shaver Shop's brand engagement. Over the last few years, we've trialed changing our media spend to focus more on digital rather than traditional free-to-air and pay TV. We think we may have swung the pendulum a bit too far, so we plan to venture back into more traditional channels in the coming year. That said, we still plan to accelerate social media activity given the focus for many customers, and this has become their preferred way to shop. We're also looking to replatform our websites into more cost-effective, modern and easy-to-use solutions that can leverage AI over time. Finally, we will continue to optimize the store portfolio. This means opening new stores like we've done at Brighton in Victoria as well as closing stores if the rents being offered by landlords are not commercially sensible or what we believe in a manner that we cannot optimize profitability. While all our mature stores are profitable, given we are a destination shop for customers, there are situations like we just had in Northland, New Zealand, where we believe moving from 2 stores to 1 store in Christchurch will deliver a superior profit outcome in that catchment zone. We'll also continue our relocation and refit plans where stores do not currently meet our brand and customer experience standards. So we have a full road map that we are following, and we are laser-focused on executing over the next 12 months and beyond. I'll now move on to our trading update on Slide 21. Shaver Shop's business fundamentals and strategy execution remain very strong. The start of the new financial year has been softer than anticipated with total sales from 1st of July through the 24th of August being down 3.2% versus the comparable period last year. Now to stress the first 2 weeks in July were particularly soft with total sales down 9.5%. This has since moderated with sales from the 15th of July through the 22nd of August, down 1.1%. Consumers appear to be increasingly value conscious and with shopping focus more around key promotional events like we saw in June. The exceptional sales result during our end of financial year event looks to have pulled forward sales from July and unfortunately also led to stock availability issues. Lastly, our largest supplier has also encountered and continues to experience logistics issues with its warehouse, leading to stock availability issues for us in the lead up to Father's Day. We have proven that our success over time is highly correlated to the factors we control, and we are not sitting still. We remain extremely well placed and are executing well. We have a unique product offering with a high proportion of our sales from exclusive lines, and we continue to provide exceptional customer service. We also sell DIY personal grooming solutions that are typically more budget-friendly than going to the beauty salon or barber, something that resonates even more strongly in the current macroeconomic environment. Our most important promotional periods that drive a significant proportion of our annual profit lay ahead of us. We are well prepared in this respect with compelling go-to-market campaigns largely finalized with our global brand partners. In addition to innovation coming from these partners, we also have some exciting range additions for Transform-U across both the first and the second half in FY '27. As mentioned earlier, we are also considering initiatives that will increase both Transform-U and Shaver Shop's total addressable market. In closing, I'd like to thank all our Shaver Shop team members whose passion and effort has led to Shaver Shop delivering a number of record financial and operational results in FY '26. Thank you for your attention. Larry and I would now like to welcome your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from [Alvin Carrington-Smith] with Unify PTY Limited. I would like to inform you that there is a lot of airy disturbance which is coming from your line.

I think he's just dropped off. Can you move to the next question please?

Our next question comes from Andrew Johnston with MST Access.

Congratulations on a pretty good result in a pretty tough environment. But again, particularly well done on the work you've done over the last few years on Transform-U. I was fascinated to hear your comments about expanding that range. And I'm not sure whether you're going to give us any more guidance about how that might be until you talked about expanding into new markets. Would that include -- and again, you feel free to say I'm not going to tell you a thing. But would that include selling the Transform-U products through networks other than Shaver Shop's own network?

Yes, there's probably limited information we're going to talk about, Andrew, on that. I think we'd rather keep a few things just tight until we actually launch the products. But I should stress our primary focus, Andrew, is actually keeping Transform-U within the Shaver Shop brand. And that's our immediate focus is basically category expansion opportunities for the Transform-U brand. And obviously, as we talked about, because it's resonating very well with the Australian customer today, is there an opportunity for overseas expansion through Transform-U as well.

No, look, that's pretty exciting. I sort of expected you wouldn't tell me too much more about it. But I think that if we go back to when you first launched Transform-U, I suppose in typical form, you were pretty conservative and probably sound a little bit perhaps nervous about how that would track, but the investment has certainly paid off big time. So congratulations on that. We wait with bated breath to see what the next developments on that are. Larry, can we just look at the CapEx outlook for the business for the next 12 months? You've given us some good guide around store openings. What about refits? And then where do you think the CapEx number is going to end up for the year?

Yes. I don't think it will be much different from 2026, so in that order of magnitude. We have a few refits planned so far this year, but it's probably not quite to the same level as what we had last year. And as well, last year, we had a couple of stores already lined up -- new stores lined up coming into FY '26 that we knew were going to happen. Now we've obviously had Brighton, Victoria. But there's nothing else immediate that's in the pipeline for new store openings at the moment. So it's in and around the current year number and could potentially be a little bit less.