Sosandar Plc (SOS.L) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, and welcome to the Sosandar investor presentation. Today, we are joined by Alison Hall and Julie Lavington, joint CEOs; and Steve Dilks, CFO. [Operator Instructions] I'll now hand over to the management team to begin the presentation.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Today, we want to take you through Sosandar's performance for the first half of our financial year ending in September. It's been a solid period of progress, not without its challenges, but one where we've moved forward on the key things that matter the most. We've returned to growth, kept our margins strong and continue to build the foundations for a more profitable cash-generative business.

Good morning, everyone. Let me summarize the numbers. Group revenue for the 6 months to the 30th of September was GBP 18.7 million. That's up 15% on the same period last year. And bearing in mind, that includes 5 months of no material revenue from Marks & Spencer's. So the increase would have been much higher if M&S had been trading as normal. Our own website performed particularly well, with sales up 28%, marking the clear return to growth after the repositioning work we carried out through FY '25. Gross margin held firm at 62.2%, which is in line with last year. Our strong gross margin reflects tighter controls on promotions, better buying and a continued focus on quality over discounting. As expected, we report a pretax loss of GBP 1.1 million for the first half compared with a loss of GBP 0.7 million last year. That is very much in line with our plan. We've always seen profitability weighted towards the second half with peak trading and higher margins. Importantly, we finished the half with net cash of GBP 7.7 million, which is up from GBP 7.3 million in March. We are in a really strong position heading into the peak autumn/winter season. Overall, we're trading in line with our full year expectations to deliver revenue of GBP 43.6 million and a profit before tax of GBP 0.4 million.

Good morning, everyone. Now let's talk about the business itself. So over the past year, we've made some deliberate decisions to reposition Sosandar for sustainable, profitable growth. That's meant focusing on what we do best, creating quality, trend-led products and selling it through the right channels. We've improved how customers find us, how they shop and how they come back. So website traffic is up, conversion is better and order volumes are growing from both new and repeat customers. In short, we're seeing more customers spending more and more often. We've stayed disciplined on pricing. We're offering value through product, not through discounting. That approach is helping us sustain margins even in a competitive market. Our stores are maturing. They continue to weigh on profitability, but performance is improving. We're not planning new store openings right now. The focus is on making the current portfolio work harder. In terms of the M&S cyber incident, it did have an impact on sales in the first half. Sales through the M&S website have resumed, and we're working together to increase stock levels into Q3. Our partnerships remain a key strength of the business. We continue to perform strongly across all third-party platforms, including NEXT, where we've seen excellent customer response. And in September, we launched our homeware range with NEXT. It's a curated collection, furniture, rugs, lighting, accessories, and it started very well. It's early days, but it's a good example of how the brand can extend naturally into new areas where there's demand for our design and aesthetic. So looking ahead, our priorities are clear. First, to drive revenue growth and profitability through all of our channels, our own website, our established partners and our shops. Second, to maintain strong gross margins by staying disciplined on buying and pricing. And third, to strengthen cash generation and keep the balance sheet robust. We're entering the key autumn/winter period with confidence. Our new collections have landed really well and early feedback from customers has been very encouraging. We expect a solid performance throughout the peak trading months. So to summarize, Sosandar has returned to revenue growth. Margins remain strong. Cash is healthy, and we're on track to meet full year expectations. There's still work to do, there always is, but the direction of travel is clear. We're building a business that is more resilient, more focused and better positioned for long-term profitable growth. Thank you very much for listening, and we'll now open to you for questions.

The first question today is the Singer's note this morning highlights a strong step-up in own site performance from plus 15% in Q1 to plus 45% in Q2, making plus 28% for the full half. The overall total was around plus 15% in both quarters. So Q2 must have seen a step back from Q1 in third parties or elsewhere. Could you expand a little on why that occurred?

Yes, of course. And it's important to recognize the step-up in our own site in particular. That's really important because from a profitability perspective, it's really important that we get exponential growth out of our own channels, which are more profitable or the most profitable of all the channels. The reason our third parties is right that they went slightly backwards overall, and that's because we had less product this year to go into end-of-season sale with our partners. And that's a really positive thing actually, because it means that we sold more proportionally at full price, particularly through Q1, but also in the early part of Q2. So it's actually a positive thing because our margins held up and therefore, our profit has improved as a result. Importantly, though, we've had a really strong start to the autumn/winter period across all channels, both own site and with our third parties, which bodes really well for the peak trading period of quarter 3.

Thank you. The next question is, can you give more detail on store sales and profitability?

So as we said last time we spoke to you, the first 2 stores that we opened, Marlow and Chelmsford are close to breakeven. They're in market towns. The next 2 stores we opened were in shopping centers that was Metro and Cardiff. And the shopping centers are slower to get near to breakeven. And the last 2 stores that we opened, again, in market towns in Bath and Harrogate, they're following a similar trajectory to the first 2 stores. So what we've realized from this is that basically the market towns have got a stronger performance than the shopping centers. And this is largely because our demographic is more concentrated there. And as a result, she's shopping there more frequently. So things are improving and the first 2 market towns that we opened are getting close to breakeven. So we're on that trajectory.

Thank you. The cash balance is consistently healthy. Is the balance we see at half year and full year broadly consistent with the average cash balance through the year?

No, not really. So the cash balance that we hold at September, and actually the same point will apply in October, we don't typically report the October balance, is the lowest we hit. If we look at the whole of the calendar year, where we are right now in the end of September is broadly the lowest position we would expect to be in a 12-month period. The reason for that is that we bought a large proportion and paid for a large proportion of the stock that we buy for the autumn/winter season. And then we start to sell and generate cash as we go through October and November, in particular. So September, and October is typically the most suppressed period. We then rise substantially through to Christmas, and then it will dip slightly as we start to pay for stock ahead of the spring/summer season. Our expectation for March, because March is a fairly similar place versus September, i.e., we bought quite a lot of stock before we sell it for spring/summer, but we do envisage our balance will be slightly ahead at the end of March than where we are at the end of September. But broadly, it will be similar. But we do have, from a working capital perspective and a cash balance perspective, peaks and troughs. So we have a trough now, we have a peak in November, December, and then we come back down again towards March. But September is, in broad terms, the lowest position that we will have in a 12-month period.

Do you expect activity with M&S to be fully back in Q3? Or do you think it could still be 15% to 20% below last year?

I think -- so we have got new stock into M&S for the autumn/winter period. And so we are starting to ramp up the amount of stock we're selling. I think, yes, naturally, it's not going to be back to exactly where we would have been if the cyberattack hadn't happened immediately. So it will take time.

To what degree have the post codes in your store catchments contributed to the accelerating growth on your own site?

We do see -- when we do analysis, we can see very clearly that there is an increase in both site traffic and revenue in the areas where the stores are located, in the areas around them. I think if you were to say, has that had an overall material impact on the national performance of the website, you couldn't say that because 6 stores in small local areas, that wouldn't be enough to have a material impact nationally.

Still on own site. Is the strong improvement in own site sales strongly influenced by an increase in marketing? And will this continue in H2?

Yes, we have increased marketing. So yes, obviously, that is contributing naturally towards an increase in revenue on own site. But I think it's more than that because that doesn't present the full picture. Obviously, the decline in revenue that we've seen over the last 18 months to a large degree has been artificially manufactured. It wasn't that the business would not have carried on growing. It was artificially manufactured because we took the decision to step away from price promotions. So what we've seen is over that 18-month period, consumers have got used to not waiting and not expecting regular price promotional activity. Therefore, they're no longer waiting for those price promotions. So there's a large degree as well of just natural growth coming into the organic growth as well as an increase from increased marketing activity.

The next question is, what do you expect regarding net cash end of full year against the background of M&S restocking? What is your expectations regarding EBIT from your own stores? Are the older stores already in profit?

I think Ali has already given a good answer to do with stores and the profit coming from stores and the shape. I think it's probably worth just adding to what Ali said was the peak season in our sector and for us is quarter 3. We're now in that. So we need a good read on what the trading performance across all of our channels, not least stores for the next few months to kind of give a better perspective on stores in general terms. In terms of cash, just to reiterate, our position in March is broadly similar to the one that we experienced in September. So I would expect it to be slightly ahead of where we are in September, but it's broadly similar in that we'll have paid for a large proportion of our spring/summer stock that we'll be landing ahead of selling it after the year-end, i.e., into April, May, June. But in broad terms, it will be similar.

Thank you. Those are all the questions we have at this time. So I'd like to hand back to the management team for closing remarks.

I'll just close by saying thank you all very much once again for joining us today, and we look forward to updating you again for our half year results.

Thank you to Julie, Alison and Steve for joining us today. That concludes the Sosandar investor presentation. Please take a moment to complete a short survey following this event. The recording of this presentation will be made available on Engage Investor. I hope you enjoyed today's webinar.