Arezzo Industria e Comercio SA

BOVESPA:ARZZ3

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q3

[Alexandre Birman, executive]

Good morning everyone. Thank you for participating in our video conference for the results from the third quarter '22. We have our CFO, Rafael Sachete; our Investor Relations manager, Vicky Machado.

Before starting, let's talk about our agenda for the day. I'll have an opening message and then talk a bit about our brands and channels, what is the essence of the distribution of Arezzo&Co. I'll talk about our omnichannel that since the pandemic was a change that is here now to stay. Rafael Sachete will take over with interesting data and analysis about our financial results. And then the most important portion, we're going to open for Q&A.

This is our 47th quarterly results call. February next year will -- it will be 11 years since our IPO, and we have some interesting data that show the [indiscernible] of the continuous generation of value from our company. Since the IPO, our shares valued 414%, and in the same period, it was valued 74%. Besides that, this 11 years, we paid BRL 1 billion in dividends. So I think it's worth pointing out that our company, besides generating EBITDA and net profit, it generates cash, which enables the investors to have the security that at average BRL 1 per share in dividends is ensured.

And actually, the dynamics of being a public company and having this opportunity to interact with you every quarter is very positive. We are very happy to be here sharing our results with you, especially listening to your questions. I thank all the analysts that constantly dedicate and write extremely rich reports about our company. And to be honest, this need to give the results every quarter generates some pressure, but consequently, also generates an evolution. We're constantly learning and evolving, and I'm very happy with this situation. And let's take advantage of this morning for a deeper interaction.

Before the presentation itself, I'd like to point out that Arezzo&Co, as always, very dedicating and being creative. We are now giving our results for the third quarter, and tomorrow, we hope to expect all of you in our headquarters, actually in our home, in Campo Bom, where the magic happens where we have the core of our product creation, our software, our plants, our digital areas or shared services center. We're here opening our kitchen to all of you. And what's most important, besides getting to our facilities, you have access to our management, not only the Executive Directors, we're going to have all the senior leadership of the company. And also we'll have a lunch, a barbecue in open air tomorrow. So those that are confirmed, we expect to hear. If you haven't confirmed yet, there is still time. Vicky is going to open an exception, if anyone still wants to join last minute. Please come join us in Campo Bom, we will have a great Investor Day.

So a bit about this third quarter. I'm very happy to see that when you reach a level of excellence in results that are totally outside the curve is like in line with expectations. So the famous high bar at Arezzo&Co. When we analyze the results from other players in the market, we like to be required to give excellency because this makes us even better. But these results are a consolidation of all the actions, especially our strategic planning from 2019 and mainly, our culture. We'll talk a lot about culture tomorrow. During the hardest moments in the pandemic when we were questioned, what was the differential for Arezzo&Co? To overcome that moment, I answered that it was our culture. We were forged within crisis. 5 decades of challenges, and we always overcame them. And this culture is made up of a group of individuals that are amazing. People that have their passion inside the company. You're going to see hundreds of our collaborators, and you'll see, you'll understand that the culture of execution at Arezzo&Co.

People that not wait for things to happen is truly our biggest asset. Besides ever since the IPO, we have shown our vision of being a truly multi-brand and multichannel company with an organization charge that allows the companies, the brands to be independent business units with their own [indiscernible] their mono brand sales channels. And this strategy, together with a strong expansion of channels, we're going to talk about this, with our equalized share of channels has allowed constant growth for Arezzo&Co, and consequently, increasing what we call our share of closet.

We really like to analyze the percent percentage of Arezzo shoes and the other brands shoes in the women's closet and more recently, in men's closet as well from our Pica Pau, Oficina, Vans and now more recently, Carol Bassi. For those that follow me on Instagram, I invite you to see a bit about the opening of the first Carol Bassi store already within the Arezzo&Co platform. It's a revolution. The store in Cidade Jardim is going to reach a record of BRL 50 million in a store. This new concept for the rollout of Carol Bassi because it's really confident. We're going to talk a bit more as well about the transformation that COVID brought and that are here to stay. Among those, as I mentioned, our omni management are focused on digital. The management very close to our supply chain, and more than that, the entrance in new addressable markets increasing that, that is just in the beginning.

If we analyze the revenue from the past 12 months, it includes fourth quarter in '21 and the 3 quarters of '22, we reached the brand of BRL 5 billion in revenue -- in gross revenue. The same company in the whole of 2019 had BRL 2.2 billion in revenue. So it's a growth at more 2.5-fold in this period that included a pandemic. Specifically about the summer collection that was [indiscernible] the resort since July, and the third quarter has as its base, the summer collections for all brands that are very assertive, our business is the right product at the right time. This is what makes the difference regardless of the external scenario is to create attractiveness.

I'm going to give an example to talk about the fourth quarter. You must have followed the collection from Reserva, anticipating the FIFA World Cup with lots of creativity and great products. And Reserva is going to have the same-store sales in the first 8 days of November of 50%, and the World Cup collection has been -- has accounted for 20% of those sales. I'd also like to point out and I recommend this analysis, we think it is very important when you look at the -- Arezzo&Co brought growth -- grew substantially in volume besides in this ratio for price. So this means a gain in market share because market share is measured by the number of products that clients own and not only the revenue from the brand. And we're going to talk in detail about our main brands, but all core brands with a growth above 30%. Legacy brands such as Arezzo that is now 50 years old with a 38% growth.

And lastly, the resiliency of our online channel. During the pandemic and the explosive growth of online, we were questioned a lot about the ability of maintaining the strong sales pace in digital. And the figures are there to show 35% growth compared to last year. And when you compare with the pre-COVID period for our online business, the growth is -- hard to say the number. It's 400% growth. So some data that you know, some highlights, consolidated revenue -- gross revenue of BRL 1.4 billion, a growth of 47% compared to 21 and 161% compared to '19. Gross margin extremely healthy, an increase of 60 basis points compared to last year, reaching 52.8%. Our EBITDA of BRL 170 million, a growth of 36% compared to last year. Our adjusted EBITDA margin of 14.9%. We're going to talk about for the last 9 months of the year, which justifies the analysis and same-store sales that shows the ability and productivity of our brick-and-mortar stores with an increase of 28.9%.

And the translation of our EBITDA due to our asset-light model and our robustness of our cash generating a net profit of BRL 103 million, a record for a quarter. Now this to be the third quarter, the number of units sold. It's worth pointing out, as we're a multi-category company, besides the 5.8 million pairs sold, we have commercialized in one quarter 2.2 million pieces of apparel and 826 bags -- 1,000 bags. And you see that shoes still the biggest category with 65% of the total. However, the apparel business is 25%. So Arezzo&Co already is a multi-category brand platform. Growth in all categories that I mentioned, mainly in apparel, showing our gain in share.

Now talking about the results from the past 9 months for 2022. Analyzing that we had an excellent first semester and the continuity of strong results even with the high base for the third quarter, reaching a total of revenue of BRL 3.6 billion. This number is exactly the result of the whole of last year, that is, we finished September 30 with this result that was equivalent to the whole of 2021, with a consolidated gross margin of 54%. Adjusted EBITDA for the period of BRL 466 million. And yes, with an expansion of EBITDA margin that was very positive of 100 basis points and same-store sales generating a net profit of BRL 284 million. This net profit in '22 is going to go over BRL 400 million in net profit with cash generation. As I said, we reached BRL 5 billion for Arezzo&Co. This is the goal, and it is the base for the next one. So with that it's Arezzo [indiscernible]. So it's 500 million a month as a base from now on. 29 million products sold in this time.

And as our baseline pointing fourth quarter -- sorry, fourth quarter of '21, and the 3 quarters of '22, we have reached BRL 652 million in EBITDA. So this becomes the baseline for the company with an EBITDA margin that I wouldn't like to focus for each quarter, but we analyzed the 12-month period. This is the EBITDA margin considering all the expenses that we have. Initiatives for new business that come up in our expenses, 16.2%.

[Foreign Language]

[Rafael Sachete, executive]

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[Operator]

[Operator Instructions]

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[Alexandre Birman, executive]

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[Unknown Executive]

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[Alexandre Birman, executive]

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These are medium term processes. It took us a year to structure that. But at the same time, we had initiatives that generated the same-store share that was very positive in Cidade Jardim store. And as I mentioned, the Carol Bassi's Cidade Jardim store will reach BRL 50 million this year. The brand will have a growth of around 100% without expansion. This is organic growth, multi-brand and e-commerce. We opened yesterday, as I mentioned, and I like those from Rio de Janeiro to get to know. We have a video to present tomorrow. It is something different in the Brazilian market. It goes well beyond a new store. It's a new shopping experience. We expect that the Carol Bassi stores in this new format are going to have a revenue of around at least BRL 25 million to BRL 40 million a year. Our plan is to open around 3 to 4 stores a year up to 12 to 15 stores in the next 3 years, and Carol Bassi will be a brand that is going to have exponential growth just like Reserva.

About Reserva, this recently launched in '22 through, first of all, kiosks within the Reserva stores, very good acceptance. It corresponds to 5% to 7% of the total revenue of the store. Reserva store has a revenue of around BRL 12 million to BRL 15 million a year. We opened the first full Reserva store in the Leblon shopping mall. It reached 100% of the forecasted goal, had revenue in the first month in October, BRL 400,000. And the brand positioning is much in line with what we wanted to reach very strict, where 60% of sales is in jeans and in t-shirt. That's what we wanted to get in.

As for shoes and lifestyle, we had an important task for 2022, which was to define the store concept, whether we're going to operate just a freestanding apparel or if we're going to have hybrid stores.

After a very detailed work in several tasks, tomorrow going to communicate the definition that it should roll out to be through hybrid stores. They're not going to be as the 2 that there are today, separating apparel and shoes. This architectural project is defined already. We're going to open from the first quarter '23, an average of 3 to 5 stores per quarter. So we found the key products. We structured the brand positioning. We structured the supply chain process. So 2023 will be the year for us a gradual rollout. So this is the snapshot. It's something we're going to talk a lot about tomorrow, but I thank you for the question.

[Unknown Executive]

Now I'm mixing 2 questions from Ruben Couto and Joe from JPMorgan. They ask about the SG&A of the operation for the consolidated operation. What should we expect as recurrent for the future with AR&Co, the expenses in the United States.

[Alexandre Birman, executive]

I'd like, first of all, to point out when you talk about SG&A. SG&A, we have to separate fixed costs, especially within G&A, the administration operation costs. That is all the corporate area, all of our legal and travel and facilities expenses. All of these expenses had grew a lot as it was shown by Rafael Sachete, and this is going to continue. These are expenses that do not grow, and they grew in this third quarter less than 2% with a growth of 47% of the revenue. So in these lines, we have leveraged that and we're going to maintain that. When you go to the sales lines, you divide it in 2 steps. Sales that are directly related to sales, commissions and shipping. There's no leverage. They grew according to the revenue, and the discretionary sales expenses, mainly marketing.

So this year, we had some investments we didn't want to talk about. But the third quarter, we see ourselves as deserving of -- remember, they're generating value to Arezzo&Co in its 50th anniversary. We don't want to have marketing expenses as one-off because they are what they are, but we had investments such as the book, a series of events focusing on different audiences that we're sure was extremely important for the Arezzo company. We only have a 50th anniversary once in our life.

So this EBITDA margin number that you have for 16.2% is the margin that you can expect. So maybe one quarter will be 15%. The other one will be 17%. But we were here, excluding the momentary oxalation of marketing expenses or the needs to support operations such as the American operation. In all in, our EBITDA margin, you can do this as a historical margin for our company. A company that in terms of margin is very flat, talking about the historical series of 5 to 10 years. So this range of 16% to 17% is what we're going to be operating in because we believe that it's important to revert part of what should be EBITDA in new investments, not only marketing, but also in new business initiatives. When you place a Reserva, when you implement a brand, all the expenses of a style and marketing plan team, they are expenses. We do not place these expenses as one-off, adjusting their EBITDA. So it has been more than BRL 10 million in lifestyle only in operational expenses and marketing for [indiscernible].

So I would list at least 5 investments that we did that were organic that in the medium term are going to be very accretive as we have the proven case of the Alexandre Birman, Anacapri brands and the bags category that in the beginning, in the first 1, 2 years, they have more expenses than revenue. And we believe that destining 200 basis points of consolidated EBITDA for these investments is actually necessary so that the company will maintain solid historical growth as it has been done so far. I hope you have -- I've answered your question. And I repeat, tomorrow, we'll be here one-on-one, if you want to explore about the growth initiatives, both organic and inorganic of Arezzo&Co.

[Unknown Executive]

Thanks, Alexandre. Now just joining -- question that was recurrent for many people about the North American operation. So they want to know, what is our expectation in the short and long term in this operation? How do we see the operation of [indiscernible] and B2C in the U.S.? And what do you see about profitability ahead?

[Alexandre Birman, executive]

I thank you for the question, and I'm happy to see the emphasis that you all give to our American operation. This shows that everybody is interested in understanding this operation. So I'd like to make some points here. Our U.S. operation is 11% of our revenue, which is great. It's a process that has been going on for 10 years with learnings and evolution in the market. And I, as representative of the -- as a CEO, I am a buyer of the American company. I'm very bullish about what has been done, what we have today, the dealership of Fernando Caligaris and a team of executives that implemented a management platform that we're going to present in detail tomorrow with omni capabilities that is rare even in the American market. A capability and a flexibility of having one single inventory management that is available both in the department stores' websites and as well as in our proprietary e-commerce.

Besides that, a structure that you'll see here for the back office operation with a very reduced cost here in Brazil. So the U.S. operation faces as for any brand, if you analyze the balance of all retail in the United States, you'll see the difficulty the market has been going through. In my opinion, a mature operations such as ours, to have a growth of 28% in the third quarter, I'm very happy with that result. But if you have to invest more in marketing, especially in digital performance marketing to change the channel that department stores have reduced their purchases. And we chose that, and it was a good decision. We do not want to generate negative results for the operation. It should have been flat. This minus 2% was the marketing expenses that dropped this semester.

The operation will have a positive result. We are virtually in the middle of the fourth quarter. So I can say that the margin will be around 3% to 5% positive for the fourth quarter with a growth in revenue close to what was realized in the third quarter, depending on the holiday sales that have a great impact. But so far, this is the number that we have. So we have a strategic plan for the U.S. operation. We have a full potential defined. And more than that, we have a business platform that is ready to get new brands, be it groups from -- brands from our group to be operated in the U.S. or even a process we're studying of consolidating some 2 brands -- fresh brands that are niche brands, small, but that have a very strong recall, especially about influencers and opinion makers with this product.

So I'm very confident in what we've been building in the American operation. And as we said, it will always have its share of 11%, 12%, up to 15% of the revenue. It's important not only for the business itself, but for the reverse markets, in fact, that it has in Brazil, especially the Alexandre Birman brand. We don't talk much about it in our calls, but it's a brand that in Brazil is going to reach 12 stores. It's going to go over BRL 250 million in revenue this year. The sales of the same stores in Brazil with a growth of 60% to 70%. And the #1 store in the network of the almost 1,000 stores at Arezzo&Co is the Alexandre Birman, Iguatemi shopping mall, a large store that is going to have a revenue of BRL 28 million. So the whole investment in the U.S., our store in [indiscernible] Bergdorf Goodman, 5th Avenue. This also helps us to make us a global brand. So I hope I have answered the question. Otherwise, we will be here tomorrow available to talk about this theme that makes us very proud.

[Unknown Executive]

Thanks, Alexandre. It is still in the lines of investments in the U.S., [indiscernible] asks about the CAC strategies we have implemented, not only in the U.S., but all brands. How has this been translated in conversion, possibly diluting these investments?

[Alexandre Birman, executive]

It's a different reality between the U.S. and Brazil. You cannot have it in the same basket because in Brazil, we have brands with awareness in a traffic that is virtually spontaneous in our website. So today, our CAC in Brazil for the core brands does not reach 10% of the revenue. So it's really low, generating a lifetime value that is very high, especially in shoes operation. This investment has been bigger for Reserva because you cannot compare [indiscernible]. But in the U.S., we're a new brand. We're a band that if you look at the brand -- the size of the market, it's still unknown, except the cities where we have flagship stores, especially in New York and Miami.

But this investment in the U.S. is around 30% to 35% of the revenue. So we know we have a leverage to be done. What's important is the retention of these clients in the base and an increase in the number of active clients, which has been extremely positive. In the midterm, we reduced the possibility of bringing new clients because you have a client base that's through e-mail market and the app and the operation of the brand suits that we're going to launch in the U.S. You start to have a reduction of these investments in client acquisition.

[Unknown Executive]

Thanks, Alexandre. Now a question from Irma from Goldman Sachs. She wants to hear a bit about the internalization process of the chain, the recent investments, what are the facts so far in the learnings?

[Alexandre Birman, executive]

We're going to have, in November, our record of historical revenue. We're not going to have any delay in deliveries in the moment of large volume. It's worth mentioning also for our fourth quarter, around 60% of the revenue will come from sell-in. It's 100% insured that turn in the stock coverage from our multi-brand partners is very positive. So we believe that we're going to have 100% of deliveries to realize in the next 3 weeks, and this is in great part due to the process that we started in January now this year more intensively. So we're going to have, in October and November, 4.5 million pairs. But in '22, we're going to deliver 58 million pairs.

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[Unknown Executive]

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[Alexandre Birman, executive]

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[Unknown Executive]

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[Alexandre Birman, executive]

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Thank you, all. Have a good afternoon.