Grendene SA

BOVESPA:GRND3

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q4

[Operator]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for waiting. Welcome to the Grendene's webinar to discuss the results of the fourth quarter report of 2021. We have present Rudimar Dall'Onder, CEO; Gelson Luis Rostirolla, Deputy Chief Executive Officer, and Alceu de Albuquerque, Investor Relations Officer; as well as the company's main managers. We inform you that the press release for the fourth quarter of 2021 is available on the website, ri.grendene.com.br, in Portuguese and English. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded and has simultaneous translation in English. [Operator Instructions]

Before proceeding, we would like to clarify that any statements made during this presentation regarding the company's operating and financial projections and estimates are merely forecasts based on management's expectations regarding the future of the company. These expectations are highly dependent on market conditions, the general economic performance of the country, the sector and international markets.

Now I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Alceu de Albuquerque. Please, Mr. Alceu, the floor is yours.

[Alceu de Albuquerque, executive]

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for your presence in our webinar to share results. I hope you are all well with -- in good health. I start this video conference celebrating the 51 years of Grendene that they started this very day, 51 years ago.

So before starting with the numbers, I would like to update briefly about Grendene Global Brands, the JV that we formatted together with 3G last year. So since we signed this contract until today, the teams of Grendene and GGB have been working together very closely to guarantee a smooth transition, so we present the executive of GGB to our main clients, to retailers, to our distributors in the regions that GGB is assuming, such as United States, Canada, China, Hong Kong. They have been focusing on building the necessary infrastructure to guarantee the growth expected for the next years. This is why I like to say that we are setting the foundations for the future to be able to build the house of the international market.

In this infrastructure, we are hiring around 85% of the people, of the team, with a lot of experience on footwear and clothing and fashion. We brought people from Crocs, from Nike, from New Balance, from many other companies with a lot of experience. We are also focusing on what's core for the company. What I mean is we are strengthening the development of our brands abroad. So what's not related to the strengthening of our brands, we are going to outsource. GGB is adopting an asset-light model. Everything that's not focus of our brands, we are outsourcing, such as accounting, payroll. We've been outsourcing all that.

We have been restructuring our systems -- our technology systems to guarantee that our digital business can grow in a way that we want. For example, the Melissa website USA, that's GGB, and now, on the first quarter of January, was operating with the Oracle platform, and we understood that Shopify is a much better platform, so we are switching the system. All of that has been done since the -- since when we were signing the deal.

And then I asked myself on, "When are we going to start seeing the impacts of this partnership?" And I would like to make it clear that the results from GGB, we are waiting for medium and long term. It's not next year or the next one that's going to appear. Year after year, we are going to build the result, this huge result that we are expecting to happen. For example, this year, the sales for the external market, United States, Hong Kong, China and Canada, they have been done by Grendene's team. Why? Because of the dynamics of how the market works.

In the United States, for example, the products of the summer collection, summer/spring collection, they are arriving to the consumers now. And the sales for the retailers, they have been already done by Grendene in June and July 2021. Why, why is that? Because in May, for example, the buyers of the huge retailer chains, they have their budgets set, how much they are going to allocate to every brand and kind and segment. This is with -- for -- from these budgets, they start to get together to make more purchases that -- of what's going to arrive, what's going to be delivered to the final customer. This is why the sales to these countries, they have been done by Grendene.

So when do we start seeing the GGB management in a more intense way? It's from 2023 onwards. It's when the executives will get together with the retail owners in May 2022 to be able to sell the spring/summer collection 2023.

The -- I'm going to give you an update on our e-commerce. We have been evolving since we have decided to internalize all our retail stores -- online retail stores. We ended the process that started August last year, so in February this year, we -- all our stores are -- have migrated for the management of Grendene, and we have observed a monthly growth on the platforms, so it's been maturing. Our digital side of the business has been maturing.

On the fourth quarter of 2021, we reached more than 14 million sessions of all our stores, and that's a 65% growth when compared to the third quarter of 2020. I'm not even comparing because we didn't have all the management -- all the stores under our own management. The GMV grew 65% when compared to the third quarter of 2021, and it grew 48% when compared to the fourth quarter of 2020. On the Black Friday alone, we sold more than 189,000 pairs, so the biggest Black Friday ever. For Melissa, which is a very important brand and very representative, represented 65%, 70% and has represented 80.2% (sic) [ 8.2% ] in the internal market online. We launched now in December of this year the website Melissa, and we expect great results from this launch.

So we have done many initiatives and -- throughout 2021, so we could get -- achieve these results. Our DDG, our Department of Digital Commerce, it has gone breakeven with less than 1 year of the stores on our own management. In the year and the quarter, we are very happy with the results for the perspectives for the future.

What can we see from now on? We are going to launch the Melissa app. We have been studying a lot, and when we create the app of a brand, it increases the flow of sales. So next week, we're going to start implementing the new Melissa app that's going to advance throughout the year. We have new integrations with the marketplace next year, the integration with Mercado Livre, and on the second quarter, we are going to integrate with Netshoes, Zatini, Dafiti, and on the third quarter, we are going to integrate with Renner. We are also going to increase our investments in our media and performance when compared to what was realized in 2021. We believe that's going to bring even more flow to our stores -- sales flow.

When we talk about Middle East, it represents 70%, 75% sales -- online sales, and we have brands with huge potentials such as Zaxy. Zaxy has got an audience with a digital profile. The sales of Zaxy represent 3.5% of all total sales of the internal market, so we have huge perspective for Zaxy either -- online is still -- it's a trend. It is still presenting very positive results from now on.

Before we get into the numbers of the fourth quarter of 2021, I would like to give you an overview of our scenario in the fourth quarter of 2021. But actually, not only on the fourth quarter, but this scenario is valid for 2021 and for the first quarter of 2020.

What we have observed: a very high inflation rate, an inflation on food, energy, fuel, the very bad inflation that will eat the budget of families, especially low-income families; high interest rates; high level of unemployment; end of emergency assistance by the government. And all these factors together, they ended up kind of -- they have slowed down consumption in the internal market. We started observing that on the third quarter of 2021, and people started -- we can still observe the same phenomena. In these 2 first months, we are observing the first signals of a slight recovery, but what we can see is that consumers, especially low-income consumers, which are the profile of most of many of our lines, this consumer is tired because this consumer has been suffering a lot the effects of inflation. On the external market, the scenario is a little bit different. With the advances of vaccination on global levels, we have seen a resumption of economic activities that, together with programs of assistance -- emergency assistance and to stimulate the economy, they have kind of warmed up the consumption.

The exchange rates have also allowed us to have positive margins. And another factor that has been contributing recently since the beginning of the pandemic is the strategy of big retail chains and companies to diverse their base of suppliers. We can see, for example, petite -- an appetite for big retailers of reducing the [ exposure ] to China and start buying from other suppliers. That brings us many opportunities because we are very competitive as regarding quality and price. The high cost of freight shipping the products that would come from China to Brazil, for example, they were costing $2,000, $3,000 before the pandemic. And 2, 3 months ago, they are $14,000. Now, it has gone down a little bit.

We don't think it's going to reduce in the prepandemic standards. But this elevation on international shipping will make it more complicated for the Chinese products. They will be less competitive. The crisis of supply from the Chinese chain will also benefit us, increasing our competitiveness. Our freight, our shipping, when compared to the high shipping costs from China, will cause opportunities -- will generate opportunities for us.

I mentioned here about the first year, what we have been doing to take the opportunities that the external markets are offering to deviate this -- the fact that people are consuming less. And first of all, we think that we should focus on the product. If we get a product right, the year is guaranteed, so we have been focusing a lot on product to be able to bypass this crisis of consumption.

An example is Melissa Free that has launched last year, and it's been a huge success in the Brazilian market. It's a product made of EVA, injected EVA, so our focus on product and -- is high, and we are widening our capacity of production of EVA, searching for -- offering to consumers products that have high added value for all the brands. We also have -- we have readjusted prices in October and February and January '22 to rebalance our margins. Raw materials have increased costs since the beginning of the pandemic. So for you to have an idea, the PVC resin that represents 25% of our products, it has increased 65% in 2020 and another 60% in 2021. So now in 2022, we are observing signs of prices decreasing. So focusing on product, really, it's our main strategy to fight the crisis -- the economic crisis that we have been going through in Brazil.

Talking specifically about divisions. Division 1 that represents all the brands, except for Melissa, we have widened our positive rates, which is -- what does it mean? We observed more clients ordering when compared to 2020, 2021. We have increased our share. We are increasing our shares in self-service channels, not only growing our share -- market share but also to give added value to products in this -- that are selling on these channels.

We did a partnership with Panvel, a chain of pharmacies with a special product to be sold in this type of channel. We opened 45 new Melissa Clubs in the internal market. We did collabs -- collaborations with bloggers such as Camila Coutinho and influencers. We have also launched a beachwear collection that gave us an opportunity to expand our portfolio not only on footwear but regarding clothes. We are going to open another 25 Melissa Clubs this year in 2022. In United States, we opened 3 new stores in Orlando, San Diego and Miami. These stores will be managed by GGB, and we are going to have another 11 exclusive stores abroad in regions that are not covered by GGB.

So these are some of the many actions that we have been developing to bypass, to surpass this scenario of less -- of consumption slowdown and to speed up the opportunities of the external market.

The -- in the external market, our performance was still very high on the quarter also because of commercial actions, sales actions of replacement of distributors in regions that were not covered by GGB. In other regions, apart from Canada, United States, Hong Kong, China to -- we are renovating our base of distributors, widening our presence in channels of self-service, what helps us to spread the size -- to increase the size of our market. So these are the actions we have been doing throughout the year and some of the things we have in mind for 2022.

And the reflects of that is what we observed here: a volume of pairs sold on the third quarter has reached 51.2 million. I want to make an observation. The fourth quarter of 2020 was very atypical. We observed a different concentration of volume of exported shoes on the second quarter of 2020. This kind of stop of the production, standstill of the production, kind of accumulated orders on the second quarter. And most of these orders received on the second and third quarters, they were only delivered on the fourth quarter, and we could only place this backlog of orders -- in order in January 2021. Because of that very strong atypical situation of the fourth quarter of 2020, we understand that the comparison of the fourth quarter of 2019 is the most adequate one to correct -- properly understand the scenario of the fourth quarter of 2021.

Having said that, the volume of exported reached 51 million pairs, which is a growth of 4.5% growth. This growth came from the internal market. The internal market grew 3.3%, while the external market grew 8.8%. The gross revenue reached BRL 946 million, a growth of 19% when compared to the fourth quarter of 2019, and this growth happened because of a higher volume and a better mix of products and better prices. In the internal market, it was 14.7% growth, and external market, 33% growth.

The recurrent EBIT was BRL 176.1 million, a 13.8% growth when compared to the fourth quarter of 2019, with a gross margin -- a net margin of 1 point percentage underneath here, explained by the increase of the raw materials that has been compensated with more efficiency. Our recurrent net profit reached BRL 234.2 million, a growth of 9.9% when compared to the fourth quarter of 2020, a net margin of 32% when compared with the fourth quarter of 2019.

Here, we have in more detail these numbers. I'm not going to go through all the slides because the press release has a lot of details, but the gross revenue increased 19% regarding the fourth quarter of 2019, 14.7% in the internal market and 33% in the external market. CPV, COGS went up to 53% up of net revenue when compared to the fourth quarter of 2019. And the main impact is the raw material that, in the fourth quarter, was representing 22.3% and, in 2021, represented 28.1%.

What the scenario we can see for raw material? The PVC resin, our main raw material, represents 25% of our CPV, our COG. It had significant increases. It went up 60% every year, and it reached a peak in October of 2021. Since October 2021, we can see monthly downfalls on the prices of the resin in the international markets. So since October until February, the prices in the international market, I'm not talking about internal costs, it went down 19%, and only in 2022, it went down 8%, 9%. Workforce. We are labor -- we are more efficient now than in 2019. We were in 17.2%, and now we are 15.8%.

With this increment of the COG, our gross margin is 57% (sic) [ 50.7% ]. It went down to 49% (sic) [ 46.9% ] in 2021. And our EBIT, recurring EBIT went down 1 point percentage of 23% for 22.3% in the fourth quarter. The net profit result is 26 -- is 29.6% on the fourth quarter 2021.

We observed a growth of the gross revenue for the internal and external markets. In general, our growth was 14% compared to the fourth quarter of 2019. Internal market was 11% compared to fourth quarter 2019. And external market, the growth was 22.1% in the gross revenue in dollars. In the gross revenue in reais, there was a 22.1% growth in external market in reals. When we consider the gross revenue in dollars, there was a retraction of 10.1% in the gross revenue. In the fourth quarter of 2019, we had an exchange rate of BRL 3.94, and when the average exchange rate in 2021 was BRL 5.39. So for -- we had a decrease. The depreciation of the exchange rate helped us here.

Now, moving to results of the year. We had a very positive result, a strong result presenting a growth, both relating to 2019 also with 2020. So we have reached 154 million pairs in 2021, which is a 6% growth comparing to 2020 and also comparing to 2019. At the domestic market, we had a growth of 1.4% against 2020 and 26% with the export market.

The gross profit reached BRL 2.8 billion, which represents a 22% growth related to 2020 and 13% related to 2019. At the domestic market, our gross revenue growth related to 2020 and also 59% on the export market.

The EBIT represented a growth of 12% related to 2020 and 24% comparing to 2019. The EBIT margin -- recurring EBIT margin dropped from 19% to 17% in 2021. Here, again, explained by the increase on the raw material costs. And also the net profit had a 15% growth versus 2020. And the recurring net margin has kept the same relating to 2019 and also had a reduction of 4.7% to 23% when compared to 2020, again, here explained by the increase on the raw material costs.

Also here, you can see in detail, I'll be covering the net -- the gross revenue while compared to 2020 and 2019. We're talking about 2020 here, okay? Sorry by the mistake. We had a 15% growth comparing to 2020 also related to 2019. At the domestic market, we have a 11.9% growth against -- comparing to 2020 and also related to 2019. And domestic market, 25% versus 2020.

And at the -- here in the end, I'd like to talk a little about our variable income portfolio for our investing committee. We used to have a portfolio of BRL 269.2 million at the end of the third quarter, where 30% were allocated on energy, 32% financial, 4% in incorporation of real estate projects, 23% in mining and 9% in steel. The position now in February 15, we closed our position in steel, but we maintained our position in the other sectors. This is what I have to say in a short way. That's it.

But now I -- before I open to the questions and answers, let me talk about how we -- let me talk about the results, the consolidated profits and loss accounts, discounting some incentives and adding some destination of reserves and also incentives. We had -- we come to a number of distribution, a number of BRL 395 million, from which BRL 321 million have already been distributed, anticipated -- in an anticipated way, which gives us a balance of BRL 73 million, which is equivalent of the results from December, which are related to October, and the ones from October and November have already been anticipated within the year of 2021.

How this BRL 73 million will be distributed? So BRL 222,000 will be in dividends, and BRL 73,000 (sic) [ BRL 73 million ] as IE, as interest on equity, so the revenue. And this BRL 73 million in gross, they will become BRL 62 million. These dividends and interest on equity, they will be paid to our shareholders who have shares on Grendene by the closing of the market on May 12. These shares, they will be negotiated from May 3 on, and the beginning date for these payments are from May 18 on.

And to finish, I would like to show the values of dividends paid by the company, accumulated in the last 10 years, which are close to BRL 3.3 billion, which shows how consistent we are in results even during the pandemic period, which we all lived in the last 10 years -- in the last 2 years, sorry.

Now I would like to open for questions. But before that, let me tell you that even though we know we are in a moment, which is still challenging especially for domestic market, we are very optimistic regarding the results of this year. We hope growth, we hope volume growth in margins as well, and we know that we are in a tough year. The inflation keeps high. Interests keep high. And on the one hand, we end up damaging the demand. But on the other hand, we also have a robust cash. Our net cash is around BRL 1 billion, which helps us bringing us a very positive financial result.

So even though with this challenge scenario, we have the year of elections. We have a lot of volatility. Historically, election years in state and federal governments, they end up injecting resources in economy, which can be a drive to recover consumption. And in years of crisis, Grendene historically goes very well, has a very good performance because we have a very good range of products, competitive products, which present, which have features -- very similar features to their competitors. So if the consumer has less money for nonessential items, historically, what we can perceive is that if the consumer has to purchase a flip flop, and our products, as I said, they have very similar features to our competitors but with better prices. The consumer will end up choosing the most competitive price product. So we know that the scenario is challenging, but we are optimistic to present volume growth and also revenue growth.

That being said, I would like to open for the question-and-answer moment. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from XP.

[Unknown Analyst]

Alceu, [ Fernando ] from XP. Congratulation on results. Regarding the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, it's a bit early to say, but could you say how the oil prices will affect PVC prices and your margins? And if this event could impact somehow the company besides the costs?

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you, Fernando, for your question. As you said, it's really too soon to perceive any effects in this conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The ones we can see already, it's, of course, the raise on the oil prices, which certainly will -- if they keep this high, will reflect on the resin -- of PVC resin. For now, our scenario, it's still reducing the market. We don't have any signals of elevation -- of price elevation. But as I said, the conflict is -- it's still very recent to perceive any other elevations, any other rises.

Apart from that impact of the price on PVC, regarding sales to that region, the impact is very small. We don't believe that we will have any significant impact on sales because of the low representation, the low share that these places have. But indirect impact that Grendene suffers as well as other companies and other -- and the population is that the rise of oil prices will bring -- will impact the consumption.

[Operator]

Next question, Richard from Bradesco Bank.

[Richard Cathcart, analyst]

We have 2 questions actually. The first is about the freight cost on international market. In one of the slides, it was a challenge last year. I'd like to understand how you can see the situation in short term for 2022 and if there is any chance of improvement of the margins because of the reduction on freight costs.

And the second question is you put some interesting details about e-commerce. I'd like to understand a little about profitability on marketplace channels and also the price policies tracked by you, both on the website and also on marketplaces before the retail channels?

[Unknown Executive]

The first relation -- regarding freight cost, before pandemic, bringing a container from Asia to Brazil used to cost around $2,500. We got to $14,000 in the last 2, 3 months. Now, we have seen a reduction, which is around $11,000. It's hard to say -- it's hard to predict, to forecast these prices, but we believe there is room. There is room for falling, for reducing but not in such an intense way, and we do not believe we will go back to those standards before the pandemic. We believe that this will establish -- it should establish around $9,000, $10,000, but we cannot guarantee. It's more about being sensitive forecasting, basically. The impact on margin is hard to say because it will depend on the freight movement, as I said.

And regarding e-commerce, our price policy for the end consumer is the same one we use for our end consumer in a physical shop, so what we use on e-commerce is the same. The price we use online is the same price on Melissa shops, like multibrand shops.

Regarding the margins on marketplace. Today, we have the integration only with Magalu. It's a shop, Magazine Luiza, and it's a very shy share. It's a very small number that was sold so far because this integration has recently happened, and we had some issues with the integration platform, so much so that now we're shifting. We're changing this platform to -- in order to avoid delays and operational problems. We can't say yet the margin of marketplace, and the price policy is the same used on our online channel.

[Operator]

Wagner from Quantitas has the next question.

[Wagner Salaverry, analyst]

Alceu, congratulations on the results. And my question goes on the same line as Richard on e-commerce but also because you mentioned U.S.A. international e-commerce. Could you mention -- what could you say about that? What kind of position do you have if the staff from GGB is already taking care of that? How do you evaluate from the business scale point of view if that is relevant for operations on GGB USA? What can you tell us about expectations and execution of that?

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you, Wagner. GGB has already taken over these online business management and the Melissa's website in U.S.A. since the first half of January this year. And what we expect is a growth on the channel, especially because the online channel in U.S.A. has a big spread, a big penetration around 30%, 40% in the shoe market there, so there is a big market to be explored there. We have already hired a very good logistic operator, which can assure us a very efficient delivery both in deadlines and costs, which makes our products even more competitive.

It's hard to come with specific numbers. We don't give any guidance, but the online channel in U.S.A., it's a very big channel. And our product is a very competitive product. It's very requested. We have very big possibilities.

[Wagner Salaverry, analyst]

And the second question is about Melissa. When we look at other consumption goods aiming at bigger profits, they performed very well during pandemic, and they still have good signals for this year. Of course, Melissa has a range of products spread into different clients, customer profiles.

But I would like to understand because you said -- you mentioned you are changing some policies, some customer relations, to be more direct. And I'd like to understand how that relationship is going to happen, if you are going to use the actual shops, Melissa Clubs, or if you are perceiving that some high income is helping to minimize the effect on other more sensitive price products.

[Unknown Executive]

Melissa, in the last quarter, as observed in the third quarter, Melissa has presented a very good performance in the last term -- in the last quarter. So much so that in Melissa Clubs, we had the best last quarter in history. It was a very strong period of sellout for us because, as you said, what we have observed is that the consumer of -- the high-income consumer has a repressed demand. That person has been able to accumulate savings during the pandemic whether or not reducing their salaries, they haven't suffered from unemployment or because they didn't travel. They didn't go to restaurants, shows, theaters, so they ended up accumulating some savings. And now that the business -- the physical shops, they are reopening, these people are consuming.

Because Melissa has a higher income consumer, we are benefiting from this movement because we have a product line which is highly competitive. Our designer teams got spot on. Our EVA products, the new line from Melissa is a huge success. And the low-income consumers from other brands, these consumers have been suffering more.

Regarding Melissa's strategy, the strategy is to keep on growing mainly via Melissa Clubs because what we have seen now is a change, a shift on the investor profile, on the entrepreneur profile. Before they were in big cities, in big shopping malls, and now what we have seen is a higher interest in smaller cities, in street shops. So what we see, what we expect is to open new clubs throughout 2022, around 20 clubs, 20-so clubs. And the strategy, we try to maintain the same. These clubs represent 60%, 65% of our sales. We have the omnichannels as well, which has -- the online channel has represent 66%. I believe the -- we believe that will boost the sales on the channel, 14.4% of online sales, sorry. Omni sales on the fourth quarter, they have been on this new form, this new way of pickup store.

To sum up, we have the same strategy: focusing on Melissa Clubs and also online channel.

[Wagner Salaverry, analyst]

The relation of Melissa Clubs, is there a figure of master franchising? Or is it directly with Melissa? Is it directly with them or directly with you?

[Unknown Executive]

Today, we have a master franchise responsible for prospecting new investors, new entrepreneurs and also managing our shops. We're very close to contributing to this management.

[Operator]

Another question from [ Glaobe ].

[Unknown Analyst]

The company thinks at some point should we start operational -- operations in products in other countries that's not Brazil, knowing that some production costs are lower than Brazil, such as Vietnam, Cambodia and even some Central American countries, such as Mexico.

[Unknown Executive]

Glaobe, today, we don't have this perspective because we're very competitive. We can take our products to the end consumer with very competitive prices, even competing with countries, such as China, Vietnam, Mexico, to name a few. Today, we do not consider this alternative in this moment.

[Operator]

We have closed the question-and-answer section. I would like to give the words for Alceu for final considerations.

[Alceu de Albuquerque, executive]

Once again, thank you very much for your presence. If you have any additional questions, our HR team will be available to clarify any questions. Have a very good day.

[Operator]

The webinar is finished. Thank you for your participation. Have a great day. Thank you.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]