CCC SA

WSE:CCC

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q4

[Dariusz Milek, executive]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentleman. We are meeting you today to discuss the results of the fourth quarter and whole 2021. There is war going on in our eastern border, so at the beginning we would like to emphasize our solidarity with the citizens of Ukraine. Starting from 24th of February we have been helping the refugees. We have sent, transferred 13,000 new footwear. And another 23,000 is waiting to be transferred in cooperation with UNICEF, our partner. We have also conducted a charity among our clients, and they have sent 45,000 of shoes, of pairs of shoes. We would all like the war to finish as soon as possible.

Let's see how 2021 ended for CCC group, which was not the easiest. In 2021 we still had, well, experienced the pandemic. Our shops were closed, many markets for many months. Despite that, the group has achieved the greatest revenue in its history. We have beaten the 2020 by PLN 2 billion.

What has contributed to such a change, first, each segment contributed to increase of our sales, especially online. Online groups that have generated over half of all our revenue. Online sales keep growing, especially thanks to the new HalfPrice brand. Let's be clear, here, in less than a year, because we have opened 1st -- shops in the 1st of March, we have created the biggest off price network in this part of Europe. And we have been targeting a great market in this market. We have already had 61 stores. We operate in 7 markets. We will go over 100 stores by the end of the year. But HalfPrice is not only rock and mortar stores, it's also online stores. And it was started a couple of months after the offline stores. And it generates over 5% of the general sales. Our strategic goal is to reach 20%.

Another online element is Modivo. It's a relatively young project that has been developed for 3 years. And it reached, in 3 years it reached PLN 0.5 billion. And it was a breakthrough year for Modivo. It grew almost twofold the last 3 quarters, meaning the increasing dynamics of revenue with increasingly demanding customers. And we are planning to increase the sales year-by-year. This is the goal that was entered into the new strategy. Despite difficult circumstances, we don't change the strategy. And it will be giving the motion, it will move further strategies.

Now I would like to take over to the Chairman that will take us through the last months.

[Marcin Czyczerski, executive]

Thank you very much. Hello, everyone. The time perspective of today's presentation is quite different. We have been summarizing the whole year, but we are referring to the results of Q4. And since the first quarter is going to be reported next year -- sorry, next week, we are also trying to address to report how does the environment look like right now, does it influence the results.

Before we move on, the Q&A session is still open for you. You can still ask your questions, which will allow us to accumulate a great pool for further stage of our meeting today.

So you can see 5 elements behind me that discuss the, or tell about the situation of the group in the last year and the last quarter. It's another quarter where the company generated over PLN 2 billion of revenue. Again, over half of sales came from e-commerce. Again, it's another quarter in which we have developed a high dynamics of gross margin increase. It's of course a year of challenges but also opportunities. We have been investing in new business lines such as Modivo, such as HalfPrice. And it can also be seen in the results of Q4 and the results for 2021 as well.

You have 2 new businesses that are scaling yet and but have great potential that we believe in a lot. This turn of the year is accumulation of challenges, as we said. Pandemic, COVID-19 pandemic, that we slowly started getting used to was added by new variants, Omicron. We have not had a lockdown, but the traffic in some of the markets grew -- sorry, decreased by 60% because of the quasi-lockdown. The macroeconomic situation in Europe, mostly in CEE and in Poland is strongly influenced by inflation that today is 2 digits already. We have increased interest rates. And the war in Ukraine and the Russian invasion in Ukraine, that strongly influences our thinking of world, our decision-making processes, including shopping decisions. So this year, this time is definitely a time of challenge. But traditionally for us, this is almost normal for us that we are dealing with over normative situations.

Let's look at the events of the following business lines of the CCC group just as we are reporting it. Starting from CCC, the leader of footwear omnichannel market in CEE. Omnichannel is still the core of our business model. Most analysts or experts give us as an example of flagship of omnichannel strategy, at least in this part of Europe. To provide free migration between channels, most of the shops in Poland, and most of them in abroad have been equipped with the so-called in-store tools that allow us to transfer the goods from our network if it's unavailable in the given store. Our rule is that we will always find a size for you, and it works. A [ dozen percentage ] of the -- of our results has been generated like that, with quite high conversion.

Our back end is also contributing to omnichannel development. We have given you numerous examples: esize.me, in-store, shoe scanning, express deliveries, CRM solutions that we're thinking about our customers. But here the omnichannel focus is set on clients as well. And I'm talking about OMS, order management system. It combines the offline and online channels which makes our offer product range 10x more available. What are the benefits? Greater turnover and greater sales in first prices, and as a result great gross revenue. Were you able to observe that in the results of Q1? Yes, of course. We have spent great cost, great investment to see it. Will you continue to see it? Yes as well. You will see it in the first and the second quarter, which increased gross margin, we increased resales and increased turnover. You're already observing great results of this functionality in Poland. And it has been operating in Poland starting from December 2021. Starting last week also in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, soon in Romania. So it's a very important element of closing this integration of virtual and offline worlds.

It's a great tool -- sorry, our app is also greatly connecting online and offline. How? 30% of our sales comes from our app, 7 million of downloaded apps, 7.5 million actually, because this -- the screen behind me should be updated, which results in D2C -- one of the most popular D2C apps both in Poland and in this part of Europe, very highly valued by customers, also mentioned by experts and awarded numerously, for example, in mobile trend awards for the best app. This is also a house for a new club where we combine CCC with new partners, offering additional benefits in this broadly understood partnership ecosystem.

The app has also been developing constantly. For example, we have the virtual trying store in plan. Our employees also know that the app is theirs. This is the part of their world as well. The sales model that we created based on omnichannel is a great environment for the development of a product and developing of portfolios. Our strategies give you that or said that 1/3 of our offering is going to be online. We are developing new brands, both online and in stationary stores. More inspirational with bigger and lower price points, with full look adding additional apparel like jeans and denim apparel, and sports apparel. At CCC we are a footwear store and -- eobuwie with our footwear store, but also we are HalfPrice, Modivo and other brands. So everything that we've been doing for these brands uses these great sales channels that places these products very well. We know that we do it well, based on feedback we get from our customers expressed in NPS, but also thanks to the numerous awards and rankings both for CCC and other brands, capsules, collections, the awards are numerous, the mentions are numerous. Trend scouting portals are mentioning our brands more and more often, showing the trends in colors, in patterns, which -- what is going to be most fashionable for the next year, next time, next season. Our product gets great, great looks as well. How do we communicate with the clients? A great range of 360 degrees marketing. You can see some of it behind me. That is connected to classic forms of marketing, which is also numerous. We are present in city centers, on bus and tram stops, a great stance that allow us to use the augmented reality effects to show our digital Avatar using the NFT world. It is greatly perceived by our younger audiences. And we've also made some great investment there. We're working on our image among the youngest generation of our further future clients. So that is also starting to be our consumers. Social media influencers, micro heroes of our channels like Instagram and TikTok, is our world today, which is perceived both by our customers and by the experts through different special mentions and awards.

The marketing projects that we can show you here, and there are numerous, and all of them are very interesting. So it's difficult to choose one. But I would say that a great summary of everything we do, and we've been doing in terms of 360 marketing, cooperating with influencers, trying to connect with Z generation lifestyles and the icon of Z generation and Polish rap, Young Leosia. If you haven't heard about her, I can strongly recommend her YouTube videos that have over 30 million views as of today. I can recommend you her Spotify page where she is in the top 200 of global Spotify.

And along with her, along with our creative team, we have developed a Poland nationwide concert tour with our brands, promotion, charities, product customization and other forms of initiation. What we wanted to achieve, to make our recipients younger, to reach our younger recipients. What have we achieved? An increased perception of Sprandi by 45% in the 18, 24 age group, our key group for those brands and the key brands for this group. So again, the young customers increased by almost half.

Young digital clients is also an important -- other important eobuwie, a leader of online sales in CEE. What have we been focusing in the last quarters besides consequential growth quarter-on-quarter? As a leader, we have strengthened our core position with great results. But we also looked for other markets, new markets, even though we have quite broad market coverage in the whole Europe.

We have started 2 new attractive markets, Latvia and Austria. Why? Because international expansion is supported by new markets. The densification of the markets that we are already on is one of the goals for eobuwie. It would not be possible without further investment in these brands. That referred mostly to technology and logistics. In terms of logistics, 2 great warehouses in Romania for 2.6 million products, so half of our current possibilities of eobuwie and Modivo. The possibility of implementing express sales in Romania but also in surrounding markets, neighboring markets. In the strategic perspective, we want to reach half of our deliveries next business day, which becomes golden standard for good e-commerce stores.

We're also planning to develop further the warehouses in Romania and developing K3 of the third model, and in new warehouse part in [ Gilanagura ] by an additional 22,000 goods. So we're doing a lot.

I mentioned technology. The technological team in eobuwie and Modivo has grown threefold right now. So we are still investing in new competencies, new technologies because every good retailer, every good e-commerce is based on technology and digitization. This agenda is really substantial, starting from new e-commerce platform, apps, allocation system, dynamic pricing system. Some of the areas are implemented in the option that CCC has. Some of them are in connection, in combination with our other brands. Sometimes we are using eobuwie as an example. We are still having -- we still have a great potential that we've been developing into. How does the fastest-growing, the most inspiring online platform, Modivo been doing? What kind of activities are we doing with this brand? Well, it has been mentioned already.

The sales dynamics could give you all the information. Kryspin will give you the details in terms of profitability, and it's quite promising as well. Why? Because of the product and marketing. Our products are the most important part of Modivo. The range of our offer, new brands, marketplace has been started. There are first partners that we have already. We're planning the full start of it soon. Secondly, we entered partnerships with key brands, Adidas, Tommy Hilfiger, Calvin Klein. And we still have new ideas how to creatively work together to build our brands of both parties. Then we have our own brands that we have in our portfolio. For example, we relaunched Simple with top Dutch influencer, Linda Tol. We also relaunched Rage Age with Irina Shayk. Vogele started with great results, great collections, great support for marketing activities. I won't mention all of the numerous examples of marketing activation.

They all mean that Modivo is very important on the Polish market and has been -- is going to be growing more, which results in both similarly to eobuwie, looking -- being hungry, looking at foreign markets, international markets, and implementing good businesses there. This is to support the international aspirations of Modivo. And they are in line with eobuwie. We are aiming at 80% of revenue coming from abroad.

So we want to internationalize our competence structure of our team. It has been happening in Italy, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. We see the market differences and we want to address them in such a way. Secondly, the physical presence on new markets in Austria and Slovenia and Latvia in terms of Modivo, there are going to be next. And we also plan the hybrid rollout of Modivo plus eobuwie or Modivo collect stores in new markets. And it has been functioning really great in the Czech Republic, soon in Romania, Slovakia and Hungary.

We are convinced that this format is going to build our reputation greatly. We will activate the online customers, create the local hub, delivery hub, and implements the omnichannel model that, again, is the core of the CCC strategy. Mentioning the stores or hybrid stores, it's time for the star over the last months in our group, a star or a celebrity, which is still mostly stationary or offline, but with great prospects in offline, and we are very strong in offline, as you heard. And I'm talking about HalfPrice here, leader of off-price market in CEE.

And what has been going on there. First of all, the substantial growth of the sales network, both in terms of area, that is presented here on the chart, and the amount of stores. We also show our ambitions by the end of the year. So we finished the January with 50 stores. By the end of January 2023 we are planning to have around 100 stores. And the very important element that we are very happy about, we -- that we have implemented really recently, HalfPrice e-commerce has also been started. And even though it's been pretty recent, it's already accumulated 5% of our revenue. It may be not enough, but we know that it took some of the retailers a couple of years. We did it in 3 months, in a couple of months. So it shows us the great potential we believe in.

How does this multibrand off-price platform been reacted to by the clients, by the customers? Well, very, very nicely, I would say. Behind me you can see the awards that show that this concept is great, is fresh. And it also shows something that is the most important for us, customer reception, measured by the key KPI, an increase by 10% of the NPS -- 10 points of the NPS in 10 months.

We have reasons to be happy. And it has been expressed by what we see behind, by what you see behind me. There is a number of improvements that we are going to be introduced. For example, new forms of payments, vouchers, new forms of communications, [ VM ], new forms of channels. So we expect very attractive trends starting from trend starting in June.

The last brand is also -- has also been changing for its customers. It also has been -- has great achievements, PLN 100 million of revenue for the first time. 24% increase in the terms of apparel in sales and 43% of international sales in terms of revenue. So it shows that we made some correct decisions. But as I said, it was a difficult year for DeeZee because DeeZee is social media. It lives with products, with communication. And 2021 experience change of systems integrations, development of warehouses, migration of one system to another, a lot of events that e-commerces don't like in general, but they have to go through to be able to rescale. And we think that this is the future for DeeZee.

Next is Sprandi. This is the second brand that has been building their experience on the external marketplace. In this case, DeeZee appeared on external marketplace selling 80% of it goods on DAC countries, which were not present in directly. So it shows greatly that there are products, there are brands that can sell well there. And it's a potential that we want to develop as well.

We discussed all the key events. So I would like to invite Kryspin Derejczyk, Deputy Director for Finance. So Kryspin, please tell us about the results in the fourth quarter.

[Kryspin Derejczyk, executive]

Thank you, Marcin Czyczerski. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Let's get through the financial results of the group.

To summarize the last quarter of 2021, we have gradually improved our sales Y-o-Y by 46%. In the third year in a row, we have achieved PLN 2 billion of revenue. Of course, it results on one hand on our online base, but it was also very demanding on our e-co businesses. Even though we've experienced quite a substantial growth, particularly in Modivo, which was mentioned by the Chairman at the beginning. E-commerce offensive resulted in high 57% of e-commerce in terms of our overall revenues. In 2012, the e-commerce was only around 25% in the -- sorry. In the whole, e-com sales were over 50%.

Let me go through all the brands starting from CCC omnichannel. The greatest increase in area automation in CCC resulted -- sorry, had a result of closing the Austrian market and transferring the CCC -- some of the CCC stores into HalfPrice. The total area in this time fell down by 11% to 590,000 square meters. Sales for this quarter was almost PLN 500 per square meter which was influenced by lockdowns in the last year, January, which is usually the weakest in the whole year and high inflation and also the lasting parts of lockdown.

But let me just mention that in Q1 and 2, the sales from Q1 and Q2 last year, sales was over PLN 600. And our goal is in between omnichannel, it's very important here, omnichannel, [ EO ], our online business, adds additional PLN 100 to that result. CCC segment has noted a dynamic 52% of revenue in Q4. Online is particularly important here. That grew by 60% year-on-year. And it contributes to 20% of our sales. The gross margin reached 52%, which is the strongest result, which are the strongest of the results in Q4, which despite depreciation of zloty and high inflation that we observed in our supply chain, we have improved our margin by almost 5% year-on-year, which has resulted to our new positioning and discounts on our products.

We will also be observing the OMS mentioned by Marcin, improving these results. So far, it has been operating in Poland, but soon we will start it in next week. So we will start it in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia. The biggest challenge for us is the relative highest point of cost, the level of cost. We have improved it by 16% year-on-year. It could have been better, but the consumer moods, behavior related to COVID have changed our plans. We have improved our return or our purchasing, e-com purchasing, which improve our results, and decreased our influence on the environment.

Despite the growing inflation, we were able to secure the purchasing process, which allows us to optimize the cost structures. Nominally, costs increase by 17% Y-o-Y, with 50% sales increase. Let's still remember that we are still leaving, only leaving the pandemics reality. The reduction of costs improved the profitability of our brands better than in the last 2 years.

Let's take a look at Modivo group now. In Q4, eobuwie segment has noted 22% of sales increase Y-o-Y. The dynamics of growth was below the one from previous quarters, but this is because of the high baseline from last year. And looking at these sectors' results, we can be happy from the pace of growth. The sales could be even higher. But similarly to our store sales online, our online customers also felt the inflation, growing energy costs and mortgage costs. The gross margin of 42% has been improved again, along with the purchasing strength, better price management and discount management.

We don't stop here. We will continue improving. We are implementing new tools that will be helping us here. The profitability of the segments in Q4 was influenced by costs. We started our warehouse in Romania, necessary for our development in local markets, Romania, Greece and Bulgaria, and investment in dynamic pricing tools, which was mentioned by the Chairman.

It's time for the youngest sister of eobuwie, which is Modivo, the most spectacular growth in the whole group, 3 digits, third time in a row, resulting from broadening the offer of products and the increased conversion. It's 0.5 percentage points year-on-year. In 2021, Modivo generated PLN 500 million of sales. The gross margin, 40%, according to our estimations, have been improved by 4.5 percentage points year-on-year, thanks to the scale of our purchasing. Lower dynamics of costs and improved gross margin allow us to achieve two -- double-digit profitability. It's 2-digit profitability.

Let's take a look at the whole Modivo capital group now. In Q4, revenue grew by 35% Y-o-Y, fastest in the CEE, which is 43% of our revenue. The Western Europe will be growing in importance. We are aiming our development plans there. Also, development activities are connected with certain costs. However, we managed to maintain SG&A level on a stable level. Logistics costs, lower than the competition, includes the cost of starting a warehouse in Romania. We grew our marketing costs, which is influenced with our increased marketing activities on international markets. EBITDA on 6% is close, is similar as Q4 2020, and similar to our competition. However, we are in the investment phase still. So the profitability of Modivo Group can be lower in the coming years.

Now it's time for our most recent U.S. segment, HalfPrice. Recently it celebrated its first birthday, and we still can talk about business that have generated PLN 100 million of revenue. In Q4, we have opened new stores and are present on 7 markets already. Along with the increased expansion, we are planning to open additional 50 stores in 2022. We are expecting additional increase in sales. Today we can talk about certain parameters, HalfPrice being better than CCC in certain parameters. And this is as it should be, for example, looking at conversion rates and the number of goods, products on one receipt. The margin is slightly lower than we have been communicating after -- in the first months. However, it's under our control. In GO.25 we have said that in the strategic perspective we are aiming at around 45%.

Let's remember that in off-price margin is the best tool, the biggest tool for managing the cash flow. HalfPrice profitability in Q4 was influenced by the cost of starting stores, which have not reached its full maturity. We strongly believe in their projects. We have been developing it step by step. And as it has been shown in GO.25 in the perspective of 4 years, this is going to be the most profitable segment in the whole group.

So let's summarize the whole capital group. The most important thing, we have noticed the gradual improvement in gross margin and investment in strategic developments. We have had a successful quarter high, 46% of increased sales and systematic increase of margin by 4.7 percentage points Y-o-Y. For additional -- in additional quarter, you have been observing an improvement in this respect, and it's not a coincidence. We have strongly emphasized that in today's presentation it's going to be a point of our interest in the further quarters as well. Then SG&A has been lower by 4.8 percentage point. And their level -- well, despite that, their level to -- their comparison to do investments has been increasing. However, the costs have been growing lower, on a slower pace than the revenue, was increasing. The costs have been decreased by 5 percentage points. The decrease would be even more, by 8 percentage points, if not for the investment that was announced in GO.25, opening HalfPrice stores, development of logistics of HalfPrice and the new Modivo warehouse in Romania. It also means further technological development in the whole group and attracting the best talent in the group that are helping us to develop the organization further.

Analyzing the cost of -- comparing the cost of Q3 and Q4 is the increase of nominal cost by PLN 80 million, which contributed -- which was contributed by the opening of the stores of HalfPrice and increased cost that grew proportionally to the sales. And sales were higher by PLN 200 million. So I would say we are breaking even in terms of costs, deducting the already mentioned investments.

Let's take a look at the second aspect, cash flow. As it was mentioned before, we have been consequently developing our group in all of the groups due to the fact that the debt grew to PLN 1.5 billion year-on-year, which influenced CapEx but also building a stock for the new season. And it has been seen in these 2 segments in terms of our current capital. Segments of transaction in eobuwie with Cyfrowy Polsat and A&R investment and MPK3 (sic) [ MKK3 ] have contributed to that, but also payments for rents and interest rates.

One of the most important elements influencing cash flow are the changes in the current capital. As we signaled in GO.25, its optimization is one of the main sources of financing. A quarter after publishing this strategy we noted a great improvement in this respect. The ratio of net current capital related to revenue has been lowered by 3 percentage points, mostly due to sustainable growth of our inventory in relation to greater obligations. The revenue have grown substantially better than the increase in our inventory. That was related to eobuwie Modivo and HalfPrice.

In DeeZee, despite of the increase of revenues by 50%, the amount of inventory decreased by 2% year-on-year. Ordering the collection 2021, we took into account the AW20 collection from the great Q4 of 2020. The products were selling with greater margin, the optimization of inventory level compared with increase in gross revenue were the factors that improved our results, which result in the cycle of cash conversion has improved year-on-year as you can see on the chart.

Before I give the floor to the Chairman, I would like to also summarize the results in 2021 in total, 3 most important points here. First, the finishing year, 2021, is the record-breaking sales, PLN 7.6 billion, an increase by 3.5 percentage points year-on-year. But it's the beginning of the road. According to the GO.25 strategy, we want to sell for PLN 20 billion. Secondly, improvement of margin by 3.5 percentage points with further growth potential. And third, this was a very difficult year, marked with subsequent COVID waves, we managed to reach the EBITDA of 7.7%, aiming at the results of 12% according to the strategy announced in November.

Thank you very much for your attention. I'm giving the floor back to the Chairman that will summarize today's meeting.

[Marcin Czyczerski, executive]

Thank you very much, Kryspin.

I will start the summary to what has been influencing the group results. And since we are a commercial company, this is a fashionable product with good quality. That's why we are so happy that we are preparing for the upcoming season, which have been mentioned on the 1st of February. And we mentioned numerous challenges. But during the press conference, we also said that at Q3 we felt well-prepared to start this new collection. And this hasn't changed.

Let's see what has our brands prepared for this upcoming season. First, [ Togashi ], additional higher price point in our offer, sneakers, sportswear, sports footwear, [ Korean Vibe ] that has been present in eobuwie, now it has been joined to CCC. Another important brands acquired by CCC last year, very popular in the '90s in Poland, Americanos, famous for its good quality denim apparel and great brand footwear. So that appeared in CCC, in Modivo in HalfPrice. And it's well-received by the customers.

Another great reactivation, Rage Age, a new brand in our portfolio, a great comeback and iconic pleasure campaign, as you can see, Irina Shayk, a mixture of elegance and spirits. Lasocki by adding new price points, we don't forget about our core Lasocki and its family-oriented aspects. So we're adding some new children footwear. And this is still the strongest brand of the whole group. Jenny Fairy and other brands, the queen of spring summer, fast fashion brands, not really perceived in our group previously. Now it's #2 or 3 depending on the season, the part of the season with great communication, great patterns. And all the trends appear here in line with all the other key fashion players.

Badura another acquisition of the group, a winter collection debutant. As you can see, this autumn we showed its strong image, but we also have a great collection for spring and summer. Again, higher price points, but with very attractive price ranges, especially in terms of this quality and these patterns.

Sprandi, and what you see behind me is not only shoes or bags, this is the whole outfit, also including apparel. So CCC and eobuwie are, well, focused on not just making shoes, but Modivo and HalfPrice are focused on total look. So Sprandi writes into these 2 channels very well. And as you can see this image, we promote total look, the whole brand much more intensely, thanks to it being complete.

Another -- sorry, courageous brand deserves courageous communication, and we are planning quite a lot. I mentioned collaboration with Polish rappers, but we have also prepared something even more courageous, even more brave, first global collaboration with Finn Wolfhard from Stranger Things. If you haven't seen it, it's one of the best, one of the most popular Netflix TV series. And another fourth season premieres next month. So that will be definitely related with hype for the series. And everything related to the series will be purchased for sure. This is another step for us for building our brand image that is strong in lifestyle and sports. That is to answer the needs of young generation.

Here we're giving you an example of our TikTok strategy, a platform, an app that is considered by a lot of investment experts, how does the company -- a given company able to address the third generation needs. So we have 3.5 million likes and over 200,000 observed followers. The biggest global player, to compare, has 5 million likes, to give you a comparison. So I think we are getting very close to the top here. And we're achieving some tangible success here working this way.

But it's not only building a brand, but it's also about sales achievements that you can see here, 67% of increase in sales Y-o-Y in Sprandi, 63% of gross margin. So an incremental increase by about 2 digit percentage points and a great inclusion in the CCC brand. It's #2 for the first time.

Before we move on to a promotional video, as you can see, here we have -- the screen mentions Sprandi. It sells really well both in Modivo and in HalfPrice. So we communicate Sprandi, but we sell the whole look. Now let's take a look at the promotional video.

[Presentation]

[Marcin Czyczerski, executive]

Saying that lifestyle is back to '90s, sneakers, retro, California style of the '90s are the most fashionable nowadays. We communicate it all here in this video, and our customers start to perceive that. Sprandi Take Care is all about well-being, self-realization, [ SG ] agenda, making sure that we as a company, as a capital group don't add to the -- are not detrimental to the environment. And we have been implementing it in the whole -- in all the brands. We could be discussing it for the next hour. And some examples of cooperation, cooperation with Omenaa Foundation, be whoever you want to be, customized shoes, shoes customized by children and all the profits are sent to children from Ukraine, from Ghana, from orphanages. Echo denim, our fabric coming from wood pulp. I'm not sure if you know, but denim is the most detrimental material fabric to the environment. So it's a environmentally-friendly, environmentally-aware relaunched in terms of Americanos. Here we partner also -- Modivo partner with [ Impost ]. So we introduced pioneering e-commerce return packages. So the whole tons of packages that will be reused again. We eliminated PLN 7 million of printouts due to new digitalization projects in our e-commerce. But again, it's only a fraction of all our activities.

And we don't just want to boast, we want to show that this is perceived, this is audited, that we are compared with the biggest, with key players in the industry, both in terms of fashion, apparel and sports industry. And again, I don't want to enumerate these players. But among them, we are at the same level. And in terms of our local CE community, we are unquestionable leader.

In terms of footwear industry, in terms of sustained analytics, we are one of the key global leaders in terms of responsible development as well. And it's important because it allows us to compare, to be compared with other global leaders. And it shows that a Polish company with Polish roots can face the competition with key players. Let's see what are the challenges for the coming years. We are living in very difficult circumstances, unfavorable circumstances. And we've been experiencing some new COVID waves, Omnicom COVID wave, quasi-lockdown, especially in Romania and the Czech Republic, war in Ukraine, 2-digit inflation rates and influence of the inflation on the average income, interest rates that are also important for customer behavior. And we have also -- but we also have a response to that, HalfPrice's price points, price ranges. And we've been showing you consequently that we have been doing well in times of challenging difficult circumstances. We have our idea, and we uphold our ambitions that we showed in GO.25 strategy.

Here we're showing you a soft guidelines of our ambitions. We very often ask where do we think we can be after such a year. Well, we think that our revenue should be at about PLN 9 billion to PLN 10 billion, even though our ambitions are greater. In terms of our gross margin, after a very good 2021, we are consequent that we want to strengthen our margin. And looking at the results of the first quarter and the fourth quarter of 2021, we can easily, I think, say that the upper register here is -- well, quite -- would be quite easy to be reached or maybe even go above it.

In terms of SG&A, 44% to 46%, as you noticed on the chart. So we're still in the investment phase, but still the revenue and lever are working. Group CapEx, mainly dictated by technology and development of logistic possibilities and the developments of HalfPrice stores on the same level, I would say, about 4%, 5% compared to revenue. Rollout of HalfPrice stores I mentioned already. So we wanted to introduce another 50 stores by the end of January 2023.

And then, to summarize all that, to conclude all that, so we have a third subsequent quarter, which was very well in terms of sales, both compared with 2019, 2020. We see that in terms of our square meters sales we have went over these levels -- sorry, we rebuild these levels from 2019. Even though in 2019 we didn't have online sales so much. 57% of e-commerce in group revenue. So we have 2 strong legs, both off-line and online. We're strong in both.

Our quarterly growth was the highest in terms of subsequent years. And of course it can be better. And you challenged us in terms of our strategy. But in 2022, still these circumstances are going to be difficult. Besides what we said about war, inflation rates and problems with supply chain, these are the risks that we have diagnosed. These are the scenarios that we are considering. And we are looking at them also as opportunities. So we want to follow our consumers with their decisions and build great results for the group in the stage -- to the level that we showed you. So we're doing what we've planned, being conscious of what's been happening around us.

Thank you very much for your attention. Now let's have our Q&A session that we will tackle -- the questions that we will tackle both with Director and the -- with both Directors that spoke before.

[Unknown Executive]

Good afternoon. And let's start the Q&A session. Let's go through the first question. "I would like the Board to comment on the EY auditor's comments that see a great uncertainty in terms of continuity of the company's operation."

[Unknown Executive]

Ladies and gentlemen, this uncertainty concerns only, or mostly the risks that we've pointed out in our financial statements. And I think the greatest risk that we've emphasized is the geopolitical risk, the continuation of the military conflict in Ukraine and not only its influence on both Russian and Ukrainian markets but also on other European markets. In the recent weeks, we have worked hard with the auditor, and we have prepared a number of stress tests and sensitivity analysis that address this uncertain future that's before us. And at the beginning of the year, we have prepared a budget that was accepted by the Supervisory Board and by the Management Board that was an entry point. After the war started, we have prepared also alternative scenarios that, on one hand point attention to the fact that the demand may be lower. So we've prepared in terms of cost savings. So there is a number of scenarios that we've prepared and discussed with the auditor, and they should give us -- this should make us secure for the future depending even though we are uncertain about the geopolitical situation.

[Unknown Executive]

Let me just add one thing. This is the disclosure that was discussed with the experts. There's always easier to note these risks. But such note is also created relation, in connection with the experts and together with the experts. So take a look at it, both related to budget and the so-called contingency plans that we have, if this risk materialize on the level other than assumed in the scenarios that we've already prepared. So such disclosures always give better transparency. We want to be open with you. We want to be transparent with you in terms of all the challenges that are faced by the group.

[Unknown Executive]

"What is the value of capitalized IT costs/whole last year?"

[Unknown Executive]

A very good question. Starting from September last year, Adam Marciniak joined us. He is the member of the Board and also responsible for IT. And under his guidance, a lot of changes has been made in terms of the further development of the company digitization. In this time we have reviewed our existing systems and applications. And in the last quarter of last year, we have placed a great influence on developing these tools, which resulted in higher costs. We looked at how we account and capitalize costs. And together with the auditor, we have reached a conclusion that these apps that we've been developing, add new functionality, and we will see their effect in the long run. So eventually, we're talking about the cost of PLN 22 million that was capitalized and transferred from OpEx to CapEx.

[Unknown Executive]

Next question. "Are you planning to lower the cost level in the group?"

[Unknown Executive]

No, we don't, to put it briefly.

[Unknown Executive]

The question is whether there are costs or investments.

[Unknown Executive]

As you know, in our strategy we have a lot of challenges. And we can't solve them overnight, and we have a lot of new areas, digital sales, new challenges in Modivo, in HalfPrice. So we need new teams, new people. It's very important for us to fulfill the strategy. So we need costs. They won't be lower. They can be proportionately lower in comparison to our revenue. So we are counting on the fact that each channel will reach its level of revenue with correct margin. Then everything will work out well. So we won't be able to call it costs but investment.

[Unknown Executive]

Next question, "What is the percentage of credit limits used? What is the amount of unused lines or facilities excluding Modivo?"

[Unknown Executive]

One sentence here, we don't report it in any way individually. Of course, it's also important for you to be aware that we have a defined cycle of inventory and using the inventory. So the peak of inventory with the spring/summer collection is 31st of March. And the fixed inventory of autumn/winter collection is the end of September. So the credit facilities are used almost to the MAX, and then they are getting lower in time, with time.

And let me add that it can be read in our statements. The debt of the whole group on the 31st of 2022 is PLN 2.4 billion. This is for the whole group. CCC without Modivo is PLN 1.7 billion. So as Marcin said, we're using the credit lines that we have, but we also actively manage the current capital. And this is also our way to continue the investments this year.

[Unknown Executive]

"Do you see problems with deliveries from China taking into account the Shanghai lockdown?"

[Unknown Executive]

Let me remind you that as we said last time during the conference, we have been diagnosing these risks quite well. We have a great, strong team, both in logistics and in purchasing that notes down very, very well these risks. So we have anticipated that already in January. So we have been preparing to this situation for a couple of months now. And there are a couple of variants, one where whole goods arrive on time. The second, some of the goods arrive on time. Right now current risk is the 2 to 4 weeks of delivery being late. So we're also taking account that this can -- this amount of weeks can increase. But we also -- again, we also anticipate that how do we exactly do it? Well, this is our competitive advantage. But in terms of all the important risks we were prepared for spring and summer for 2022, we also see some challenges for autumn and winter 2022, but we will be prepared for these challenges later on.

[Unknown Executive]

"How do you react to the increasing interest rates in the context of quite high debt of the company?"

[Unknown Executive]

All of us were surprised by such a high level of inflation rates. Last news give the figure of 11%. And the late reaction of the national Polish bank, that's why this growing, gradually growing amount of increased rates. We have of course assumed some buffers, but nobody has expected such increases, and we don't know what will happen in the future. This is uncertain. But to calculate 1 percentage point results compares to the result of PLN 15 million. We will work hard on minimizing this effect on the company results.

[Unknown Executive]

"When Damian Zapłata will acquire the [ Modivo SR ] stock for PLN 100 million?"

[Unknown Executive]

We communicated that already, that this will be able to be implemented by the end of May this year. Nothing has changed in this respect.

[Unknown Executive]

"So I would like to ask about guidance in terms of profitability, EBITDA in CCC and Modivo this year. Are there any modifications in terms of the strategy that has been communicated so far, GO.25 in terms of the trajectory of the strategy, reaching these goals for 2025?"

[Unknown Executive]

I know that you're trying to read between the lines, but we have signals it's only when committing the 2025 goals. But in the subsequent years, the trajectory will be -- will be adjusted to the risks and opportunities year-by-year. I think the things that are -- what we think are important to you and that can be useful to you and can be given to you, we have given today. In terms of Modivo, we still think that EBITDA is going to be 8% to 10% profitability for the year 2024, '25. We also mentioned that during the meeting about strategy that in terms of 2022 and 3, eobuwie and Modivo leaves a space for extending the range to 7%. So the guidance should be 7% to 10%. The guidelines to be 7% to 10%. So if there is an opportunity of building the market value faster, at the cost of short-term EBITDA, we will do -- EBITDA, we will do that. But the range of 6% to 10% at the end will stay unchanged, similar to other ambitions and commitments.

[Unknown Executive]

"Looking at the presentations, I have the impression that the development of HalfPrice is slowing down. Are you planning to plan the development?"

[Unknown Executive]

No, we're not, we're not slowing down. In April, we're opening 12 new stores. We're entering a new season. That's why. I think we are about to see the brand breaking even. We are happy with the course of the brand developments. Of course we still expect higher revenue by square meter year-by-year, but still.

[Unknown Executive]

"In the annual report, there are possible cost savings mentioned that can be used to compensate the negative trends. What kind of savings and what kind of values are we talking about?"

[Unknown Executive]

This is the contingency plan that I mentioned. If the more serious risks materialize, this is the space we've been discussing. Today, there is no need. We don't need to commit to anything. And we don't need to quantify it. And I ask to perceive it like that. Yes. As it was mentioned we approach costs as investment. This is our fuel for growth, and this is how we perceive it, and we've been preparing to acquire greater market share. However, of course external circumstances affect us, we need to take them into account. As Marcin mentioned and as has been discussed in financial statement, these are the scenarios that we will be using, depending on the development of the external circumstances. So we've looked through all the cost lines, we won't go through it again right now, but we have scenarios to develop here.

[Unknown Executive]

"What is the value of assets or inventory in Russia? What is the monthly cost of operations there? How are the financial institutions approach the potential write-offs in this respect? And what kind of values are we talking about here?"

[Unknown Executive]

So 24th of February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine was a great surprise to all of us. We had great development plans on the Eastern markets, both in Russia and Ukraine. We had 39 stores there that are closed down currently. Looking at the sales, these 2 combined markets give us 2.4% of our revenues of the whole group. We have been analyzing the situation, and we are close to presenting a final solution. We're talking about a write-off of PLN 30 million to PLN 50 million that will take place in this fiscal year.

[Unknown Executive]

"And a follow-up to this previous question. Would you say that the general company gives any warranties to the Russian subsidiary? And what were the values?"

[Unknown Executive]

Yes, we're talking about PLN 3 million here. And to make it more precise, we have been communicating it that the Russian revenue was lower than PLN 100 million. In Ukraine, we have been operating on the -- based on franchise. So this is PLN 100 million out of PLN 7.7 billion total revenue. So it's a minor aspect of our activities, I would say, in terms of the whole group. And we are aiming to close down this complete activity completely. And please approach it as such. Of course, Russia is different from Ukraine here, but this is not a significant financial aspect in terms of the whole group. After closing the Russian market, our strategy will be much more predictable and much more economic, I would say. The Russian market is very volatile, not everyone can succeed there. So I think we -- after closing down Russian market, we will be closer to fulfillment of our goals rather than further. And we will focus on the Central Europe here. There is a lot of work to do here.

[Unknown Executive]

"You mentioned wanting to develop on the West. I understand through Modivo Group. Your experience in investing in these markets, Germany, Switzerland, Austria were, to put it mildly, average. What were the conclusions that you drew from these failures?"

[Unknown Executive]

Well, the conclusions completions are simple. Online is different to offline. We don't build warehouses there. We don't build stores there. We talk about Greece, Italy, Spain, and our business develops very well in these countries. Germany and Switzerland are quite different here. But as I said, we want to diversify the markets on the West, not only Germany. In CCC, we haven't had the recognizable brands. So we operate with own brands that were not recognized by the companies. Modivo and eobuwie has all the brands. So we will promote brands that sell well in the countries -- in the given countries. So it's relatively simple, I would say, in terms of strategy. It's easier to achieve the goals. I would say, in general, we -- this is our general goal, to sell different -- relatively different product range in different countries to adjust it to specific countries. We do it without any specific efforts and we achieve profitability on each of these markets. If it's not profitable, we will probably think about withdrawing from the market. That's it.

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you. Another question, "How sales is influenced by the war in Ukraine?"

[Unknown Executive]

We had a moment when it was important, when it was substantial. But on the other hand, there was a lot of similar events this year, Omicron, a year -- sorry, a week of strong winds, then the war. And as you've been observing right now, quite poor weather. So if there is no sun, usually the sales drop. The weather is bad, the sales drop. But I think we're close to fulfill our internal forecast, sales forecast. And I think the Ukrainian customers help us buy our products, if not them directly, people who want to help Ukrainian refugees buy our footwear. And we are the beneficiary of this. Since both CCC and HalfPrice are created for low-end products.

[Unknown Executive]

"Would you say that HalfPrice online is going to introduce the possibility of collecting the package in HalfPrice stores?"

[Unknown Executive]

We will test all the solutions. We have so many channels that we can test everything. This is the strength of the group that we can then choose the best solutions and transfer it to all the networks, all the brands. So HalfPrice started online, HalfPrice started 2 months ago, yes. So -- and we achieved 5% of our revenue. We are not recognized yet fully. We have been working on that recently. And I'm convinced that it will be improving quarter-by-quarter.

[Unknown Executive]

"We know that there are -- we know it from the competition that off-price companies have been doing a lot worse than you mentioned that the sales level was influenced by the inflation rates, interest rates, so decreasing purchasing value, purchasing power of the consumer. Would you say that the further we get in 2022, the power can get even lower, which can negatively influence our goals for this year?"

[Unknown Executive]

Yes. But also footwear stores are being closed down. We've done our homework. We have omnichannel, e-commerce, better margins, better stores. So we are better-prepared, I would say, than ever, to this difficult situation, to these difficult circumstances. It's tough to imagine that people will stop using shoes, you know. But of course, we need to match everything, our costs to the products we offer.

[Unknown Executive]

Again a question about your guidance. "In the slide referring to this matter you showed a gross margin at the level of 22%, 24%. Is it only about omnichannel business line?"

[Unknown Executive]

No, no. This is the result of the whole group. This is the capital group results because of HalfPrice, Margin, eobuwie and Modivo, this is lower, but we don't give particular guidance there since they are much more sensitive to our competition. So there you can safely assume flat margins, especially in terms of expansiveness of both of the brands. We will try to surprise you positively in terms of margin. Bet on that, please.

[Unknown Executive]

Last question on my list, let me quote, "How creating Modivo will influence CCC group through the eyes of the stock owner?"

[Unknown Executive]

I understand Modivo understood as a independent stock market entity. I think not a lot will change in terms of percentage. It will be -- its value will be reflected because right now the price of the whole group is lower than the whole Modivo Group. It is how it is. A lot of companies from the capital group are undervalued. So we're waiting for the time of business stability. It's difficult to understand the intentions of the question. So let me just add here, I'll try to address the different aspects in terms of administration and communication. Today we have minority stockholders already, 3 or 4 of them actually, and it's already been treated as a kind of a pre-IPO variance in terms of reporting financial statements and so on and so forth. So the company is prepared or is being prepared for the IPO in such a way. So in terms of transparency of communication, not a lot will change because Modivo is prepared, is well-prepared today. In terms of value, I think we heard all from the Chairman.

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you very much. And thank you all. This was the last question asked in the Q&A session. I would like to thank on behalf of the whole team. I would like to invite you to the next meeting that will happen very soon, by the end of May. Of course, we will inform you about the exact date. Thank you very much. Thank you.