LPP SA

WSE:LPP

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q1

[Magdalena Kopaczewska, executive]

Welcome, Magdalena Kopaczewska, Investor Relations in LPP; and Przemyslaw Lutkiewicz, Vice President of the Management Board of LPP. Welcome to the results conference for the first quarter of the year where we will tell you about the financial results and discuss the interesting corporate events and our plans that we will present in the third part of the conference. And we will finish off, as usual, by a Q&A session. This is the schedule for today.

Now let me give the floor to Przemyslaw.

[Przemyslaw Lutkiewicz, executive]

Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, the results for the first quarter. Let me just remind you briefly what environment we were operating in, in the first quarter. As you remember, last year, in the first quarter of 2020, there was the first wave of the pandemic, very difficult period due to the fact that all our stores were closed. Only 10% of the time of the transactions were done by our online channels.

This year, theoretically, it was similar. Because if you take a look at the Polish market, stores were closed again. So another lockdown in mid-March was introduced until the end of April, but the situation was considerably better in terms of sales. Some stores abroad were operating in full speed, and our online sales were growing and growing. The customers got used to it, and the overall results were much better.

The whole emotional situation and situation related to this uncertainty that happened in the first quarter last year during the first lockdown, we didn't know how long it would take, what the situation would be like after the lockdown and what the customer behaviors and the market would be like. There was a lot of uncertainty, fear and a lot of question marks in the past year. This year, however, the situation was considerably better. Everybody knew that the pandemic is going to go away some day. There are more and more people who are vaccinated. We are dealing better with the situation. And from the market and economic perspective, customers returned. They are willing to return to the stores. They buy online. From today's perspective, all of that looks much better.

Take a look, please, at this slide where we show you on the theater presentation what the lockdown looked like in terms of particular countries. You have the rows showing the 20 countries where we are present with our stationary stores, and you have this pie chart as a clock chart. You see the February, March and April, previous year on the left-hand side and the current first quarter on the right-hand side. What is visible at first site, until mid-March last year, all the stores were operating. Everything was open. Since mid-March, there was this hard lockdown, 18 countries were closed. And in fact, a lot of uncertainty came with that and a lot of stress for many different companies. We were unsure whether we would survive this difficult period, how much we will survive money-wise.

Today, the situation is much better. As you can see on this right-hand side pie chart, there are countries with even no lockdown. In our case, countries like Russia and Romania were the most important ones where all the first quarter stores were open. And there are some countries where February, March and April was the lockdown in Slovakia and Czech Republic, for example. So a completely different situation despite the fact that some countries were closed in the first quarter, our situation, financial and sales wise, was much better because we had experienced from the previous year. We also had better online sales results. Logistics for online sales adapted nicely to the changing situation. So we were more calm with our perspective.

So summing up, generally speaking, the financial results for the first quarter. Over 1,900 stores in the traditional sales channel, over 20% increase in floor space and over 150% increase in online revenues. We were able to double the sales year-on-year while cooperating with online and offline channel on 38 markets.

Now take a look, please, on the map. With the green color, we marked the countries where we are present with both online and offline offer. The blue countries, you can see with only stationary stores countries. And this orange color is only online availability. So we are expanding our presence. We are selling more and more online and offline. The store -- there are more and more stores. On the left-hand side in the chart, you can see the increase year-on-year, 186 stores. Over 100 stores in CIS countries, so Russia and Ukraine. Overall, in all the regions, also in Poland, there was an increase in the number of stores. We are developing mainly in retail parks in smaller cities. And we would like to saturate -- keep saturating this market with our stores. I will discuss this more just in a minute.

At the end of the quarter, there were over half of the stores open. The rest was not operating. But from May on, where the lockdowns were lifted also in Poland, the sales is good. The customers are returning to the stationary stores. For various reasons, people prefer sometimes to go to the traditional stores. And the second quarter from May, June, we can see very good sales results here.

Now let's move on to this very important ratio, LFLs. On the left-hand side chart, you can see that in 2019, this was looking quite normal, several percent increases. But since last year, because of the lockdown and pandemics, we recorded considerable falls because of the closed stores. And then you can see the last figure, over 70% increase as compared to the first quarter last year. But still, there are some -- a lot of markets closed, so this ratio has ceased to be the signpost for us. We are based more on other ratios.

Here, you see the like-for-like for the first quarter of last year. But the base is so distorted that we're looking at like-for-like with reference to 2019, which was a normal year in our opinion. So comparing to the stationary stores results year-on-year, we are not looking really at the 2020, but rather 2019. This is the base for observation of the trends that we can see in the stationary stores. This is in reference to all countries with, of course, the differentiation in lockdown situation. I think the last figure on the right-hand side is the most important. Over 19% increase in stationary stores for the ones that were opened continuously last year and this year. The stores which could operate are the ones mainly located by the high streets or in retail parks, they were not subject to the pandemic restrictions, and they were able to be operating normally.

Let's take a look at e-commerce sales. We can actually pride ourselves on the good results. First quarter, almost PLN 1 billion in e-commerce growth. Record result for us, and it confirms the fact that we were very well prepared for the online sales in terms of logistics, first and foremost. On the right-hand side, you can see the division of these revenues year-on-year, so over 150% increase. And in Poland, this figure is divided into 3 areas. So the bottom one is Poland, then you have European Union without Poland, and the top strip is CIS countries. So you can see double-digit growth in Poland and triple increase in Europe and the Eastern countries. So very well received brands, we can observe here.

Of course, lockdowns helped the online sales. However, the good information is that now in May and June where all of the stores reopened, we are still recording positive dynamics in e-commerce. So still -- maybe not triple increases, but double-digit increases in e-commerce channel are still recorded. What is also important and shows the specifics of our trends, over 80% of the traffic in our online sites are from mobile devices, and 68% of purchases were made by our mobile devices also. So this shows that the trend of moving towards mobile devices in terms of purchases is continued, and we have to follow this trend, thinking of modern e-commerce.

As far as revenues by region is concerned, Poland still remains our most important market. You can see on the left-hand side the situation. Then we have CIS countries and Europe. Both strips showing the -- revenues outside Poland show that 100% increase in Europe and over 150% increase in CIS countries. So increasingly growing revenues abroad. So I think in the coming quarters, we will probably see that one of these strips might even exceed the Poland revenue. So total share is over 40% of Poland.

On the right-hand side, you can see the chart with floorspace increases. Over 20% in all regions. We recorded increases even in Poland where we -- the market is saturated because we've been here the longest with our stores. We can still see the potential to record further growth. Of course, abroad, CIS countries, over 40% increases in floorspace and over 17% increases in Europe without Poland. Of course, these revenues results show both offline and online channels results. On many countries, this online has been increasing very dynamically, also due to the fact that our logistics centers are already abroad in Romania or in Slovakia. They considerably supported those markets in terms of online sales. And soon, we are planning to open our own logistics center, which will support e-commerce in Russia.

Our online store, the pan-European store, as we call it, operating in the markets where we are not present with our stationary offers, we have been recording quite nice results. Last year, it was not even PLN 1 million revenues from that pan-European market, and now in this quarter, over PLN 10 million.

Let's have a look at group revenues. On the left-hand side, you can see how poor was the result in the first quarter of 2020 due to the first lockdowns and a lot of uncertainty about the future and customer behavior concerning purchases. Today, we can see the results are much better. Customers are returning. They want to buy. They have some savings because they were not able even to spend the money in restaurants. And the statistics show, in many countries, that the savings made in households, they have increased. So we believe that we would be beneficiaries of this move where the customers decide to go and spend the money also on clothing.

We can see here a considerable increase, 100% increase year-on-year in omnichannel revenues. All the brands recorded double-digit increases. Of course, Sinsay recorded the most increase, over 200%, thanks to the fast development of the sales network, and online is increasing in this brand. All the brands have recorded increases year-on-year. But the base is rather low. So this considerable increase is due to our customers' willingness to return to normality, to continue shopping. And we, as one of many companies, are beneficiaries of this move.

Let's have a look now at the profit margin. Record margins. We haven't seen such high margins in the first quarter, over 55% here. This is, of course, due to several factors. First of all, the exchange rate of dollar was helping here. If you take a look at the foreign exchange of dollar, it's lower than last year. There was also a change in pricing policy that we announced at the previous conference already. So the sell-offs, offline and online, are differentiated. So this is a variable policy in terms of pricing here. And also what happened in the second half of last year, on the one hand, cutting the orders by 40% for autumn and winter, we had, on the other hand side, good demand on the part of customers. And in January, we were able to finish off the sell-off. So in December, we were selling new collections in stores with full prices. So this considerably helped with the profit margin.

Now costs. Here, you can see that still the pandemic's toll is visible. The cost of owned stores were decreased by 5% year-on-year, but we compare, of course, with the low base of last year, then the costs dropped from PLN 200 per square meter, now it's even lower PLN 141 per square meter. So having a look year-on-year, all these elements of our costs decreased. So in terms of leases, personnel costs and other costs. As far as lease costs, they are lower, of course, because of the renegotiations of rents and a lot of turnover-based rents now. So because of the lockdowns, we are paying less rent, and we adapt the number of personnel to the closures of stores and decreased trade. And the other costs, like energy costs or material costs and third-party services, these are, of course, lower also due to the nonoperating stores in some places.

On the right-hand side, you can see overall SG&A per square meters. This is an increase here because of the online sales increase. On the right-hand side, this result comprises the cost of stationary stores and an increasing cost of e-commerce centers, headquarters and logistics as well. And because the business is growing, the revenues is growing, this is an increase of 23% year-on-year.

Here, I would like to note also, ladies and gentlemen, that we are changing the cost model. We are moving from fixed cost towards variable costs. So we have this increasing pool of costs of lease into this direction of variable costs. And on the other hand, this e-commerce in the logistics cost is based on the variable cost, first and foremost.

As a company, we're looking at this cost per square meter less, and we are rather focusing on the costs related to the sales, or this percentage value. On the presentation, you can see this last point, which shows that the share dropped from 69% to 51% in this quarter. So we are now focusing more and more on the share of cost in the total revenues. This 51% means that generating PLN 1 of revenue cost PLN 0.51. This is, of course, also distorted on the one hand by lockdown and seasonality on the other hand. Looking at the biggest players in our industry, this cost-to-sales ratio should be somewhere around 40%, 41%. So this is the benchmark -- the market benchmark. We are looking at them, trying to manage our costs accordingly.

Now let's move on to the results as such. Considerable improvement of earnings. So double increase year-on-year, over PLN 2.3 billion for the revenues in the first quarter and over 7% increase in the margin. The costs increased slower, 47%. Another one-off was the subsidies to salaries, especially abroad in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, these were the most considerable ones and the Baltic countries. And then net operating profit considerably better than the loss that we recorded last year.

Net profit, we can see PLN 21 million revenue. So we can say that the company is coming back to the good years to the profitability. And it seems that having survived this hard quarter, achieving such results with not all of the stores open seems to be quite a good achievement, and we are optimistic looking forward to the coming quarters after many stores are reopened and we record good results in offline and both -- and the like. So we are optimistic in our outlook for the next quarter, hoping that we are coming back to normality.

Let's now have a look at the data concerning the liabilities. On the left-hand side, you have inventory results. It's increasing. The inventory is increasing in terms of absolute values because, of course, the network is growing. We have more and more stores and the online business is on the increase. What is also important is this line that you can see. This is inventory per square meter. And here, you can see that the level is similar to the previous quarter and a year before, below PLN 1,500 per square meters. So it means that we have no problem with inventory. We are -- we manage this inventory base well. There are no like old collections stored. So this management and rotation of inventory, we want to focus on this KPI internally. On the right-hand side, you can see the working capital. There is negative working capital. So it means that liabilities exceed inventory, and this allows us to generate cash and have a positive cash cycle.

Now net cash. We still do have cash. We are not in debt. On the left-hand side, even after you take out from this chart over PLN 1 billion, which is located money market funds, you can see that we still have cash on the balance sheet. So there is security maintained. On the right-hand side, you can see CapEx increasing year-on-year, and of course, the retail is increasing. We want to go back to normality, over PLN 250 million CapEx in the first quarter of this year.

So summing up, ladies and gentlemen. In this quarter, the sales rebound in retail parks, high street stores or in the countries where there was no lockdown. So as I mentioned before, Russia and Romania were the most important ones abroad. The revenues are really good, so we can see quite a considerable increase in offline sales year-on-year. Very big increase in -- triple-digit increase in online sales. The margin is increasing also. So we are stable in terms of financial situation and cash on the balance sheet.

That's all from me as far as financial summing up. Now let's move to key corporate events. And Magdalena, you have the floor here. Please help me and tell what was happening.

[Magdalena Kopaczewska, executive]

We selected 4 corporate events, 2 of them relates to sustainable development, which for us right now is very important. One relates to technology and one also relates to fashion as such. Let me start with fashion actually.

So far, communication of reserves has been directed to 2 generations, the Generation X and Generation Y, also known as millennials. This year, however, we made the. decision to direct some of our marketing actions to a different generation. Also Gen Z, I mean. If you're not familiar with the term, they were born after 1995. And the question may arise why we made such a decision? The reason was that the importance of the representatives of this generation has been on the increase. Worldwide, people who are considered to belong to Gen Z are over 40% of the population. So according to research, these people are the most dynamically growing market in Europe. So it's not an exaggeration if I say that understanding the needs and the values of this generation today for many businesses is a must-have. And even we joke around in our company that when we talk about this generation, Przemek and I, we finally realize how old we are.

So coming back to our company now, the reflection of the -- our reaction is the latest campaign by Reserved. This is the RE.DESIGN collection, which was curated by Gen Z representatives. We invited 12 such representatives, very creative people, to cooperate with us in making the collection, starting from the design through the selling and even playing the role of ambassadors of the collection.

This is actually the beginning of our cooperation with this generation. And I mean the generation that does not remember times without internet, they don't remember times without having internet on their mobile devices. So on the other hand, the research shows that this generation has not entirely moved to the virtual world. Combining the offline and online realities is very important to them. So that is why our business approach as a company reflects in the omnichannel sales.

They are also very environmentally aware. They value companies who run their business in a responsible, ethical manner, and they value companies who are active in various initiatives for the climate. When it comes to such initiatives, another corporate events that took place in recent periods in our company is a joining of LPP signing an agreement for cooperation with an organization called Canopy. Let me tell you now that the name of this organization, this foundation, has nothing to do with the famous plant, but it's rather the English canopy word. And it pertains to this -- construction of the tree because this is the organization aimed at developing, among business participants, good practices for sustainable use of forest resources worldwide, and this includes tropical forest protection as well. This initiative aims at what we, as a company, aim for in our sustainable development strategy. We combined forces in order to be more efficient in our -- and more effective in our actions.

Now let me tell you in which areas. There are 2 key ones. First of all, the know-how for obtaining ecological resources, cellulose-based resources for the production of clothing. I mean this goes here, and using paper for our cardboard boxes. And thanks to this cooperation with the Canopy Foundation, we obtained certified paper from certified sources. By joining this initiative, we committed ourselves to introducing proper policy when it comes to packaging and when it comes to using the materials that are cellulose based. And this should be more environmentally friendly. So this is a very important aspect. At this point in time, the company is moving away from using packaging, like single-use packaging made of plastics. And we are moving towards paper-based ones and products made of paper. So it's very important to have sources that are certified and operating in a sustainable manner.

Now talking about cardboard boxes and paper as such, another project we were involved in, in this past period was the project -- logistics project that contributed to various other goals that we have relating to sustainability. Ladies and gentlemen, thanks to the new platform, logistics platform, combining us and our suppliers, our companies and our partners from the logistics and forwarding companies, we were able to remodel the way we pack the goods on the suppliers' side. Thanks to that, we were able to standardize the cardboard boxes, which, in turn, caused that we were able to optimize the warehouse space on the one hand and, on the other hand, we were able to increase the level of filling the shipping containers. Now when the freight prices are on the increase, this was very important, the standardization of the procedures, which also involved a decrease in the number of containers. Thanks to that, we limit our cardboard printer.

Optimizing the warehousing is one thing, but another thing is also minimizing the waste. With cardboard boxes, the situation is as follows. As with any other packaging, there is a problem that after using it, it becomes waste. In such situation, we decided to give a second life to cardboard boxes from -- which come from our suppliers to our distribution center. And the second life is about actually distributing our goods to the stores in the boxes that were actually coming from the suppliers. This was possible thanks to the standardization process, which we introduced via this logistics platform.

Since we started measuring the second life of cardboard boxes' parameters, so since October last year, we have managed to give a second life to 900,000 boxes, which translates into the savings of 17,000 trees. Right now, the level of reuse of the cardboard boxes is 40%, but our goal is to increase this share. And in our new distribution center in Brzesc Kujawski, we want to have 75% of the cardboard boxes coming from our suppliers to be given this reuse possibility.

Now one last event that took place in the past quarter, or actually, until today. This is the sales app for Reserved brand, which is right now in the phase of the so-called silent go. But from September on, we are planning to promote it, promote this launch in Reserved brand. But also, right now, we are working on adding applications in other brands and in other languages. We consider this a very important thing because we can see that over 80% of the visits from our customers on our websites are made via applications. Over 70% of the purchases in our online store, this is done via mobile devices.

That will be all from me in terms of corporate events in the past period. Now let me give the floor back to Przemek, who will talk about our plans.

[Przemyslaw Lutkiewicz, executive]

Thank you. As you said, 40% of the population now is Generation Z. We are starting the dialogue with this group, and we have no other option.

Ladies and gentlemen, the plans for 2021. We are maintaining our target. In terms of online sales, we would like to receive over PLN 2.8 billion increase in sales. Looking at the first quarter results, almost PLN 1 billion has already been achieved. Maybe it's not too ambitious, but we have to wait. The dynamics in online sales despite it's positive, but it was lowered when the stores were reopened, so this target is maintained now over PLN 2.8 billion online.

Now in terms of stationary stores, we are increasing a little bit our target that we announced in the previous quarter. We said that the floor space increase of 20% was our target. Now we are saying 25% on all markets. This has been on the increase. 12% increase planned for this year. CIS, over 40%. And Europe, apart from Poland, almost a 30% increase in floor space year-on-year.

Now looking at the brands, the younger brands, Cropp, House and Sinsay are on the increase most of all. We have to debut our stores of all of our brands in the Northern Macedonia. For this year, we have planned CapEx for PLN 1.2 billion, and this is only -- almost PLN 1 billion planned for new stores outlets.

Now just briefly about the development of our sales network. Of course, the internet shows considerable increases, so the question is, is it worth opening stationary stores anymore? For us, opening stationary stores is a key element of the omnichannel strategy. We believe that both distribution channels will cooperate, of course, equipped with state-of-the-art technology like RFID, BI, AI, all the algorithms that will help us adapt the assortment and the collections to particular locations.

On this chart on the right-hand side, you can see that this is quite a selective strategy for the development of the store chain. When it comes to Reserved or Mohito brands, here, we are developing mostly online. So that's where the app comes in, that Magda mentioned. We are focusing on online. Increase in floor space in bigger cities, biggest malls, this will be limited. Now when it comes to smaller towns, even up to 10,000 inhabitants, there are retail parks established there more and more often. This is like a bit slower shopping center with entries from the side, so they were able to function well even during the pandemic. They were open. So where -- in such places where you have several stores, there is a grocery store, shoe store, a pharmacy, so the concept of a clothing store is matching here very well. We want to participate in the development of retail parks, not only in Poland but also abroad.

So summing up the targets for this year. We want to continue the floor space growth. The double-digit floor space growth is our target, mainly in retail parks. We will continue the online dynamic sales. And moving on to different markets, we can see that this development -- dynamic development will be on these markets, apart from Poland. So double-digit growth is our goal. We have been working on improving margin -- operating margin, and we want to decrease cost, so that EBIT is on the increase as well. But we want to also maintain this safe liquidity position.

Now about the challenges. First and foremost, it's still uncertain situation with the pandemic. So we don't know what the situation will be like in autumn. What we can observe on the British market is worrying. We don't know whether any lockdowns will be reintroduced. What the customer behavior in long term will be like. So during lockdowns, we observed that there is e-commerce growth, but now when the stores are reopened, we see the willingness of customers to return. So the dynamics in online sales is falling, but in the long-term perspective, maybe customers will also return to online channel. So we are uncertain as to the ultimate share of e-commerce in the total revenues.

An additional element that was added recently, problems with transport from Asia to Europe -- transport of goods from Asia to Europe. We used to rely on the seaway. Now with the problems with ships and obtaining actually the empty containers to load the goods causes that the freight prices have been increasing considerably. We started to use the railway. And given the prices today, we can say that this more expensive railway transport started to be actually coming to the same level as the sea-bound transport. So these limits, the delays that we observe when it comes to the shipping by sea, this is one of the risk elements for this year.

But we also see some opportunities, a lot of opportunities. We see the collections we are preparing are well-tailored to the needs of the customers to -- there is an increase in the e-commerce and logistics. This has been going well, so online revenues are on the increase. And of course, the latest technologies, RFID, various algorithms that help us manage the goods well, all the collections for our customers. And of course, the omnichannel development, these are the factors.

The last slide in the presentation, ladies and gentlemen. Soon, on Tuesday, on the 29th of June, there is the meeting of shareholders where we will vote on the resolution on dividend. The Management Board, Supervisory Board also recommended that dividend is paid. This will be from retained earnings of PLN 450 per share as planned, and half will be paid out soon in July, and the second tranche will be paid out in October this year. We want to introduce a new way of paying out the dividend. This has been working well in many Polish companies. We want to do it twice a year, the first in spring as kind of advanced payment for dividend, and then the resolution of the shareholders meeting and full dividend in autumn. This is the plan.

And there is also some information that we wanted to share with you, such as the fact that there will be a change. Antoni Tyminski resigned from his position in the Supervisory Board. Semper Simul Foundation, our biggest shareholder, now proposed [indiscernible] candidature to be a part of Supervisory Board. Another change in the Management Board [ Martin ] Piechocki, the son of the Founder of Marek Piechocki, who has been working in LPP for several years now, he will be proposed to be part of the Management Board. So 2 resolutions on that will take place. As a family company with Marek Piechocki as a key founder, he's still with us. He is very active in terms of our operations. There was another representative of Piechocki family, Piotr Piechocki who is now in the Supervisory Board. He used to work in LPP for some time. So Piotr is the oldest son of Marek. And now we have the candidature of, [ Martin ] Piechocki to be a part of the Management Board. So this will be fully a family business.

The last information, good practices of listed companies oblige us somehow to accelerate full reporting, and we decided starting from the second quarter of this year to resign publishing the preliminary results, and we want to substitute this and give the full report for you earlier, so that you have full information about the quarter. At the beginning of August, we will not publish this report with the results. There will not be this preliminary report in August, but we will accelerate this in terms of the half year.

Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. As far as our presentation, this is all. Now you're welcome to ask your questions.

[Unknown Executive]

Let me just have a look at the questions now. Questions from Michal Potyra. It's about Sinsay. The omnichannel sales per square meter is considerably higher than in terms of other brands. Is this a result of higher considerable -- higher share of e-commerce or more productivity of the stores?

[Unknown Executive]

It's very hard to say now what is the case here, but -- this is -- the market is disturbed with lockdowns and comparing is difficult. As for now, we can see that sales in Sinsay, sales results are good. What is the share in terms of online, this is similar to our other brands. So depending on the market, this is about 20-plus percent in overall revenues.

[Unknown Executive]

The next question or questions from Mr. [indiscernible]. In the first quarter, you can see the SG&A ratio increase when it comes to quarters by 2%. But you mentioned that the target is going towards the benchmark of 40%. Is further rebound of sales despite this high dynamics of floorspace increase going to be favorable to realizing this target?

[Unknown Executive]

The increased revenues should be accompanied with lower costs as compared to the sales. Whether -- this will be done in 2 ways. On the one hand, what you noticed, so the cost of new stores, looking at the relation with the sales, we can see that there are stores opened in smaller cities, better conditions, so the cost of operation of the store, whether it's about the energy use or depreciation, this is lower. So further stores that we will open, they will be cheaper. So this ratio should go down.

On the other hand, we can see that e-commerce has been a considerable part of our operations. So changes in logistics, building logistics centers abroad just to decrease the cost of transportation and, on the other hand, using our stores as somehow logistics warehouses for e-commerce purposes and selling -- sending the goods from the stores directly to customers. Of course, this first quarter is not a good benchmark, but looking -- taking a longer perspective, if all the stores are operational, these costs in terms of sales will go down.

[Unknown Executive]

What is your view on the gross margin in the second quarter, in the second half 2021? '21 '22, you mean, I guess, in terms of inflation environment?

[Unknown Executive]

The second half will be definitely much harder than what we see in the second quarter because there is more pressure on cost inflation pressure, both from the cost rating to material services, but also inflation of salaries. On the other hand, there is what we are discussing now on the transport side, increasing cost of transport and production as well. So it seems that in the second half of this year, it will be visible -- this inflation pressure will be visible, which will translate into increased costs. We believe that in the second half, this impact will be moderate enough for us to be able to maintain good profit margin.

We are worrying about 2022 because of inflation in terms of producers and relating to various types of costs. Various types of costs that we have to incur in our company shows that this pressure will be considerable. Building warehouses now is subjected now to increased cost of concrete or other materials, steel materials. This year, it should be okay. These margins should be maintained, and operating margin should be maintained on this rising trend. We are worrying about the future, the years to come.

[Unknown Executive]

And another question is about cost of freight. What would be the impact on EBITDA when the freight costs increase in the second half of the year?

[Unknown Executive]

So far, the transportation costs within this, it was 2%, 3%. Now the increased -- dramatically increasing rates, container transport from China to Europe, this used to be $2,000, $3,000 last year. Now it's about $12,000, $15,000, and it's set to be on the increase towards $20,000. So this all causes that the share of transportation costs may jump from 2%, 3%, even to 15% of share in the cost of goods.

The cost will be considerable in our company. We have considerable volumes and well-constructed contracts with suppliers that it seems these increases or their effects on our company is delayed. We don't feel it so much, and you can see this on the market already. In the future, it will become more and more difficult. This will be a several point impact on the margin, maybe not this year, but we believe that it will be considerable in the coming year.

[Unknown Executive]

Another question pertains to the request to explain what are other reserves, additional reserves for this quarter?

[Unknown Executive]

These are mostly related to the planned bonuses after a difficult year that happened where we had lowered salaries or even we didn't pay out salaries to some of us, there is a fund for the bonus for this year. It has been already established, and there are some reserves for part of the logistics costs related to e-commerce that come about later.

[Unknown Executive]

To which level, more or less, the dynamics dropped online when the stores reopened in the second quarter 2021? And what was the profitability of EBIT in the online channel in the first quarter?

[Unknown Executive]

The increases in the recent months, I mean May and June, when the stores reopened and people could buy in traditional stores, the positive trends in e-commerce continued to show that it's plus 15%, plus 20% year-on-year. So comparing to the last pandemic year, double-digit growth. Profitability is starting to be similar to what we saw in the regular period.

[Unknown Executive]

To which level may the cost of owned stores per square meters return? If you take into consideration normality in the coming quarters, can you quantify what the average effects of rent negotiations may be?

[Unknown Executive]

The cost per square meters, which was about PLN 200, they shouldn't return to those levels. It should be PLN 180, PLN 190 per square meter. This is what we believe now. Renegotiations of brands are, of course, very difficult. It's hard to go completely towards turnover-based rents. But with new contracts, this is possible. New contracts for House, Sinsay brands, they are signed, and they are turnover based. So if you look at the economics of our stores, this element, so the rent costs, they will decrease in time, whereas the other costs like HR or energy use, they will definitely be on the increase.

[Unknown Executive]

What will be the stocking for winter and autumn season versus the 2019?

[Unknown Executive]

It will be a similar level to the level of 2019 per square meter.

[Unknown Executive]

What was like-for-like in the first quarter versus the first quarter of 2019, taking into account only open stores?

[Unknown Executive]

It was just below 20%, somewhere over 15%.

[Unknown Executive]

When in your opinion will the demand go back to normality? That you will not see this effect of...

[Unknown Executive]

The last year showed us we had positive likes-for-likes related to the deferred demand throughout May, June and July. So the second quarter is definitely still the effect of this deferred demand or shopping relating to lockdown. From the third quarter on, we will see the normal demand and normal trade. So I think starting with the autumn/winter collection in September, we will see the proper data.

[Unknown Executive]

What is the level of annual revenue, for which -- this is -- is the level of dividend paid out from revenues in 2020 maintained in the years to come?

[Unknown Executive]

Dividend in the coming years, of course, depends on the profit in the periods concerned. We want this to be higher dividend than what we had until 2019. At that time, it was several percent. Now it will be considerably more. Whether this will be compared to this year, it will be hard, I guess, probably not, but the level should be higher.

[Unknown Executive]

In May, goods reported inflation in textiles. Do you confirm the increase of prices in your collections? Are the prices for AW21 increasing?

[Unknown Executive]

No, we have not increased prices this year. And so far in the first half, there were no price increases. They may be introduced in the second half of the year, along with the increased cost of transport.

[Unknown Executive]

Another question also pertains to the commentary of this increase of prices given this freight transportation cost increases.

[Unknown Executive]

Ladies and gentlemen, this will be several percent increases. The increase in the cost of freight will have to translate into the cost for the customer. Because otherwise, given the overall inflation pressure, operational costs and production costs and all, this will have the effect on our finances. Now we can see that many companies increased the prices, we will probably have to do the same.

[Unknown Executive]

There is another question concerning the competition, like Zara, given that Zara is produced in Europe and the freight costs don't concern them.

[Unknown Executive]

Our situation is definitely more complicated because of the freight aspect, and therefore, we started to use railway, and the price is kind of leveled now between railway and sea transport. Having factories like in our biggest competitors, somewhere in Europe, closer to the market, it's a much better situation we are working on the overall sale. This is the mostly Asian factories, this will probably not change. Looking at the cost in Europe, it will be hard to change. We are more looking at the Turkish market, for instance, where the costs of production are quite low as compared to Asia, but in the long/near perspective, we would have to probably stay in the Asian market because they are the best in terms of production.

[Unknown Executive]

It seems to be complete now. All the questions have been asked. So this is the end of our conference.

[Unknown Executive]

That's great. So the next conference is planned for October. So we will not see each other throughout summer, so we would like to wish you to have healthy and wonderful holidays. Have great holidays. Thank you for your attention.

[Unknown Executive]

Thank you very much.

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