Earnings Call: H1 2020

Jul 14, 2020

Earnings release

Good evening. Chorus Call operator speaking. Welcome to the presentation of the Anixonio Results of thirty June twenty twenty of the Brunello Cucinelli Group. I'd like to remind you that all participants are in listen only mode. Following the initial presentation, there will be the opportunity to ask questions. The speakers will be Brunello Cucinelli, President Executive President and Creative Director Moreno Charapita, CFO and Pietro Arnavaldi, Head of Investor Relations. Now I'd like to give the floor to Brunello Cucinelli. The floor is yours. So here we are. Welcome back, everybody. Good evening, dear investors, analysts and journalists. First of all, I hope that you are well and safe because this is what really matters nowadays. This appointment may be this is maybe the most important one in our history. We have we celebrate our forty second anniversary this year since our foundation and listed in the soccer chain since 2012. And it is the most important because of this extraordinary time for mankind. We are obviously all here in Solomeo. And we would like to schedule and maybe structure this call in an unusual way, but I would like to say backwards. So seven year plan twenty nineteen-twenty twenty eight, following on to that a detailed plan for 2022, then a very detailed plan for 2021, Then details, some colors on the second half twenty twenty with drilling and delving in what we are going through. Then details on the first half twenty twenty. Luckily enough, it is behind our back. And then the last, a very important topic, inventory, excess production in the first half twenty twenty and its allocation. So before we start, I'd like to remind you of a very important thing. As of today, the company is the very same as it was on February 20 with one single change. Luca and Ricardo have officially been appointed CEOs. The first one comes from outside of the family. The second one is part of the family. I am the Executive Chairman and Creative Director. And I'd like to say that I really like the way things are because I think that this structure confers really liveliness and outlook for the company for the future because I'm 66 years of age and they are 39 and 41, so respectively, Ricardo and Luca. So another important thing, we have twenty twenty four employees as of February 28 and today we have twenty twenty four employees, the same, 1,000 of whom in Sodomayo and the rest staffing the boutiques all over the world. We are all at work and in Solomeo before coming back to work, before resuming our business, we everybody was subject to first the serological test and then the swabs. Together with the Perugia University analyzed these samples, we basically decided that we will keep testing our stuff until the end of the pandemic. So whoever comes from outside, for example, today we had a board meeting, all our board members arrived, whoever had not yet been subject to a test, they had it done. And the others who have had a test did the second one, then you wait for one hour more or less and then you can step into the premises. We believe that this helps us work with more serenity, if you will, and it also protects us from any relapse, meaning that in all our history well, in all these testing, we only identified four young asymptomatic cases and this enables us to really swiftly identify cases and take measures. Another important thing to be mentioned, and you might say, my god, so many important things tonight, but I'd like to really outline the large topic here. From the first day when the company closed, we established that the time, business time was to be broken down as follows: forty percent devoted to 2020, 60% devoted to all the plans for 'twenty one and 'twenty two. Let's now start with the first the ten year plan, the twenty nineteen-twenty twenty eight. So there is no change in path in our ten year growth plan. We would like to reach 2028, doubling our revenues from 2019 and with an average EBITDA ranging between 1718%. You should also bear in mind something important. Between 2000 and 2019, on average, we grew by 11.23%. But since the company was established in 1978 to the year February, we have grown more or less 12%. So this is our growth path. We would like to still be a ready to wear company, absolute luxury ready to wear for men, women and kids. And our revenues should be broken down as follows, as usual, 85% ready to wear, 15% accessories, with the whole of production only located in Italy as it is today and with a one single headquarters in Solomeo. And we would like to be here, well, maybe not myself, for a very, very long time. We want to keep investing in this project of human sustainability that at the end of the day can be summed up as follows: the safeguarding climate and reducing emission, this has not changed and establishing a great relationship with the planet and the wildlife and maybe the pandemic helped us this way. And we would like to also pay a lot of attention to human beings because this is really what matters in life. So as a whole, we want to keep working whilst we believe in a very healthy, balanced and sustainable growth. You might ask what has changed? Well, what in our opinion, there will be a great change in terms of product. You see, especially young people will start wondering where has this product been manufactured, how has it been manufactured, has creation been damaged along the process. And this will definitely be decisive for the future because I think that we will go back to using what Mother Earth gives us instead of consuming it. And once again, we will want to strike a fair balance between profits and giving back, which is basically this is yes, think that this pandemic is some sort of dispute between biology and creation, and creation is reaching out to us. Then planning for 2022. So well, I would say a pretty detailed guidance here. We envisage revenues rising by 10% vis a vis 2021. We think that we might go back to EBITDA around 17%, so very close to our standard, our golden standard. Then investments close to our standard once again, 8%, with dividends around 50% of profit as usual, net profit. In 2022, we would like to open just two, three new stores and then expand and extend three or four stores worldwide, then we would like this 2022 to be in a year of rebalancing net financial position. And we think that this is sustainable for the current facilities and structures. Let's now move backwards to 2021 closer to us. So once again, it is a very important plan. This 2021 has been dubbed by us the year of rebalancing. We would like to grow around 15% vis a vis 2020. And then later on, Raul will give you details about 2020. EBITDA should be around 13%, 14%. And we want to invest roughly 6% in the coming year only because just over 1% has been pulled forward to the 2020 for very important projects of struggling between 2020, 2021. In 2021, there will be four large extensions of stores that we're very fond of. But you see in some streets, it is not easy to come up with the right location whenever you want it. So we will change location in Tokyo, in Mope Sando. In St. Petersburg, we have this beautiful building in New York. Are going to double space. And of course, it was not really a very cheap lease there and also the same goes for Las Vegas. And then we want to pay special attention to China where, as you know, we well, we're country to say we have a very small business because it is pushing 10%, but there is still room for growth in this splendid nation for us, splendid because cashmere, we source our cashmere from China. And if the Chinese, if still Chinese decided to stop the supply of cashmere to us, it would be an issue for us. But we have the guarantee that we're going to keep receiving it. So in China, we would like to open one important well. Have two locations we have to choose from and three important expansions. In 2021 already, we envisage a full rebalancing of the NSP. And we want to go back to our usual percentage of dividends and that you are very familiar with. By the way, we never cancel the 2020 dividend, but we just said that we would set a date in November so that we can distribute them next year. It's just a postponement. Then what about the corporate structure? Well, in 2021, the same 2,000 employees. So the 40,000 square meters we are currently housed here in Solomayor should cater for our business for 'twenty one, 'twenty two. But after that, we will have to expand. And hopefully we will have to expand because it means that the company is growing. Then the production structure, you're familiar with it, three sixty four subcontractors in total 5,000 staff with no financial or economic distance there because you see they do not invest in OpEx in machinery but only very high quality handwork. They have all been working like us, and we have received from them many guarantees for a very healthy and high quality growth. We can already say something today about them because in by July 30, we will have caught up 100% of the fallwinter production and the delay was due to the seven weeks closures. So we caught up on everything, and this total recovery gives us the opportunity to envisage a good future. So even if you were to really expand in growth, there will be no production issues because we have skillful hands, young hands. And you should also know that the people working in these small companies on average, they are 43, 44 years of age and 45 years they're owners. So they are young companies. In our stores, as usual, we confirmed that the next spring summer twenty twenty one will not have there will not be any old, so to speak, garments of 2020. All our stores should display new garments, possibly beautiful garments, and this is not always easy to achieve with a very much looked after visual merchandising because this because after three months of confinement, everybody has really seen so many garments online. So our mind has a lot of images stored and therefore it is difficult to invent something new. And then we have been talking about this in the last few days because the collection is coming out tomorrow. Just imagine a sales assistant who says to a customer, a friend customer, like the beautiful movie, Call of Friends, a French movie. There is there can be a very strong relationship between a sales assistant and a local customer. Just think, in January year, the sales assistant says maybe to the customer, why don't you buy this new garment whereas you know that well that it is a past season item? She would never do that because if the customer was to realize that she would lose her credibility altogether. And in luxury, and I talk about luxury because that's our world, each and every one of us needs to know that you're buying something new. Then e commerce. E commerce is going really, really well. And of course, we have a very wide structure for e commerce, both in terms of staff and spaces. So we are ready to double every year. But the important thing here is that you should know that as everybody knows, it is the first place where we can basically really see what we do on in our physical bank. So it is a communication tool, our e commerce. So basically, we will face 2021 with a healthy situation from the balance sheet point of view and with wide credit lines made available by our banks, the very same that funded our growth. And still today, we can say that we are the classic product of banks, meaning the banks have always helped us a lot with their financing. We decided not to use the credit guaranteed by the state because we didn't want to deprive other companies in distress from of this. And this is 2021. Hopefully, we were clear enough in our explanation. What about the 2020? In March, we said that in this special circumstances, our idea was to engage in this debate and discussion with you more or less every month, one months point in order to keep you updated of any changes or events. And moreover, your ideas can be important inputs for your strategy. In this occasion, we thought it was useful and our duty to communicate all our plans with our budget for 2021 and 'twenty two. Of course, it is not very easy to understand and to read this time, but we think that it is our duty towards the financial community but also towards the whole of the civil society, the whole civil society to express our vision, both on the current year and on 'twenty one and 'twenty two. It has always been part of our corporate culture that of trying to communicate a long term planning. I would even say a ten year plan, not just a three year plan. Hopefully, this time too, we can abide by our plans, although we it might be a bit difficult to decipher this what the circumstances, but it is our duty. And here in Umbria, in our region, we basically are the most important private company. So it is our duty to really lay ourselves there to express ourselves. And hopefully, this can be a source of inspiration for young people who are going through this really tough time. If a 20 year old hears something talking in a positive and confident way, they can change their mood. So we want to really take upon us to this responsibility. So maybe I'd like to repeat what my dear friend, Jeff Bezos, said in the last quarterly results report when he said it is a time when we need humility, courage, creativity, and he also added money, which is the truth. But I think he was really smart when he provided his vision on the second quarter, and I really liked this very much. So we must really take upon ourselves to take our responsibility. And it is something that we owe to ourselves and to others. Just a couple of seconds on this beautiful idea that I have of being light carriers for mankind. As you might know in the beautiful book about the March of the one hundred thousand, the Chinese March of the one hundred thousand, there are these light carriers, light bearers who shed light for the ones following them in the darkness. So I think that it is now our duty to act as a light carrier for those following us so that the path is easier. And I was saying to my wife today, we should all be some small light carriers. Another important thing, since July 1, the last fourteen days, what we decided to look at this second half with a new in a new way, defining it some sort of time for rebirth. We start seeing a good mood in people. Of course, it depends on the time you're living in. But there is at the same time, there is a fair caution. And this is mirrored also by the initial economic figures. So what do we expect from the second half of the year? We expect two quarters with a positive sign whereby 2020 year end should be with a slight mild drop of 10% in revenues. And then from the second half, we expect EBITDA to be in line with the margins expected for 2021. So we want to try and read the second half as non impacted by the first one because, hopefully, if things go like they're going now, we might say and looking at this central quarter, you see, and jokingly, I say, it would be great in 2020 to have two financial statements, the first half and the second half. In the first one, we have to live with it, but we don't want to talk about it anymore. It should be put behind our back. Of course, we know this is not possible. And the second financial statement about the second half, we should look at it in as some sort of planning to go back to sober normalcy. So what are we doing now? As you know, we are working without having laid off anybody, no redundancies, and we didn't ask for any discount to anybody. We think that this policy of protecting workers and respecting suppliers and landlords is actually yielding great results in terms of corporate credibility. And we are noticing this when we talk about future projects. We also noticed an extraordinary commitment and a great sense of responsibility from everybody. All this augurs well for the future of our company. In the direct stores, they're all open nowadays with the very same situation in network as February. We have displayed the fallwinter twenty twenty collection. As usual, with the postponed by one month, it is now natural. We couldn't possibly display winter clothes in May. So we have our full winter twenty twenty displayed. And the 2020 full winter production has gone back to its healthy balance, both in terms of monograms and multi brands. So all deliveries will end in August as it is usually the case. Of course, there has been no delivery in May and early June. So nothing has changed in terms of deliveries. Another strong topic is collections. This week, we will be presenting all the SpringSummer twenty twenty one collections, all physically made and displayed in the different showrooms worldwide: Solomayo, New York, Munich, Milan, Shanghai, Tokyo. And with the very same quantity of styles as last year, hopefully beautiful ones, it's up to you to assess your judgment, no repetition in terms of colors, textiles and styles. And yesterday, we had the general meeting on the taste of the collection about to be released, and we have had quite a positive and excited judgment. Of course, now we have to wait for the feedback from the multi brands and the trade press. The collections are always built with the very same concept and number of styles. But you see here too, I don't know whether it is because we are more focused or for some other reason, but I remember in 02/2008, during the recession, 02/2009, fallwinter collection was the best in our history. And my esteemed Pushkin once stated that in the three months that he spent outside of Moscow because he was confined there, he wrote the best things in his life. Then investments in the second half of the year. So we opened the London store about a month ago, a beautiful location and in that case, two really high lease. And then the second half of the year, we are opening a store in Avenue Montaigne in Paris, and we have been looking for locations four, five years in Petersburg and Tokyo towards the end of the year. Then another important topic is advertising. In this second half of the year, nothing has changed in terms of A and P investments. So at the end of the year, you will have signed the very same investments as the past year. And to conclude with this second half, we reconfirm our great conviction and trust in the brick and mortar store, which is a generator true generator of contacts with customers where the value of sales assistance is very high because these sales assistants are somehow advisers and ambassadors of the brand. And I'd now like to read out the figures of the first half and let's start from here. Let's start first of all, what was the topic of the Board. So the Board meeting has revised the revenues estimates for 2020 and has examined the preliminary net revenues of the first half twenty twenty. Well, first of all, the most positive things, just the way it is, so slight decrease of revenues for the year around 10%, positive performance in the third and fourth quarter. First half strongly impacted with net revenues of minus 29.5% at current and constant exchange rate vis a vis 2019. Europe, minus 23.8% Italy, minus 34% North America, minus 39% China, minus 19% Rest of the world, minus 19% then distribution channels, monobrand, 31.7% minus, obviously multibrand wholesale, 23 wholesale monobrand, 27. Then the two lines that I wrote about this. The first half of the year was strongly impacted by the pandemic that hit our planet. But already today, we can envisage a positive third and fourth quarters that should result in a mild drop in 2020 turnover of around 10%. Furthermore, we imagine a sharp recovery in 2021 of around 15%. And we really wanted to say that because this has really changed our life for the better, the following one. Special thanks are owed to all of our employees who, with dedication and a remarkable sense of responsibility, have enabled us to fully catch up on our fallwinter twenty twenty production as well as to design and complete the new springsummer twenty twenty one collections. So we are the very same company that we were in February. So after the first quarter, with a near confirmation of the same number of the previous year, While you know what happened in the second quarter, and I don't want to dwell on that too long, this has given brought about the figures I expressed to you. We will try not to pay too much attention to this because this is what happens sometimes in the history of mankind. But of course, as I said before, product ranks first. As to the as far as product is concerned, we think that the taste has geared towards a kind of timeless clothing. Chic, well, you see, this is also in line with the current times, but there is a softer kind of taste. And to also buy clothes and garments that might last for years. This is just a cycle in fashion. A couple of words on the multi brand. We would like to give you some information, as usual, on the multi brand channel. They all they have reopened all their boutiques. They have postponed by one month the display of twenty twenty goods for winter twenty twenty and also the deliveries. Now they're all at work. And we can say that there is a slightly better ambience and environment there than in The U. S. Because they know their client customers in person, very often their friends, neighbors, and this improves the need. As you know, we have 500 accounts, high quality and high level and no issues from them, never. And none has canceled orders for fallwinter. They just postponed deliveries by one month. Out of this 500, 10 of them are department stores. As to the rest, they are specialty stores with a great emerging inspiration in terms of style, visual, special relationship with the customers. They are they know fully well the habits and behaviors of foreign shoppers, but especially local shoppers. Because local customers, sometimes they are even more demanding in terms of taste and they are the true advisers. So they are a source of great inspiration, especially for clothing where you know that weight and size, of course, makes the difference. It is there's a great difference between Hamburg and Athens. I know that this might sound a bit difficult, but I'll give you an example. The color of the shirt of a Chinese gentleman must be zero five centimeter lower than that of an Italian gentleman. This is a small detail, but that's what matters in fashion. And now the last very, very important topic. So the inventory of excess garments. Of course, all these closures of stores between two, three months all over the world has brought about an availability of excess garments in the first half of this year because there were all the deliveries of November, December and the winter. These garments have should never be repeated in the next season in 2021 because we think this could really damage the image and the contemporary character of the brand. Then fashion by nature must always have newness and contemporary character. So these excess garments, we have considered them some sort of great resource for mankind. So we would like to now explain to you this choice that we have made as an investment for the future of our company, an investment in the great project of living and working in harmony with creation. And we also call it, this project, reuse of the new because we're talking about new garments, obviously. In the company inside the company, we have established and set up a council to support mankind made up of 10 people, six of whom come from our family: I, myself, my two daughters and their wife sorry, and their husbands and then Luca Lisandro, the CEO and then Dror, Francesco, Letizia, many of you and Michi Dravarjioka, many of you are familiar with them. So we were able to do very important things with these people recently. I'd like to share with you the thought that has driven us, guided us in this choice. Just three, four minutes and then we are open for discussion. So this is a philosophical thought. This is the thought that has guided us because from several Western and Eastern philosophers, learned that there is no absolute evil as well as there is no absolute good. There is always some good in evil and vice versa. Both can teach us something. And bearing all this in mind, we felt the need to gift mankind with the garments, which due to the temporary suspension of sales were left over in our boutiques. Their manufacturing value in terms of style, their commercial value is always the same, but their meaningfulness has was in safeguarding climate and emissions, looking after the planet and the wildlife and looking after human beings. And to conclude before the Q and A session, we wanted to convey to you our thoughts on this. And in the Board meeting today, you see, was a particularly beautiful Board meeting because we have many new Board members. So we have this great idea for mankind. And considering that we will not be touching the dividends and since we don't carry that much debt, we would like this project to be considered as an asset instead of a liability. So you are our investors and our guardians too, and we like to call you that way. And also you loving analysts and journalists. So thank you very much for being with us at this very special time for mankind. Thank you. And now we are ready for questions. Of course, you can always strike up a contact with us whenever you feel the need to. Thank you very much. The first question from the conference call in Italian, Flavio Chirida, Jefferies. Thank you and good evening, Brunello. Good evening. And best wishes and congratulations to Luca and Ricardo. Yes, they're all standing here. Say hi. Yes. Hi, hi. Three questions. First, the multi brand. And of course, there are different definitions as what to a multi brand is. Talking about high end, the so called specialty stores, last week, I was in Italy and I went to see many of these multi brands, the best ones. And I think they're working pretty well, thanks to the online. So we know that other brands are actually cutting down on the wholesale network, whereas you seem to keep working with them. So my question is, I'd like your confirmation and also your opinion. How do you see the multi brands in Italy and Europe in the coming two, three years? The second question, the really praiseworthy initiative of Cuccinelli for humanity, how can you control that no parallel market is developed and then they ended up in the marketplaces, so some control on that. How can you control and monitor it? And of course, this could cause some issues for you. Third question on the online. You spoke about 2022. In your opinion for 2022 online, what kind of trend do you envisage? Thank you. Yes, very, very interesting, Flavio. Thank you for your questions. First of all, multi brands. I have to say that this morning, we debated long and hard on the note that you on the report that you wrote on the value of the multi brands. We are particularly happy with what you wrote because it is the first time since our listing that we hear somebody expressing a different opinion on multi brands. So first of all, you said a couple of good things. Let me read it out. Just a second. So at one point, you said, we do not share the view according to which multi brands are dying off. On the contrary, we have always been very much convinced, so much so that we have a 45% of our business in the multi brands. And you also made another remark. Here it is. Investors tend to really confuse multi brands with department stores, but these are different realities. And actually, during the call, we did say that we have 10 department stores, but we have four fifty specialty stores. These specialty stores are the stores maybe €710,000,000 20,000,000 million euros revenues, beautiful stores. And if you have toured many of these multi brands, you will have noticed the relationship, the great relationship between the sales assistants, the so called brand ambassador and their customers. And this is true especially for local customers. When I was saying before, you see, we want to have only new garments displayed in our stores. So your remark was very interesting. And then as we were saying with Luca and the team this morning, in my opinion, the level we have achieved in Italy and Europe, well, the Former Soviet Union achieved that level too. You see, twenty years ago, you might remember, they came to us and we were asking for 10%, 50% advance payment. Now they come to Milan, they make their orders, they are great clients. And in China now, we have 38 multi brand clients that really resemble our European and Italian multi brands. So this is the first answer. Then the second one, how this project takes place. As a matter of fact, it will be a very special project because we will have direct relations with all these people we know in the world. So they I don't know, someone from Berlin might say, I have a small association with 18 people looking after this and that. Could you send me twenty, thirty garments for six people, for men, for women? And so it's not that we're going to provide goods for containers for large associations. This is not the case. It is some sort of multi brand for mankind worldwide. But you know who's going to help us out? We have very important celebrities helping us out who told us, we can help you out with our secretaries, with our friends. We liked it very much, like we ourselves did at the beginning of the pandemic when we sent out face masks to some areas in the world because we were so scared that we bought them in advance. And I don't if I can say this, but we sent 500 to your district because you couldn't find them. So the same that has happened with face masks, we wanted the same with these gowns. You see, there are some people who sometimes they maybe they are in difficulty because they can't find a proper outfit to go to a job interview. So why can't we give you 18 garments and you deliver them to that specific household? So it is a very delicate kind of activity. So this is the way it should be seen. Then e commerce, we believe in this very much. And we will probably achieve 4%, 5% of our revenues this year. As I was saying before, we have large facilities here, But we attach a lot of importance to the e commerce in terms of communication. Today, we were talking with our Board member, who is the CEO of Lamborghini, and he was saying something interesting. He said people need to touch to physically feel the garments. So we should never underestimate human contact in the value of brick and mortar stores. Last week, we read something saying that in the last twenty days, young people decided to shop in the physical stores because they want to be advised. So we believe in the e commerce. As of today, it represents 10% for us. If it reaches 1315%, it's fine by us. That is the physical store, the physical sales assistant, the brand ambassador inside the store because they are the ones helping you out. When my friend Jeff Bezos said, Brunello, choose me an outfit, an outfit for me to go to London, to Wimbledon. You know, that in Wimbledon, you have to wear specific outfits. And I said, Jeff, why don't you ride this pink flag with denims, with a tie? And he felt honored, and I felt the same. And And this is not only true for Jeff Bezos, but it's true for everybody. If you say, if you go to a store, you say, what's new? And if you go in January and say, what's new? And the sales assistant will not show you an old product that has already been seen around for a year, maybe sold with a 50% discount. But you see, I've always been fascinated by what the dictionary says under the word fashion, which is a way of dressing that is directly linked to the social and economic situation of the time. This is the law in fashion. So we decided to do this because stores must be beautiful and hopefully collections are beautiful too, not because we display goods that have already been seen, especially not this year because we were all locked inside and we were looking at Garmin online. Thank you. Next question from Paola Carbone, Equita. Good evening, Paola. Good evening. I really appreciate your project. Well, you can be our partner, too. Yes, everybody talks about sustainability, but then not just preaching, but practicing is important. Well, when you come and see us, you will see how we are preparing the parcels in such a good way. Unfortunately, this is our trade. My question is, of this €30,000,000 goods for the project, will this so this will mean that they yes, the answer is yes. So we will finish the sales of springsummer in ten days. We already have in the stores 40% of the winter collection, so we will exhaust the unsold goods. We really like this idea of how to allocate these goods, but we also like the fact that the stores display fresh goods. And since we have caught up with the production and the collections, if that helps us, we are in the situation as in February 28. Of course, stores closed, less mixed revenues. And now we have goods. We call this excess goods. And the project is called Reusing the New because it is you see, I'm a member of UHF, the UHF Board, and I like people to be sensitive. But things are not always carried out the way they should be. We don't want to give out any secondhand goods. We want to reuse good new goods. This is a question of human respect. So the cycle of recovering, reconditioning, repairing is now complete for the future. I don't like to consume stuff. I like the fact that some goods can be reused. You see blazers, they change in length, but it can be used for a long time. Is this an extraordinary project we're talking about? Or if there is some other unsold goods in the fallwinter? No, no, no, Paola. This isn't a one off extraordinary project ensuing from these special circumstances. You take you see everything stays the same. Unfortunately, we have the three months of closure. We do this project, and then our company goes on as it always has. That's why we have decided to do this call backwards to talk about the future and also be a bit more reassured because if we had started talking about through the first half, it would have been maybe a bit disappointing. So we can say the first fourteen days of July. I'm sorry, I cannot hear anymore.