Good day and welcome to BIC's Third Quarter and Nine Months 2025 Net Sales Conference call. Throughout today's presentation, all participants will be in a listener mode. Later, we will conduct a Q&A session. You may register for questions at any time by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. Now, I'd like to hand the call over to your host, Brice Paris, VP Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Good morning and welcome to BIC's Third Quarter 2025 Net Sales call. I'm Brice Paris, Head of Investor Relations. I'm glad to welcome Rob Versloot, our new CEO, who will lead his first analyst call at BIC. Chris Dayton, our Interim CFO, is also with us today in Clichy. We will be available after the presentation for the usual Q&A session. As a reminder, this call is being recorded and the replay will be available on our website along with the presentation and press release. As always, please take a moment to read the disclaimer at the beginning of the presentation. With that, I now give the floor to Rob.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. It's great to be here with you for my first earnings call as CEO of BIC. Taking on this role in September was a new chapter opening for me, both personally and professionally. I'm honored to lead a company with such a strong legacy, and I'm even more excited about the opportunities ahead. Throughout my career, I've seen firsthand the reach and relevance of the BIC brand around the world. It's a brand that people know, trust, and use every day, and that's something truly special. I want to start off by acknowledging that 2025 is a challenging year for BIC. Since the beginning of the year, our global business has struggled in the face of a tough environment, and we've now experienced negative organic growth for the third quarter in a row.
In Q3, each of our categories declined with the exception of Tangle Teezer. This leads us to revise our full-year outlook, which I will detail more on in my conclusion. As the new CEO, my first priority is very clear. We need to shift gears and set a strong foundation for the future. This transition won't happen overnight, but we're moving quickly with speed and focus. I'll share more on how we're approaching it at the end of the call. Specifically regarding BIC's Q3 performance, I want to highlight three key overarching takeaways. First, our performance in the U.S. continued to be challenged despite a slight rebound in our core stationery business. Second, we saw areas of growth in other regions driven by our value-added products and strong back-to-school season in several countries. Third, we had mixed performances in our acquired businesses.
While Tangle Teezer continued to perform super well, others like our Skin Creative business and Rocketbook were disappointing and weighed on our overall financial results. Starting with the U.S., the overall business environment remains difficult for our three categories. However, in Q3, we saw a solid improvement in our core stationery category with record high net sales driven by strong retailer momentum and standout performance in the mechanical pencils segment. In Flame for Life, net sales were still negative in Q3, despite improvement in lighter market trends since the beginning of the year. In Blade Excellence, we struggled in a deteriorating shaver market with slowing consumption trends and ongoing competition. That being said, we had areas of growth in other regions and categories. Our value-added shaver products, including our Flex and Soleil ranges, performed particularly well in Brazil and Europe.
Back-to-school seasons were solid in several key European countries like Germany and the U.K., while performance in France was relatively flat. Finally, it's worth noting our acquired businesses delivered a mixed performance in Q3. While Tangle Teezer positively contributed to 3.6% of the group's growth, other businesses such as Cello, Rocketbook, and Skin Creative had a 2 points negative impact on the growth of our Human Expression division in Q3. Therefore, one of my first key actions as CEO is to complete the divestiture of our Cello activities in India. Despite our repeated efforts to turn the business around, BIC was never able to transform Cello into a growing and profitable business. My responsibility as CEO of BIC is to ensure that every decision and every part of the company drives sustainable and profitable growth while reducing complexity in the organization.
To conclude this first part, I am determined to act swiftly. Since I joined the group a month ago, I've been closely analyzing BIC's long-term performance, and I've gained a deeper understanding of the current challenges we face. Right now, my teams and I are working hard to prepare a clear plan of action and define a new strategy to write the next chapter for BIC. I will now hand it over to Chris, who will share more details on our net sales and operational performance during the third quarter.
Thank you, Rob. Good morning, everyone. I'm Chris Dayton, Interim CFO, and let's begin with an overview of our net sales performance for the third quarter of 2025 on slide six. Net sales totaled EUR 519 million, down 3.9% as reported, and up 0.3% at constant currency. Excluding the 3.6 points positive impact from the Tangle Teezer contribution, net sales were down 3.3%. Currency fluctuations had a negative impact of 4.2 points, mostly coming from the U.S. dollar. Turning to slide seven, in the first nine months of 2025, net sales totaled EUR 1,595 million, down 5% as reported, and down 1.6% at constant currency. Excluding the 3.8 points positive impact from Tangle Teezer, net sales were down 5.4%. Currency fluctuations had a negative impact of 3.4 points, largely coming from the U.S. dollar and the Brazilian real.
I'll now provide you with a snapshot of the performance of our three divisions for the third quarter, starting with Human Expression on slide eight. Net sales were EUR 192 million, down 0.5% at constant currency, a strong sequential improvement since the beginning of the year. In North America, net sales grew high single digits at constant currency, with solid growth in the U.S., mainly driven by back-to-school phasing of orders from Q2 to Q3. However, this was partially offset by poor performance of both Rocketbook and Skin Creative. In Europe, net sales were relatively flat at constant currency, with mixed performance across the region during the back-to-school season. Growth was solid in Eastern Europe, Germany, and the U.K., and our value-added products like the 4-Color Smooth, Intensity Paint Markers, and break-resistant mechanical pencils performed well. However, this was offset by weaker results in Southern Europe.
In Latin America, net sales declined high single digits in Q3 at constant currency, mainly due to tough performance in Mexico, impacted by significant competitive pressure from private label. In Brazil, net sales growth was negative but improved compared to previous quarters. Finally, in the Middle East and Africa, net sales grew slightly at constant currency, driven by a solid back-to-school season in the Middle East and good performance in Nigeria from our iconic BIC Cristal and Lucky Pen products. Moving on to slide nine, to review Flame for Life performance, net sales totaled EUR 175 million in Q3, down 4.3% at constant currency. In North America, the U.S. pocket lighter market improved versus the beginning of the year while remaining negative at -2% in value in Q3. Additionally, the utility lighter market declined -4.1% in value.
In this context, BIC's performance remained challenging, and net sales decreased mid-single digits at constant currency. In Europe, net sales declined mid-single digits at constant currency as a result of softer performance in Eastern Europe, Italy, and Germany. This more than offset solid growth in France and the Netherlands, where we saw distribution gains, particularly in utility lighters. In Latin America, net sales decreased mid-single digits in Q3 at constant currency. In Mexico, BIC faced strong competition from low-cost pocket lighters, while in Brazil, we were impacted by market slowdown and heavier competition. Finally, in the Blade Excellence division, Q3 net sales amounted to EUR 146 million, up 7.4% at constant currency. As Rob mentioned earlier, Tangle Teezer was the main driver, posting double-digit growth driven by the U.S. and Europe. Excluding Tangle Teezer, net sales were down 6.1% in Q3.
In North America, net sales declined double digits, excluding Tangle Teezer. Our core shaver business continued to face challenging market trends and continued competitive pressure. Net sales were also negatively impacted by reduced promotional activity versus last year. In Europe, excluding Tangle Teezer, we experienced slight growth on a comparative basis in the quarter. This was driven by continued distribution gains in Eastern Europe and the success of value-added shavers such as Hybrid Flex 5 and Soleil Click 3. In Latin America, Q3 net sales increased low single digits at constant currency. The continued success of our three to five Blade offerings led to robust growth in Brazil. However, this was partially offset by a weak performance in Mexico due to a very competitive environment.
Lastly, in the Middle East and Africa, Q3 net sales decreased significantly at constant currency, mainly due to poor performance in Northern Africa and competitive pressure in South Africa. This concludes the review of our Q3 and nine months net sales performance. With that, I'd like to hand it back over to Rob.
Thank you, Chris. I think it's fair to say that BIC has faced difficulties adapting to shifting consumer trends and a challenging global market environment. This was again the case in Q3, where the performance was not where we wanted it to be. As a consequence, and since we expect Q4 performance to remain broadly in line with what we have seen over the past few months, we are adjusting our full-year outlook. We are now expecting net sales growth at constant currency in the range of -1% to -1.5%, an adjusted EBIT margin at around 13.7%, and a free cash flow at around EUR 210 million. This outlook now includes the full impact of U.S. tariffs in our P&L and free cash flow, which was not the case before.
As I mentioned earlier, my goal as the new CEO is to build a solid foundation and clear plan for the next chapter of BIC. While I'm still refining the strategy, my goal is to move as quickly as possible. I will share more details on further strategic priorities in due time. As we approach the end of the year, my top priority is to sharpen our focus on operations to make steady progress despite the hurdles we face. With that, the team and I will take your questions. Thank you.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. We will now take our first question from Geoffrey d'Halluin of BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I will have three questions, please. The first one is related to your new guidance, especially the new EBIT margin guidance. Would you mind to give us a bit more details on what you expect in terms of U.S. tariffs impact, and basically breaking down what draws the new guidance before the prior ones? My second question is related to your Cello disposal. Would you mind to give us a bit more details on, or at least remind us what was the overall revenue and EBIT numbers for these companies? The last question is, I get the point you will update the market for your new strategy in due course, but maybe a question is regarding the portfolio of brands and activities.
Are you happy with the current portfolio, or could we expect to have much more exit of brands in the next coming months, as you've just done with Cello? Thank you.
Yeah, Rob speaking. Thanks a lot for the question. Maybe to comment on your first question on some overall main reasons behind the outlook revision. Maybe starting with the U.S., as mentioned by Chris, in the lighter segment, we see slower than expected recovery, and the business is still down mid-single digit in Q3, and we believe that this should continue to be down in Q4. In another important segment, the shavers in the U.S., there we see a higher than expected decline in net sales, mainly due to a combination of deteriorating market trends, continued competitive pressure, and less promotional activity. Also, this situation we expect to remain tough for the remainder of the year. That's about the U.S.
If we look in our Latin American business in Mexico, which is one of our top five countries in net sales, we saw a poor performance in Q3, double digits down due to tough market trends, intense competition for private labels, and distribution losses. We recently changed leadership in Mexico with the objective of improving this situation. A third element is concerning our new businesses. We observe very disappointing performance of Skin Creative, Rocketbook, Blade Excellence, and Cello. This is one of the reasons why we concluded the sale of Cello, to limit the negative financial impact it's having on our results. Lastly, and I think you were alluding to that, we are now including the full impact of U.S. tariffs on both our margin and free cash flow outlooks.
The gross tariffs impact in 2025 is expected to be about nearly EUR 15 million, and we should be able to offset less than half of it at adjusted EBIT margin level. At a free cash flow level, the impact is expected to be at nearly EUR 15 million. Commenting on your second question, the divestiture of Cello. You know, we've looked at it, and we have observed that Cello has been dilutive on the Human Expression division financial performance for many years. Despite repeated efforts of the company to turn the business around, BIC was never able to transform Cello into a growing and profitable business. Yes, my first decision as CEO of BIC is to conclude the sale of Cello to limit the negative financial impact going forward.
Generally speaking, I see it as my responsibility to sharpen our focus on activities that can drive growth and profitability while continuing to invest in markets where we have a winning strategy. Coming to your last question, which was about the strategy going forward, I want to manage expectations. I joined BIC a bit more than a month ago, so I'm afraid that I can't give you any communication on my strategic plan right now or in the near future. I have been analyzing closely the long-term performance of BIC, and I'm gaining understanding of our current challenges. I'm currently working very hard with my team to prepare my action plan. I am determined to act swiftly. My first bold move is concluding the sale of Cello, and I will update you in due course of the details of my strategic plan.
That said, my top priority as we approach the end of the year is to focus on operations and make sure we deliver on our promises. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question from [Andrei Conde] of UBS. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Hello, Rob, Chris, and Brice. Thank you very much for taking my questions. Two for me, please. First of all, on the outlook, and this is more about 2026, if you can share anything, is obviously you saw the market deteriorate in Q3. Q4 is expected to be similar. What does this imply for the big, at least for the beginning of 2026, given the subdued market growth rates? My second one, just going back to the tariffs, if we may, now for 2025, you said that the impact is about EUR 15 million gross. What is the impact you envisage for 2026, essentially on an annualized basis, if I may? Thank you very much.
Hi, Andre. Thank you for the question. Rob speaking here. Talking about 2026, you know, as mentioned, I'm working on my strategic plan, six weeks in the business, analyzing the long-term performance, but also the current challenges. I'm afraid it's a bit too soon for me to give an expectation on 2026, but be assured this is on our agenda. We'll come back on that as soon as we can and have a full understanding of the business, where we are, and our plans going forward. Thank you.
Hi, Andre. Thanks for the question. This is Chris. To answer your question on the annualized impact of tariffs, we expect it to be around EUR 30 million on an annualized basis. We should be able to offset more of that on an ongoing basis than we do in 2025. We've built our action plans around three levers: pricing, gross profit optimization, and then finally managing at the EBIT level through cost management. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. We'll now move on to our next question from Marie Fort of Bernstein . Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. First question is about the shavers. What do you attribute the market pressure in Q3, which is very strong, and how do you plan to implement a new strategy in this context? Particularly regarding Blade Excellence, what are your thoughts on Blade Excellence? Second question is about your governance structures. How do you envisage the new organization, and particularly will you maintain a dual organization between Paris and the U.S.? That's it for my question. Thanks.
Thank you, Marilyn, for the question. The performance in U.S. shavers during Q3 had three key drivers. First of all, difficult market trends, particularly in the drugstore and discount channels, with an accelerated market decline in Q3. It was down nearly 5% in value. We are seeing continued competitive pressures as well, especially in the women's segment, despite the success we've seen in BIC's Soleil Glide. Finally, while some competitors are aggressively pricing to take share, we decided to reduce certain promotional activity versus last year to eliminate low ROI programs.
Yeah. Marie, Rob speaking. Thank you for your question on organization. As we're still working out the strategy, which is, let's say, our first priority, and of course, as a logical follow-up, we will look at what is the best organization to execute our strategy. As we have not concluded our strategy process yet, it's a bit too early for me to make any remarks about our organization going forward. Other than that, we will look at opportunities to simplify the organization. Thank you very much. Coming back to the BIC Blade Tech performance, here we noticed that this part of our business continued to report poor performance in Q3 and is expected to be flat this year. That said, BIC Blade Tech represents a non-material amount of the group's revenue. Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. We will now take our next question from Alessandro Cuglietta of Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yes, hi. Most of my questions have been answered, but I can add maybe one on Flame for Life. Can you detail what's driving the underperformance this year? Do you think it's only macro-driven or still some structural headwinds in this category in the lighter business?
Thanks for the question, Alessandro. You know, we did have poor performance, challenging performance across the board in Flame for Life. In the U.S., despite the improvement since the beginning of the year, net sales declined in Q3. You remember that in Q2, we did see some positive benefit from the inventory replenishment at certain retailers that didn't repeat in Q3. We are seeing continued improvement in the convenience channel since the beginning of the year. It's also important to note that we've taken recent actions against counterfeit lighters in the convenience channel, including lawsuits against several wholesalers. In Latin America, we continue to face heavier competition in both Mexico and Brazil. In Europe, we had soft performance in Eastern Europe, Italy, and Germany. On the bright side, I would say that the Middle East and Africa posted growth during the quarter, driven by continued distribution gains and geographical expansion. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions in queue. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for just a moment while waiting for them to queue in for questions. Thank you. We'll now take our next question from Christophe Chaput of Oddo. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning to everyone. Just a quick one for me. Just to offset the tariffs, let's say, on several segments, you are going to pass some price hike, I assume in 2026. I just wonder if you could give us more detail about what you could do in 2026. Is it going to concern, let's say, all the divisions, only a part of it? In shaver, for example, the competitive landscape seems to be difficult. That's the first for me. The second one is that could you, let's say, give us more detail about the level of inventories on the stationery business? Is there a good, let's say, adequation selling sell-out on the market in the U.S.? Thank you.
Thanks for the question. We will take pricing as a weapon or as a mitigating activity against the tariffs. I'm not going to go into any more specifics around that. We do see normal levels of inventory within our retailers in Flame for Life. Thank you.
Thank you. Once again, a final reminder. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad, and we'll pause for a further moment. Thank you. There are no further questions coming through. I will now hand it back to Rob for final remarks.
Yeah. On behalf of the company and our team here, I'd like to thank you very much for joining our call this morning. Thank you also for the great questions. I'm looking forward to meeting you soon. Thank you. Have a great day.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.