Thank you for joining us on short notice to discuss the acquisition of Creed we announced earlier today. I am Jean-François Palus, Group Managing Director, and I will be conducting this presentation and Q&A session together with Raffaella Cornaggia, CEO of Kering Beauté, and Jean-Marc Duplaix, Group CFO. Let's start on slide four with the main highlights of the acquisition of Creed that we are excited to be able to present to you. First, Creed is an iconic heritage fragrance house with strong positions in high-end luxury, the fastest-growing segment of the fragrance market. Second, Creed is a unique asset. The house is the largest independent global player in this segment. For full year 2023, ended March 31, it had revenue of more than EUR 250 million, and the house consistently delivers very high EBITDA margins.
Third, this acquisition represents a decisive step for Kering Beauté, the entity we recently created, which is headed by Raffaella. Beauty is a natural extension of our house's universe. It is strategic for Kering to develop our expertise and presence in this category, just as we have done in eyewear. The acquisition of Creed will support and accelerate our ambitions in this fundamental eyewear. Lastly, on a more technical note, we are acquiring 100% of Creed from the existing shareholders. The transaction will be all cash, and we expect to close the deal in the second half of the year, subject to clearance by the relevant competition authorities. Turning to slide five, a few highlights on Creed. The house has built its unique positioning on an iconic portfolio of luxury fragrances. In particular, Creed is home to the world-renowned Aventus family of scents.
Creed has a long-lasting track record of crafting timeless fragrances based on its know-how of selecting and sourcing the most exquisite natural ingredients. Creed is widely recognized for producing artisanal and original essences of unrivaled quality. Synonymous with exclusivity and creativity, Creed enjoys high customer loyalty together with the ability to attract and retain new clients. The client base is younger, more affluent, and connoisseur than the segment average. When asked about Creed, customers view it as a prestigious, elegant, and bold brand. Let me now hand over to Raffaella for a deeper dive into the market dynamics and further insights on Creed. Raffaella?
Thank you, Jean-François. Good evening, everyone. We are very proud to announce the acquisition of the House of Creed, which will become a cornerstone of Kering Beauté. I'm delighted to share more about this beautiful brand with you. On slide six, a brief overview of the fragrance market. Its estimate size at retail sales value, based on 2021 figures, is EUR 35 billion, combining prestige and high-end luxury, the two segments that matter to us. At EUR 30 billion, prestige is the biggest segment, with 3%-5% estimate CAGR over the 2022-2026 period. At the top of the pyramid, high-end luxury, at EUR 5 billion, is the fastest-growing segment, with an estimated 15% CAGR over the same period.
This is the segment in which Creed operates as the largest independent global brand, with a 10% market share. What is driving the growth of the high-end luxury segment? There are several reasons. First, consumers are increasingly upscaling their purchases from prestige to luxury, looking for more exclusive, personalized, and distinctive options. In addition, wealthy consumers, new to the fragrance market, leapfrog prestige brands, directly purchasing high-end luxury fragrances, especially in Asia, driven by high quality, heritage, and storytelling. It is also worth noting that compared to other personal luxury good categories, high-end brands still represent a relatively small portion of the overall fragrance market, leaving plenty of potential for incremental growth. What are the common features of high-end fragrance brands in this case? The high-end luxury segment is set apart from prestige, thanks to the higher quality, creativity, and exclusivity of its fragrances.
Discerning customers with high spending power and superior loyalty bring strong revenue recurrence and long-term resilience to the segment. To note, Creed is delivering a top of range, high double-digit profitability. To capitalize on high-end luxury fragrance brand growth, retailers are pushing their visibility, expanding the attention and space they dedicate to them, further accelerating their growth. Now, let's discover together the House of Creed on slide seven. Creed is a heritage fragrance house with century-long history. It was established in London in 1760, as a tailoring house by James Henry Creed, serving royal families across Europe. Initially, a complement to tailoring, fragrance organically transformed into the core activity of the house. Olivier Creed and his son, Erwin, are perpetuating the tradition seven generation later. This brand, originally British, has developed very special relation with France over time.
The production site was established in Fontainebleau, near Paris, where its fragrance are still made today. Moving to slide eight, some information about Creed product portfolio. 65% of revenues derive from men's category, with Aventus standing as the best-selling signature fragrance. Another 15% of revenue comes from women fragrances, where successful recent launches point to the obvious potential to further grow revenue and market share. Another 15% is generated by unisex fragrances. For now, only 5% comes from other categories, such as candle or body lotions. Regarding pricing, you will see that Creed is definitely sitting at the higher end of the market, with fragrances retailing above EUR 2,250 for 75-100 milliliters bottle in the French market, for example. On slide nine, some additional information on Creed's market presence.
The house has a global footprint with stronghold in the U.S. and the U.K., together representing 2/3 of revenues. Creed distribution is selective, with 1,400 point of sales, mostly department and specialty store, and 36 branded store. When it comes to distribution, Creed has gradually moved towards higher integration, managing directly its distribution in key existing markets. Creed currently employs 700 people. On slide 10, we outline the vast untapped potential of Creed, and our ambition will be to unlock it, continuing to drive its success worldwide with its passionate team. First, by geography. Creed exposure to mainland China and the broader Asia Pacific regions offer tremendous growth opportunities, keeping in mind that growth in the high-end segment in this country significantly outpace the overall market.
In addition, by channel, Creed is so far under index in travel retail, we will work to roll out its presence more globally while remaining highly selective. The same applies to e-commerce, a channel in which Creed is today underpenetrated. Finally, many levers can be activated from a category standpoint. While we further reinforce Creed's position in men and unisex fragrances, we will also focus on growing its presence across women and other categories. We see a very compelling, rational, and mutual strategic benefit in terms of expertise, network, and geographical footprint.
Thank you, Raffaella. To wrap up our presentation, on slide 11, you have a summary of the strategic rationale for this landmark acquisition. It constitutes a significant milestone in the development of Kering Beauté, in a category that is strategic for Kering. As we believe more than ever in the strong potential of all our houses in the luxury beauty segment, Creed represents a perfect fit in our family of houses. This acquisition will enable us to rapidly gain a meaningful scale. Kering Beauté will leverage Creed's outstanding and scalable platform, notably when it comes to distribution. On slide 12, a quick reminder on the transaction. We are to acquire 100% of Creed. The deal is to be completed in H2, and is subject to clearance by competition authorities.
The transaction will be all cash, and the current management team will continue to lead the business in this new chapter of the house's journey. Now, Raffaella, Jean-Marc, and I are ready to take your questions. Operator?
We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Piral Dadhania from RBC. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Congratulations this evening. I have two questions, please. Could you perhaps be a bit more specific on the financial profile of the transaction, specifically the enterprise value and perhaps the multiple paid, and also the EBITDA margin that was achieved in the year to March 2023? Secondly, I was just wondering whether Creed also manufactures under license arrangement for any third-party brand outside of its core, you know, core brand. Does it work on behalf of any third parties? Thank you.
Good evening, Pierre, Jean-Marc Duplaix speaking. As we mentioned, we won't disclose the enterprise value, but what I can tell you is that the transaction is based on multiple that takes into account the Creed scale and top of range profitability, and obviously, which is very consistent with recent fragrance transactions in terms of EBITDA multiple. I'm referring to eyewear and fragrance businesses. We mentioned that the approximate size of Creed is EUR 250 million of sales, with a high profitability, which is something which is quite common in this business of high perfumery. So it means that you can imagine it's a very substantial EBITDA margin.
If you apply the multiple generally used in this type of transaction, you have a quite good proxy of the price that will be paid and that you will see anyway, by the end of the year in the cash flow statement, considering that we expect to close the transaction, by the end of the year. To summarize, the multiple used fully reflects both the quality and the scarcity of such an asset on the market.
Good evening, Pierre, it's Raffaella speaking. Creed, regarding your question of licensed manufacturing for a third party, Creed today has their manufacturing capability in Fontainebleau, completely dedicated to the Creed production. There is no other production for third party.
Okay, thank you, Raffaella, Jean-Marc , that's great.
The next question is from Charles-Louis Scotti from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you for taking my question. My first question is on the channel mix of Creed. It will be very helpful if you could share with us the percentage of sales in wholesale and retail, and if you have any mix happening in-?
We are sorry. We are sorry, Charles-Louis, we cannot hear you clearly. Can you please repeat your question?
Yeah. Do you hear me now?
Not ideal, but let's try.
Yes, my question was on the channel mix of Creed. If you could help us understand, the share of wholesale and retail, and if you have any strategies that you could push on retail going forward. More generally speaking, on Kering Beauté, it would be interesting, to understand if you, expect to add a new few house brand or if you are also open to licensing as well. Thank you.
I understand from your question that you want to have a channel mix specificity, the current one.
Also, return how you, based on this acquisition, you will make this mix evolve, if you have already some vision about it.
Okay. let's first start with your first part of the question about the distribution. How is the channel mix? Today, the distribution channel is mostly brick-and-mortar. 75% of the sales today are brick-and-mortar, with online and travel retail represents two meaningful growth levers for Creed, with 20% and 5% of sales, respectively. In terms of geography, do you want to know as well geography? I think it could be interesting to go in this part. Creed significantly overperforms in North America, UK, and Europe, which is also consistent with the Anglo-European heritage of the brand. Today, North America and Europe represent around 3/4 of the sales in total. This clearly indicates the amazing potential that this brand has, especially in Asia.
The adventure of the brand in China is just at the beginning, because the brand has opened its first brick-and-mortar store only in November 2021. Right now, the brand has already 11 boutique, but China, right now, it's only 2% of the total sales. This indicates really the potential for the future. The second part of the question, it's about how it will evolve. Clearly, we were saying before, that we will, our acts of development are clearly the parts where the brand is not so strong right now. Asia, which is super clear, the opportunity, especially China, travel retail, as I mentioned several times, and online as well, as potentials for development. This is in terms of channel.
Do you want to answer the second part, Jean-François?
Yes. regarding licensing the first step of Kering Beauté refers to taking the license for Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, Pomellato, and Boucheron.
...And then, potentially, we will take some others, like, we did with the Kering Eyewear, but today we focus on the four ones that I mentioned.
Thank you very much, and sorry for the line again.
The next question is from Oliver Chen, from Cowen and Company. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks. Congrats. I use Creed every day, so it's a great brand. In terms of the EPS accretion dilution, what should we know in terms of as we think about our models? Also, on the branded stores and the doors footprint, what do you see happening there over time? You know, it's a 36 stores and 1,400 doors. You touched on this earlier, third question: How do you see this acquisition synergizing with other big fragrance opportunities in your brand portfolio? What kind of expertise do you see there? Lastly, you've done a great job with the Aventus platform and also the Love and Roses with women. We'd love your thoughts on the female opportunity because that seems like a under-penetrated opportunity. Thank you.
Maybe I will start with the first one, and then we will ask you maybe to repeat some of the questions you had, because here again, the sound was not good. I will start with the first one about the impact on the financials. The impact of Creed acquisition is expected to be accredited for Kering soon after the transaction, both in terms of growth and margins, even though limited given the relative size of Creed compared to the total of Kering. Okay. Maybe, as there was a question about the branded store network, do you plan some expansion?
Yes, on this part, I can answer definitely. There is a big potential for the brand store, branded store network. I was telling you, we have still a limited amount of boutique, Creed boutique, which is only 36. There is a potential in all the geography, but again, there is the bigger potential city in Asia. On this part, we can clearly leverage the super strong Kering real estate capability, which will facilitate the opening of new branded store around the world. This part, this is okay for the second part of the question. It was not very clear when you were speaking.
Is there another part that's good of the question, Can you repeat it and we will answer you?
The 1,400 stores. I think you answered it. I was curious about the Creed core competency and how that will apply, you know, to your other brand opportunities and other fragrances, and if you will, leverage that, their innovation and their history to your broader Kering portfolio. Lastly, women.
Yes. As we said, Creed constitutes definitely a very good platform for speeding up the ramp up of Kering Beauté in several ways. As we said, Creed has an outstanding know-how in sourcing materials and ingredients, and of course, we will benefit from this know-how. Also, we will use the distribution network in order to speed up our penetration of some markets throughout the world. Also, the inclusion of Creed into our group will also enhance our, you know, power or negotiation power with all stakeholders of this beauty industry, where you know that size matters.
With this transaction, we gain significant size much earlier than, you know, if we were just alone with Kering Beauté.
Thank you. Lastly, women, you know, the Love series has been a lot of innovation in women's, but Creed has a big male presence. Just would love your take on how you see this brand evolving in terms of unisex and women's.
Clearly, we see tremendous potential in women's fragrances, especially in the high promises geography, where Creed is perceived as a predominantly female brand, like China. Creed, what is important to underline is that Creed benefit from a positive sentiment towards its sophisticated scent and unisex versatility, which should support its diversification towards women's fragrance. Women already know the brands and are present in Creed store. It's interesting, but in the U.S., women are 1/3 of the buyers, 40% in the U.K. and 60% in China. We have a stronger launch plan on a women's fragrances, which will be supported by a focused communication that will further fuel the growth on this category.
Thank you. Sounds very encouraging. Congratulations. Best regards.
Thank you, Oliver.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. The next question is from Erwan Rambourg, from HSBC. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening, everyone, congratulations, Raffaella, Jean-François, Jean-Marc, and the teams. First, if I look at brick-and-mortar, I think you said brick-and-mortar with 75% of sales. It's pretty clear that you want to increase the number of own retail stores from 36. Are you happy with the 1,400 wholesale partners, wholesale doors, or would you want to increase that as well? Linked to that question, I'm wondering if you could give us the split between wholesale and retail in terms of brick-and-mortar contribution to sales today. Thirdly, I'm wondering how you think about awareness building, you know, notably in Asia and notably in China. Is it word of mouth? Are you using brand ambassadors? Are you thinking about specific media campaigns?
How do you think about building out the brand, in terms of awareness and attractivity in Asia? Thank you.
Perfect. Hello, Erwan. Thank you for the question. I will start. Can I start? The first question, it's about contracts. Yes, we are happy with the current. Congrats, sorry. Can we start with the brick-and-mortar. We are happy with our 1,400 wholesale store, for sure, we will continue to develop them, especially in Asia. Both on the brick-and-mortar, free-standing store and, as well, wholesale store. We will continue to be selective in the choice of our partner and in the progression of our distribution. That's the strategy that we will continue to pursue. Then on the split retail, wholesale, our ambition is to continue to increase our direct-to-consumer ratio.
For that, we were saying we want to progress both in store, our own boutique, and as well in online, and we will pursue this objective. Then on your last part of the question about the awareness building, I think that it's worth, first of all, doing few precisions, because for Creed, it's a very well-known brand, especially as we were saying, in the Anglo world, so especially in the U.S. and the U.K., where this brand boasts leading top of mind unaided awareness in the luxury segment. It's the number two in the U.S. and co-leading in the U.K., and it's very significant share of voice. All of this to the a Bain analysis, and it's the top three industry player in the industry in terms of digital mention on social media platforms.
You pointed out, clearly, Asia, that is the region where the brand needs to further develop, for sure. On this part, we have plan, and I will pass the word to Jean-Marc.
Of course, it's a little bit too soon to elaborate on all the initiatives we will launch going forward. As we mentioned, Creed enjoys the top of French double-digit profitability. You know perfectly that the key characteristic of the high-end luxury segment is that it requires lower levels of AMP than the prestige segment. That being said, as clearly explained by Raffaella and Jean-François, Creed has many levels of growth in terms of geographies, channels, categories, and so on. It will be need to activate this initiative, with objectives, with proper investment.
We would expect, going forward in the next year, that the margin should normalize a little bit at levels slightly lower than the current one. Of course, Creed will remain a high profitability business, accretive to Kering margin, but at a slightly lower level, considering all the investments we'll have to make. Of course, in the coming months, and the coming quarters, we will have the occasions to present the progress we are making at Creed and all the initiatives we are launching to support the development of the brand in various regions, starting with China, as explained by Raffaella.
Thank you very much. I just had a short housekeeping question around online. I think you said 20% of the business. Is that all of your own online, or is that also with partners?
It's also with partners.
Okay.
The total online-
Thank you so much.
Ours and others. Thank you, Erwan.
Thank you so much. Best of luck. Cheers.
The next question is from Antoine Belge, from Exane BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Yes, good evening, everyone. It's Antoine at BNP. Three question if I may. If I understood correctly, that deal will be accretive on margin. I look at your EBITDA of last year, 35% and EBIT 27%. Just to confirm that it will be really accretive on those numbers. Usually for deals like that, the sales multiple is usually in excess of five or six. I don't know if EUR 1.5 billion would be a ballpark number that would not be far from reality. Actually, within question number one, what when you calculated the acquisition, which interest rates did you use on the resources?
Second question, is it possible to have a bit of an idea of the recent history, EUR 250 million, what was the number? I don't know, you know, in 2019 or, you know, whatever, reference that could help us having a bit, the trajectory of the brand. Then, third question, which is consequent of the previous one, is, so how long will it take to double sales for that type of, you know, business? Is it like three years, five years? Yeah, any sort of idea of at which speed that business could be growing? Thank you.
I will start with your first question, which is very detailed and very comprehensive. Of course, as you can imagine, I will not answer to all the different aspects of your question. Yes, it's accretive, definitely, on the EBITDA. Accretive also, it's, and also the growth rate is above the average growth of the group. It's accretive in terms of EBIT. We didn't refer to the EPS. When it comes to the multiple of EBITDA, I think that you could refer to some recent transactions that happened in the past few years, or then you can refer to the multiples of the industry in the beauty business.
We are talking about very high multiples, very connected in the case of Creed, to the very high profitability and the profile of the growth delivered by the brand in the recent years, also considering what the brand is able to deliver going forward. I will not confirm any figure.
Regarding the momentum of Creed, the house enjoyed a high double-digit growth rate in the past two years. We bank on something, the same pattern from for the following years. This will also respond to you, the, your third question.
Thank you. Maybe just a quick follow-up. Just the U.S. market, because I understand, you said 2/3 with the U.K. and 3/4 with Europe. I don't know, is U.S. like, I don't know, 40% or something like that?
North America, it's very high, and it's around 50%.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Antoine.
The next question is from Carole Madjo from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi, yes, good evening. Just a quick question from me as well, following up on the trend on top line. I guess it's around what kind of growth rates are you seeing in beauty compared to luxury goods space? Do you have the same trend and mostly around the U.S. market, which we just mentioned? Of course, we are seeing now in the U.S. effects of slowing down with enterprise consumer buying a bit less. Are we seeing similar trends in the fragrance market as well, and of course, for Creed? Thank you.
Creed is operating on what we are calling the high-end luxury market, which is the one that have the tailwind, as we were mentioning. It's growing much faster than the fragrance market in general. The fragrance market, in general, if we take prestige and mass, it's projected to grow between 3% and 5%. Instead, the high luxury fragrance market is projected to grow up to 15%. You see that this segment, precisely in which Creed operates, is the segment that is the most favorable, and we will continue to grow in the years to come. Said so, I think that growth is very strong, and it's stronger in terms of geography.
The strongest growth is in Asia, where I was explaining that the consumer are really leapfrog from mass to high luxury. In this segment, in China, so in Asia, sorry, in APAC, the market is growing, the high-end luxury market is growing at 20%, so higher than in the rest of the world.
Okay, understood. You feel like your consumers are more resilient in case of macro slowdown, for instance, considering your pricing point?
Absolutely.
Thank you. Thank you.
The next question is from Natasha Brilliant, from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good evening, everyone. A couple of questions for me. Firstly, just on the deal itself, can you say if you were competing against any other players for Creed, and why the existing shareholders decided to sell now? Second question, you've talked quite a lot about what Creed brings to Kering. Is it a case of just more firepower from Kering to drive growth going forward? What else does Kering bring to Creed, to really help with the strategy going forward?
Actually, there is competition around this wonderful asset, because as we said, it's a unique asset, sizable and very highly performant. Indeed, we had a, it was not a beauty contest, and we had exclusivity with the seller as early as the beginning, because we shared a lot of values together and the same vision about the future of the company. We also had a very good fit with the management team, that's why we have this opportunity to consummate this deal, you know, without any competition.
For the second part of your question, in terms of how we plan to leverage Creed as a platform. Our ambition is for Creed to become a full-fledged fragrance platform, leveraging its leading luxury fragrance position to accelerate door opening and obtaining better space in general. Creed go-to-market and distribution network, which is spanning local distribution through the 1,400 doors in total, will, in general, accelerate the revenue of future Kering boutique fragrance franchise. That's very clear. In terms of what the synergies, I think that in terms of synergy, we will not provide you with quantitative estimates at this stage. It's too preliminary, but we have performed an in-depth preliminary assessment of potential revenue at cost synergies at both Creed and Kering.
This preliminary assessment of synergies underpins our belief that Creed has a significant, compelling strategic value for Creed.
As a summary, we can say that this move will save us a couple of years in ramping up Kering Beauté.
Okay, thank you very much.
Thank you all for being on our call and for your questions. As you have understood, we are all delighted that Creed will be joining our family of luxury houses, and by the momentum it will provide to our growth strategy in the fragrance and beauty segment. We wish you a nice evening, and we will be talking to you again soon. Thank you.
Thank you.