Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Maisons du Monde first half 2025 results. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question via the webcast, please use the Q&A box available on the webcast link at any time during the conference. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your speakers today, François-Melchior de Polignac, Chief Executive Officer of Maisons du Monde, and Denis Lamoureux, Chief Financial Officer of Maisons du Monde. Sir, the floor is yours.
Thank you, and good evening, everyone. Thank you for attending Maisons du Monde first half 2025 results. Let's go directly to the top line. Net sales are down 9.7% versus last year, and now it's 8.7% on a like-for-like basis. Of course, we are not satisfied with those figures. Yet, what is most important to us is the positive dynamic we are now seeing with a clear sequential improvement from H2 2024 and Q1 2025 to Q2 2025. This is all the more the case as trends have been also improving. Among our recent initiatives, I'd like to emphasize a few key highlights. First, we continue to refine our marketing strategy, moving towards a more efficient balance between offline and online communication, with a clear focus on strengthening our brand. The actions we've taken are starting to pay off.
We saw a rebound in online traffic in Q2, both paid and organic, while brand awareness improved by 2.5% in H1 2025, outperforming every competitor during the same period. A key evolution of our organizational culture is also to increase the local adaptation of our offer and approaches. In this respect, we have now fully rolled out an AI replenishment tool across Europe that will help us improve the efficiency of inventory allocation by store. At the same time, we are also driving local adaptations at country level, leveraging implementation of more local organizations. Regarding our network, our affiliated stores have shown resilient performance. Building on this success, we're excited to roll out this model internationally, with the first opening recently in Spain that marks an important milestone for us.
In parallel, we are pursuing a selective approach to store refurbishment, capitalizing on the very strong performance of our renovated locations in shopping centers and the key learnings from the renovation of the more classical stores to bring the best of the two models together. Because serving our customers better also requires a leaner, more agile organization, we have taken, as you know, strong steps.
Please continue to stand by.
We had an interruption. I hope that you can hear me again. I hope somebody around me can check that.
Loud and clear, sir.
Okay. I was saying that because serving customers better also requires a leaner, more agile organization, we've taken strong steps normally. I can confirm today that the head office redundancy plan has been completed. We've also done a lot of work to optimize our supply chain, reducing warehouse surfaces and upgrading our S&P process, which, of course, is key to delivering the right product at the right time. Last but not least, we have concluded the final phase of the acquisition of RENOVE, the French leader in AI interior design. This will enable us to maximize the already initiated commercial synergies between RENOVE and Maisons du Monde operations. Now, let's turn to profitability. As expected, the decline in net sales impacted group profitability. We report a negative EBIT of EUR -22 million and a negative free cash flow of EUR -65 million.
This cash performance largely reflects a significant inventory buildup aimed at ensuring we enter the second half of the year in the best possible product availability conditions to fuel the ongoing sales improvement trend. Of course, we remain very much committed to our control of our financials. First, we succeeded in maintaining our gross margin rate, which is a solid achievement in a tough and highly promotional environment. Second, we continue to drive down our cost base. We remain on track to deliver our EUR 110 million cost-saving plan over three years, with EUR 45 million already achieved in 2024 and EUR 18 million delivered in the first half of 2025, along with our plan. Finally, we continue to be disciplined in investments, keeping CAPEX at 2% of net sales. Of course, Denis will later on give you some more detail on that.
As we move on to the next page on the network, in H1, we continue the transformation of our retail network, building on the progress made since 2024, which has helped make our retail operations more resilient. The affiliation store model continues to prove month after month to be a resilient and effective operating model, particularly for smaller format stores. It's been successfully deployed across France and more recently internationally, with the first opening of a store in Spain, which is already delivering excellent results and, in fact, above expectations. At the same time, investing in our retail network continues to show clear value. Our 67 revamped concept stores demonstrate a more resilient performance compared to other locations, while also enhancing customer experience.
Among these, the two recently renovated shopping center stores stand out with double-digit growth in both Q1 and Q2, encouraging us to prioritize those types of stores in the coming months. A few words on RENOVE, which might be new to most of you. As you may know, RENOVE is a company that we have started acquiring progressively since 2019. It's a French leader in AI-powered interior design. It helps both B2C and B2B customers to design their interiors, terraces, or gardens, thanks to best-in-class AI tools developed in-house. RENOVE is a strategic asset for us. It's a powerful differentiator from our competitors and enables us to acquire customers, especially those with design projects who represent, of course, great value for Maisons du Monde. We know that there are many synergies to go on unlocking.
Expanding the current offering from free AI-based inspiration tools to comprehensive personal shopper support available both online and in stores, accelerating growth by targeting B2B customers more aggressively, making RENOVE the group hub for 3D and AI content production, creating immersive visuals of our collections while reducing photoshoot and production costs. Establishing an internal training center to yet further develop Maisons du Monde teams in interior decoration knowledge, leveraging both RENOVE's tools and the team of 30 professional home decorators who are now fully part of Maisons du Monde. I will now let Denis give you more details on the figures.
Hello, everybody. Thank you, François-Melchior. I will elaborate a little bit more on the figures. If we start with the sales, if we go on the sales map, we can see various dynamics within this first semester. Of course, the sales are not good because we are losing 9.7% of sales, which is basically almost EUR 50 million. Within that, two dynamics. First of all, retail international, almost flat, and we have even, during Q2, some markets like Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, and Portugal that are positive during this quarter, which gives us some good signal of this development of this market. We have also the global retail that is far better than the global performance at the - 5.7%, and even the Q2 was better than that. On top of that, we have two topics to tackle.
France, like-for-like France, we're still the retail France, so we have a huge work to do, and that's where we are putting a lot of effort. Also online. Remember that during Q1, we have suffered from a huge decline of business because of most of the issues coming from a too far reduction of the SEA, so basically the acquisition cost. You all know that it takes time to recover these kinds of topics. The good news is that in May, we recover the traffic, and in June, we recover the top line. Both like-for-like France and offline business were positive in June. Of course, it's only one month, but it is, since two years that we haven't seen that good figure. Again, various dynamics, but slightly improving during the semester and with the last month being a very good signal.
You might ask us on the current trading, this tendency seen in June continues in July, up to now. If we go on the next slide, this one is the standard one of, you can see, an evolution of decoration compared to furniture. Last year, furniture was more resilient than decoration. It's a bit the contrary now. Most of the reason coming from the channel mix, because as you have seen, the online business is suffering more than the retail line one, and the website business is more related to furniture. From a geography point of view, you can see what I mentioned just before on the fact that the international is more resilient than France, and we have to work a lot, for sure on all markets, but especially on the French one. If we go on the next slide, you can have here the evolution of the EBIT.
We compare the EBIT of H1 2024 to H1 2025. The main, for sure, the main effect is coming from volume effect, meaning the top line loss, that reflects immediately in gross margin. We can see a slight gross margin rate effect because we are slightly declining in gross margin, but we are still above 64%, which is, quite, a huge number in terms of gross margin, so meaning the capacity for the group to price the product, even in a very promotional environment. After, you can see the cost-saving effect, compared to the plan. I remember that we have a plan of EUR 110 million over three years. We are supposed to have EUR 45 million of saving this year. We are at EUR 18 million, which is totally in line with our budget.
This kind of saving is coming from Shinpei and is coming from the closure of Wells because we do remember that we have a huge supply chain transformation plan, which should lead in 2026 to EUR 30 million of saving. We have also finalized some plans. Remember the reorganization of the quarter, as well as a huge impact on the various expenses, SGN expenses, leading to saving. On the DNA side, you can see also a saving, which is more related to rents, because for sure we had the ESRS 16, meaning the huge effort done by your team to negotiate better rents with the landlords. At the end, the result is the EBIT is negative by EUR 22 million, compared to a - 6% last year. If we go on the free cash flow side, this is where there is an interim situation to be understood.
The first line is that the CAPEX is still very low, but enables us to invest both in stores and on IT. Remember that we have an asset-light strategy with a lot of affiliation profiles that help us to reduce the CAPEX, as well as we are no more in a development like we have been in the past, namely, in terms of warehouses because we are closing warehouses. We have a temporary increase in working capital coming from inventory. Why do we have that? It's because we have wanted to secure the availability of the product, the capacity to present new products in your stores, and also to secure the collection, the new collection, spring, summer, sorry, autumn, winter collection in order to propose the product already in July. You can see in your store that the new, the new theme are there.
Of course, during the seventh semester, we will sell this inventory because they are fully composed of new collection products. There is, I would say, a fresh product, but even though we are not selling food, I would say fresh product. This will be a result at the end of 2025. We have implemented all the action to secure that during this semester. As a result, the debt has increased to EUR 156 million, related to this working capital effect, and should be managed during this period of the seventh semester. Thank you very much. I leave the floor to François-Melchior.
Thank you. Indeed, next page, exactly, this is where you see just an inspiration of our new collections. To make the link with what Denis was saying, clearly compared to last year, because of this building up of inventory, we have been able to introduce new collections and make them available at store level much ahead of last year, benefiting in that case from the flow of customers coming from the sales period and being able to see already the arrival of new collections at store level. Now, as we move to the next page, let's speak about our key priorities moving forward. As we were saying, we see some positive signals. Top line has been gradually recovering with steady improvements since April.
Denis also said it, and I said it, we do see a current trading, which is yet even above June, which was the best month in two years. We see customer satisfaction, which keeps on growing as well. We see here a 3% increase versus last year. There's also a 7% increase versus two years ago. As I already mentioned, our new collection was launched early this year, which allows us to have, of course, a very good momentum in sales for the new collection compared to last year. Now, building on this encouraging momentum, we are determined to keep up the pace and fully execute our business priorities for the second half of the year, which is, of course, to continue to inspire our customers. That's what Maisons du Monde is all about, notably through impactful brand collaborations.
We have an exciting one coming with the partnership with Chef Maurice Sacco this September. Very key for us because it also puts a light on the kitchen area, which is a place where Maisons du Monde is developing its position and ranges. Second, further increase market investments to strengthen overall brand awareness. As Denis mentioned, we have been going too fast and too far in SEA reduction in Q1. We have now stabilized the situation. Our SEO programs are delivering results so that both paid and unpaid traffic are growing, which allows us to further invest in offline communication as well, and again, to help the brand resonate even more. Focus renovation effort on shopping centers where we see the strongest returns. Expand the affiliation store model abroad.
As we said, we open in Spain, but we can still roll it out and start to roll it out in Italy as well. Strengthen customer proximity and accelerate our ACT local initiatives across regions. Boost cross-selling between channels, leveraging click and collect and free in-store furniture delivery, which is new for us, as strong levers moving forward. Of course, delivering our EUR 45 million cost-saving target for this year. Finally, Denis mentioned it, this building up of inventory will help us sustain and fuel the sales for this second semester. We are committed to reaching our targets for the inventory at the end of the year. That's all on our side for now. We are, of course, happy to look at the questions that you may have. Thank you for your attention. First question. Sorry, I'm repeating it because, yeah, you can see it, Denis.
Sorry, we had some technical difficulties here, but we can.
Okay. Coming back to the position, we have various positions. First of all, the first one is on the margin. Basically, we expect to maintain the margin by stabilizing some promotion level while leveraging on your brand strengths, maximizing the loyalty program because you're in France, because you remember that we have a SA loyalty program. By the way, we can see some better sales with the clients within our loyalty program. Also, we will continue to stabilize the pricing strategy. Regarding the freight cost, there is a stabilization, and basically, we have signed contracts over the full year, so we should not have any effect. On the dollar side, we are almost hedged. That means that the hedging has been done some moments ago, so we do not expect a huge improvement on that topic in 2025. We will have some flavor in 2026.
Regarding a question on the top line growth, we have taken, in view of the situation, for sure, we have taken assumptions that are reasonable and achievable. The question was in order to achieve a positive free cash flow. As mentioned in the press release, you have seen that currently, we are doing all of what we could do to, for sure, to be positive, but we consider that in S2, we will generate cash for sure, namely by reducing the inventory. It should only be a reduction of the consumption of cash compared to H1 2025. If we go on, another question that we asked was the upcoming debt maturities and their amounts. The current maturity of our debt, basically, the main one is the FTF is April 2028, and we have some amortization of the term loan in 2026 and 2027.
Regarding the cost of our debt, you will be able to see within the figure. We have a EUR 5.7 million cost of the debt for the H1. You can anticipate it will be the same in H2. If you cumulate, you have the cost of our debt. The last question we have is on the covenant. As you have seen, all our banking partners have unanimously agreed to adjust the financial documentation in June 2025. I will not elaborate more on that question. What else do we have? The worth does come from the acceleration of the cost saving by H2. This one is when you, I will take a very simple example. We are closing one warehouse in the south, September 30. We have decided to close these warehouses, and we are operating these warehouses until September 30.
We have the cost in the P&L, in revenue, until September 30. Of course, starting October 1, we have the saving. We have a lot of effect like that. Remember, we had to do a redundancy plan. Same topic for the redundancy plan. The people were in the P&L until June 30 for most of them, and they will not be in the P&L or at least in the EBIT starting July 1. That means that's the reason why we have this acceleration of cost saving on H2.
There is a question on the current trading. I hope we covered it basically, as we were saying. June was showing some positive signals. Every single one of those signals has been so far emphasized in July. We're seeing a positive momentum for July. July is in positive territory so far. Of course, I see a weekend and nearly a full week to go forward, but this is where we stand out in terms of current trading. Basically confirming or enhancing the positive signals that we described before that. There's a question about the EUR 100 million accumulated free cash flow portfolios. As we look at what's happening at the moment, we are seeing, of course, an excess of inventory that we will compensate for in H2. There is no reason for us not to stand by our accumulated forecasts of free cash flow.
Of course, keep in mind that it does rely on a return to growth in 2026 and 2027, which, at the moment, are quite consistent with the signals that we're seeing from our recent tradings.
[crosstalk] Yes, on the costs. Yes, on the fixed costs, they are particularly impacted, no problem. Okay. On the question of the cost saving, basically, the cost saving is linked to various topics. The first one is the shrinkage. Basically, shrinkage is the products that are either broken or stolen. We have to work on that, and it is part of the saving plan, either with invoicing to suppliers, but also by reducing by itself, the cost. We are closing logic warehouses, and it will create, for sure, also additional saving on transportation because you will have only one shipping point. Of course, when you simplify your flow, you have also a positive effect on that topic. Transportation, because we have also a huge association of transportation that we are working on, that will also accelerate over the period.
This is also coming from the rent, the rent for the store for negotiation with the landlord, because on some, we have some power to negotiate on that topic, as well as the reduction of square meters of headquarters or offices in order to save money. Also, the other parts are coming from either head office reorganization that we have announced in January and also management on SGN cuts, travel expense, like all the external services where we can save some money on that topic, having in mind that we do that with no impact or at the minimum impact for the clients, in order to secure the top line. If you come back on the working capital, there is a question on the working capital. What is your expectation for working capital? Basically, we intend to come back to six months inventory by the end of the year.
That's a lot of questions already. Do we have more? Okay. We have a question on external charges. Basically, remember that we are moving into affiliation, and this has an impact on the way of computing because the commission is considered as an external expense.
At the moment, we see no additional question. We just let the system a few seconds to update in case something comes up. It looks like we have finished this round of questions. Thank you very much for both attending and for your questions. I hope you got the answers you were looking for. Of course, we remain open if there is something that needs more clarification. We wish all of you a very good summer and will be speaking again in a couple of months. I was saying a couple of months, but I just said it will be more than that.
Thank you very much to all.
Thank you. Bye-bye.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.