Good morning, everyone, and welcome to today's Watches of Switzerland Group PLC Q4 2024 trading update. My name is Drew, and I'll be your operator today. During today's call, there will be a Q&A session. To register a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. If you have joined us online, please type your question in the Q&A tab. I will now turn the call over to Brian Duffy, CEO of Watches of Switzerland. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Drew. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining our call. I'll run through some reflections on trading for our final quarter of FY 2024, and then talk about the year in total. All as set out in the RNS that we issued this morning. Then our CFO, Anders Romberg, will add some commentary on guidance for FY 2025 and the LRP updates that we provided this morning. We'll then, as usual, open up to any questions that you may have. So I'm very pleased with our Q4 results, which we bring to a close FY 2024, in line with our guidance. FY 2024 was undoubtedly a year in which we did experience more market challenges, particularly here in the U.K., than originally expected.
But also one in which we continued to gain market share, both in the U.K. and in the U.S., and continued with our, with our successful model of investing in high quality growth, positioning the business well for the future. For Q4, our sales were particularly strong in the U.S., with a year-on-year growth of plus 14% in US dollars. As we have presented often, the U.S. market is underdeveloped, and the U.S. consumer responds very well to both our showroom environment and, in particular, our excellent client service, supporting our above-market growth. Sales in the U.S. were consistently strong through FY 2024 and were plus 11% in US dollars for the full year. In the U.K., sales for Q1, for Q4, excuse me, were 4% down, 5% down for the year as a whole.
We have continued to experience more challenging conditions in the U.K. than the U.S., due to the combined impact of cumulative price increases, due mainly to the strong Swiss franc, and a more challenging consumer environment. While we believe this resulted in consumer deferral of purchase intent, we continue to take market share and outperform the labor market. We have been pleased at how the 15 Ernest Jones stores we acquired have traded since being part of our group, and we expect them all to make good contributions to our U.K. business. Although U.K. consumer environment remains subdued, there are some early signs of improving sentiment.
We have been delighted with how the pre-owned business has performed, both in the quarter and for the year as a whole, and things are currently tracking ahead of our expectations in both the U.K. and the U.S., with the Rolex certified program being particularly strong. We are rolling out distribution and increasing resources to support this business momentum. I'm delighted to have announced last week the acquisition of the Roberto Coin Inc, and with this, the exclusive distribution rights for the exciting brand in North America, the Caribbean, and Central America. This is a very really great opportunity for us, with an iconic brand supported by fantastic teams in Italy and in the U.S., and we see great potential for growth in the years ahead. We are very impressed at the recent Watches and Wonders fair in Geneva.
The brand has presented great new product introductions with a clear blend of innovation and commercial focus. The Swiss watch industry overall has taken a more conservative approach to expected sales in calendar 2024, which we believe to be both correct and responsible as the industry emerges from this more volatile period. You will have seen in our announcement today that we intend to reallocate investment resources from the European market into higher-returning regions of the UK and US, where we continue to gain market share. What we've experienced in Europe as well, we have good stores with great teams. We haven't been able to get the scale needed to grow. This market was managed out of the UK, was very time-consuming and resource heavy.
As you know, currently, we take a very disciplined approach to capital allocation, and when looking at all the opportunities we have on the table since November, particularly Rolex CPO, Rolex Bond Street, the acquisition of Roberto Coin, Audemars Piguet House we're opening in Manchester, and many others, that we have as plans with our brand partners, in the US, this was an appropriate step for us to take. We are in advanced discussions with our brand partners, on selling the existing European monobrand stores to them. In planning fiscal year 25 and reviewing our LRP through, fiscal year 28, we start both periods with a very exciting program of projects, with all of our, key brand partners, in luxury watches and in luxury branded jewelry. We have the incremental business of Roberto Coin in the US.
We have strong momentum in the pre-owned category, great new products from our brand partners, and further expansions planned in luxury branded jewelry. We've also undertaken a robust review of our overheads and discretionary spending in all areas of the organization in order to support ongoing profitability and margin expansion. We therefore start the new financial year with real confidence in both the near and medium-term outlooks for the business. My thanks to our amazing teams for their achievements, enthusiasm, hard work, and commitment to succeed in fiscal year 2024 and beyond. And with that, I will hand over to Anders.
Thank you, Brian. I'm gonna shortly take you through our LRP update and give you some guidance for FY 25. We remain confident in our LRP target that we set out in November to more than double sales and profits by FY 28. Rolex Certified Pre-Owned, as you heard from Brian, is very encouraging, and we found new sources of supply in the UK. So the cap that we referred to when we did our capital markets day is no longer a factor in the UK market. We expect this area to outperform our original expectations in the plan. We also have the strongest pipeline of committed Rolex and other projects, and this, alongside the Roberto Coin acquisition, which came in earlier than originally expected, gives us further confidence in our LRP ambitions.
Moving to the outlook for FY 2025, we're cautiously optimistic about trading in FY 2025. We've seen sales, coming in more flattish, and the run rate is stabilizing, at the back end of FY 2024. Our guidance reflects current visibility of supply from key brands and confirmed showroom projects. In FY 2025, we will annualize the earnings beyond showrooms, as you heard from Brian, and we'll have 50 weeks of Roberto Coin in our numbers as well. We have not assumed any further acquisitions within our guidance for FY 2025. Our guidance, as always, is provided on a pre-IFRS 15 basis, and we've assumed an exchange rate of 1.5 to the US dollar.
Revenue is expected to come in between GBP 1.67 billion and GBP 1.73 billion, which implies an underlying constant currency growth of between 9% and 12%. Our adjusted EBIT margin is expected to expand by 0.2%-0.6% on this year, and we do plan to spend between GBP 60 million and GBP 70 million of CapEx, which is slightly below what we historically have done, because we've taken the hardware rates off a little bit internally and are more disciplined. Our operating cash flow conversion is expected to come in at around 70%. With that, I'll hand back to Brian for some closing remarks.
That may be a wee bit premature, Anders. Because we're, we're going to take questions now.
Thank you. We will now start today's Q&A session. To register a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad, and to withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. If you have joined us online, please click the Q&A tab and type in your question. Our first, first question today comes from Adrien de Verger from Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning. Thank you very much for taking my question, and congratulations on the, on the results. This is Adrien de Verger from Goldman Sachs. So my first question would be, on the Rolex deliveries for the full year 2025. So are you happy about the, allocation you got, and how clear are you, on what you will get in terms of value, versus volume? My second question, would be on your, M&A pipeline and its, strength. So what product category and geographies, does the pipeline for M&A Q2, especially given the fact you mentioned, you will reallocate investments from Europe, to the US and the UK? And my last question is, with regards to your, to your guidance.
If we strip out the contribution from the acquisition of Roberto Coin, how do you think about the organic growth rate implied by the full year 25 guidance? Thank you very much.
Thank you, Adrien. Well, I think an answer is we'll never be happy with the allocations. I mean, it's obviously, you know, such demand for the key brands, Rolex in particular. Demand continues to significantly exceed supply. We're adding to our waiting list and so on. But, I mean, of course, we are both in the U.K. and the U.S., we get through our annual processes, we receive our allocations, and we're happy with that process. We're happy with the support we're getting for the projects that we're doing and, you know, what's happening within the market overall.
We obviously continue with what we've always done and include only the numbers that have been indicated and effectively, you know, given to us by, you know, Rolex and other watch brands reflected in our numbers. So we are happy with the support that we're getting. But the demand that's out there, of course, could substantiate more supply, further evidence on which is, you know, the great success that we have in the Rolex CPO. So it just, you know, confirms the demand that's there for that for that wonderful brand and some others. In terms of M&A pipeline, it's, I mean, it is all U.S., was predominantly U.S. In any event, we see, you know, further opportunity for consolidation of the market in the U.S.
We've always had a pipeline of discussions going on at any one time at various stages. Things do take, you know, particularly dealing with family businesses, things do take time for people to get comfortable, overall with, with who we're dealing with, and it's an area in which we clearly have to be patient. But we are happy that the level of activity and opportunities that's there, that we've reflected, you know, likelihood of delivering in our LRP. We're happy that all that makes sense. Overall, and the guidance, yeah, I mean, if you, if you take into consideration Roberto Coin, which we obviously disclosed the numbers for, a, we're not gonna have it in for the full year.
So, essentially, the May month is more about integration and so forth and soft counts... and validation of balances, to land on the final working capital. So, we expect the business to have a little bit of a slowdown in the first month. That would imply that our guidance sits in the mid-single digits for our core business.
Thank you.
Our next question today comes from Richard Taylor from Barclays. Your line is now open. Please proceed.
Yeah, morning. Can you talk a bit about the supply-demand dynamics that you see in the market more generally? I know the comment you made about brands sort of behaving quite responsibly from a production point of view, but any thoughts there of on sort of inventory levels in the market, individual competitors and how much discounting you're seeing? And then secondly, I think you said that the Rolex CPOs going ahead of the long range plan guidance, which I think was 10% in the UK and 20% in the US of Rolex sales. Are you saying that the UK could move towards US levels or both moving up? Any sort of indication on that would be great. Thank you.
The supply demand overall in the market then, you know, clearly, as we have been saying, at the higher end of the market, demand has stayed very strong, nowhere near supply, or supply is nowhere near to the demand that it's... And those dynamics are not changing. As we commented, and clearly when we gave the market announcement, you know, where we clearly experienced disappointment. There's more UK regional, more aspirational price points and so on, which all made sense to us in terms of, you know, cost of living and price increases that had also happened around those price points as well.
So that's continued, but there's, you know, Anders has indicated some signs of more positive traction with certain brands, very encouraged by what we saw by Watches and Wonders, and it's such a great industry, and they do respond to market conditions. Very long term in their approach overall, but they do respond to market conditions, and we did see a lot of, you know, exciting commercial new introductions that we think are really gonna help in particular this market in the UK in the year ahead. As you know, we have very little discounting in the mix of the products that we sell. It's the case for the market overall.
I mean, I think if you go back, whatever, 8, 9 years, it wasn't always the case. There was maybe more, you know, stock issues around and other activity like that. But the market for the last, I don't know, 7, 8 years, Anders, would we say, has, I think been very disciplined, actually globally disciplined, in terms of stock management and correlation between, you know, demand and production. So, we really don't anticipate that as being a problem. We, as part of our review of next year's budget and beyond, have cut back on areas of incentive, you know, whether it's subsidized interest or gifts with purchase and that sort of thing.
Obviously improving profitability, but I think overall, yeah, for the market, that these are, you know, positive moves to make. CPO, the area where what we'd said back in November is the potential in the UK was the same as the US, but supply was more evident in the US than we thought we'd be able to deliver in the UK. We had some real positive developments on sourcing in the UK. And therefore, we, you know, have a really good opportunity of getting to the same level of penetration of the market in the UK with CPO as we indicated in the US.
That's great. Thank you.
Sure.
Our next question today comes from Kate Calvert from Investec. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Morning, everyone. A couple from me. First one on Europe. Obviously, this was a key plank of your long range plan, you talked about last year. Can you sort of give some background as to why you decided to withdraw now? Has there been any sort of change in the brand distribution strategy, that is making it harder to get sites? It'd be quite good to get a bit of background color on that. The second question is on pre-owned. Could you just update us as to where you are as a percentage of sales in both markets as you exited? And how many more doors do you think you will roll out this financial year in both markets? And my final question is on the performance of the mid-price watch category.
Could you sort of talk about the differences in the performance in the fourth quarter versus the third quarter? Is there any evidence of a stabilization? Thanks so much.
Yeah. Hi, Kate. The situation with the EU is, you know, firstly, we'd opened some great stores that were performing well, and we've got some really great colleagues there that have been doing a great job, overall. But as we looked at everything, honestly, just a question of priorities. There are some great new opportunities have developed, like certified pre-owned, like getting Roberto Coin deal done and all the opportunities that that offers. We're adding to our project a list of expansion, particularly in the US, and we just have a lot on. And Europe was getting supported out of the UK.
We were a bit behind in where we wanted to be at this stage in terms of size and scale, as we have, you know, said, you know, quite, quite openly. So we were having to allocate a lot of time and resource for a business that, that was not big enough to support that level of resource yet, and therefore, it was, you know, impacting on profit and the, and return on, on capital. We have better things to do, from a financial viewpoint in terms of getting return on, on capital in our big markets of, of the UK and US. So similar with a question of priorities, the opportunity is there, still is there.
And, you know, we hope to revisit Europe at some time, but at this point, it just made all the sense in the world. It's, it's profit positive, obviously, moving into next year. It's cash positive as we sell the stores back to the brands. And, yeah, just the right thing to do at this stage, and delighted that we are selling the stores and obviously we're, and with the responsibility for the great teams that we've, that we've got in place in the, in these markets. To you, Ernest?
In terms of Pre-Owned revenue, we haven't disclosed a specific number, but I can share that it's now the second biggest brand within our portfolio. And it's the fastest growing by a mile segment of our business. So it's performing, as we said, ahead of where we thought it would be. So very encouraging, and obviously 100% within our control. So we're really happy about that. We haven't specifically spoken about doors, we wanna be a little bit cautious on that. But clearly, you know, the training of the teams is a priority.
Getting access to the product, which is available online for all doors, whether or not we have it in the store or not, using our technology in terms of web-enabled and so forth, is gonna help drive productivity in that segment. So we're really happy about all that.
I did comment that kind of mid-priced and, you know, you're right to, you know, single that out. The regional markets, mid-price products, where we had the biggest challenges from the holiday season onwards. There are Q4 on Q3, we've definitely got an improving performance, even an area like jewelry that we've performed much better on, which is encouraging. And some developments within the what you described as the mid-price range. You see some positive traction on, and as I said earlier, too, there's good products coming into that category as well, at price points that we think will really make sense. So encouraging, and obviously, they're coming up against what will be much better comparisons.
So there'll be a feel that the major correction in that sector is certainly coming to a close.
Another thing that might be worthwhile to mention on that is obviously, we're annualizing the impact of the pricing that took place during 2022 and 2023, which actually took prices up quite significantly, as Brian pointed out, on the Swiss franc movement. So the consumer base that, you know, reacted adversely to that, from an affordability point of view, we sort of already annualizing that drop-off, if you wanna call it that. Okay. Thank you.
Our next question today comes from Jonathan Pritchard from Peel Hunt. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Thanks, and good morning to you from me. Firstly, on Ernest Jones, just give us a bit more color on the process, the sort of staff retraining, evolving the range. Just a few comments on that, how that's gone. And then just sort of following up on the Goldman question at the start on guidance. If we strip out the acquisitions, et cetera, we're probably a couple of percent, 2%-3% down from where consensus was in terms of expectations for FY 2025. If you can get to the granularity, is there any region that is particularly the culprit of that, are you less bullish of the States or less bullish of the UK versus where consensus was and where guidance has been set?
Hi, Jonathan. So, in terms of EJ stores, as I said, we're on track for the trajectory that we had planned for them. We went through obviously a sequential process of rebranding the stores, changing all of the systems, starting a process of remerchandising of the product, which is a bit of an ongoing process. We put in products, we make changes, we read and react, overall, and so that's an ongoing process, which is going fine. And then alongside that, we get, you know, getting to know all of our teams and all of the team training, everything else at the personnel level needs to be done.
So all going fine, sequential improvement in store performance by week as we are all focused on and tracking, we get through the stores weekly with all the senior management. So great, it's good and nice acquisition and all tracking in line with what we expected. The guidance, Ernst?
So in terms of the guidance, and I guess this is what we've used for, for our acquisition of Roberto Coin, and, and we haven't planned that, particularly aggressively, going into the first year of ownership. We, as I said, are gonna have around 11 months rather than 12 months, in the numbers. We're also in the process of getting to know our distribution network and so forth. You know, there might be some that have a view on ownership and so forth. So we planned it relatively conservatively. In terms of where we sit against the consensus, as I said, we're coming out, you know, pretty much at the mid-single digit on the core business, which is...
A little bit south of where the consensus sat at 6.5%. But I think within the tolerance. But it's also impacted obviously on the key brands' view on allocations and so forth. So we have the numbers for this year, and that's what we've incorporated into our business. So that's where we are.
Lovely. Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Our next question comes from Antoine Belge from BNP Paribas. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. It's Antoine Belge at BNP Exane. So three questions. First of all, on that mid-single digit, I would say, core business guidance, what are the sort of underlying assumptions for the US and for the UK? Question number two is a bit about current trading. Also, any reason for the first quarter to be, you know, better or worse than the average of the year or any other quarterly consideration we should have in mind? And thirdly, on the margin guidance, I understand several moving parts, probably, you know, removing some losses from Europe, reintroducing the bonus and structure and also some acquisition from the current dealer.
So, I don't say there are any ways of quantifying those, or maybe little bit of color. Thank you.
Okay. I'll take the easier one. Just current trading, we're obviously not going to comment on. We've said, you know, Q4, there was some sequential improvement from Q3 in key categories like jewelry and other more mid-range watch products. And the overall conditions remain that demand is outstripping supply for key brands, key products. That dynamic's not changing. The U.S. market remains very strong, and that dynamic's not changing. And some earlier signs about the U.K. perhaps looking a bit better, and obviously we're going to have better comps. So they are the headlines, and we're really not going to add anything further to that about the quarter or any more detail. Anders?
Yeah, well, you know, as you know, Antoine, we don't give guidance by market, so I'm going to duck that question. But you, you've obviously seen the performance in North here. And we don't expect then a major change in economic conditions happening here in the UK. So you can draw your own conclusion from all that. In terms of margin guidance, obviously improved margin is coming. As you said, we get actually margin accretion from exiting Europe, which is helpful. But to your point, we introduced obviously our bonus target and outputs and so forth to counter the cost. So at a lower sales growth, obviously the leverage in the core business is somewhat restricted.
We have, as Brian pointed out, taken action on costs, so we've reduced our IFC programs and so forth. We haven't played in any interest cost reduction in our guidance, in terms of the cost of the IFC program. We'll see what happens there. And obviously, Roberto Coin is accretive, as we pointed out when we released the, the, the acquisition data, coming in at around the 20% EBIT margin.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question on today's call, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star followed by two. If you have joined us online, please click the Q&A tab and type in your question. Our next question today comes from John Cox from Kepler. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks. John with Kepler here. Just a question on the CapEx guidance. Do one of you just elaborate a little bit on that, and whether you think that this sort of step down is likely to be not just next year, but actually going forward. Because I was under the impression that you're renovating about 20% of your shop network every year, which leads to a 10% uplift within those stores. But where does that leave that program if you're talking about maybe GBP 10-20 million lower than expected CapEx going for the next couple of years? Thank you.
So what we've done, we've obviously looked at all of our investment programs for the next 12 months. And Europe, as Brian pointed out, has come out, so there is obviously a reduction in that space, that's not included in the guidance. And then we've looked at some of the smaller projects that aren't well exactly, but we said we might want to take a different view on timing of those until we see conditions improve. So I don't think it's a permanent reset in that sense. We're continuing the entire program on anything that is core. That is to say, underwritten by brands that we know will deliver the profitability. So that's what's impacting this year.
Okay. I wonder if we just have a follow-up back to the Rolex CPO. You said it's your second biggest brand. Am I right in thinking then that you're moving towards Rolex CPO is somewhere around 10% of group revenue at the moment? I'm talking about on a month-to-month basis, not for the year as just gone FY 2024, but that's what you're approaching at the moment?
... Pre-owned in total is not far off that level of penetration, but, you know, the curve we can see is accelerating quite encouraging. It's somewhat exponential, I assume, which is good. But it's now the second biggest category or brand in our portfolios as well.
I'm just trying to get. Yeah. Go on.
Sorry, John, I was just gonna add to it. Obviously, we took some what some may be very good moves in the area of pre-owned when we acquired Analog Shift in the U.S. It gave us great expertise and great credibility in that category, and really positioned us well for how things then developed, and in particular, with the introduction of Rolex CPO. It's a great program, Rolex CPO. It's very well managed by them. We in partnership with them have built up resources to handle the reconditioning of product and the guaranteeing of products. We've invested in training in other areas. So we've been doing a lot to really, you know, get behind that business opportunity.
But, you know, a lot of good things fell in place, and, you know, I think in particular, the Analog:Shift acquisition that we did some years ago has, you know, really given us a great benefit in the term.
Yeah, I was, I was just interested in this exponential growth. So I, I'm just trying to get a handle, like, you know, by the end of the 2025, can we, can we assume maybe your monthly sales of Rolex CPO are actually approaching 20% of group revenue?
Yeah. It, there's a lot of moving parts to it, John, that we're having to manage. Obviously, the sourcing of product and then the processing of product with our partners at Rolex, for the reconditioning and guaranteeing. There's, you know, added distribution that's happening not only with us, but in the market overall. So, you know, we have, as yet, we don't have, you know, branded in-store furniture or in-store presence or particular marketing behind CPO at that point, which obviously should then be beneficial. But a lot of moving parts going on. So, you know, the comments that we've given so far are the best that we could say. But it clearly is a really encouraging area of growth for the benefit of authorized retailers like us.
Great trends and better than what we had predicted.
Okay. And then just a last one on the so-called tourist tax. I'm just wondering, do you feel that you're, you know, being penalized in terms of international buyers, maybe preferring to have a look in Germany and France? Obviously, the Chinese, you know, are supposed to be coming back. Do you think you're missing out on some of that business? And I wonder if you've had any discussions about that tax being revoked potentially after another election with the Labor Party at all?
Well, then, thanks for asking, because it is a really important subject, I think, for retail overall in the UK and hospitality and other aspects of tourism. So it's something that we've been as supportive and active on as we possibly can to see the UK is hugely missing out as an economy. Tourists have, post-COVID, certainly from the US and Middle East and elsewhere, have come back, but the real concentration of where they've gone to, where they've been spending money has been in the EU and countries, France, Portugal, Germany, Italy, all hugely benefiting and absolutely the UK missing out. It does disproportionately impact on luxury within retail, but it's not only luxury.
So, we're involved in supporting a lot of the lobbying activity and providing data and input and helping where we can in any of the press interest that there is in the category. But I haven't dealt directly with any of the government representatives on it. Our view remains that it's inevitable that it changes. The statistics are becoming more and more evident to everybody, and it was always our view that when the actuals start to happen, then of the differential that there was in the government's assessment versus the retail industry's assessment would have, you know, would have been reconciled, and everybody would have seen the facts and the impact. So that's clearly happening. There's some really good press attention in the area.
We think it's inevitable, but will a change of government help, help that, if that's what transpires in November? Possibly. But the country really needs growth, as we all know, and here's an area that, that we're actually doing the opposite rather than pursuing growth. So we think it's inevitable, but very difficult to predict when, and in the meantime, we are, we haven't included any change in legislation in any of our projections, including the LRP.
Great. Thank you.
No problem.
Our next question today comes from Alison Sherwood from Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open. Please proceed.
Thanks. Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Two hopefully quite quick ones from me. First one, just on inventory and working capital. You've obviously come in ahead of guidance on cash position, so just wondering if you could talk a little bit about where inventory closed this year and whether you're comfortable with the kind of composition of the inventory that you are holding. And then I suppose, think about next year, how should we be expecting kind of working capital and inventory to trend, particularly conscious you're kind of moving more into the jewelry side of the business? And then second, just how you're thinking about kind of the fixed cost profile of the business at this stage.
Are you happy with kind of the, you've got the infrastructure and capabilities in place you need, and, and just whether there's anything we should be mindful of in terms of investment going in or, or cost pressures as we think about next year?
... Thank you.
Sure. So, yeah, we're happy with our inventory position, as we close the year, as you can see from our cash position. So obviously, we've been working to adjust. We bought into more stock in anticipation of a better Christmas, and we rolled through that, and we're in good shape exiting the year, so no issue on that. In terms of working capital for FY 25, as indicated, you know, pre-owned as a segment turns a bit slower than new products because you have the refurbishment cycle that you need to go through. So working capital is gonna hold pretty much where it is, yes. I don't think it's gonna deteriorate that much year-on-year, so I don't think it's gonna be material as a percentage of our sales.
If you look at the fixed cost, we have a really good and solid infrastructure in the business that we've proven that we can scale up and down, if needed. So really not a big deal in terms of necessary investments. We have done an investment in the US, where we've gone into new corporate office, which is, you know, partially in this year. And it's gonna be a little bit of cost coming into next year, but nothing material. It's essentially rent. So I think it's the infrastructure is pretty good, actually. So-
Great. Thank you.
Our next question today comes from Edouard Aubin, from Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning, Brian, and Anders. So just sorry to come back on the guidance, you had a few questions already, but just to clarify things. If I, you know, do the math, if I just take 2022 numbers for Roberto Coin, you know, it take 11 months, 20% EBIT margin. Basically, your guidance, if my math is correct, implies that the underlying business should have a post, an EBIT margin of about 8.3%-8.5%, versus your guidance for last year of 8.6%-8.8%. So first of all, is the math more or less, you know, correct? Number one. Number two, if it is, you know, why again, the margin pressure in fiscal 2025 versus fiscal 2024?
In terms of Europe, will it lead to increased margin pressure or lower margin pressure? Because you know, will your startup costs you know potentially diminish related to that? And then on the guidance for the legacy business, so to speak, underlying business, how medium to long you know long term, how do you see things you know if margin is gonna go down in 25? So that's kind of a first and long question. The second question is much shorter, just to come back on what you said, Brian. I think you know during Q3, you talked about a bit of weakness in terms of demand in the U.K. and maybe in the U.S., for mid-price, kind of brands you know in the $3,000-$6,000 type of dollars of price.
So, should we understand that demand is now a bit stronger or was a bit stronger in Q4 versus Q3 for this type of product? Thank you.
So your question on margin, and we haven't broken out it by segment, but clearly, as part of our acquisition of Roberto Coin, we're gonna revitalize some investment into marketing behind that brand. Which I think is gonna benefit it on a longer-term basis. So as I said, you know, we haven't been that specific, and using 2022 numbers, I would be cautious on, because obviously, that was the year of restocking, as we pointed out when we announced the transaction. So 2023 is probably a better base to start from. And on that basis, we only have 11 months of the business incorporated. And we're gonna, you know, obviously assess our distribution network and work with our partners and so forth.
That could be, and we planned it conservatively in the sense that that could be a small number of retailers that view ownership as an issue, which we've seen in other acquisitions of brands like Four Tops and so forth. So we've been relatively conservative, but we also put in some resources behind relaunching the brand in the U.S. to drive it higher.
Yeah, Edward, and yeah, and I listen, along with the industry overall, we're taking you know, a cautious approach to the year, a conservative approach to the year. I think that hopefully that comes over strongly in what we're doing. And in terms of the mid-price, I think we've commented recovery in jewelry and some of the mid-price products as well, showing you know, signs of more encouraging trends as we get into the full summer here. So I think inevitably, yes, this is a great space. The kind of regional market in the UK has been forever was disproportionately impacted by combination of pricing and cost of living concerns. And of course, that will settle down.
The brands know that they can't really push pricing any further. The Swiss bank situation stabilized as well. So all of the indications are that things will be moving back in a positive alignment for that category in the year ahead.
Understood. Sorry, and just a small follow-up on fiscal 2025 EBIT. In terms of Europe, is it gonna be an incremental, you know, drag or an incremental positive because startup losses could go down a bit, so, you know, fiscal 2024 to fiscal 2025 in Europe?
Well, I think we've already taken the decision. It's been booked in this fiscal year as an exceptional exit cost. And actually, it's gonna be accretive going into next year, because with the overhead and support structure that Brian alluded to, that business wasn't particularly profitable as it's-
... some slight losses coming through. So it's gonna be positive from a margin perspective. Sales-wise, it's obviously a bit of a decline about GBP 10 million or so, but it's not, you know, something that's material. But the offset against that is the reintroduction of bonuses and outlays departed. So it washes sort of its face with the two positive cash.
Okay, thanks. Thank you.
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Good morning. Just one, one follow-up on the pre-owned business. So can you throw some color on what the margin structure is today for the business? Thank you.
Yeah, we've said that this business as we grow, we expect to have a neutral impact on our profitability. The P&L is a little different, and the gross margin, we realize a wee bit less than our average, but then we spend less overhead on it. So when you get to EBITDA level, it's pretty much a wash. I think the important thing to recognize, though, is the average selling price that we're selling pre-owned at, which is actually very positive to our average. And so the actual profitability by transaction or in terms of space is a positive impact on EBITDA in that sense. But the percentages, I could describe a wee bit less margin, but bottom line, pretty neutral impact. No problem.
That concludes the Q&A session on today's call, and I'll hand back over to Brian Duffy for closing remarks.
Thanks, Sarah, and thanks again everybody for joining. You know, we reiterate the views continually that people have picked up on, but I think it just describes where we're at of cautious optimism going into the year. We have some positive trends. We have fantastic projects to look forward to delivering and hopefully exceeding expectations on. Thrilled about what we can do with the aftercare clean, thrilled about the trend that we're enjoying on pre-owned. And the mega projects we've got coming up, like Rolex in Bond Street, like the AP House in Manchester, like the big Rolex boutique we'll be opening in Atlanta, Georgia, and a number of other mega projects in the US. We think we've got an exciting year ahead. It's a great category.
We really respect and support the way the industry is responding to the conditions that we're in. You know, we think the reset is, you know, lastly behind us, overall. So cautiously optimistic and appreciate your interest and support, and huge thanks again to our colleagues for the amazing job that they do and supporting and representing our business and our great brand partners. Thank you.
That concludes today's call. You may now disconnect your line.