Morning, everyone. I'm Brian Duffy, the CEO of the Watches of Switzerland Group. Thank you for joining our presentation and call on the fiscal year 2023 results for our group. Our agenda today is an update from me, then Craig Bolton, President of U.K. and Europe, will add more color and detail on the U.K. and Europe businesses. Then David Hurley, President of North America and Deputy CEO, will do the same for his division. And then our CFO, Anders Romberg, will present the financial review of fiscal year 2023 and our outlook for fiscal year 2024, following which we'll open the lines for your questions. Fiscal year 2023 was a very gratifying year.
We achieved record sales of GBP 1.543 billion, which was +25% on prior year, and a record EBIT of GBP 165 million, which was +27% on the prior year. We also continued to deliver excellent returns on capital employed, reflecting our ongoing investment in the business. Our ROCE for the year was 27.9%, which is 50 bps up on the prior year. We were very busy expanding our international network, opening 28 showrooms and upgrading and elevating a further 13 showrooms. We have continued to execute our strategy well, and we are comfortably ahead of our long-range plan that we first presented to you all in July 2021.
We've started a new financial year with real momentum, having already completed on a number of new showroom projects in the 1st quarter, coupled with a strong pipeline of further showroom projects to come in the balance of the year and into the next financial year. In addition to our exciting organic growth ambitions, we also continue to actively explore additional acquisition investment opportunities in both the U.S. and E.U. Overall, the many avenues for growth that we can see leave us feeling confident about our prospects in both the short and medium term. As for the current market trends, these are pretty much in line with the second half of last financial year. This was the basis of our previously announced fiscal year 2024 guidance.
Demand for luxury watches remains strong across all of our markets, and we continue to extend our registrations of interest lists. We are, as ever, focused on all areas of ESG and in ensuring we optimize the impact we have. I was delighted to see that our ambition and intent reflected in the recently announced AAA rating from MSCI. Turning to the market for luxury Swiss watches in the regions in which we operate. The market continues to deliver strong growth, but this is at a more normalized level versus the exceptional growth witnessed in the last couple of years.
Swiss watch exports latest data for May year to date shows that the global number one market, which is the US, in this market, exports grew at 12% on prior year, versus the record growth of 37% in the prior year. The U.K. is the number five global market, but the number one market in terms of domestic consumption per capita. Exports to the U.K. grew by 8%, whereas year-on-year growth in 2022 was 31%. In the E.U., growth was also 8% this year, and last year grew at 24%. Looking at the jewelry market, this chart shows the six-year trends and the relative sizes of the U.S., U.K., and E.U. jewelry markets. Market growth has been very strong in the U.S. over the past six years and more moderate in both U.K. and E.U.
The U.S. is by far the number one market on a per capita basis. The U.K., the leading market in Europe. The long-term trend towards branded jewelry from commodity jewelry continues. We are very pleased with the consistency and sustainability of our results for the period from fiscal year 2016 through to last year, which show our revenue growth CAGR of 19% and an adjusted EBIT growth CAGR of 37% over this period. This demonstrates the strength of our markets, our customer proposition, and our operating leverage. As shown on this slide, we are more than GBP 200 million ahead of our long-range plan after two years. This excludes the benefit of FX. We look forward to providing an update of our LRP, which will take out to 2028, and we'll present that during the autumn.
Looking at the geographical split of our business, the U.S. is growing from 24% of sales in fiscal year 2019 to now 42% of sales, and we expect that percentage to continue to grow over time. Where we are in terms of the proportion of revenues from the U.S. is well ahead of where we expected to be at the time we published our 1st long-range plan. This speaks to the huge success that we've had, and continue to have, in expanding our presence in what is a fragmented and underinvested, growth market in the U.S. The second layer of the pie chart shows that we are a predominantly local resident business in the U.K. and U.S., although it's pleasing to see our airport business is clearly coming back.
Our business model is based on the strength and quality of our brand partnerships, this chart shows that the proportion of sales from the top eight brands shown in the lower box increased to 77% in fiscal year 2023. We continue to actively participate in the international watch and jewelry fairs. We work more and more with our brand partners, doing, for example, amazing hospitality events and exclusive product. Last year, we both participated in the GPHG Awards judging, then exclusively exhibited the winning pieces in our New York showroom in Soho. Our Xenia client experience program continues to develop positively, impacting conversion, repeat buying, and referrals. As this chart shows, client feedback through questionnaires is extremely positive, this is also reflected in the Google and Trustpilot ratings.
Our marketing achieves fantastic impact in the U.K., with a monthly social media reach of nearly 60 million, total annual impressions of 4.4 billion, and total campaign clicks of 36.8 million. In the U.S., where we focus heavily on PR, achieving amazing impressions of almost 10 billion annually, with monthly social impressions of 13.5 million, and campaign impressions of almost 1 billion. Despite the broader experience within the retail sector, I've been delighted with the sustained strength of our online business as we continue to invest in our digital and technology offer for our clientele. Our virtual boutique of trained sales colleagues, assisting clients shopping and inquiring online, continues to be a great success, achieving very good online conversion and very positive client feedback.
We are building the team in Fort Lauderdale to provide the same service in the US. This contributed to a growth in our e-commerce sales of 3% against the prior year, and e-commerce now represents 6% of our group sales, compared to 4% in the year prior to the pandemic. Additionally, our in-store staff support client shopping online through our web-enabled system, which continues to grow. Our pre-owned businesses in both U.K. and U.S., had a very strong year and combined, almost doubled in sales, versus the prior year. We were also able to maintain pricing and margins in contrast to the wider secondary market. We have had teams working closely with our friends in Rolex, in the U.K. and U.S., to prepare for the launch of Rolex-certified pre-owned.
This will go live next week in the U.S. and in September in the U.K. We are optimistic about the potential of CPO in future years, building on our long-standing partnership with Rolex. We have been very active on the ESG agenda. Our colleagues' engagement scores at 81% are very, very good for retail, and our colleagues are very active with our group, whether in listening forums or volunteering with our foundation programs. We applaud the Watch & Jewellery Initiative 2030 and the leadership shown by Cyrille Vigneron of Cartier and Marie-Claire Daveu of Kering. We have joined this program as affiliate members, and we are encouraging all of our suppliers to join. We are utilizing the EcoVadis system to review and manage all of our suppliers.
We are pleased that the great progress that we have made in all ESG matters resulted in a AAA rating from MSCI and positive progress on all other ratings. I'm also very proud of the continued work of the foundation. The Watches of Switzerland Group has donated GBP 6 million to the foundation to date, and GBP 1.5 million in fiscal year 2023. The foundation trustees have approved donations across the U.K. and the U.S. to a number of charities, including food banks, the Fuel Bank Foundation here in the U.K., Crisis for the Homeless, The Prince's Trust, U.K. and U.S., and Habitat for Humanity in the U.S. I'll now pass over to Craig.
Thank you, Brian. Hello, my name is Craig Bolton. I'm the President for the U.K. and Europe, and I'd like to update you on the significant developments we've been executing here in the U.K. and in Europe. FY 2023 was a busy period for new showroom developments and major refurbishments, having opened 15 new showrooms and refurbished an additional 12 within the fiscal year. It has also been a busy period for us, developing a pipeline of major projects for FY 2024 and beyond. Our focus remains on creating welcoming, non-intimidating, browsable spaces within a modern, contemporary, and luxurious design, with a clear focus on client experience and hospitality. We've continued the rollout of our Goldsmiths luxury design, recently completing a significant development in Cribbs Causeway Shopping Center, Bristol. The images here show the scale of the transformation from what was our previous design to the new concept.
The new showroom is anchored by a large Rolex-branded room, along with large branded areas for OMEGA, Hublot, Grand Seiko, and Panerai. This development also allowed us to open new mono-brand boutiques for Breitling and TUDOR within the mall. We completed the City of Bristol recently with the major relocation of our Goldsmiths in Cabot Shopping Centre. We have now opened a Breitling boutique in the same location. The new Goldsmiths concept is continuing to trade well and transform how our clients experience our brands and products. We will continue this rollout into FY 2024, with major transformations planned in malls such as the Trafford Centre in Manchester and Bullring in Birmingham.
During FY 2023, we developed a new design for Mappin & Webb, focused on more modern, contemporary design, while respecting the great heritage of the brand. Here you can see the previous location of Mappin & Webb in York, which was the last of the Fraser Hart showrooms we acquired, yet to be refurbished. We have relocated onto Davygate in York, significantly increasing our footprint with this beautiful new showroom, accommodating a large Rolex room, a new fine jewelry gallery, and branded areas for TUDOR, Hublot, and BVLGARI. This new design, first of its kind, launched on the June 30th . Early trading and client feedback is very pleasing. Further rollout of this new concept will take place during FY 2024.
In October 2022, we successfully opened in the new Battersea development, with a Watches of Switzerland showroom anchored by Rolex and Cartier, as well as four mono-brand boutiques with our brand partners, OMEGA, Breitling, TUDOR, and TAG Heuer. To date, trading has been in line with expectations. Following this launch, we have continued with the elevation of our Watches of Switzerland showrooms. Here you can see the original showroom in the Stratford Mall, London, now expanded and relocated to this amazing presentation. The expansion of our U.K. mono-brand boutique division continued. In FY 2023, we opened 14 new boutiques, including recently opening Breitling boutiques in York and Leicester. Total number of mono-brand boutiques in the U.K. at the end of FY 2023 is 51, with further developments planned for FY 2024. Work continues in progressing the design for the new Rolex boutique on Old Bond Street, London.
The lease is signed and possession planned in October 2023, with opening in summer 2024. I'm also delighted to announce we will be expanding our current Rolex boutique in Glasgow, with work commencing April 2024. As recently announced, we plan to enter into a joint venture agreement with Audemars Piguet to open a townhouse in King Street, Manchester. This very exciting project is planned to open in autumn 2024. In Europe, FY 2023 saw us open 6 new mono-brand boutiques. In Stockholm, we opened 2 boutiques with Breitling, one on the High Street and one in the Mall of Scandinavia. In December 2022, we opened our 1st OMEGA boutique in Stockholm. In Copenhagen, we opened boutiques with OMEGA and Breitling. More recently, we opened our 1st TAG Heuer boutique in Dundrum, the Republic of Ireland.
Since the start of FY 2024, we have now opened TAG Heuer boutiques in Mall of Scandinavia and in Berlin. I look forward to updating you further as we progress our refurbishment and expansion program in FY 2024, both U.K. and in Europe. Travel retail passenger numbers continue to improve towards pre-COVID levels at Heathrow and Gatwick, and our retail business continues to grow also. We still believe strongly in the travel retail business and remain optimistic that sometime in the future, a form of duty-free will return in the U.K. We continue to look for further opportunities to elevate our business at both Heathrow and Gatwick. To support Rolex Certified Pre-Owned, and all luxury watches, we intend to further grow our capacity for after-sales and servicing via expanding our Manchester service center, as well as opening a new service center facility in Leicester.
Leicester service center will be operating by the end of calendar year 2023. The overall client experience continued to be a focus throughout FY 2023, with a significant event program ranging from factory tours to watch manufacture visits, through to intimate dinners and money-can't-buy experiences. In total, we held 169 events and entertained over 7,500 clients. FY 2024 will continue to see a focus on client experience and an elevation in our event program. All of the successes achieved could not be possible without a great team of colleagues in both retail and support services, working fantastically well as a team and delivering on our strategic objectives. I'd like to hand over to David Hurley.
Thank you, Craig. Good morning, everyone. My name is David Hurley. I'm the President of North America and Deputy CEO, and I'll give you an update on our U.S. business. I'm very proud of our team's ongoing growth in the U.S. market. We've gone from just over $100 million to just less than $800 million of revenue in five years. Starting from the acquisition of Mayors and the takeover of luxury watches retail in the Wynn Las Vegas in FY 2018, and our first standalone Watches of Switzerland stores in FY 2019, we've grown the business consistently year-on-year through renovations, acquisitions, mono-brand expansion, e-commerce, and new categories like pre-owned with our acquisition of Analog Shift. We've continued our mono-brand expansion into FY 2023, opening Breitling and TAG boutiques in Lenox, Atlanta.
We already have a Mayors and Audemars Piguet boutiques in Lenox, as well as an additional Mayors boutique in Alpharetta, just outside the city, and have further plans for expansion in the Atlanta market over the next few years. In August, we opened up Grand Seiko and TAG Heuer boutiques at Copley Square in the heart of Boston, and finally, Breitling and TAG Heuer boutiques in Boca Raton, where we've recently renovated and expanded our Mayors boutique. The integration of Betteridge is now successfully complete. Each of the markets we've entered, Greenwich, Vail, and Aspen, are very affluent, and we've embedded a new management team to lead the continued development in these markets. For the flagship Greenwich location, we've added an additional 2,500 sq ft on the ground floor and another 2,000 sq ft on the lower ground.
The fully refurbished boutique will be anchored by Rolex and Patek Philippe, with Patek opening early next calendar year. In Plano, Texas, we have a new flagship corner space secured with Rolex and Cartier adding to the current brand lineup.
Our new Watches of Switzerland showroom opened at the start of the new fiscal year, with Cartier due to open prior to the end of the first quarter. We've been really pleased by the initial sales and the strength of our team. We have also opened our relocated and expanded Dadeland showroom, anchored by Rolex, and with new brand introductions for Cartier and Chanel. Our store development teams will continue to be kept busy through FY 2024, with new mono-brand stores in New Orleans and Salt Lake City, a relocation and expansion of our Rolex boutique in Orlando, our third New York Watches of Switzerland store, and our Tampa Mayors boutique being expanded and relocated between Louis Vuitton and Tiffany. Vintage and pre-owned was our fastest growth category in FY 2023, and that has continued into FY 2024, with Rolex CPO launching in the U.S. next week.
Lots to be delivered in FY 2024 in the U.S., and with that, I'll pass you on to Anders.
Thank you, David. FY 2023 was another year of record revenue. Sales came in at GBP 1.54 billion, or +25% on FY 2022. That is 19% in constant currency. This takes us north of GBP 200 million ahead of our long-range plan, which we shared with you during the summer of 2021. Sales was driven by luxury watches, with an increase in average selling price. Our adjusted EBIT of GBP 165 million, or +27% on FY 2022. We continued to leverage our cost base in spite of inflation and the benefit of U.K. rates holiday, worth around GBP 5 million in FY 2022. Our adjusted EBIT margin expanded to 10.7% or up 20 basis points on FY 2022. Our free cash flow was GBP 146 million, or +30% on prior year.
Free cash flow conversion came in at 72%. Return on capital employed hit a new record level of 27.9%. Turning to the income statement in more detail. As mentioned, revenue grew by 25% or 19% in constant currency. Pricing contributed around 9% of our growth, with most brands taking the recommended retail price up to offset cost pressure. Net margin percentage declined by 60 basis points due to product mix, with luxury watches outperforming jewelry. We also had an adverse impact of the cost of interest-free credit as interest rates went up during the year. The margin pressure was partially offset by a reduction in promotional discounts. We continued to leverage our cost base, so adjusted EBITDA came in flat on prior year, at 13.1% or +24%.
Our adjusted EBIT margin expanded by 20 basis points, and adjusted EBIT for FY 2023 came in at GBP 165 million. Our effective tax rate for the year was 21.4%, or up 60 basis points on FY 2022, due to a higher mix of group profits in the U.S. and increased U.K. corporate tax rates at the end of FY 2023. Adjusted EPS at GBP 0.527 or +26% on prior year. Our balance sheet is strong. Continued investment in expansionary capital to elevate the network and drive future growth remains a key component of our strategy. Inventory levels was up 18%, less than sales growth. The increase in inventory also was impacted by higher unit costs because of pricing from our suppliers.
Worth to point out is that when wholesale prices go up, the recommended retail price moves in line. We also benefit from the stock on hand when prices increase, as we have bought it in at a lower price, but we can sell it at a higher recommended retail price. We closed the year with net cash of GBP 16 million versus a net debt of GBP 14 million in FY 2022. Our free cash flow for the year was GBP 146 million, with a cash flow conversion of 72% or +300 basis points on FY 2022. We continued our investment in an elevation program and spent GBP 68 million of expansionary capital during the year. The acquisition is mainly related to the acquisition of one showroom from Bernie Robbins in New Jersey.
On the 9th of May, we replaced our old facilities with a new revolving credit facility, increasing the liquidity headroom by GBP 55 million. There is no change to our guidance for FY 2024. Our guidance is based on visibility of supply of key brands and includes confirmed projects, but excludes any uncommitted projects and acquisitions. Sales are expected to come in between GBP 1.65 billion and GBP 1.7 billion, or +8% to 11% in constant currency. Our adjusted EBIT margin is expected to be in line with FY 2023. Product mix, we expect luxury watches to outperform jewelry, and increased cost of interest-free credit are the main drivers of this. We expect further leverage on our cost base in FY 2024. We will continue our investment program and expect to spend between GBP 70 million and GBP 80 million on capital in the year.
Our cash conversion is planned to come in at circa 70%. With that, I will hand over to Brian for a summary.
Thank you, Anders. Thank you to Craig and David, too, for your presentations. In summary, a great year, fiscal year 2023. Record sales, record profits, record ROCE. Our growth strategies and business models are working in all markets. We have no change to our previously announced guidance. Long-range plan through fiscal year 2028, we are planned to present to you in the autumn. We're making great progress on ESG, making great progress in the Watches of Switzerland Group Foundation. Finally, and most importantly, a massive thank you to our 2,800 colleagues for the great job they've done this year. Ever inspiring, great work, and they deserve the credit for what's been a very successful year. With that, I'll now hand over to questions.
Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please do press star one to register your question. Please also ensure your mute function is not activated, light signals with your equipment. Once again, please press star one for questions. Our very first question today is coming from Antoine Belge, calling from BNP Exane. Please go ahead.
Yes, hi. Good morning, everyone. It's Antoine at BNP Exane. Three questions, if I may. First of all, in the previous conference call, you had mentioned that the first quarter would show a modest sales decline. Is that still the case? To what extent you're, I don't know, a bit more optimistic or a bit less on that number compared to last time? Second question is about the dynamics of the wait list. Here I'm not talking about necessarily, you know, the how long they are, but more how people react when they are called. I mean, are you still seeing some people maybe, you know, postponing a bit their purchases? Any update on that?
Finally, you have a guidance of flat margins. I've noticed that the not the only one that the pound sterling had strengthened, but yet you're maintaining the guidance in values. You know, are there some sort of offsetting factors? More in general, if the you know, if what sort of top line is required, you know, as a minimum to reach that flat margin guidance? Thank you very much.
Thanks, Antoine, good morning. We're not gonna say anything more specifically on Q1 trading. We've confirmed our guidance overall. If you recall, what we'd indicated before about Q1 being modest decline was based upon delivery schedule from our key partners and some, you know, very tough year-on-year comp. None of that has effectively changed, and we are confirming our guidance and, you know, can't really say anything else about Q1 overall at this point. Wait list behavior hasn't changed either. We're still adding more people to the registration of interest list than we're taking off.
Demand remains very, very strong and positive. Consumer behavior really hasn't changed from anything I've indicated in the last couple of calls that we've had. Anders, do you want to talk about margin?
Yeah, sure. We expect, as we pointed out, margin to come in line with FY 2023 for FY 2024. That's driven by a more solid growth in luxury watches than we expect to see come through in jewelry. We're gonna have a headwind from interest-free credit in the first half, and then we start annualizing higher interest rates in the second. More impact in the first versus second. In terms of FX, obviously, we haven't changed the range from 1.65-1.7, so we have, you know, cover to come in at that at current rates. We do reforecast our sales and profits on a weekly basis and are confident about our guidance.
Maybe just to follow up, I mean, I, in terms of area of cost where you could have some flexibility, you know, are there some, and, you know, are there around, things like, I don't know, marketing or more structural, you know, cost savings that you could achieve in case, you know, the overall environment would, you know, prove a bit weaker than anticipated?
I mean, we obviously review our investment strategy as part of our trading meetings, which we again, conduct on a weekly basis. If there's pressure coming in terms of interest, further interest rate hikes that we had planned for some coming through this year, obviously, we will take the appropriate action to offset some of the effect of that.
Antoine, if I could just add that you look at the year that we're reporting, fiscal year 2023, there was a lot of, you know, moving parts in the year. We stuck with our guidance the entire year, and, you know, we are prepared in terms of actions, in terms of contingency and that sort of thing to, you know, make sure that we're giving out guidance that we feel confident we can deliver on it. I think we're looking at a more stable situation than you would have said, you know, with the conditions that we experienced and had to respond to last year.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Cheers.
Thank you, Mr. Belge. Thank you. Sorry about that, sir. Our next question will be coming from Jonathan Pritchard, calling from Peel Hunt. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Two, if I may. Firstly, on interest-free credit, has the percentage of sales going through on interest-free credit changed, and how do you intend to sort of mitigate the impact of further interest rate rises making that a more expensive offer? Secondly, on Europe, is there a pipeline at all? I know you've talked a lot about acquisitions, but just looking out sort of 18 or 24 months, is there a pipeline of stores that you can you have, or are we sort of settling at seven for the time being, having a look and hoping for acquisitions?
Well, I'll take the interest-free. We have planned for a base rate increase in our guidance. If rates were to climb even further, obviously, we would take as we pointed out actions on our other cost base to offset that. We think that in the U.S., probably rates will not continue to move upwards. We don't see that as a risk here in the U.K. Clearly, there is the potential of further rate increases, and we have monitored that and come up with a list of offsets that we should take action on if that was to occur. In terms of the penetration of interest-free credit remains pretty much in line with what we experienced last year.
On Europe, John, we are very kind of pleased with our progress in Europe with the stores that we've opened. You know, our analysis of the market was that it was underinvested in terms of, you know, retail and support of, you know, marketing. I think we've proven that to be the case with the stores that we've opened in Stockholm and in Copenhagen, and now add to that Dublin and Berlin. I think we've proven our contention. Our strategy was always to have, you know, full presence of our model in Europe, which, you know, would include representing all of our key brand partners.
We think we would really only achieve that effectively through acquisition, so it's been a key part of our strategy alongside the development of mono-brand. There are other opportunities for mono-brand development that we continue to look at. We would like to be able to progress and deliver on an acquisition, and obviously, we're actively working on it. Once we're fully present, then there's other opportunities. There's airport retail, there's e-com, and there's a full suite, if you like, of a flexible response of, you know, retailing that we could do for the market. Feeling positive about Europe and want to do more than we're doing at the moment.
Okay, lovely. Thank you very much.
Yes.
We'll now go to Jon Cox, calling from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning, guys. I have some questions on the sort of the pre-owned market. You mentioned it doubled for you during the year, can you give us an absolute figure in terms of group revenue, where you are? I'm guessing somewhere close to 10% of group revenue is maybe in the pre-owned watches. Just a follow-on. I think it is really great news, the whole Rolex certification scheme. Can you just sort of talk through the dynamics? I guess you've had a lot of watches in that you've been buying. You've sent them off to Rolex, I'm just wondering about the lead times and the process. I'm wondering if ultimately, do you think you would actually be doing the certification?
I understand there is quite a big bottleneck at Rolex at the moment, which obviously will cap, you know, potential sales from that scheme. Obviously, if you could do the certification, that would probably be very helpful. Thanks very much.
We're very pleased with our progress on pre-owned. Obviously, in the U.S., we bought Analog Shift, who are, you know, great guys and a great brand, and we've really built that very effectively here in the U.K. We've expanded our abilities to both procure and, you know, rework and present a pre-owned product. It's nowhere near 10%, though. It's, and we'll not give it out an exact number, but if you go back a couple of years, we're reporting that pre-owned was only 1% of our sales. You're pretty far off of 10%. We have very high ambitions for CPO with Rolex. You know, effectively, Rolex are directing that whole activity to authorized retailers like us.
It will increase the supply of Rolex effectively to our clients and representation in store. You're right that, you know, just working out all the logistics and processes are the key priorities right now. We've a good experience so far, where we've given watches, they've been authenticated, they're back with us again, all been on schedule. There's been a great deal of preparation done. The first experience we're going to have is in the U.S. next week, that will happen. Experience so far is watches given turnaround in the timeframe that was indicated and back with us again, and we are now, you know, working on the in-store presentation and distribution.
We are not experiencing a bottleneck, but, you know, we have to see how all these logistics work. You know, will we authenticate and refurb the watches in time? It's our assumption that we will. Maybe it'll happen quicker in the U.S. than in the U.K., would be my bet, but it's as Rolex being appropriately careful as they always are, and doing something that's significant for the market. They're just 100% making sure that everything as it should be, they are doing all of the authentication and refurb. Effectively, we've managed to take some work away from them by extending our capability of rework and so on, for other for new Rolex products that have been just serviced.
We've kind of created our own capacity. We are feeling good about it all, and I think it's fair to say that we would anticipate at some point in the future that, yeah, we would be doing the authentication and refurb work and slow down, or speed up rather, that whole process of getting product back to market. We feel very, very positive about the prospects for Rolex CPO and other brands in the years ahead, and it will feature obviously in our long-range plan.
At the moment, if I walk into one of your stores with a Rolex, I can sell it to you on the spot?
You're always good.
Because.
You're always-
You're always good. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Yeah, you're always good, and what we supplemented it with is we have a team doing online. A lot of this activity is digital, so we have a team doing valuations online, which, and in the U.K., all of our product today is coming directly from consumers. In the U.S., there are agents around that can supplement. Yes, you can walk in, and we'll value your product, and we have people fully trained to do that, and then we have a kind of centralized export experts. It works very well.
Well, I'm just wondering, are you getting a load of people coming in with their Rolexes, saying they wanna sell it, and then, obviously, if it takes you a lot of time to turn it around, get the Rolex certification, does this have an impact on your inventory, or your sort of like it's tying up cash, for 6 months or 12 months until you can get it back into the store to sell it?
I honestly don't think the working capital element. It's longer than getting supplied by new Rolex product and contacting people on the waiting list and selling it, obviously. We're not really expecting it to be a, you know, significant, you know, working capital issue at all. We're working on the logistics. Rolex is very, very efficient in everything that they do. It's all getting done locally, by the way. It's here in the U.K., it's London. U.S., it's New York. No, we're not expecting it to be a significant drain on working capital or build up of stock at all.
Okay, maybe just a follow-up, maybe more of a technical question. This is on the sort of new relationship, you mentioned with Audemars Piguet, like a joint venture. A) I'm just wondering, you know, how do the financials work on that? Is that more like a royalty payment, or does it come in at the associates line? As an add-on, obviously, AP is doing a lot, you know, doing most of it now. In theory, in-house, is there, you know, room, given the changes in the management at AP to maybe, you know, bring back some of that business into this new model? Maybe, do you see potential, elsewhere with this, with this model?
Is it not something you really want to pursue too much because maybe the profitability is not quite as good as the Group?
You know, the profitability is attractive. The return on investment is attractive. Would we like to own 100% of the store, rather than a significant minority? Yes, but even a significant minority of a AP store is a valuable investment. Obviously, the proportion of the investment is relative to the proportion of the return. They're very good deals for us as a model that Audemars prefer. Obviously, they've been very clear in saying they only want to be in mono-brand situations. They don't want to be in multibrand. We are hopeful, we are hopeful of doing more projects like this with them. This will be our first big one, and it's a big deal in Manchester. It's a beautiful store.
It's a beautiful location. It's a great city. We think we'll do really well. The change in the CEO, obviously, we've got to wait and see if that results in any change in strategy. I'm not anticipating that it would, but you never know. Different CEOs might have different ideas, but it's a hugely successful brand, and its demand hugely exceeding the supply. This AP house that we'll be doing with them, I think will be a really successful and exciting project.
Great. Very helpful. Thank you.
Cheers.
Thank you, Mark. The next question is coming from Natasha Brilliant, coming from Credit Suisse. Thank you.
Hi. Morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Three for me, please. Firstly, M&A perhaps has been a bit slower than we might have anticipated. Just keen to understand why that might be. It strikes me that both the U.S. and Europe are quite fragmented markets, lots of opportunities, perhaps even more in a tougher macro environment. What might be the catalyst for us to see a bit more on the M&A side? Then a couple of questions for Anders. First of all, on, you mentioned cost savings in the event of rate rises. I just wanted to confirm that you'd only execute on those additional cost savings if rates were to be higher than you budgeted for.
In other words, are there scenarios of potential cost savings or upside risk on the margin that you could roll out as the year goes on, even if interest rates are as you expect? The second question, last question for Anders, just since you've rejoined the business, any particular observations or anything that surprised you, any thoughts to share with us? Thank you.
Natasha, hi. The M&A, we were actually ahead of what we put in the long-range plan for M&A, but we did more upfront. Are we working hard on it today to do more U.K., U.S. and Europe? Yes, we are. The opportunity and I think the compelling logic for, you know, scale and as you describe it, I think it is obvious it's a fragmented markets, U.S. and Europe. It remains a big focus. We are not going to change our, you know, financial formula that we've that we're using.
Might there have been an element of some people who are willing to sell in principle, but maybe wanted to, you know, enjoy how, you know, super strong the market was a year ago? Yeah, I think there could have been an element of that, possibly. We're working on it. We'll give you a full update on what we think the potential is when we do the long-range plan, but nothing's changed in terms of the opportunity and our ambition.
In terms of cost savings as well, obviously, we're not wasting money, just to point that out. Obviously, we can have choices to make, whether or not we would engage with a third-party activity that we otherwise would have done and defer that out to a later stage and things like that. It is in sort of those areas. We're not looking at, you know, conducting any restructuring or anything of that nature. We don't see any need for that. The business is performing really well, and, you know, we're in for the long haul. No change in strategy at all in that sense, but it is more about, you know, being picky and choosy about which services we actually go out and acquire.
On your question on observations after my return, obviously, I really enjoy working in this company. That's why I'm back. Really fascinating to come back, I must say. A lot of things has remained the same, we're obviously progressing in the business. I think the recruitment process has been good. We've added some really strong talent in merchandising, which I really enjoyed to see. Finance team remains super strong, all of that has worked out really well. Business in the U.S. continues to grow, you know, fascinating. I love being back.
I just maybe add from our standpoint, Anders seems a bit more relaxed and more suntanned. That's probably the main observation.
You're up to good thing. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, ma'am. Our next question is coming from Kate Calvert, calling from Investec. Please go ahead.
Morning, everyone. A couple from me. The first question is, could you comment on the amount of stock which has gone into your summer sale this year compared to last year and pre-COVID levels? Is it more or similar? My second question is on Mayors. Could you comment on how your refurbishments are performing in terms of payback, and how many have you got left to do? A final question, a bit more technical. Could you just break out your mono-brand expansion this year, the 20-year opening by region, please? Thank you very much.
We are participating in the summer sale as you'll have seen. We've been reporting, you know, more or less since last Christmas that, you know, the jewelry market's been tougher than expected and tougher than what we had planned for when we obviously bought into stock. We have a bit more jewelry stock than is ideal. We have some areas of watch discontinuations as well, where we have the stock and obviously, you know, want to trade through that effectively. We are participating in the summer sale. Historically, we always did.
In fact, the last couple of years, we did too, but we're participating a bit more than we've did over the last couple of years, but still overall, less than what we were doing historically, kind of pre-COVID. It's, you know, we're given reasonable discounts, still very profitable activity, and obviously, you know, it contributes to the sales performance. It's, you know, predominantly in the month of July. Mayors refits, so we've done 7 out of the 13, so we have 6 to go in Mayors. Obviously, the payback on that acquisition has been significantly ahead of what we expected when we acquired them.
The purchase price, as disclosed, was about 8 times trailing EBITDA, and, you know, we haven't specifically said what the payback was, but, way beyond our wildest imagination.
Yeah, also, we would have done all the Mayors month one, if we could have done. It's. When we are refurbing, we do more than refurbing. We tend to expand, we relocate, like we did in Lenox, for example, we relocated, in Merrick Park, we relocated. We look to do more with the stores. We look to get more, you know, brand representation. Then, you know, with those, Rolex design and, you know, everything takes a bit of time. We're looking forward to them all being done. The new formats really work, there's no question, significant increases in traffic, with maintained conversion. You know, that's where the sales upsides are coming from.
On the mono-brand, you know, I don't think we've given a split by region. Overall, I think it'd be that hard to guess. I mean, there are some that we're looking at, it's not that different by region either. If you got it wrong, a wee bit here or there, I don't think it'd make any difference to any models. We continue to roll out. It's the same partners that we're rolling out with overall, it's got good momentum.
Great. Thanks very much.
Thank you very much, ma'am. Ladies and gentlemen, once again, if you have any questions or follow-up questions, please press star one at this time. We'll now go to Adrien Duverger, calling from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. The first one will just be on the visibility of the supply of products, particularly with the reopening of Asia and stronger tourism demand in Europe, especially relative to the U.K. The second one is just within the U.K., do you see any difference in performance between London and the other cities? Do you see any softening of consumer demand or downtrading by consumer price point? I don't have, like, the same question regarding the U.S. What do you see in terms of underlying trends? Anything to call out with regards to traffic or conversion in the U.S.? Thank you.
I, Adrien, thanks for your questions.
... supply of product. The impact of China opening, we don't see what happens in terms of supply, is we get numbers at the start of the year from Rolex, from Patek, and those numbers are always, you know, honored in terms of units. If it ever changes, it's a change upwards, it's never down. You know, I don't think that people are assuming that during lockdown, there was a huge reduction of what was going into China, and now there's a huge increase. I really don't think those dynamics happened. I think it's, you know, as was the experience with us during lockdown, supply was maintained, and actually sales were reasonably maintained as well overall.
I think it's much, much less of a big deal with the with our key brands than might be for for luxury overall. In terms of London regional, the, no, no great change. I mean, I think London still doesn't have the full traffic back in terms of, you know, U.K. tourism coming into London. It's better. West End traffic overall, progressively getting better, but not at pre-COVID levels yet. People aren't still working full time here. I think there's a lot more four-day working happening, three-day, four-day, but still not up to where it was before. Obviously tourism pretty much disappeared when lockdown happened.
There's a bit of it back. Of course, we have the VAT situation here in the U.K., so even with tourists back, we won't be getting the same impact that we did previously because people can shop tax-free in Europe in a way that they can't do here. We haven't experienced them. We're not projecting any significant upturn in the split of our tourist business. Our business in the U.K. remains, you know, 70% at 97% domestic. We have seen an uptake in the airport, and, you know, Heathrow is back and running, I think, pretty efficiently again, from my experience. I'm really pleased for the people there. They've been through an awful lot with the lockdowns and systems issues and whatever.
They now get a good level of traffic. I think they're having a reasonably normal summer, but, I mean, a kind of pre-COVID type summer, overall. Good traffic, good efficiency, hoping that the controllers issues in Europe won't negatively impact that, overall. Traffic's good, retailing is good, Gatwick as well, traffic good and retailing good, and a wee bit better than we might have expected. In the US, you know, I think we're very well positioned geographically. Florida has been, has a great economic response to all of what happened in COVID, so the state is booming. Obviously, that's the biggest part of our business in the US. Vegas is also booming.
It's, you know, a lot happening in Vegas, and we've got a Formula One coming up in November. You know, apart from that, a lot of construction happening, still a lot of expansion. You know, hotel occupancy is very, very high, Vegas has been great. New York, similar to London, you've still not got the number of people back working in New York as it was pre-COVID. Tourism into New York actually is good, similar traffic in Hudson Yards and so are actually very good, and those stores have done wonderfully well for us since we opened them back in 2018, 2019. We're not seeing any real consumer. We've been, what the consumer has done over the last couple of years and continues to do so, is trade upwards.
We're selling more gold, less steel and gold, more steel and gold, less steel. Generally, the consumer is trading upwards, so there's a trend towards yellow gold, but in both watch and jewelry, which is positive for price point. We haven't seen a trade downwards because of, you know, economic concerns and mood.
Mr. De Berger, does that answer your question, sir? Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. As we have no further questions, I turn the call back over to Brian for any additional or closing remarks. Thank you.
Well, thanks everyone again for joining us. You know what? We're very pleased with the year, fiscal year 2023, record sales and profits and return on investment. Thrilled about that and pleased to be maintaining our guidance. We are working on a long-range plan, giving it a great deal of attention, and when we present it to you in autumn, it'll be very much, you know, thought through and our best view of what this, you know, five year period is gonna give us. We're very confident in our sector that said we're in a great place with the luxury watch category, with the jewelry, and within that great place, clearly, our model is working very effectively.
Very pleased in other areas, too, like ESG, where we've made great strides, the work our foundation's doing, the engagement of our employees. Finally, just to our employees, to our colleagues out there, you know, a massive thank you for the continued hard work and focus and positivity that they show. They are a real inspiration, and they take a lot of credit for the performance that we've managed to deliver. Positive all around. Thank you for joining us, and we'll look forward to updating you with the quarterly update following Q1. Thank you.