Ladies and gentlemen, good day, and welcome to the Barbeque Nation Q4 and a full year FY 2023 post-results analyst conference hosted by Ambit Capital. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in listen only mode, and there is an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star and zero on your touchtone phone. Please note this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Amar Kedia from Ambit Capital. Thank you, and over to you.
Thank you, Yashasvini. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Q4 FY23 Earnings Conference Call for Barbeque Nation. We have the management today being represented by Mr. Kayum Dhanani and his team. I will now hand over the call to the management for their opening remarks. After which, we will open it up for Q&A. Over to you, sir.
Thank you. A very good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I take the pleasure in welcoming you to quarter four and full year FY 2023 conference call of Barbeque Nation. FY 2023 was a milestone year for Barbeque Nation brand. The brand crossed between INR 3,000 crores plus annual revenue to become the first Indian food service casual dining restaurant brand to achieve this milestone. Despite the prevailing demand softness across the industry, we reported strong annual growth of 33.4% in our revenues, and 49% growth in our EBITDA. By reflecting the previous year, our team has executed well over our strategy. Our current focus is Barbeque Nation India business, which has grown by over 40% compared to last year with 39 stores additions. After almost 3x growth in FY 2022, our delivery business declined by 16% in FY 2023.
While the order volumes were relatively flat, the average order value declined. We launched a dedicated biryani brand called Dum Safar last year, which is gaining traction and has crossed within INR 2 crores monthly turnover. We found the business continues to deliver strong SSSG, revenue growth, and margins. Similarly, our international business has delivered strong SSSG and EBITDA performance. As a leading food services company, we will continue to invest in our core Barbeque business and organically grow other brands. For example, Toscano is already very close to crossing annual revenue mark of INR 5,000 crores. We also remain focused on continuously enhancing our guest experience through upgraded restaurant designs, elevating culinary experience, and further strengthening service culture. The benefits of these initiatives are evident from our all-time high guest satisfaction index scores every year.
We are also conscious of the prevailing weak demand scenario, our aggressive expansion over the last two years, and its impact on our latest quarter operating margins. Therefore, in the short term, we have reduced our new store opening target in FY 2024 to 20 restaurants. Our focus would be driving SSSG through increasing capacity utilization of our existing Barbeque Nation restaurants and selectively open 20 new stores across Barbeque Nation India. International and Toscano, however, if the situation improves, we will consider accelerating our growth plans as well. Our relentless focus over last year has resulted in creating multiple growth levers for the company, such as Toscano, international business, and delivery vertical. We believe the share of contribution of these businesses will further increase in overall revenue and profitability. This will further strengthen our position as a diversified food services company.
With this, now I hand over to Rahul to take you through the performance in detail. Thank you very much. Over to you, Rahul.
Thank you, Kayum. Good morning, everyone. Our revenue for the year grew by 32.4%, to reach INR 1,234 crores, which was primarily driven by growth in dine-in business offset partially by decline of delivery revenues. Our dine-in revenue grew by 61.6% to reach INR 1,062 crores. Delivery revenues for the year was rupees INR 165 crores, with a decline of 16.5% compared to the previous year. As delivery volumes were flat, the decline in delivery revenues was partly attributed to the lower average order values. Our EBITDA for the year was 27.5%, which was primarily driven by dine-in EBITDA of over 50%.
Against our target of 50 restaurants, we grew the year with 39 new restaurants, taking overall network to 216 restaurants, which includes 196 Barbeque Nation restaurants in India, six Barbeque Nation restaurants in GCC market, and 14 Toscano restaurants. Our consolidated gross margin for the year was 66.3%, compared to 64.6% in FY 2023. Despite the inflationary environment, we were able to improve our gross margin as compared to last year, primarily driven by calculated pricing growth and cost management. EBITDA for the year was INR 639 crores as compared to a reported EBITDA of INR 160 crores in FY 2022. Our reported EBITDA margin improved from 18.6% in the previous year to 19.3% in FY 2023.
Our adjusted EBITDA margin, which is pre-Ind AS of 10.3% during the year, compared to 7% in FY 2023. In FY 2023, we reported adjusted EBITDA of INR 127 crores and cash flow from operations or OCF of INR 115 crores. In terms of our quarterly performance, we recorded a revenue of INR 282 crores in Q4 FY 2023, which is an increase of 11.6%. The increase was primarily led by network expansion. Our same-store quarter was -3.6%. Our dining revenue for the quarter was INR 241 crores, an increase of 15.8%. Our dining visitor frequency was 32.1%, despite a suppressed demand environment.
Our reported EBITDA for the quarter was INR 32 crores, with margins of 15% compared to reported EBITDA margin of 20% in FY 2022. As we ended the year, revenue for the quarter was INR 13 crores with a margin of 0.6%. Our margins for the quarter were impacted due to a combination of declining efficiency and higher mix of less mature restaurants. Our total network of 215 restaurants, 154 restaurants were operating for more than two years and are classified as mature restaurants, and the balance 52 restaurants are classified under new restaurant category. Out of these, 39 restaurants were added only in last one year. Our mature restaurants continue to do well. In FY 2023, our mature restaurants generated annualized revenue of INR 6.65 crores per outlet, despite the prevailing industrial demand softness.
This is 5% lower than our expectation of INR 7 crore per outlet. The restaurant free margins in the portfolio was 19% in FY 2022. We have also got 55 multi-level restaurants business, which is a brand Barbeque Nation dining business, was contributing to almost 97% of our business. We have added additional pillars of growth, such as Toscano International Business and Delivery, which collectively account for almost 25% of our total revenue in FY 2022. Going forward, while Barbeque Nation India business will continue its growth trajectory on higher base, the new verticals are anticipated to grow at faster pace, resulting in further diversification of our revenue contribution in FY 2024 onwards. At macro level, last few quarters have been challenging in terms of demand situation, although we have been aggressively expanding for the last two years, which resulted in short-term margin pressure in our performance.
In the short term, we have reconfirmed our store expansion target to open 20 new restaurants in FY 2024. We'll be focused on driving same-store growth through higher volume and higher capacity utilization. We continue to remain focused on enhancing guest experience through upgraded store design, elevating culinary experience and service culture, thereby becoming a preferred destination for celebrations. On the back of those initiatives, we are experiencing early signs of improvement in terms of month-on-month volume growth, which we think will continue developing and hopefully over the next few quarters. Beginning to long-term growth story as our company remains intact. Our growth going forward will be driven by aggressive expansion-led growth in Barbeque Nation and Toscano business, alongside growth in international business, coupled with increase in average billings sales of both BBQ and Toscano. Thank you. We can open the session for Q&A now.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question, may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking questions. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the questions are assembled. We have our first question from the line of Kapil Jagasia from Nuvama Wealth Research. Please go ahead.
Just rechecking the restaurant guidance which you have given, 20 restaurants. Is this 20 Barbeque restaurants and plus five Toscano restaurants and plus the international restaurants, which you gave in the presentation, or it is 12 Barbeque and plus eight Toscano restaurants? What would be the number? Please help me with this.
Thank you. Today, we are looking at 20 restaurants, consolidated, which is including, Toscano and Barbeque International. As you mentioned, you know, we'll watch this for couple of quarters, and if things, you know, improves, then we can also create different options.
Okay. This would be on gross basis, right?
This is the 20 new restaurants, yes.
Okay, perfect. Could you just help us with what all promotion activities the company has undertaken to increase the footfalls over the last six months or so? Has these had a positive impact on the increasing footfalls for this independent nine months?
Yes. As I said, there is a lot of focus on improving the guest experience and lot of work has happened on the overall product side. In terms of promotion, we have rationalized marketing in terms of the market. We have also launched offers for our weekdays. Recently, we are running an offer called Happy Monday Tuesday, which is delivering us very good results. We are also running bigger operators, you know, in few of the markets, which is, you know, one plus one on beverages. In some markets which have got liquor, I think we are doing promotional offers on an entire liquor options. We have a few ones that contribute.
Okay. Just last question from my side. Why extension kitchens have been closed in this last quarter? Is the delivery channel, like, looking down over here? Like, you know, because the revenue and rate for delivery negative pick up in the last quarter.
As I've also mentioned in the previous calls, our extension strategy will work by central retail parts store. One, delivery is a very challenging business in terms of margins. It can be a positive if you do it from your existing restaurants, but in the cloud kitchen model, it is very challenging unless a complete portion of the revenue is met. We saw over the period of last six quarters decline in average revenue sales. Before we stopped that for some time. We are seeing some pickup in our delivery business. We'll restart that kitchen model only if we reach a particular target of business from that kitchen.
Otherwise, the focus would be to utilize the balance 215 kitchen and plan grow in that segment.
What should be the target for delivery volume? Like, what date here, or not, it would be picking up towards the end of the year. What should we take for FY 2024?
Difficult to say. I think, last year we were around 41%. In the current quarter, in the first two months, we are already seeing good traction. I think, my sense is for the entire year, we should be looking at almost around the growth. We'll just also numbers will come close maybe compared to others. I thought it was a very, you know, I'm just also quality completely.
Okay. Sure. Thank you.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Vicky Punjabi from UTI Mutual Fund. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, hi, am I on the line?
Yes.
Thanks for taking my question. Just, I mean, firstly, from the dine-in segment, if I see, I mean, I heard you saying that it's 2% SSG. To understand, you know, base year was also impacted by Omicron. You know, in the context of relative performance, how has it compared to, you know, the other restaurants? To my mind, it should have been better, at least, given the base.
You're right. In terms of our channel check from last two years, 7%, a lot of them are marked as a number 1 in the public domain. This was similar situations. You know, January still was okay, but February and March were pretty bad for the overall industry. In line of that, I think 41%, it was a different number.
Okay. Okay. Secondly, just on this pace of closures increasing in the last six months, I mean, we saw seven store closures there. Anything to call out there on that side, and is that also leading to the moderation in the pace of expansion?
There are two things there. One is out of seven, around five of them are in Tier 3 markets, right? The Tier-3 markets, one, average revenue was lower and it was dragged on profitability and didn't have the threshold that we have for these markets. That is one. If you note, in the last few years, we had not expanded in Tier 3 markets or Tier 2 markets consciously, right? Because our focus was mostly towards the Tier 1. Second one is couple of small stores in which we are present. That's why we had to shut down those small stores. In future, does it impact our store growth? Not really.
I think, in the short term, while we are saying we are reducing the targets, because the success today is driving change from the existing capacity that we created. I don't think, just adding store networks will also lead to just doing your top line and EBITDA growth. I think, you know, generally, also in the past, we had to keep doing and at the same time, you know, keep consolidating so that overall, the 60 restaurants are remaining intact, right? Like I said, I think maybe a couple of others is will be slow in terms of growth function, but once we, once we get this back, I think store openings are not different part, you know.
I mean, we can, just maybe adding them is not a big problem. Going back to that number will not be a challenge for us.
Sure. Just one follow-up on this. I mean, we are, per se, not worried about unit economics, and the store closures were just pockets of issues that exist. Is that how I understand?
Absolutely. You know, if you look at our growth for full year, the one two people response, we think we will be around INR 6.65 crores growth, right? I know we are looking at INR 7 crores, given the last two quarters of second half of last year was not that great. And, out of 5% revenue decline on that is obviously a lot of cover-up. No, on the, on the unit economics model, I have absolutely no doubt about it.
Sure. Just lastly, I mean, this is related to corporate overheads. I think the year-over-year growth seems quite sharp. I mean, if I had to, you know, just try to back calculate from EBITDA margins and restaurant operating margins, anything on that, is it one-off hitting there, or is it continuing normal?
Absolute number has not grown, given the top line has come down, the percentage is very okay. Absolutely, it's not pretty much, you know, in line.
Okay. Sure. That's it from my side. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Harit Kapoor from Investec. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, good morning. Just had two questions. Actually, Rahul, firstly, you know, if you look at the mature store number, specifically even, you know, we've seen while SSG declines slightly, and dine-in SSG actually grown, the profitability on the mature stores come off quite sharply, and this is at a time where gross margins were actually improving year-over-year. Would you attribute this entire, you know, piece to operating leverage in your strategy, or is there anything else which we should kind of think about?
This is largely, you know, efficiency and in some pockets, there's also been cannibalization from a few new stores. You know, like I said, if you look at like-to-like numbers, which volume number is volume efficiency number is around 3.5%. Physically, you know, including the stores from one to two. Largely, I think that has been on account of operating leverage.
Got it. What level of, you know, if you're already seeing some of these sort of delivery, where you said, you know, you're looking for demand is now kind of a number, which means you're probably seeing some of that traction already kind of coming through, which is currently when we are at the 44th quarter, one day, 50 or 46th quarter going forward. Means that OCF will start to pick up probably from Q2. Is that where we also start to see, you know, kind of, pick up in overall mature store profitability, or, you know, you're expecting that little bit away, going forward?
Two questions there. I think one is, same store sales growth, right. Traditional trade has been driven by two factors, which is pricing, volume and delivery now. Last year, the efficiency that was given as largely given by, some, pricing freeze and delivery when we brought some of it there, in previous years. I'm talking about three years CAGR, which is around 5.6%.
This year, I might expect you that the pricing growth will be lower, and the SSSG will be largely driven by volume growth and some efficiency growth. That will impact some positive on the mixture portfolio margins.
Okay. Okay, got it. The other thing was on, you know, expansion. You did mention that it's a full quarter and then kind of deliver result. This year also, the 20 stores that you are looking, still looking to do, would the mix be similar, like a 70/30 mix between metro Tier 1 and Tier 3, or it will be more metro Tier 1, 47, and seeing some pain points in Tier 2, Tier 3?
I think Tier 2, Tier 3 will be lower. In the current 20 guidance, Barbeque India, you know, we only seeing 12 as of now. We are looking at five from Toscano and three from international. Toscano I think, are mostly in metro markets only, but then go to Tier 2 right now. Out of 12 Barbeque India, I don't see more than three or four in Tier 2 markets.
Okay. 20 is the consolidated level of items is 20?
Yeah, level as of, as of now, consolidation level, but we definitely revisit this target after six months.
Got it. Got it. The last question from my end is, we've seen a significant pickup in profitability, you know, in Toscano. And in fact, revenue per store also seems to have sharply gone up, which is probably even ahead of pre-COVID levels when we had acquired the business. So just could you just speak a minute or two about what's happening there? Is it a lot of the pricing led, as you have table turn sharply to you just recently?
One, the customer feedback has been absolutely great. This is largely driven by, I think growth is at par with what we've seen in other brand countries. So I think maybe more than 7%. Balance is led by increase in volumes, and really, but also increasing easily. A better segment is looking very good in Toscano.
Also, Toscano is expanding into other cities. It has started being a Bangalore brand and now going into Chennai and Pune and Mumbai, as well as a couple of other metro markets. The impact of new store and transaction in this market is actually lower. I think the business is absolutely run in a fine manner, we expect to at least seeing at least 25% CAGR growth over next few years.
Got it. I think I'll come back to you. Thank you.
Sure. Thank you.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Ali asgar Shakir from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Your question on the outlook. Yeah, if I got you right, you said that, you know, this quarter you saw some recent revenue trends and, you know, therefore we are also reducing our target of store addition. You also mentioned that, you know, there are early signs of some recovery that you are seeing. If you could just, you know, elaborate, you know, what do you mean by that early sign of, I mean, and how should we see the outlook, in terms of, you know, revenue trajectory?
Our revenue is as I said, month of February and March were low, and just that the month of April, May have been gradually improving month-on-month. All of these are actually led by volume growth, which is difficult in some parts. Also, you know, seasonally, one is a right. Our revenue last quarter, for example, dropped INR 1, 280 for the entire quarter. The first quarter is likely to around INR 203 and INR 20 or four numbers, and I'm seeing that positively right now. You know, we are bit concerned because last year was a very good base.
Those are the main things, while just couple of months looking very good, and, I'm very excited about how the efforts that different have been paying off. This is definitely without, you know, complete, you know, recovery. I think what is a complete process to see how it performs, because believe me from, you know, number of guidance for a few years.
Understood. This is very helpful. Just a quick follow up here. If I understand what you mentioned correctly, are you seeing base effect as a bigger problem than actually month-on-month recovery? Basically, last year was way too good, probably, and that's why we are seeing that, you know, base effect seeing, or month-on-month also, things are not very clear. You know, what is the factor that will drive the second visit, cooling of inflation, you think, or particularly anything structural which is seeing an impact?
Mix of all, I think, base effect might work for quarter one, but overall, I think there was industry-wide month after. If I look at numbers, you know, pre-COVID, the mix of H1 H2 actually changed this year. Typically in a quarter four, we are normally down by only around 3%-4% quarter three, and this is the data over the last five years pre-COVID. This quarter we're down around 15%, which is in my view, a model. Also, quarter three numbers, typically we see around 1.3% higher than quarter three, which didn't change this time around.
I think my sense is that last few quarters of last year have been really low for the business, I think, coupled by our few expansions over the last 16 months, we added almost 50% capacities. Right now, as I see, you know, things going, very happy to see the response in the first three months. I think after the quarter one, the base impact will start paying off for me and our business as well.
Understood. This is very helpful. Thank you so much. Second question is just on your store additions. You mentioned you may revisit after, you know, a couple of quarters. What is typically the timeline you require, you know, for a new store? If you revise, then, you know, will you be able to, you know, I mean, further add in FY 2023 or that may, you know, go into FY 2024. Is the impact so concerning that you may have to kind of, you know, revise your store addition, which is more a long-term, you know, strategy? Last thing on this is that we are in somewhere around 81 cities, right?
Given that we have a larger store size, so broadly, if you help us, what is the number of cities you think you have a target or, you know, a three or five year opportunity that we can, you know, grow into number of cities?
One, when you're saying that we look at, opening 20 as of now, it doesn't mean that our evaluation criteria or our team, which is on the ground, looking for this price, introduced, right. What we're doing is that packing free ground of evaluation criteria right now, and we're saying, unless the social base risk will not sort of come at that price. That need are increased. It doesn't mean our pipeline, do come down or the active pipeline that team has come down.
You know, even within two quarters, we can start seeing the numbers that we want to see in terms of both top line and margins, then obviously we'll start putting more capital to other financial targets, and even long-term delivering in the three brands or three segments of work that we have right now. We will start expanding on these areas. I think in terms of opportunity on the right street, that is there, is definitely available. I still sort of looking at 500 number target that we have. I think reevaluating ourselves for a couple of quarters is only a consistent perspective at this point in time, and that's what we're planning to do.
Got it. Thank you so much. You're very useful.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Khush Gosrani from InCred Asset Management. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir, I just wanted to understand, overall, on the industry side, are you facing any stiff competition from lot of the standalone stands as well in the cash management? Because the customer pool is the same in the market, really.
I think the competition is very localized in our segment. It could be in a particular area, and in some cases it's like within a 500 meter radius of area operating. Yes, there are more and more serious players coming in, but this is something which is not new to our business. I've seen this pretty much in the entire years of our existence. I think what we are focusing on is our offering, our experience. Like I mentioned, I'm very happy to say that last year in our dining side, we have all-time high customer sessions. That's why we continue to compare the potential playing out. Also, I think the pie is large enough.
There is room for multiple other players to kind of play. I think as one or two brand driving growth, applying something which is which was good to a certain extent, and many more players can also achieve this target. Net-net, I don't think electric business does have the competition increased from what it was with pre-COVID or one year back, no, I don't think so.
Are you seeing any behavior change on the customer?
No, not really. I think our repeat business numbers are actually very strong. I think the mix whatever decline we saw was more from the new customer base, and the repeat customer business, coupled with a repeat strong customer touching skills are very improving for business.
Sure, sir. Last question, sir, will we be able to maintain the existing EBITDA margins around 10% level going right, or we could see some improvement as it improves?
No, I think this is not our belief. I think probably we target to be around 16% in mature portfolio, and then we believe that there will be 1% tax on the new portfolio, which in the short term will be around 3% increase. I think my long term range will be around 13%-14%. you know, around you know, with with the factor of whatever softening of demand and as it picks up, I think the business has the potential.
The way the operating leverage has worked, I think maybe better, you know, I'm guessing it might be time, because it was working for us also in the, in the past, where as we feel some pressure in terms of our revenues per outlet, I think the margins will eventually start coming in.
Sure, sir. One last question, sir. How many Barbeque Nation India stores you are opening in this year, in 2023?
We opened around 36 this year.
36. How many were closed last year?
Overall, full year, we closed, eight.
Okay. Thank you, sir.
Thank you for your questions.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Percy Panthaki from IIFL. Please go ahead.
Hi, Rahul. My first question again on margins. We have seen many QSRs also have seen some impact on their margins in the last couple of quarters. The impact that we have seen has been significantly higher. We were doing margins of 13%-14%. In the latest quarter, they have come down to 3%-4%. How do we look at your margins? I mean, you said that you are targeting 13%-14% again going into the future, but what is going to drive the 1,000 basis points expansion from here, if you can give some clarity on that, please?
Like I said, it will impact largely one of the, one of the major efficiency that we saw, which is, I mean, operating leverage, filling out and the potential impact of new stores. It's been last quarter, you know, average revenues, even if first quarter was hardly INR 5.5 crores, right? That came as a down, but on a clear basis, we get to INR 6.65 crores, which is around 5% lower than our target of around INR 7 crores. On this portfolio, we did 19% EBITDA margin. I think the 5% revenue impact will impact our 1,000.2%. Overall, 21% margin on this portfolio is intact.
On the new portfolio side, you know, out of 60 or restaurants, around 50 of them are less than one year old. Specifically in this quarter, we are last meeting as an overall portfolio. On the stores which already crossed one year, we are at around 8.5%, 9% EBITDA margin already, which is in line with our strategy of even we are implementing margins on the new portfolio. By and large, I think mix of both improvement in your existing mature portfolio given to efficiency and changing mix between will drive this margin expansion also.
Rahul, you mentioned that, the mature portfolio is I mean, it's just 6.6%, which is going to affect margins by 200 basis points. The total impact is like close to 1,000 basis points. Should I understand that remaining 800 basis points is because of the maturity profile of the stores, sort of being tilted towards the new ones?
Mix of mature portfolio and the new portfolio. Mix is from 23, 27, right? I think towards 2015, that will change.
Right. Basically, what you are saying is that the mature stores, sort of increasing 10 percentage points in the total mix will improve margins close to 7- 8 percentage points. Is that understanding correct? Because that math doesn't seem to sort of, intuitively make sense to me.
Our mature portfolio is around INR 7 crore with 21% portfolio EBITDA margin. Our new portfolio is something around 10% EBITDA margin, and if this mix is say 85, 15, we would be at around 16%-17% from the mature portfolio and another 1.5% coming from the new portfolio, which is around 8.5%, and around 5.5% will be around capital expenditure, which is around 30% EBITDA margin. I'm sorry, I don't know your base number.
Yeah, yeah, I understood. I understood. Second question is on the store operational pieces. You mentioned that the store closures that you have done are mainly to Tier 2 and Tier 3 kind of towns, where the sales per store has been lower than what you expected. I mean, our original thought process that we feel that the total store opportunity is like 450, 500 stores. Does it still stand in light of the fact that the sales per store in the smaller towns is not ramping up to the extent that we expect?
As of now, yes, the sales per store in small towns is not ramping up, and that's why entire year we haven't expanded much on Tier 2, Tier 3 towns. You said 75% will come from a Tier 1 and 25 will come from Tier 2, Tier 3. 25% basically still impact there. That doesn't change our scope, opening conditions. What we're only saying is that over the period of last six quarters, we have added almost 30%, so the right number is around 15% every year. On a very short-term basis, we are taking a small pause to correct some of the performance and so on that we come back to the same number.
Does it mean that our overall opportunities in the future has reduced? No. I think there's one plus, one is body condition. We are also, you know, looking to account the impact of the summers both this year and also international this year.
Right. Last question is on phasing or seasonality. Basically, if I look at the full year, the sales per store is 6.65, but Q4 on an annualized basis is much lower. Consequently, the restaurant operating margins also in Q4 are much lower versus what we have done in the full year. This decline or this gap between Q4 and the full year, of course, there is a seasonality, and Q4 will always be lower than the full year number. In FY 2023, do you think that this sort of gap is higher than normal, or it is a normal gap which you are seeing in FY 2023 as well?
No, this is definitely higher. Like I said, typically, our Q4 difference between Q4 and Q3 is hardly 3%-4%, right? Q4 is 53% lower than Q3, and this is based on five-year data for this period. This year is completely on 15% lower. If you look at H1 versus H2, they are pretty much 39%, 51% or something historically. In fact, this should be more skewed towards H1 in FY 2023. H1 used to be around 47%, H2 used to be around 53%, which are not clear in FY 2023.
The reason is just a slack demand environment, or is there some other reason attributable to this bigger gap?
I think it's only demand, and maybe some change on the branding number of our store. After demand, I don't see any other reason, right? We track our very closely. I'm really fine with that. Also on the cost side, just to add to that thought, if you look at our absolute numbers, apart from food cost, between the two quarters, quarter three and quarter four, we have reduced that also by around 8%, despite the fact that we added 18 stores this year. I think it's just demand.
Right. In which case, my only concern is that when we did this calculation of 6.65 and 200 basis points coming from there, plus three of new restaurant changing, et cetera, you did all those calculations with FY 2023 full year number in the base. The fact is that the demand environment right now is worse than what it has been for FY 2023 full year, and therefore the catch up from current levels is higher to what extent which will be required.
No, sorry. Right now, as I said, among first two, say, in the May months, we have seen improvements. Improvements is led by volume. So, you know, that is a good thing. If it continues, also in H2, which is for us, that we lost in H2 of quarter three, the recovery will be far better. On the future portfolio 65, you know, just assuming a 5% on this, it will be 7%, and cost structures are pretty much, you know, under control. In our business, a 5% increase will grow at least 50% of our clear GM margins. Right, so I mean, FY 2021 is, it should not be a challenge.
I'm actually very positive of this, of this scenario.
Oh, okay. Okay, got it. Thanks and all the best.
Thank you, Percy.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Pritesh Chheda from Lucky Investment Managers. Please go ahead.
Yes, sir, just two questions. One, specifically for this cycle, especially this year, when you added about 15% store to your existing portfolio and the impact that you saw on the margin, is there be a situation where between 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, four years also, you had added a quite substantial number of stores to your next network. At that stage, there was a doubling of store in, like, three years, but the impact on margin did not go through. In this case, and what we see specifically for 2023, what is the difference in your strategy and what was the impact made there?
I think, while we added in the, in the pre-COVID era, two years, you know, we also supported by possibly the trend in government demand. We did see our volumes coming down to the same extent as we saw in at point 23. I mean, while that, you know, structurally, does anything change in our business? Not much. If you, I think, actually, you know, I think maybe, substitute with offline to look at those numbers and try and give you that expense of these. Right now, looking at those numbers and giving you some answers will be very tough for me.
Okay. From your comments in the call, what you are finding incrementally is an improvement in delivery, followed by recalibration of store expansion, to about 10% of your network getting added instead of a higher number, which you were initially thinking. Are these two, three changes sufficient enough for you to improve your margin metrics?
Look, one is increasing volumes in our diamond business, right? That is, that is the prime for us. I think that increasing volume will help us to also drive profitability. Our diamond business and delivery business are not exactly same. We're looking at also enhancing our delivery portfolio, so that's second. Third is also, you know, stabilizing our new stores and giving impact of any new stores that might have under on our business in the short term. Those are the three sort of targets. My plan is very simple. Right now, we have seen margins declining in our overall portfolio, which means that there is less capital condition that is happening.
Instead of allocating more capital interest in more stores, my first priority is to increase margins in the existing portfolio, so that the capital starts coming in, and then maybe, start looking at the expansion. Like I said earlier, adding new stores is easy. You know, I can add 50 stores also in the current year. I think the focus of the business needs to be towards existing business rather than building the team, which is also driving the new store. That is absolutely the first term, you know, call that we have taken. Like I said, we will look at this after six months.
The new expansion of 20 store, have you taken care of non-cannibalization from it?
If you look at 20, we essentially look at around 60, 70 stores which are pipeline, right? It's not just the cannibalization, also a function of, is there increasing demand in the mall store? Is the national traffic? What is the rental? What is the lease terms? You know, multiple factors. I think cannibalization is just one part that we refer to.
Lastly, how much of your margin performance impacting FY 2023 on your mature store, would you attribute to cannibalization?
The overall revenue in mature stores is down by around 4%, right? Of that, maybe, 1.5% would be cannibalization, from seven, eight outlets which are close to the existing outlets. Apart from that, it is reduced sales from these. If we add 5% extra revenues of these stores, then obviously, margins would have been down to, maybe more than 50% response.
Okay. this 13% guidance that you got, calculation that you think of, you think you'll be able to achieve it in 2024?
cult because the cannibalization creates for moving from new to old, and I am talking about the function here. But like I said, it's simple to do. I think the business has function to do that. They've done that in the past many times.
Okay. Lastly, what efforts are you putting to enhance the sales in the mature stores? What efforts, new efforts, or anything that you want to highlight?
We've talked about some of the promotional activities. We have rationalized the market. We are working on linear trails, digital trails. We have come up with, you know, members, which have given us very good results in terms of volumes. The experience built in terms of new stores, look and feel, the customer experience, the primary experience, all these are all the up to mark. We have, you know, we're also working on our brand experience, which have given us good results. The mix of all these things, you know, really market fixed it for each of these.
Okay. Thank you, and all the best, sir.
Thank you, Pritesh.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Mythili Balakrishnan from Alchemy Capital Management. Please go ahead.
Thanks.
We are not able to hear you clearly. Please use your handset.
Hi, is this better?
Yes.
Yes.
Okay. Can you help us with the cash flow, three in this, just in terms of OCF and CapEx?
Similar, we did cash from operations was approximately INR 113 crores. Cash profit for the year was around INR 106 crores. CapEx for the full year was approximately INR 145 crores. Out of that INR 145, around INR 7 crores was on increasing capital working projects. So balance of full year, you know charge would be around INR 150 crores or plus or minus. Of that, around INR 10 crores have gone towards maintenance, INR 10 crores have gone towards our project and other projects. Of the balance, INR 120 crores has gone to open up new sites and around store renovations.
Got it. Going ahead into this year, what would be the setup CapEx, even though the number of stores has reduced by just-
If you look at, just the 20 stores, you know, and maybe including some innovations which keep coming up, we have, you know, maybe around 60 piece of topics for this and other, 10+ for seven days, and eight days for other sections. Overall, INR 80 crores on a, on a 20, you know, store product.
Got it. Got it. Something is really right. Just want to get a sense from you that, you know, given that Dum Safar is something that we have sort of, you know, and is probably getting rolled out into more restaurants. This using kicking down or the overall, UDP, per se, the contribution, is that under big pressure? Also, like, your view on how to sort of improve upon it or how are you sort of thinking about it?
we have been seeing a lot of, almost last, three, four quarters. we are around, 500, odd number. conducting volumes were lower, but we changed our, also. that's largely on-
Across both the brands, yeah?
No, no, Dum Safar is very young, so the business is very small right now. You know, as I mentioned, Dum Safar has been doing a very good month-on-month growth. We've already crossed INR 3 crore monthly number in Dum Safar across we are now around 130-150, you know, outlets. And the stores that we opened up in the in the earlier months are growing on a month-on-month basis. First, most importantly, the product feedback that they're getting, you know, the overall, you know, feedback that we have is far higher than what we had in mind when we started back, right? I think brand visibility is very high with several brand, maybe 100 brands.
Like I said, our journey is mainly dining. We are new delivery business. We have a lot of catching to do. Overall numbers, you know, I think I'm happy with the, although the numbers look lower, I'm happy with the decision improvement. I'm happy with the improvement that are happening there, on the delivery side. Maybe it takes, you know, two more quarters or less, but we're on the right track in our delivery. You know, why we keep saying our delivery business? Because our delivery and dining business are not same. Unlike, now, because it's actually incremental, you know, revenue stream for us.
Got it. In terms of this April and May improvement, could you sort of just give us a sense of, you know, you trying to sort of listen, but in this case, what is dining like? What is delivery like? Is delivery also picking up on a month-on-month basis? Just some more color on this would be useful.
As compared to our previous quarter, we have seen improvement across both dining and delivery, pretty much at the same level. There's been, you know, month-on-month improvement of 15% in H1.
Got it.
Both the delivery and dining.
Both delivery and dining are sort of picking up.
Yeah.
Got it. Thanks. Thanks. That's all from my side.
Thank you, ma'am.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Gaurav Jogani from Axis Capital. Please go ahead. Mr. Jogani?
Hello. Can you hear me?
Yes.
My question is with regards to, you know, that you have been doing good earlier, in terms of the date parts as well, I mean, the dates. As well as you know, you had a strong traction from this, IT cloud as well as other businesses. How, how is the traction there? That still continues to lag the pre-COVID levels, anything, any color on that front?
Volume-wise, yes, I think, maybe the harder structure is very normal now. We are now starting to look at creating new products of demand on the business, and that's why when I talk about fundamentally being proper, you know, at a level which becomes really attractive solution for a lot of, you know, segment, or some segment which did not come to us and quickly and sort of come to us on mid basis. That has, that is some of that. So the IT side, that still continues to be lower than the pre-COVID numbers. I mean, now we are not business from that perspective, which is what we did. How do you now create new products of demand?
Sure. My next question is about the business. As you mentioned, you know, you have taken some costly measures over the past six months. You said that, you know, while the stores are increased by 8%, but your costs are still down by 8%. In a scenario, you know, when you see the demand coming back in the future, do you see the margin, you know, can even come back to earlier periods, even though the future will not be very enough?
Yes. Like you said, what maybe impacted us in the year because of lower trade, I think, we have seen also continue to develop high trades. If not comes back to the same levels, that there, impact also be on margins.
Sure. Then my last question is with regards to the, I mean, the overall demand scenario. I mean, while you are using that, you have seen month-on-month improvement during the month of April and May. I think this is also due to the seasonality, even deeper and even maybe generally better. If you see on a steady state basis, how would you rate this demand? Are you happy with this, or you still like this to go further up from here?
From where we were in quarter four, this is actually better. You know, and we continue for the rest of the year doing good place. That's why, like I said, I'm happy with the improvement in the first three months, but very different companies roll out houses and out for the rest of the year. We are also seeing some picking up of situation. We are also seeing the volumes coming back. This is seen in future, perhaps, which is, well, I'm, let me put it this way, I'm more positive that was to be coming back.
Sure. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have our next question from the line of Harit Kapoor from Investec. Please go ahead.
Yeah, I just had a follow-up on the cost side. You had been challenged about the last, you know, last fiscal. Just wanted to get a sense of, you know, where we are on two costs, input costs. Also, you know, when we are looking at the SSSG growth, you know, back in FY 2024, are we saying it will be entirely volume driven or any pricing we expect to, you know, initiate in the financial?
On the cost side, on the meat basket, I think it's stable. We haven't seen significant, you know, changes approaching downwards. So that, I think that will remain at the same way. In terms of our pricing increase, we are not looking at any price increase. In fact, according to the market, we are rationalizing the pricing. In the short term, my focus is to increase volumes rather than just price. At least for the next couple of quarters, I'm not looking at any price hikes in the business. To that extent, maybe, you know, we might have some impact on our gross margins. Overall efficiency will be largely driven by volumes and some bit of delivery.
Okay, great. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. On behalf of Ambit Capital, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.
Thank you.