Good day, and welcome to the KMD Brands Limited 2023 full year results conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. Kindly note that there will be no online submitted questions taken. Only audio questions shall be taken for today. For those who have questions, please dial into the audio line at Q&A time. To ask a question, press star one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow the signal to reach our equipment. Again, press star one to ask a question. At this time, I would like to hand the call over to Michael Daly, CEO and Managing Director of KMD Brands. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for today's presentation of KMD Brands' financial results for the 2023 financial year. My name is Michael Daly, and I'm the CEO and Managing Director of the group. I'm joined on the call by Chris Kinraid, our Group Chief Financial Officer. We will be talking through the presentation live from the NZX and ASX this morning. Unless otherwise specified, all financial numbers are in New Zealand dollars. Today's presentation will begin with the full-year highlights. We will then discuss the group's financials, brand results, and we'll conclude with the trading update and our growth outlook for FY 2024.
I will begin with the 2023 financial highlights and achievements of the year, namely our biggest milestone, reaching over NZD 1 billion in sales for the first time, a milestone that we're very pleased with in our first full year of uninterrupted trade post-pandemic. Drawing your attention to slide four now. All of our iconic brands grew sales, with the group, Rip Curl, and Oboz achieving record sales delivery growth of 12.6% on the previous year. Gross margin remained resilient, increasing 20 basis points to 59.1% of sales. Improved direct-to-consumer channel mix, wholesale pricing, and international freight costs offset currency headwinds. As a result, underlying EBITDA was up by over 15% year on year to NZD 105.9 million.
Statutory NPAT was NZD 36.6 million, while underlying NPAT was up 8.6% year-on-year to NZD 43.3 million. This year, our dividends declared will return over NZD 42 million to shareholders at NZD 0.06 per share. Moving to slide five now. Another year of significant milestones are delivered on our group strategy. I'm going to start with leading ESG because I want to express how proud this makes me as the CEO. Earlier this year, we announced our B Corp certification. This was and is a significant achievement for a business as complex as ours. We are one of only 45 listed companies globally to be able to call themselves a B Corp. As a reminder, B Corps are businesses that meet high standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.
B Corps envision a better economic system where businesses can benefit people, communities, and the planet. This really aligns with our group's vision to be the leading family of global outdoor brands, designed for purpose, driven by innovation, best for people and planet.... New Zealand, NZD 310 million. We completed the refinance of our syndicated debt facilities with a 3.5 year facility, consisting of an AUD 240 million multi-currency revolving facility and a NZD 54 million multi-currency revolving facility. We were also commended for our efforts in integrated reporting, which we'll aim to improve on this year with our second annual integrated report out this morning. You'll see that we've included a lot more information to really give you a deep dive into some amazing work the group and brands have been doing.
Moving to operational excellence, KMD Brands continues to work on leveraging operational excellence, with our underlying EBITDA margin improving by 0.2% of sales year-on-year. Softening consumer sentiment in the fourth quarter impacted the FY 2023 results. However, our strategy remains unchanged as we continue to target an underlying EBITDA margin of 15% of sales. We are continuing to grow scale across brands to maximize the efficiency of our overhead spend. As an example, our portfolio approach to lease negotiations in Australasia achieved an overall reduction in net costs across 63 lease renewals. Jumping across to elevating digital, Club Rip Curl launched in Australasia and has grown to over 220,000 members so far, delivering over NZD 30 million in member-based sales. A significant achievement, having only launched this year. E-commerce was also a big focus for us.
Kathmandu launched French, German, and Canadian websites to support the brand's international launch. Not to be left behind by any means, Oboz grew online sales for more than 350% as we continue to see direct-to-consumer become part of the brand's multi-channel strategy. We also worked on innovative ways to safeguard our brands. With the rising counterfeit sites and online scams, we invested in security systems to mitigate IP infringement to protect our customers. We've also made some key appointments in the digital space, with soon-to-be-announced Chief Digital Officer and a Chief Information Officer to accelerate delivery of this key strategic pillar. Both of these appointments have been in market during FY 2023, and those executives will be announced in the first half of the new year. Finally, to our milestones this year against our pillar of building global brands.
This year was a big year for KMD Brands and our iconic brands. Rip Curl continued its trajectory to be the ultimate surfing company in all that they do, delivering a new wetsuit that is unlike anything that's ever been brought to market before. Almost stitch-free, and therefore the warmest wetsuit on the market, the Flashbomb Fusion brings together 50 years of product innovation, something that no other brand has the potential to compete with. Kathmandu appointed its next CEO, Megan Welch, hailing from Crocs, where she had many leadership roles across many business units, living and working in multiple markets. Megan brings extensive global brand and product experience, making her the ideal leader as we continue to grow the Kathmandu business and expand our global presence. Finally, Oboz, a brand with extraordinary potential. This year, we launched a new category for the brand, the high-growth fastpack category.
It's early days, but this should see Oboz expand its appeal to a broader set of customers, excite existing customers, and grow market share. Moving to slide six, we've had many highlights from our iconic brands this year, but I just want to call out three that really stood out and are representative of the positive direction we are heading in. As mentioned previously, we launched Club Rip Curl at the start of the year. It's a world-first loyalty program that brings together all our consumer targets for Rip Curl in one program that rewards them for their passion for all things surf. Members collect rewards for everything, from making a purchase to logging on an afternoon surf, which they can do via their Search GPS Surf Watch.
Club Rip Curl attracted over 220,000 members to date, contributing over NZD 30 million in member-based sales to the business. For this winter, we also launched a revamp of Kathmandu's iconic insulation franchise, the Heli jacket. The Heli R is made almost exclusively from recycled materials. It's more packable, 25% lighter, and just as warm as the original Heli. What makes this unique is another first for the ANZ market. This time, a Digital ID sewn into every jacket. Customers can scan the code to learn about the design and manufacturing process, the factory the jacket was made in, materials used, care instructions, and repair information. And finally, we launched the new category for Oboz, our first full range of the popular fastpack category. Oboz launched a new Katabatic range this year, and we've seen a great response so far.
What's great about this is it's a natural brand extension for Oboz, and one that provides a new growth pillar for the brand, the aim being to attract new customers and grow market share. Moving to slide seven, you can see how we are progressing towards our short and medium-term goals. Underlying EBITDA as a percentage of sales improved by 0. 2% from 9.4% of sales last year to 9.6% of sales in FY 2023. While our first three quarters were strong, softening consumer sentiment in the fourth quarter and the warmest winter on record in Australia impacted the FY 2023 underlying EBITDA margin result. At the end of today's presentation, I will provide more detail on our specific plans to achieve 15% underlying EBITDA margin.
Looking at working capital as a percentage of sales, we were able to reduce this to 19.9% of sales in FY 2023 as we made progress to normalize our inventory levels following supply disruptions caused by the pandemic. We achieved significant inventory reductions this year with Kathmandu, and we intend to reduce our investments in Rip Curl wetsuits and Oboz footwear by the end of FY 2024. We believe our goal of reducing working capital to 18% of sales is very achievable in the next 12 months. Moving to our medium-term goals. With Oboz still recovering from supply challenges, Oboz achieved record sales of over $60 million in FY 2023. We are on track to achieve our target of $100 million sales-...
We're considering opportunities to further grow the North American wholesale customer base, online growth opportunities, category expansion by Oboz, fast track, leveraging the group's footprint to expand the brand in Europe and Australasia. In terms of regional growth opportunities, North America remains a key market for Rip Curl. Rip Curl is a top three brand in other regions, and there is a real opportunity to grow the brand's top three status in the North American market. In FY 2023, Rip Curl North America sales grew to NZD 142.8 million, and we aim to hit a target of approximately NZD 200 million in sales in the medium term.
In terms of Kathmandu, we have the medium-term goals of both reinforcing market leadership in our home ANZ market, as well as executing the international growth opportunity for the brand, with Megan now leading Kathmandu team to execute on these objectives. Kathmandu currently has 158 stores in ANZ, and as we see customers return to pre-pandemic shopping behaviors, we see an opportunity to ramp up our retail store count to 200 stores, both focusing on suburban and regional shopping center opportunities in Australasia, and Australia specifically. Kathmandu continues the journey of growing internationally, with this year seeing the launch of new websites in France, Germany, and Canada, and initial wholesale deliveries to select European and Canadian wholesale partners.
We're currently in a test and learn phase for Kathmandu with these wholesale partners, and we continue to leverage the group's operational footprint and existing relationships to learn consumer products and channel preferences in each market. As Kathmandu expands into Europe, North America, and beyond, our sales target for international remains NZD 100 million. I'll now hand over to Chris to take you through the financials in detail.
Thanks, Michael. Drawing your attention to slide nine, we will now go through the group's profit and loss for the full year of FY 2023. As Michael mentioned, we achieved record sales this year of NZD 1.1 billion in our first full year of uninterrupted trade since the pandemic. Group sales increased overall by 12.6%. We delivered strong sales growth from all brands in the first three quarters, with both Rip Curl and Oboz achieving full-year record sales results. Cost of living pressures softened consumer sentiment in Q4. We experienced the warmest winter on record in Australia, impacting Kathmandu sales as the brand cycled its best-ever winter trade season last year. Our statutory results include the adoption of IFRS 16.
For comparability, the impact has been excluded from our underlying results, as well as the notional amortization of Rip Curl and Oboz customer relationships, and one-off restructuring costs undertaken in FY 2023. Statutory EBITDA was NZD 200 million in FY 2023, and on an underlying comparable basis, EBITDA increased by 15.1% to NZD 105.9 million. Gross margin remained resilient, increasing by 20 basis points, improved from direct-to-consumer channel mix, increased wholesale pricing, and reduced international freight costs, offsetting currency headwinds. Operating expenses were maintained at 49.5% of sales, despite the softened sales performance in the fourth quarter. Noting that the prior year also, prior year operating expenses benefited from NZD 12.2 million of one-off COVID-related assistance.
Seasonally, second half operating costs were largely comparable year-on-year, and in addition, support office and wetsuit factory restructuring was undertaken in FY 2023, with a NZD 4 million one-off cost excluded from the underlying results. In FY 2023, the group incurred higher funding costs due to increased funding rates and additional investment in working capital. Moving to slide 10. FY 2023 was the first full year of uninterrupted trade since the acquisition of both Oboz and Rip Curl. And we're proud that the foundation put in place during the pandemic has helped us reach the milestone of over NZD 1 billion in group sales. In FY 2023, we achieved strong growth in all three of our brands in all of our key geographies.
Rip Curl grew by 8.3% to achieve another record sales result, while Kathmandu continued its second phase of its recovery post-pandemic, growing by 10.6%. Oboz sales recovered strongly by last year's supply constraints, growing by 61.8%. We're seeing consumers return to stores, with retail store sales up 17.5%. This had an impact on online sales, which normalized, although still significantly above pre-pandemic levels. Despite a challenging wholesale market, group wholesale sales grew by 11% as Oboz sales recovered. By region, Australia and New Zealand sales grew by 9.6% and 12.5% respectively, despite ongoing COVID-related lockdowns in the first quarter of last year. North America grew by 24.4%, with Oboz sales recovery and Hawaii stores capitalizing on the return of international tourism.
Europe sales grew by 5.6%, and the rest of world grew by 11.2%, with strong tourism-based growth in Thailand. Moving on to slide 11. Again, we're pleased to say that consumers are returning shopping in our stores. Omnichannel offering provides customers the choice of in-store or online shopping. As I touched on briefly in the last slide, while online sales have moderated, the channel remains significantly above pre-pandemic levels, with compound annual growth rate of 11.4% since FY 2019. Kathmandu delivered almost NZD 60 million of online sales in FY 2023, comprising of 14% of the direct-to-consumer sales. Rip Curl delivered almost NZD 35 million online, about 10% of direct-to-consumer sales, and Oboz delivered a NZD 5.6 million of online sales, a 366% increase on last year.
Moving on to our balance sheet, slide 12. We are in a very good, strong, a very strong balance sheet position, with low net debt and significant funding headroom and improving inventory levels. Inventory balance has reduced to NZD 290 million as at July 2023, and net working capital as a percentage of sales improved to land below 20%. Kathmandu made further progress in the second half to reduce inventory levels, which are now around NZD 37 million lower than a year ago. Rip Curl and Oboz continue to focus on reducing working capital as we transition away from the inventory build in wetsuits and footwear. Goods in transit component of the FY July 2023 inventory balance is circa NZD 10 million below last year, indicating an ongoing commitment to reduce inventory levels in future season purchases.
In terms of aging, inventory obsolescence provision represents 1.7% of gross inventory on hand, 20 basis points below July 2022. At July 31, 2023, the group had a net debt position of NZD 35.7 million, with significant funding headroom, well over NZD 200 million. With disciplined capital management, our short-term target is to reduce the net debt, the net debt leverage ratio close to zero by the end of FY 2024. Moving on to slide 13. Our positive operating cash flow reflects a full year of uninterrupted trade in FY 2023. The directors declared a final dividend of NZD 0.03 per share, not franked or imputed. Combined with the NZD 0.03 per share interim dividend, this brings the full-year dividend declared in respect of FY 2023 to NZD 0.06 per share, matching last year's record payout.
The record date for the final dividend will be October 5th, 2023, and the payment date will be the October 12th, 2023. Just to note, you should expect future dividend declarations to more closely align with the group's first half, second half earnings weightings and a resumption of franking credits in the future for Australian shareholders. Moving on to slide, to the brand, and jumping straight to slide 15, onto Rip Curl. We're pleased to note again that Rip Curl achieved a record sales result, with total sales up 8.3% to NZD 581.5 million. The results are underpinned by strong direct-to-consumer sales, particularly in Australasia, following the lockdown last year, plus the return of international travel to Hawaii and Thailand.
Same-store sales grew by 8%, with consumers returning to shopping in stores, as many have also reported. This has also meant that online sales have normalized to significantly above pre-COVID levels, and since FY 2019, these sales have grown at a compound growth rate of 20.1% per annum. Online sales in FY 2023 totaled almost NZD 35 million, representing 10.6% of D2C sales. The wholesale channel showed resilience despite softening wetsuit demand from record highs over the last two years. Gross margin increased by 60 basis points as a result of improved channel mix, increased wholesale pricing, and a reduction or easing of the international freight costs. It's worth noting that FY 2022 operating expenses included the one-off benefit of NZD 7.5 million from COVID assistance. Moving to slide 16, Kathmandu.
Kathmandu total sales increased by 10.6% to NZD 422.2 million. Australian sales grew by 7% in FY 2023. Kathmandu's largest market, where sales grew strongly in the first three quarters, recovering well from the COVID lockdowns in the previous year. Cost of living increases softened consumer sentiment in the fourth quarter, Kathmandu's key winter season. Australia experienced the warmest winter on record as Kathmandu cycled its best ever winter performance last year. Cost of living increases, moving to New Zealand, where sales grew by 13.1%, supported by the return of domestic and international travel. International sales of NZD 2.6 million included the first deliveries to select new wholesale customers in Europe and Canada, as the brand continues its test-and-learn phase in these international markets.
Online sales normalized to NZD 58.8 million as customers returned to shopping in store, representing 14% of D2C sales. Online sales remain comfortably above pre-COVID levels and have grown since FY 2019 at a CAGR of 5.4%. We saw total same store sales, including online, increase by 8.5%. Gross margin increased by 100 basis points as Kathmandu continued to carefully moderate the historic high-low pricing model. Finishing up on slide 17, Oboz. Oboz sales grew by 61.8% to almost NZD 100 million. Wholesale sales recovered strongly from last year's supply constraints and within navigating a tricky U.S. wholesale market. We benefited from a commitment to diversified sales channels, delivering strong online sales growth of over 350%, and increasing the mix of high growth margin direct-to-consumer sales.
Gross margin increased by 210 basis points from the improved online channel mix, increased wholesale pricing, new product introductions, and the easing of freight costs. We continue to invest in brand and product teams to optimize brand for growth and accelerate Oboz's international expansion. Brand momentum remains strong, with new category expansion and successful online performance continuing to indicate a significant growth opportunity for the group. I'll now hand back, back to Michael to talk through the outlook.
Great. Thanks, Chris. On to slide 19 and drawing your attention to our strategic priorities. We believe our strategy is working and remains unchanged. We will continue to build global brands with continued design, development, and launch of market-leading innovative products for the outdoors. Rip Curl is aiming to grow market share in the North American market by executing wholesale and omnichannel opportunities. With our new Kathmandu CEO, Megan Welch, now in place, she will be focused on growing international sales while maintaining our market dominance in ANZ. Oboz will continue its journey to expand internationally, with Europe and ANZ the key geographies of focus. Elevating digital is an area that will be ramped up significantly. Kathmandu has launched Out There Rewards, which some of you might have noted, launched two weeks ago. It's a revamped version of the Summit Club.
Out There Rewards will incentivize members to get outside and experience nature, but also connect our target more closely with their local store. We'll also be appointing two key executives, a newly created chief digital officer, who will focus on digital strategy and innovation across the group, and the expansion of the chief information officer role. With this, we will increase the momentum and continue to deliver the best experiences to our customers by focusing on loyalty and personalization. We'll use the power of the group to leverage operational excellence across our brands. With significant progress made this year, we'll continue to work towards reducing our working capital. We have a commitment to improve our underlying EBITDA margin, and I'll take you through our plans to do this on the next slide. This year, we made extraordinary progress on our goal to lead in ESG.
We will continue the fantastic momentum here with a commitment to increase our responsible material content across brands, reduce our emissions in line with the Paris Agreement, and further explore commercializing circular business models. Moving to slide 20. Our brands continue to use innovation to set the path to success in a competitive market. We have recently launched some exciting initiatives, including the North American and European launch of the Rip Curl Flashbomb Fusion Wetsuit. This innovative product has been received well in Australasia, and we look forward to seeing it launch in the Northern Hemisphere. Just a couple of weeks ago, we launched Kathmandu's highly successful loyalty program. Similar to Rip Curl, the program awards members for engaging in their passion, getting outdoors.
Loyalty members historically have accounted for circa 70% of total sales for Kathmandu, with members typically spending circa 20% more per transaction than non-members. So a revamped and innovative new program in what has become a competitive market for rewards is just what we need to continue to deliver in this space. And finally, the Kathmandu Trailhead Stretch Rain Jacket, Kathmandu's most versatile raincoat yet. Waterproof, windproof, breathable, and now with mechanical stretch fabric. The main fabric is also made from 100% recycled polyester. This is a great functional jacket at a great price point, a key addition to the rainwear range. Drawing our attention to slide 21 now. We want to step out the path to our goal of a 15% underlying EBITDA margin.
We have set specific targets for our brand CEOs and group executives and their respective teams aligned to our growth strategies. Firstly, we have already taken action to rightsize our cost base, including a restructure of our support offices and our wetsuit production facilities. Further normalization of marketing spend has occurred across each brand, and optimization of our retail labor spend has also been completed. We'll continue our work to improve operating leverage, including targeting specific synergies in supply chain systems and finance, and continuing strong discipline and the consolidation of our purchasing power across the brands. We aim to expand our gross margin by continuing the consolidation of suppliers and implementing production efficiencies. Reducing freight rates is having a positive impact. Rationalizing SKU counts to improve overall inventory management, and continue with the Kathmandu strategy to carefully moderate the historic high-low pricing.
Finally, each of our brands have specific opportunities to reset the parts of their business that are operating below historical levels, including Kathmandu's opportunity to return the key winter season to historical levels and the ongoing recovery of travel. Rip Curl's opportunity to benefit from a reset in global wetsuit demand supply post-pandemic, and Oboz's opportunity to return to historical levels of operating margins, leveraging the investments made as the brand continues to grow in North America and globally. And finally, as we hit slide 22, I want to take you through a brief trading update and our outlook for FY 2024. Group sales for August were down 6.4% from last year. We've seen the Kathmandu year-on-year sales trend in the fourth quarter of FY 2023 continue into August, albeit overall sales levels are consistent with pre-pandemic levels for this time of year.
We have seen good momentum in direct-to-consumer sales for Rip Curl and Oboz. In terms of our outlook, as I've said throughout this briefing, our strategic plans remain unchanged, with key executive appointments in the areas of the Kathmandu CEO, a Chief Information Officer, and a Chief Digital Officer to accelerate the execution of our key strategies. We have several new store opportunities, with at least eight new stores already committed in the first half of this year. Our outlook for margin is supported by excess supplier capacity in the market, reducing international freight costs, and improving channel mix towards direct-to-consumer, offsetting short-term FX impacts. We aim to continue our progress towards achieving our target of a 15% underlying EBITDA margin with the right size cost base in place.
We also expect the ongoing reduction of working capital to drive strong cash flow growth generation as we work towards our working capital target of 18% of sales. Despite the challenging consumer sentiment, we are well positioned with positive tailwinds from the continued return to travel, innovative product launches in the pipeline, and the continued outdoor lifestyle trend post-pandemic. That's all for the presentation today. We'll now throw it to questions. Back to the moderator.
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow the signal to reach our equipment. Again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one. We'll pause for just a moment to allow everyone the opportunity to signal for questions. We'll take our first question from Margaret Bei with Forsyth Barr. Please go ahead.... Margaret, your line is open. If you could please check your mute button, we're not getting a response. Margaret, are you on the line? I am not hearing a response, so we will move to the next question. We will go to Kieran Carling with Craigs Investment Partners. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Can you hear me okay?
Yep. Yes, we can, Kieran.
Great. Thank you. Just first one from me. Obviously, gross margins are holding up due to, you know, channel mix, wholesale pricing, and reduced freight costs. But can you just touch on where you're at with the moderation of your high-low pricing model for Kathmandu, and what you're seeing in the current promotional environment, I guess, for both Kathmandu and some competitors, and maybe some of your expectations for gross margin going into FY 2024?
Yeah, look, in terms of the Kathmandu, high-low moderation, you know, we're happy with the progress we're making. I think as we've outlined previously, that wasn't something that we would be looking to do, you know, by the click of the fingers, an instantaneous change. It's one that we're progressing a change over a number of years. We're really happy with the progress, how that's progressing, and it, it shows in our underlying margin, and we expect that to give us continued tailwinds as we move forward over the next couple of years for the Kathmandu brand. In terms of the broader market, yeah, we're definitely seeing a market that is quite aggressive on price. You don't have to go too far into malls to see that.
That said, there's plenty of brands holding margin discipline and pricing discipline. Look, we'll continue to do what we've always done. We don't typically want to use price as a lever to drive sales as our principal strategy. You know, we want to use innovative products and loyalty programs and personalization to drive people to buy our products, and that will be our key focus. We'll focus our, I guess, markdown strategies based on distressed inventory or inventory that we have excess of. And continuing to take that approach, we think is the right approach, and that will also just continue to ensure that we see margin increments as we move forward. As we mentioned on the outlook slide, you know, we do think there's quite a few tailwinds for us in terms of margin that we mentioned.
That said, we know that the Australian dollar and the New Zealand dollar, in particular, have been hit pretty hard against the US dollar in recent times. We do hedge forward, so that does give us some certainty, but there is certainly some downside in margin that can occur in those countries, which only represents about 60% of our sales. So there can be some downside there in the margin. So we're not hiding from that, but we think at this point in time, the tailwind should offset that. And similar to this year, we'd be looking forward to some slight margin increments as we outline in the path to 15% slide.
Cool. Thank you. And next one, you've talked about a challenging wholesale market, particularly in the U.S. Can you just elaborate what you're seeing there and perhaps what your expectations are for the year ahead for Rip Curl and Oboz?
Yeah, I think it's... Yeah, we mentioned the U.S. specifically, but certainly I wouldn't necessarily say it's just U.S. It's a continuation of what we noted six months ago. You know, what we're seeing in the market is that everybody, including ourselves, is looking to reduce inventory. Everyone's obviously nervous about what the economic conditions are moving forward, so no one wants to take a risk in this market. Most companies out there are actively reducing their working capital levels and particularly inventory. With that, what we're seeing is a lot of wholesale accounts not looking to take too much risk on their forward buys. We are seeing some moderation of forward buys on the wholesale market, pretty much across all channels in all geographies.
Nothing too drastic, just that continued risk management by those, wholesale customers. You don't have to go too far into any other announcements of other larger brand operators like VF or others to-
This is the conference operator. Mr. Daly, are you there? If everyone could please stand by. Again, everyone, please stand by. Do not disconnect your lines. Thank you. Please go ahead, Mr. Daly. Daly, are you on the line?
Yes, I am.
Okay.
Sorry, I-
Please proceed with your-
Thank you.
With your response.
Yeah, no, our strong cost discipline must have extended to our phone provider. Sorry about that, everyone. Yeah, as I was just saying, yeah, in terms of the wholesale market, we're definitely seeing wholesale accounts around the world reduce their risk by reducing working capital. That's seeing our forward order profile soften. But as I mentioned six months ago, what we'll see with that softening of forward orders is in-season buying being quite strong. We think trade out there, and as evidenced by our direct-to-consumer channels, underlying trade is still relatively okay. There are still consumers that are willing to spend, and we're seeing that with our D2C. And so the overall business is okay.
We're just seeing the forward buys come down a little bit as people look to moderate down their inventory levels, and that just means that our in-season buying for wholesale will increase as we move forward.
Anything further, Mr. Carling? I'm not hearing a response. We will go to our next question. We'll go to Mark Wade with CLSA. Please go ahead.
Good morning, guys. Can we start with... Can you hear me okay?
Yes.
Fantastic. Can we start with the loyalty programs? You've relaunched the Summit Club as Out There Rewards and Club Rip Curl in full flight. Can we explore what the aspirations are there and how meaningful they could become for the business?
Yeah, look, we think it's really important in today's day and age to engage with our consumers. You know, we are trying to appeal to the lovers of the outdoors, and as you see with both of those programs, you know, we have interactive elements with our programs. You know, encouraging people to go out and surf, encouraging people to go out and enjoy hikes and be rewarded for that. So certainly from our links back to our vision and our purpose as KMD Brands, which is, you know, really important to us. So look, we're excited by the opportunities. We've mentioned, obviously, some of the initial results in Rip Curl.
Really, the key, I guess, output or key, driver commercially from this is we think that there's a great opportunity for both of our key brands there, with Rip Curl and Kathmandu, to increase the frequency at which consumers come to our stores. You know, as we know, Kathmandu historically is known as a travel and winter brand, and historically, Rip Curl is known as a surfing and, beach brand. And with that, we have relatively low frequency of shops within our stores and online. And we think that with a robust loyalty program across both, that we can encourage those consumers to come back to us and drive increased frequency, which we know and our initial results tell us, is gonna drive some good commercial results. So we're certainly very encouraged by the work that's been done.
A lot of work done in the last couple of years to get them right, and we're happy with the first results we're seeing and certainly looking to not just stop there. Those plans will continue to evolve and expand in the coming years.
Yeah, it seems like there's a lot of upside. I mean, the Summit Club got to 70% of sales, 2.2 million people in the past, and that slipped a little bit from those highs. And, you know, Rip Curl's coming off a, you know, it's just getting started. So, yeah, looks like they're-
That's good. Yeah, I see.
Mm.
Just driving that frequency is gonna be really important. So rewarding consumers to come back to us, driving that increased frequency, is certainly going to translate for us and all our models and all the work that we've done to support the fact that it's gonna certainly drive some good commercial results. So yeah, it's been a key part of our elevate digital strategy, and it's really great to see them up and running. Still got some work to do. Club Rip Curl is only currently available in Australia, New Zealand, and online in the U.S., so we really want to expand that across to other global markets as well. So job's not done, but certainly initial results are really promising.
Okay. Lastly, on the offshore ambitions for the Kathmandu brand, that still feels a, you know, there's a fair bit of water to go under the bridge. We're at NZD 2.6 million in sales against that target of NZD 100 million. Can you explore, you know, some of the-- You mentioned that you're still in the test and learn phase, but what's working well, what needs to happen to really lift that up a gear?
Yeah, look, certainly for us, year one, as I think I've mentioned to many, was only ever anticipated to be in the millions of sales. You know, we never anticipated we'd go straight out of the gate into the tens of millions. We're still very much in that test-and-learn, soft launch phase, you know, wholesale and online. Look, in terms of our internal targets, given the broader economic environment we face, we're actually pretty happy with the number. Not necessarily the gross number itself, but in terms of, you know, what we're doing and only dealing with select accounts, we're happy with where we're at, given what we're focused on. You know, moving forward, obviously, the path to NZD 100 million looks pretty steep from here in what is a challenging economic environment.
You know, we sort of—we still think we have very strong aspirations, and certainly our European and Canadian soft launch will probably, over the course of the next 6-12 months, go to a proper launch strategy. Look, if anything, you know, given the broader economic environment, we probably won't push too hard just yet. I just mentioned how wholesale accounts are looking to destock. It's probably not the greatest time to be pushing hard on that wholesale. So probably just means our broader plans are not held back. We're gonna continue to ship and so forth, but, you know, the outlook for the next 12 months is a little bit more challenging. So we'll just continue our test and learn phase, make sure we refine what we're doing.
Obviously, we've got a new CEO on board who's very passionate and experienced in international markets. We'll let her have a chance to put her thoughts into the strategy, and then we'll ramp up from there as we get deeper into the 2024 calendar year. So we're certainly sticking by our targets. Maybe, you know, achieving it in five years might be a little bit ambitious, but as we said when we first put the target out there, we're not too worried about the actual timeline. We're more talking about the aspiration and wanting to get a sizable chunk offshore, and that intent has not changed.
Okay. Just to clarify, Michael, the subsidiary, the new subsidiary in Italy, is that anything to do with this, or is it like stores, or is it unrelated?
No, I think that, that was just associated. Previously, we've opened a store for Rip Curl in Italy, so, to open the store there, we had to have a legal subsidiary. Previously, we were just shipping wholesale and online to that country.
Yeah, so Rip Curl. All right. Thank you so much.
No worry.
We'll take our next question from Marnie Lysaght with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Michael and Chris. Can you hear me?
Yes, Marnie, how are you?
Oh, perfect. Yeah, well, well, thanks. How are you?
Good.
Just, I got quite some questions. Just looking kind of through the results, first half, second half. So I guess there's been a 20% basis drop in the second half of gross margin. And I appreciate, obviously, with seasonality in your business, the CODB cost base, you know, are obviously a bit lower in the second half versus the first half. Can you kind of, first of all, drive us through, walk us through gross margin drivers for the second half, given it's down a bit over the second half and just the cost base going forward? Like, can we extrapolate the first half, second half split moving forward? Because I just to kind of refresh us of how much of the restructuring benefits are in that, and does that, you know, annualize next year?
Yeah. So, a couple of points in there. So in terms of our first half, second half margin, we always typically skew higher northern hemisphere in the second half, and-
Mm-hmm
... North America operating margins are lower for us than Southern Hemisphere operating margins. So in terms of margin and also Oboz business, its gross margins are lower than apparel gross margins because of the footwear nature and obviously-
Mm-hmm
... with that also being America. So we do skew, I would say, moving forward, our first half gross margins will always be higher than our second half gross margins, purely on that, the split of the geography and the weighting of Oboz in the second half. So that's certainly not unexpected. And to be honest, I would say that's gonna be a, a, an ongoing trend, and it's certainly always been the trend on a Rip Curl front, with my history there. But that, that's on the margin. In terms of cost of operating, yeah, look, certainly we did some work in the latter half of the year on cost base, like I'm sure all companies did.
We mentioned in the past the 15% EBITDA slide, you know, that the sort of annualized cost savings from that. You'll see that in that bar chart; there's, there is a number there that we give, which is effectively around NZD 15 million-NZD 16 million, that we have effectively already enacted, that will underwrite cost reductions or cost efficiencies as we go into FY 2024. We've been pretty transparent on that in that past the 15% slide. I think I've covered all your points there. Was there anything I missed, Marnie?
Yeah, and just to kind of maybe delve more into the... I appreciate there's, like, different mix shift in half-by-half, but was there any impact of elevated promos over, say, the fourth quarter driving that slight decline in second half GP margin year-on-year? Because we're well aware of Kathmandu and a warmer winter.
No, nothing, our margins in the second half were as we expected. To be honest, our promotional activity was not too different to the prior year. Yeah, nothing I would specifically call out. I wouldn't say that we were more aggressive in pricing in the second half of this year versus last year. As I mentioned earlier, you know, we're effectively looking to, as much as we can, just focus our markdowns on excess inventory. In parts of the business, we're looking pretty clean at the moment. On the Kathmandu side, as you would have seen, circa NZD 40 million reduction in inventory during the year, and most of that was done in the first half, because you saw that trend that we already had in the first half of last year.
So, yeah, nothing I would specifically call out, Marnie. It's definitely an active market in terms of markdowns, but we're only playing in that space to deal with problem inventories. We're not using it necessarily just to drive volume.
Okay, that's clear. Thanks for that. And just one, one last one from me. It's just about, I guess, how we think about CapEx moving forward. I mean, you've, you've called out you want to add eight new stores. Could you maybe give us some color on what brands, you know, is gonna see the most store rollout, the location, and I guess the, the way we think about CapEx has been, you know, low thirties to mid-thirties past this year and the year prior, so.
Yeah, no change. That range, we feel very comfortable with that range, with that money. Yeah, we're probably spending a fairly similar amount across both Kathmandu and Rip Curl in terms of our retail rollouts. The rollouts in Kathmandu are very much focusing more so on Australia, given we've already got a fairly high penetration in New Zealand. The store rollouts for Rip Curl are focusing on all markets. As I mentioned earlier, we've just opened a store in Italy. We've got stores opening up in Australia and the U.S. as well. But certainly that will be all done within our current range of capital, and there's been no change with our expectations there.
Excellent. Thank you very much. I'll jump back in the queue.
Thanks, Marnie.
We will take our next question from Bianca Flett with the UBS. Please go ahead. One moment, please.
Sorry, it's Guy here. Can you hear me from Jarden?
One moment. I do apologize. One moment, please. And Bianca, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, Michael and Chris. My question-
Hi, Bianca.
is just on net debt. Net debt came down quite a bit from the first half, which is pleasing. Compared to FY 2022, it's up around NZD 15 million. Then looking at your finance expenses, they were up NZD 10 million during the year. I was just wondering if you can touch on that, because that does seem like a reasonably large increase given the increase in debt.
Yeah, I mean, one target that there is a bit of FX noise, about NZD 2 million in that. So just with eliminating some intercompany funding and FX movements on those balances. So that, that'll change year-on-year. So that should be a little bit of that. And also just the average debt throughout the year. Also, we have a working capital cycle, Bianca, where the bottom periods typically are in that last quarter. And our peak is typically around November at peak working capital for the group. So it's just a bit of that phasing with a blended increasing of the debt cost of debt throughout the year.
We expect it to be lower year on year, and we might have that same impact of some unrealized effects, and then lower average net debt throughout the year.
Okay, thank you. Is there any color you could provide on what sort of interest rate we should assume for FY 2024?
Interest rate? Sorry, I just missed that part, Bianca.
Yes. Yeah, interest rate.
Interest rate.
For FY 2024.
Yeah, FY 2024. I mean, typically our base rate, plus funding cost is somewhere around 6%.
Okay, thank you. And then just on your August 2023 trading update, that points to an improvement on pre-COVID levels, which is pleasing. Could you provide an update on the first two weeks of trading in September and how that compares to pre-COVID levels for each of the three brands?
Yeah, I mean, typically, we won't give any more than what we've given for the update. But largely the trends are pretty consistent with that trading update. If anything, you know, the warmer weather particularly helps Rip Curl within those conditions quite hot already in Australia, which we haven't had actually with Rip Curl since acquisition. So that should give us some good tailwinds on a hot summer in Australia for the Rip Curl brand.
All right.
Okay, thank you. Just following on from that, just geographically, could you talk about which countries are most challenged at the moment with regards to consumer sentiment and sales, and which ones are performing best?
Yeah, look, I think what we've seen now that pretty much the wave that sort of probably started somewhere around the U.S. and went through to New Zealand and UK is now pretty much in most markets, I'd say. So I don't think I'd necessarily call out any one particular market as being worse or better than others. I'd say we've seen indicators of softening consumer sentiment now in pretty much most markets that we operate in. So, obviously there's some that are either in recession or technically close to recession, but I'll leave that to the economists. But, from our observations, we've seen enough indicators to say that there's general softness in consumer sentiment across the board now.
Okay, great. Thanks very much. That's all for me.
Thank you, Bianca.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one, and we will take our next question from Guy Hooper with Jarden. Please go ahead.
Sorry, Guy, I can't get you at the moment.
And Mr. Hooper, are you on the line? Please check your mute button. Again, Mr. Hooper, your line is open. If you could please check your mute button. We're not hearing a response. And I am not getting a response from that line. And again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one. We will move to Margaret Bei with Forsyth Barr. Please go ahead.
Hopefully, you guys can hear me this time.
Yes, Margaret, we've got you.
Oh, success! Okay. Just a couple of questions from me. The first one being that I noticed in terms of the dividend, that you've announced the final dividend. Given you have basically a net cash goal for July next year, feels kind of, surprising that you would announce such a high final dividend. Can you sort of talk us through your assumptions and maybe whether that's a reflection of your confidence in cash flow over the next 12 months?
Yeah, look, obviously, we discussed that at length. A couple of different factors there. You know, one factor is, as we mentioned in the announcement, that moving forward, we'll probably look to rebalance our dividend to be more in line with our earnings flow. So that probably, you know, if you look at our earnings, we are more a second-half earnings than we are first half. So we probably look to rebalance that. So we had that in mind when we were making the decision.
Also, we flagged in the presentation a fairly good, high confidence that our inventory levels are moderating. You know, we've done some hard work on the Kathmandu brand, and our inventory levels for Rip Curl and Oboz are really specifically in certain areas where we were previously having supply chain challenges. So we're very confident of them moderating.
So with that, we're expecting a little bit like this year, a bit of a positive permanent [outflow] of inventory, which obviously gives us some strong confidence on cash flow that's coming forward over the next 6- 12 months. So they're probably two of the key factors that we considered when we decided to continue with the NZD 0.03 for the final. And obviously, we'll reassess that as we look at our first half, second-half earnings as we move forward with the interim decision in another 6 months' time.
Brilliant. Thank you. My next question is just around, in terms of, in terms of what you're seeing in competitors, do you sort of get the sense that they're struggling with exactly the same headwinds? Do you feel that you're doing better on a relative basis? Is there any, I guess, views from the management side in that respect?
Look, I mean, it'd be too hard for me to judge. Too hard for me to talk across all markets, all competitors, all brands. Look, all I would say is that, you know, we obviously monitor what all brands are posting, and, you know, to sit here having all of our brands deliver positive sales results for the last 12 months, for us, is a good positive. You know, and, you know, we're comfortable with where we're at, and really just focusing on our own brand, to be honest, and our own performance. Obviously, as we've mentioned with the August trade update and obviously with the performance we saw in Q4, we've got some parts of our business that are trading not as well as other parts of the business.
You know, specifically, you know, Kathmandu selling puffer jackets in this unseasonably warm weather is somewhat challenging. Look, overall, we're, we're happy with where we're at. We don't focus too much on what our competitors are doing, but, you know, the fact that we're continuing to grow across all of our three brands gives us confidence that we're on the right path.
Brilliant. Thank you. That's all from me.
Thanks, Margaret.
At this time, there are no further questions. Mr. Daly, I will turn the conference back over to you for any additional or closing remarks.
No, that's all from us. Thanks, everyone, for the participation, and apologies for us for dropping out twice. So hopefully next time we'll have some better phone connections. Have a great day.
This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.