All right. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us here at Raymond James Institutional Investors Conference. I'm Rick Patel, research analyst covering global brands, soft lines, retail, and digital commerce here at Raymond James. I'm thrilled to be hosting our next company, which is Canada Goose, which is a luxury global brand focused on outerwear product and lifestyle products across direct-to-consumer and wholesale distribution. We're thrilled to have Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Sinclair with us, and also VP of Investor Relations Ana Raman. Thank you so much for being here. You know, maybe just to kick things off, Jonathan, you know, can we start by having you give investors an overview of Canada Goose as a company, and also how the brand differentiates itself from other outerwear brands in the market?
Yeah, sure. Good afternoon. Good afternoon, everyone. I think that what defines Canada Goose is a performance luxury lifestyle brand. We are. It's a brand with phenomenal heritage. It's been around for a good while. And it stands for the authenticity of protection from the elements. If you like, it's a promise of keep me warm, keep me dry. It's really strong lean into function, and ultimately function that becomes fashionable, but function first. As we develop the business, it's a business that's on a journey from wholesale to DTC, direct to consumer, and we've got a number of strategic pillars that really help us define how we make this a world-class luxury brand, brand.
How we develop the consumer-centered growth, how we develop our DTC network and build that out, and lastly, how we build our category offer. So, from a consumer-centered growth, it's really important that we are appealing to a broad set of consumers in a number of geographies around the world. From a DTC network point of view, it's about how we build out our direct presence in different geographies, and from a product point of view, it's about making sure that we go beyond the parka and actually appeal across a number of use cases to consumers, so that they see the relevance of Canada Goose in a broad number of contexts.
Can we dig a little bit more deeply into the direct-to-consumer side of the equation? How should investors think about the potential for real estate expansion as they think about what the footprint could look like in the future, and what type of role does e-commerce play in that strategy?
So I think, you know, we're a well-trodden path. Lots of people who start in this sector start wholesale, and that's because you focus on the product, you focus on the marketing, and eventually everyone realizes you need control. Control over the offer, you want to engage and own the consumer relationship, leverage the insights, and frankly, tell your story in front of the consumer. That is critical to us, and so as we go down this journey, it's been... We started online way back in 2014. We then, after we learned where we ship to, that enabled us to go down the non-secret list of where the stores were, or could be, rather, to pick cherry-pick what the locations that we could open. And, you know, we started with our first store way back in 2016.
By the time COVID came around, we were at 20 stores, and today, come the end of this fiscal, in a few weeks, we're at 68. So, it's been a fairly fast journey into the retail estate. We still see a ton of white space in that journey because we've, you know, we've sized our opportunity, call it 130-150 stores at some point in time. Way smaller than many others who might talk with a number beginning with a two or a three, but we don't think that's necessary for us. But what we do see is a really great opportunity to develop this network around the world, and we've started that. E-commerce is also an important component of DTC because it helps us serve the consumer wherever and however he or she wants.
That's really critical. It's also why you have omni-channel, which makes a more seamless experience, so that ultimately, wherever you are, the consumer can come into your store. And if they, even if they can't find exactly what they want on that day, you can find it and get it to their home sometimes before they do. In the nearer term, we're also extremely focused on improving the performance of our existing network, as well as opening the new doors, because we see that as a really important driver of margin accretion, and frankly, all retail businesses will seek to grow their comps.
We'd love to hear your thoughts on store economics. I believe stores are very productive, about CAD 4,000 per sq ft. Just given how volatile the market has been, how should investors think about sustainability of that level of productivity? And on the flip side, how should we think about the ability for that type of productivity to translate into the profitability of the stores?
So, we gate our stores at CAD 4,000, I hasten to add, per sq ft. And what's important about that is, given in a full-price business like we are, and with stores in the sweet spot of, call it, 2.5-3,000 sq ft, there's only so much you can spend on rent, and there's only so much that you can spend on staffing because the store size defines that. So therefore, it actually becomes a very strong model, provided you're at CAD 4,000 per sq ft, you'll get to a 40% gross margin. And that's the model we apply. Regionally speaking, it's actually higher than that in Asia, followed by North America, and Europe's got probably the greatest opportunity in that story.
But we see a ton of growth opportunity for this. Our high-water mark is well above this CAD 4,000 a sq ft, so we are very confident that we can drive to a higher number. It comes from the comp growth, and that plays into that, and playing into that, of course, is the development of the product offer, as well as the retail disciplines that we have underway in the business.
Can we talk about the importance of China in developing that long-term strategy? Obviously, a very important market for luxury brands. You know, just given the outlook, you know, how should investors think about the near-term potential of China, just given the economic volatility that we've all seen in that market, and what's the right way to think about the long-term potential for growth in China?
So, I'm going to start with just a regional overview of that, because to me, this is about success in three markets, not one. To be successful in Asia, we've got to get three countries right: China, Japan, and Korea. And the reason is that they interrelate. China, on the one hand, obviously, it's a country we've been in since 2018, with our first store. We're now north of 20 stores in the country. They're very productive. We're very pleased with their performance, and we're tier one and tier two only, with online for reach. We're seeing good performance, and now you saw it in Q3. We're very pleased with how that's developing. Japan, we're relatively new into our joint venture, a couple of years in.
Got a great partner, but that's another DTC journey that's all about a partnership with department stores. We've got 6 stores in the country, 3 of them in Tokyo, 3 of them not. And we see the route to growth there through that department store partnership. And in Korea, what's important to understand there is Korea is an influencer of both of those geographies. So, on the one hand, you've got China buying pop culture from Korea, because they're clearly not going to buy it in North America. And secondly, you see the Japanese men who are cool taking their cue from Korean men, who are also cool, and therefore, that becomes a key influence, too.
So, you've got this triangle that you've got to get right, and what we've done in Korea is move distribution partner to Lotte, who are probably the best distribution partner, and that gives us a really sound footing for expansion our strategy. Now, we're seeing, as you saw in Q3, we saw very strong growth in the Asia-Pacific region, led by mainland China. Well, obviously, we've got a non-comparable position in the fourth quarter, inevitably, because of different shopping patterns year-over-year. But we see a ton of opportunity there, and we're far too early in our journey to be worried about the whether there's enough demand in mainland China for our product. We're, you know, as I said, we're 22 stores. Take Beijing, take Shanghai, we've got two or three stores in each.
This is not a saturation story, not nowhere near. So, we're very pleased with where we are on that.
You touched on it earlier, but I'd love to dig further into Europe. You know, obviously, that's, that's where a lot of important luxury brands have their roots, and, and it's an important market. How should investors think about the progress you've made so far, and the growth opportunities ahead? I think you alluded to opportunities on the productivity side, but curious, what else you see there.
Yeah, I mean, funnily enough, the brand began its international expansion in Europe. And it's therefore adopted more of the wholesale characteristic that was more prevalent in the brand at the time. So, we're earlier in that journey of conversion from wholesale to DTC in Europe than we are in other markets. We do still have nine stores, and we've got a big focus there on improving the sales density, and we still see plenty of scope for growth, both organically and eventually by new store acquisition as well. But suffice to say that the focus in Europe right now is very much on that sales density story.
Can we shift gears and talk about the wholesale segment? I believe it's a channel that the company has intentionally de-emphasized over the years. Is there any way to frame how much of that channel has been right-sized, and how much more shrinking is left to do?
So, I would like to start by just explaining what's in our wholesale channel, because it covers a number of different business models. It's very easy for it to assume that it's all about the majors, and that's not the case. So, in North America, wholesale encompasses the majors, for sure, but also multi-brand stores. In Europe, it encompasses the department stores, because typically we don't run those as concessions, we run those as wholesale shop-in-shops, as well as multi-brand stores. In Asia, it encompasses our distribution partner, and some Japanese wholesale, and then beyond that, an embryonic travel retail business. So there's a lot of different components in there. Wholesale distribution at the time that we IPO'd this business is a data point that's worth anchoring ourselves in, even if it was 2017. There's 2,500 points of distribution.
We came into this year at around 60% of that number, 1,500 points of distribution or so, with an expectation that they'd go down by another 6%, which is broadly speaking, what's happened... and we see that as a continuous process of editing and improving. But it's editing and improving with one thought in mind, which is that the channel itself has to be brand accretive. And therefore, that is about either putting points of distribution in locations where consumers want a physical representation of the brand, or where they are key opinion leaders or both. And so that's really the role of wholesale.
We're not setting a goal that says it has to be X doors or Y doors, but what we are doing is continuously improving the quality of that distribution, and ultimately, we're prepared to add to it as much as take away from it. Last point: we have never supplied a wholesale channel with everything it asks for. As a full-price brand, we want to make sure that the sell-through in this channel is healthy, so that we don't have people tempted to do things with the brand that frankly, as a full-price brand, we'd rather not see. We do see, therefore, that keeping the channel pure, keeping inventory under control in the channel, is really critical to the health of the brand. So that ultimately, we become a driver of gross margin density for the wholesale partners that we work with.
I'd love to have you give us an update on the products outside of your core parkas. So everyone knows your iconic parkas, but you've had a lot of wins in categories outside of parkas as well. So maybe just talk about the opportunity ahead for some of these under-penetrated categories and you know what we can expect over the next few years.
So, what's really interesting, I mean, the DNA of the brand is keep me warm, keep me dry. You know, it's protection from the elements, understood as the adverse elements. And we're probably most famous for the heavyweight down. And heavyweight down, when I joined this brand a few years ago, it was probably 85% of the business, 63% of the business last year. I don't know, in the zip code of 60% or so this year. The key with that makeup is that therefore, what you're seeing is a very significant growth in non-heavyweight down in the business. And whether that's lightweight down, like I'm wearing here, or whether it's accessories or apparel or footwear, we're seeing growth across the piece.
Convert that into units, and the majority of what we sell is already not heavyweight down. So the diversification journey that we've been on is already well underway. Doesn't mean we don't see growth opportunity in heavyweight down, because we do, but we see even more growth opportunity in the other categories alongside it. So, I think... You know, we're particularly pleased with the performance of apparel. And for us, apparel is quite broad. It goes all the way from fleece to knitwear, outerwear to knitwear, to sweats and tees. So it's a very broad range.
What's really encouraging is we're seeing good offtake by consumers around the globe, and that gives us increased confidence that the elasticity of the brand allows us to do these adjacent categories, so long as they contribute to the promise and DNA of the brand.
I'd love to shift gears and talk a little bit about margins, maybe starting with gross margins. You know, help us understand how you're thinking about the next year in terms of the puts and takes, and then maybe zooming out and looking out over the long run. You know, how should investors think about the structural changes that are going on in the business and how those could impact gross margins?
Our gross margin narrative has not really shifted over a number of years, and that's because we've got a very strong underlying algorithm. The way I like to frame it is headwinds and tailwinds. So, in terms of tailwinds, we have pricing, we have pricing power in the brand that allows us to take price in the mid-single digits. Combined with that, we also have the benefit of being insourced. We can, for a large proportion of our production, also have a strong sourcing function. So, you bring these facts together, and they create efficiencies, and that allows you to propel the margin forward. Of course, there are headwinds, too, whether it's input cost inflation, labor inflation, or indeed, investment in new categories and new product development.
Management's job is keep the margin static, so mid-70s% in DTC, mid- to high-40s% in wholesale. And more or less, that's where we are today, probably slightly higher with an FX tailwind, particularly in wholesale. But that's fundamentally where the margin structure is, and it's where we expect to keep it. So, on a consolidated basis, it will move in line with the channel mix, so therefore, likely up over time. But fundamentally, we're very comfortable with where the margins are. More to the point, as this category development's gone on, as we've moved into the adjacent categories, one of the most common questions has been: Are you able to do that without diluting your gross margins? And actually, the answer is we did.
So, we feel pretty confident that we've got an underlying gross margin model that's going to allow us to sustain margins in and around this category.
Help us think about OpEx and the investment spending that needs to happen as you look to accomplish your long-term goals. You know, you've talked about new store growth, developing new categories. What does that translate into SG&A growth as we think about both near term and long term?
So, I think SG&A for us is really it's three things, and it needs to be pulled apart to understand how it behaves. One is, if you like, the channel costs, so the costs of running stores, running online, running wholesale. And we call those out in the financial statements as well, so that people can understand how that component of it behaves, and that typically is going to behave in line with or slightly better than revenue. That's what we would expect. The second is marketing, and the third is corporate costs, and those together combine to represent the unallocated costs. And that should more or less split evenly between marketing and the corporate costs.
Today, there's more corporate costs than marketing, which is not the right balance, and ultimately, we'd expect that to rebalance. It's clear that our SG&A costs have been growing faster than we would like over the last few years, and hence the margin compression that's resulted. The transformation program that we launched, call it a year ago, is critical to delivering some of that margin now, some of that operating leverage. So, we've set a goal of CAD 150 million for that transformation program and annual benefit. We see CAD 15 million of benefit this fiscal, and we see 15% of that goal in the run rate at the beginning of next fiscal, given that benefits grew gradually through the year.
It's multi-layered in terms of multi-streams, whether I'm looking at organization and operating model, sourcing, supply chain, marketing, technology, and so on, and it's multi-year in its effect. But we're goaling more, and we're goaling more soon because we see that as critical to the improvement of the efficiency of our SG&A.
So there's a lot of puts and takes going on across gross margins and SG&A. So, you know, maybe we can put it together. How should investors think about the potential for operating margins, both in the near term as we think about the transformation program, and also longer term as the growth plays out and we see the structural changes in the business?
Look, the way I'd frame it is that there's really three components that's going to should drive margin expansion. One is organic growth, one's inorganic, and one is the transformation program. So what do I mean by organic growth? Fundamentally, it's about comps. In any DTC business, we have to drive comp growth, and this business is no different, and ultimately, that's the route to margin expansion. I talked before about the fact we've been higher than CAD 4,000 a sq ft. I see, you know, the two go together. So as we improve, the comps will improve the sales density as well, and ultimately, that will drive part of the story. Alongside that, the...
You know, we're gating in new stores at CAD 4,000 a sq ft and 40% margin, and that's a second and important strain of how we expand the margins. And then, of course, the transformation program, of which I've just talked. Right now, in a balance between leaning into comp growth and leaning into store, new stores, we're leaning further into comp growth because we see that as the most important thing to focus on right now, but we continue with our ambition to develop the store network alongside it. We just believe that focusing on the productivity of the 68 stores we have right now is going to be particularly important as we look forward.
Great. And the last question I'll ask you is, is just to touch on the balance sheet. As we think about the business, how should investors think about the balance sheet and where it is today, and also what your priorities are for cash going forward?
I think... I don't think I can have a conversation about the balance sheet without touching on inventory, so I should start there. I mean, we have a level of inventory in the business that attracts a lot of questions and attention. We worry less about it than the investment community because we understand that we've got a somewhat different model. We have a very much more continuative component of our inventory makeup. Continuity is defined by different brands in different ways, so let me be clear for us. We measure continuity in years. So we have some of our continuative product has been with us for 10, 15, in some cases, 20 years.
Sure, we animate it with print, with color, with innovation, but fundamentally, those are the same styles that have been with us for a good period of time. Therefore, inherently, that product can be sold now, it can be sold later. It holds its value. We're also a manufacturer, and what that means is that the product comes to us when it's made, as opposed to when you call it off from a vendor. And so typically, therefore, structurally, you carry a bit more inventory. And lastly, we're a full-price business, and therefore, we don't inherently feel markdown risk with that, at that level. So we feel pretty good about inventory.
That said, a year ago, in the end of December, when we were up 20% year-over-year, we made a statement at that time that said, "Okay, we're going to reduce the growth rate progressively and sequentially over time." And that's what we've delivered on. And more at the last print, we were more or less flat year-over-year. We're not stopping there. We believe there's opportunity to grow the terms, and we see that as entirely achievable as we tune what we make, what we buy, and what we expect to sell. All of which said, the balance sheet is fundamentally healthy. It's cyclical, so there are times in the year when you borrow and times in the year when you're in net cash, and that's fine. But we are in a good, healthy balance sheet.
Our capital allocation strategy, very straightforward. First priority is invest in the business. We'll get the best return. Second is to make sure we've got an efficient capital structure, and the third is with cash that we then identify as surplus. In that framework, we're prepared to enter into buybacks, and we have shown that by our actions, and we're some way into our third NCIB, our normal course issuer bid program, as we speak.
That's great. Well, we'll leave it there. Thank you so much, Jonathan and Ana, for joining us.
Thanks.
Thank you all for being here.