Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Richelieu's conference call for the fourth quarter of the year ended November 30th, 2024. With me is Antoine Auclair, CFO and COO as of now. As usual, note that some of today's statements include forward-looking information, which is provided with the usual disclaimer, as reported in our financial filings. The year 2024 ended well for Richelieu, with good results in the fourth quarter, including sales up 5%, driven almost equally from internal growth and acquisition. For the year, our total sales were CAD 1.8 billion, which we are pleased with, given the renovation slowdown and the price deflation on some commodity products. Our team brought its expertise and drive to meet the challenge with continuous product innovation, second to none service and customer support.
The diversification of our market segment and the expansion of our operation in Canada and in the U.S., with a strategically well-established network, gives us the strength to face the market and economic condition. We pursued our acquisition strategy in the fourth quarter, closing our fourth acquisition since the beginning of the year, Panex-el of November 13th. We are looking forward to integrate this new Quebec-based business located in Boucherville, which specializes in surfaces and decorative panels, adding new products for our Eastern Canadian market. In addition, we signed three agreements in principle in the fourth quarter, which were successfully concluded in December and early January 2025.
We acquired three new fully compatible businesses: Mill Supply on December 1st, located in Dartmouth and Charlottetown, Darant Distributing in Denver, Colorado, adding a location in this long-time targeted strategic market where we did not have a physical presence, and Midwest Specialty Products in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As a result of this acquisition, we now operate two distribution centers in Minneapolis while adding product lines related to the countertop manufacturing market. Together, the seven acquisitions closed in 2024 and early 2025 will bring an additional CAD 100 million in annual sales, boost our market presence, and diversify and expand our product lines. Antoine will now go over the financial highlights for the quarter and the year. Then I will conclude, and we will take our questions. Antoine.
Thanks, Richard. Our fourth quarter sales reached CAD 476 million, up 5%. Sales to manufacturers stood at CAD 421.6 million, up 7.2%, with 4.1% from internal growth and 3.1% from acquisitions. In the hardware retailers and renovation superstores market, sales were down 9.7%. In Canada, sales amounted to CAD 275 million, an increase of CAD 7.8 million or 2.9%. Our sales to manufacturers reached CAD 230 million, up 4.4%. As for the retailers' market, sales stood at CAD 45 million, down 4% with last year. In the U.S., sales totaled $146 million in U.S. dollar, up 7.1%. Sales to manufacturers reached $139 million in U.S. dollar, up 10%, evenly split between internal growth and acquisitions. In the retailers' market, sales were down 29.6%. Total sales in the U.S. reached CAD 201 million in Canadian dollar, an increase of 7.9%, representing 42% of total sales.
Total sales for 2024 reached CAD 1.8 billion, an increase of 2.5%, of which 2.2% from acquisition and 0.3% from internal growth. Sales to manufacturers reached CAD 1.6 billion, up 4.6%, of which 2% from internal growth and 2.6% from acquisitions. Sales to hardware retailers were down by 10.9%. In Canada, sales totaled CAD 1 billion, comparable to last year. Our sales to manufacturers amounted to CAD 873 million, up by 1.8%, mostly from acquisitions. Sales to hardware retailers and renovation superstores were CAD 191 million, down 7.9%. In the U.S., sales amounted to $575 million, up 5%, of which 2.1% from internal growth and 2.9% from acquisitions. They reached CAD 784 million, up 6%, accounting for 43% of total sales. Sales to manufacturers reached $544 million, an increase of 7.1%, and sales to hardware retailers were down by 22.1%.
Fourth quarter EBITDA amounted to CAD 54.3 million, compared to CAD 58.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2023, down 7.7%. Our gross margin was slightly lower than last year, and the EBITDA margin stood at 11.4%, compared to 13% in the same period last year. This decline was primarily driven by a lower sales price on certain products, higher cost of goods sold in specific categories, as well as the impact of our expansion projects that are still in ramp-up mode. Fourth quarter net earnings attributable to shareholders totaled CAD 24.4 million, compared with CAD 28.5 million last year. Diluted net earnings per share reached CAD 0.44, compared with CAD 0.51 in 2023. For the year, net earnings reached CAD 86 million, a decrease of 23.1%, and CAD 1.53 per share, compared to CAD 1.98 per share last year.
Fourth quarter cash flows from operating activities before net change and non-cash working capital balances were CAD 43 million or CAD 0.77 per share. Net change and non-cash working capital balance used cash flow of CAD 15.8 million. Consequently, we generated CAD 27.2 million in cash flow from operating activities, compared with CAD 72.7 million for the fourth quarter of 2023. For the year, we generated CAD 165.7 million in adjusted cash flow from operating activities.
Throughout the year, we paid dividends of CAD 33.5 million, with CAD 8.3 million paid in the fourth quarter. We also repurchased common share for CAD 38.7 million, including CAD 20 million in the fourth quarter. In total, we distributed a total of CAD 72.2 million to our shareholders this year. Investing activities used cash flow of CAD 51 million, which included CAD 20 million primarily for our four business acquisitions completed in fiscal 2024.
Additionally, CAD 30 million was spent on operational equipment to maintain and improve efficiency, as well as on distribution center expansion projects, including major investments in our new 250,000 sq ft building in Calgary. I now turn it over to Richard.
Thank you, Antoine. Our results affect the efficiency of our business model, which we want always to be well adapted to our customer needs, our value-added distinctive service, the strength of our network, the performance of our website, richelieu.com, and our capacity for ongoing innovation. We have a unique product offering featuring diversity, quality, and depth in our product lines. The depth of our product lines is very variable, and it enables us to respond to the increasing specialized needs of our customers in order to increase sales and to distinguish ourselves in the market. Over the coming period, we will continue to build on our lead, developing synergies with our recent acquisition. Our strength must benefit each acquired business and vice versa. We will do our utmost to preserve and improve our margins and continue to invest in innovations and value-creating acquisitions to prepare the future.
Our strengths are multiple, and we continue to optimize them. In conclusion, I'm pleased to announce to you that following the Board of Directors' approval, Antoine Auclair, Chief Financial Officer of the Corporation since 2011, will now also assume the function of Chief Operating Officer in addition to his current responsibility. With this new role, Antoine will allow me to dedicate more of my time to strategy and business development while continuing to leverage his leadership and expertise to ensure that the company continues to achieve solid results. Antoine, would you like to add something to that?
Yeah, thanks for your trust, Richard. I think that with the growth and multiple acquisitions, we were at a point where we could really benefit from streamlining the organization and give the chance to Richard to spend his time and focus on strategy and market development. So I'm up for the challenge.
Very good. So thanks, everyone, for listening. We'll now be happy to answer your questions.
Thank you, [audio distortion]. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. As stated, questions will only be taken from analysts. If you are an analyst and you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your touch-tone phone. You will then hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. And should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press star followed by two. And if using a speakerphone, you will need to lift the handset up first before pressing any keys. Please go ahead and press star one now if you have a question. First, we will hear from Hamir Patel at CIBC Capital Markets.
Hi, good afternoon, and congratulations, Antoine, on the new role.
Thanks, Amir.
Richard, maybe we could just start first talking about the sort of price-volume dynamics in the quarter. I know there's noise on the retailer side because of the U.S. Lowe's business, but at least when I look at the manufacturer side, in Q4, you kind of had organic sort of 4% growth. What would be the breakdown there between price and volume? Because it does sound from elsewhere, it looks like the price columns were still negative in Q4.
We don't expect any price increases in Q4. So basically, the business for the price in the pricing is going to be stable. As far as the market, though, it seems that the market is doing okay, and initially, I think we're more aggressive than ever in order to seize as much sales as we can because in a more competitive market, our competitors are starving, and the initial view is really the target. But we do very well with the sales force that we have there, our website and everything else, and the same thing happened in the U.S., where because we have to understand also that the U.S. is 10 x the people, it's also 10 x time more competitions. So in the circumstances, Richard does very, very well.
We expect, except for, not to mention that Trump, whatever is going to happen next week, we expect for us to achieve very good results in the course of the next 12 months.
Sorry, I may have the for the retailers. Most of the price reduction behind us took place at the beginning of the year. So, soon, those will be behind us.
Okay. And based on maybe what's been, obviously, we'll see what happens next week on tariffs. But Richard, based on sort of existing sort of communications of pricing, are you seeing signs of prices increasing yet?
So I think that will happen, though. We hear it's not official yet, but the suppliers are just starting to discuss about new pricing, mainly the North American pricing. But everything is on hold because like us, they wait till next week what's going to happen. So they might have to increase their price by 20% next week or 25% instead of 2% or 3%. So basically, everything is on hold. But the market is ready and is desperate for price increases because the cost, operating costs of all the companies, all of our suppliers, whatever they're in Europe, in China, or in North America, they have cost increased since two or three years, and they did not have the possibility to increase their pricing. So people really need this to happen soon. So basically, we're going to see what's going to happen next week.
But after that, something should start to move.
It's only a question of time. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. And I mean, Richard, I know there's been tariff talks since the election in November. So given your strong balance sheet, have you positioned yourselves after the end of the quarter with perhaps staging or having more inventory in advance of tariffs, which maybe could drive some higher margins near term?
We don't have an inventory in advance because I think we have plenty of inventory. Whatever will happen that we're going to pass through the tariff, we'll pass through to the customers. So basically, and regarding our competition, we're all in the same boat. They buy basically from the same country and from the same sources. And many of our real U.S. suppliers that use manufacturing in the U.S., they manufacture in Mexico now. So that will have quite an effect on the market because, for example, in the Rev-A-Shelf business, which is a kitchen accessory business, they're all made in, that's a big business for us. It's all made in Mexico, and our competitors also sell the same products. So we're all in the same boat.
On top of that, I think the big advantage with Richelieu is our ability to react fast to whatever will happen and our balance sheet, as you said earlier.
Also our product offering because we have a significant advantage.
I'll turn it to products. If a product comes from Canada or another country with tariffs, we can look at alternative products. So we have over 130,000 products. So we definitely have a good competitive advantage.
It's going to be a challenge. We're going to have fun.
Okay. That's helpful, and Antoine, are you able to just maybe update us what the geographic mix of your products are right now?
Yeah. It's almost 45% in the US as we speak.
Yeah.
43.
43?
Yeah.
No, I meant for the products when you're sourcing products from outside of North America.
Oh, okay. Okay. Sorry.
25% from Asia, 15% from Europe, and 60% from North America.
Okay. Perfect. That's helpful. And just the last question I had, Richard, when you look at margins, 11.4% in Q4, looks like they kind of almost ticked up 10 basis points each of the last three quarters. Should we expect that slow, steady kind of 10 basis points each quarter, gradual climbing over 25%? And where's that long-term margin going?
If you ask an entrepreneur answer, our EBITDA margin should go at 12%-12.5%. But it's going to take time, though. Maybe Antoine can give you more details. But I think we have to get higher than 12%. Unfortunately, though, we make a lot of acquisitions. It's fortunate on one side because we really reinforce this company for the future because we do the right moves. But all those, like the CAD 100 million new business that we just bought, we expect EBITDA margin between 3% and 5% from that. But that's the right move to do if you want to have a CAD 3 billion company in five years from now.
And so, Richard, is that the sort of sales aspiration now for?
That's an entrepreneur feeling. Sometimes maybe I talk too much.
Okay. All right. That's all I had. I'll turn it over. Thanks.
Thanks.
Thank you. Next question will be from Zachary Evershed at National Bank. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Congrats on the quarter, everyone. And congrats on Antoine on the additional title. Just starting there quickly, any change to the scope of your role now, Antoine, or is this a case of your title catching up with your responsibilities?
No. Basically, it's been a while that I'm involved in operations. And I think that, like I said, we were at the point where streamlining the organization and make sure that Richard also focused on strategy and market development was a priority. So I'm going to do whatever I can to free up Richard and work with the team in operations as well as the CFO role.
My version of the answer is that Antoine has been more than tested on those new responsibilities. He's been involved with me in all what we've done, all the management, whatever the meetings that we have and everything else. So he was already in charge of many of the managers that are working for us. So now we're adding some managers that are going to report to him, but he knows exactly what to do. And I'm certain 100% that he's going to do it perfectly.
Excellent. Thank you. And then flipping over to Q1 thus far, what are you guys seeing in terms of organic growth so far on both sides of the border?
What you've seen in the last quarter is going to be probably the same thing, a cut pace in this new quarter. But I think some of the bad news being behind us, like deflation, that type of thing, overpriced inventory. So everything should, at the minimum, improve. So basically, we're optimistic. And I think our sales force can whatever the way we have to sell more products. We have added sales rep on the road. We have added people that sell over the phone. We can call that telemarketing. Not people taking orders. People that phone the customers because we receive many new customers every month that sometimes the rep did not have time to contact. Now we have people that do that on phone. The results are tremendous as we speak. So basically, we're very positive. I have a meeting personally with the Canadian retailers.
The Canadian retailers is going to come back. I had a very good meeting with Home Depot last month. We are introducing new products with them, like the stairway components, where they have the kitchen accessory that has been added. But now we're going to have starting in the east of Canada, what we call the safety fencing for the pools. It's a product that our division sells. It's a very sophisticated fencing system that you cannot leave the fence open, and it has to be locked all the time. So it's very safe for the children and other people as well. So that's going to be added to Home Depot.
With RONA, as I said earlier in previous meetings, that we're investing something like CAD 5 million now in their stores in order to revamp all the products that we have there because in the last three years, it was not possible to update our products at RONA. Now we almost finished with the new setup. The new setup means new displays, new samples, new products, and adding also product line with RONA. Basically, as we already said in previous meeting with RONA, we had lost CAD 10 million of sales in Canada. Not our fault because we were not allowed to do our job because of administrative reasons, because the company was for sale, was sold, management was changing, everything like that. Basically, we look to make up that RONA's business.
It's going to take maybe a while to recapture the CAD 10 million, but we're going to be on the right track in 2025. So basically, that's all very good news.
Great news. Thanks, and so I'm hearing that EBITDA margin should be north of 12% over the longer term, and there's some good tailwinds for organic growth, so if that trend holds, what are your hopes for EBITDA margins this year in 2025?
Yeah. Between 11.5% and 12%, that's what we're heading for this year. But we need to see some kind of a pickup in the economy because what we're seeing today, it's pretty neutral in terms of growth. We'll look maybe a bit better than what we were because the comps will not be as strong in the few months to come. But to achieve those margins, we're in distribution. So market gain or additional sales goes right to the bottom line. So that's where we're going to. That's how we're going to be improving the EBITDA. So to achieve that, we're hoping to see some kind of an improvement in the market, maybe more in the second half of the year.
Any divergence in those trends between Canada and U.S., given interest rates or jobs data?
It's pretty much the same, to be honest, and all across the region as well. So now we're seeing the same thing, the same trend in Canada and in the US.
Good color. Thanks. On the acquisition pipeline, how is 2025 shaping up for you?
It's good. It started strong. We've completed three acquisitions so far in 2025, and we're only January 16. So it's looking good. The pipeline is healthy. Team is working 100% on that. So it's looking good.
Beauty. Thanks. And then I'll just end off with the tariff risk. With the threat of tariffs from China, are you seeing any of your customers move closer to you or maybe farther away from you in preparation?
No. We don't have any such fear. I think a lot of customers will stick with Richelieu because of the prodigious product range that we have. We've got everything. We're flexible. We have plenty of inventory, many distribution centers, good salespeople to service them and to answer their questions and help them for the technical aspect of the products. So basically, I think Richelieu could be the first choice for many things. But anyway, as I said earlier, it's a challenge, but we have a solid balance sheet, and we have all the talented people that will help us to support our customers and to get most of whatever is going to be available from any business.
That's it for me. Thank you very much for taking my questions.
Thank you, Zach.
Thank you, Zach.
Next is a follow-up from Ha mir Patel. Please go ahead.
Richard, just thinking through some of the maybe organic growth CapEx. When you think about the platform, are there any states where maybe you haven't had as much success with acquisitions where you're looking to build a platform out organically? And how do we think about timing or maybe product categories where the opportunity lies?
We are making the two latest acquisitions, the Pan-Excel and Midwest in Minneapolis. We're adding product lines like quartz, for example. So we started the year in 2024 selling zero quartz, and now we're going to sell in 2025, $25 million worth of quartz. So basically, that's a terrific comeback. And we also have one of our divisions that sells what we call the Division 10 of the construction, which has a tremendous growth and has many of our divisions as well. So new products, we always open. We will reinforce our presence in China this year for visiting a couple of exhibitions that are important for us. There is going to be a big exhibition, which I will be present to in, I think, May. It's for Interzum, just to say the name.
In Germany, I will be there also personally where we meet all the suppliers from around the world. And these are the best places. And there's going to be Milano as well, which is going to be next, I don't know, something in the next few months. And basically, this is where we find all the new products. And we're going to have many of our team players being present with a clear mandate to find new products, find new suppliers, and to continue the relationship with our best suppliers as well. So basically, we're going to put a lot of emphasis to refresh many new products. And because, as we've discussed in another meeting this morning, from Europe, the new product innovation was not really there in the last 18 months because the market is very tough in our market in Europe. There are suppliers.
We're not investing much in new products. But now, since Interzum is coming, they really have to go there with new products. So basically, they have a lot of pressure on them to present new products. And we just enjoy selecting new products at Richelieu and selling them to our customers.
Fair enough. And just the last question I have, just looking at the U.S. retailers business, sort of three-quarters here of this negative 30% comps just with the loss of the Lowe's business in the U.S. I know in the past, it sounded like you thought over time you could fully replace that with, I think, Tractor Supply and maybe Ace Hardware. So how do we think about there's probably, I guess, Q1 would still also be that kind of - 30% comps, but how long to rebuild the sales that you've lost in the U.S. retailer category?
We have many projects, but the problem is to conclude those projects and to get the orders, so we have something in the air with many, many customers, but the retailers, they take forever to make a decision. For those that know about this market, they're not quick deciders. They listen to change the buyer all the time, so we have to restart again and again and again. In Canada, it's a different ball game. We're up to date now, as I explained earlier. In the U.S., it's not a big business, but it has to become a big business. We're going to have to continue to make some effort in order to grow the business and maybe make an acquisition would be interesting as well. We'll have to look out. Maybe we're going to find something.
But I'm a believer that U.S. retail sales should become important for us.
Right. Okay. That's helpful. All right. Well, that, I think, covered everything I had. So I'll turn it over. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you, and at this time, Mr. Lord, we have no other questions registered. Please proceed.
There's no more questions. Thanks again. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for listening to us. We'll always be happy to talk to you if you need more information, Antoine Auclair or myself. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you. Merci. Ladies and gentlemen, this does indeed conclude your conference call for today. Once again, thank you for attending, and at this time, we ask that you please disconnect your lines.