Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Natuzzi fourth quarter and full year 2021 financial results conference call. As a reminder, in addition to the link already provided to join via video, interested persons can also join this conference call live via telephone by dialing in the following number: +1 412 717 9633, then passcode 39252103#. Once again, the number is +1 412 717 9633, then passcode 39252103#. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Following the introduction, we'll conduct a question and answer session. Instructions will be provided at that time for you to queue up for questions. Joining us on today's call are Natuzzi's Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Antonio Achille, the Executive Chairman, Mr. Pasquale Natuzzi, Mr. Jason Camp, President of Natuzzi Americas and Piero Direnzo, Investor Relations.
As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Piero. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Kevin. Good day to everyone. Thank you for joining the Natuzzi fourth quarter and full year 2021 financial results conference call. After a brief introduction, we will leave room for a Q&A session. Before, we would like to advise our listeners that our discussion today could contain certain statements that constitute forward-looking statements under the United States securities laws. Obviously, actual results might differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements because of risks and uncertainties that can affect our results of operations and financial conditions. Please refer to our most recent annual report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC for a complete review of those reasons. The company assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking matters discussed during this call.
Now, I would like to turn the call over to the company's Chief Executive Officer. Please, Antonio.
Thank you, Piero and good morning, good afternoon to everyone attending. I might briefly recap the key message from the press release, where Pasquale Natuzzi, the Executive Chairman and I share our view on the ending of 2021 and shed a light on the fourth quarter. As you have certainly noted from the press release, we end up on a positive note 2021. Top line sales has been 30% above the previous year, 2020 and we exit 2021 stronger than the year before COVID. In terms of top line, we reported a growth of 10.4% versus 2019. In addition to this, we closed the year with EUR 114.4 million portfolio orders, which is above the last year by some EUR 10 million.
We could have been closing in terms of top line even on a higher number if we didn't face such a strong headwind from supply chain disruption. 2021 reported also improvement in the gross margin, where we closed at 36%, which is almost 7 points above 2019, where it was 29.7%. This despite the need to overcome a spike in most of the raw material, which sometimes has been double- or triple-digit in terms of price increase during the year. We ended 2021 with a profit of EUR 4.9 million, which compared to a loss of EUR 10.6 million in 2020 and a loss of EUR 22.5 million versus 2019. We improve in terms of operating profit of EUR 27.4 million versus 2019 and EUR 15.5 million versus 2020.
In terms of EBITDA, we closed the year with EUR 24.9 million, that compare with 12.3 million in 2020 and 1 million in 2019. I often refer, as you could expect, 2019 because I believe that provide a more solid metric of comparison because was not affected by COVID. If you look at EBITDA, which is clearly an important metric in terms of value creation, compared to 2019, the company improved by EUR 23.9 million. Also, cash position has improved. We closed the year with EUR 63.5 million versus EUR 48 million in 2020 and EUR 22 million in 2021 and EUR 39.8 million in 2019.
I would say overall, a year which respects the strong momentum in the market, which also provides some early signs that our strategy of focusing on retail and brand initiated by Pasquale a decade ago , he starts providing some results which are also of satisfaction for potential investors. We do want to provide also some brief highlights on how the year started. In terms of order flow, the year started quite with a positive trajectory. Order flow, which means the orders we received, not the invoice sales, is up 32% at week 12. This is also a result of strong momentum we are getting in retail in the U.S. where Jason will comment. As for the full year, we're also posting the results for the fourth quarter.
We are pretty much in line with the same trajectory, with the exception of operating profit. At the level of operating profit, we reported operating profit, which was positive by EUR 0.6 million but was lower than what we want to achieve, mostly because we suffered from a significant increase in transportation costs, especially towards North America, that we were only partially able to recover from our clients through invoicing. We reported in the fourth quarter EUR 6.5 million of extraordinary one-off transportation costs to North America. That is a bit, I would say, the key highlight for the economic performance. Other key messages I would like to share with Pasquale and the board. We continue working on the organizational side.
As you remember from our last discussion, we put in place an organization which now is centered on the brand. We now have two division, one which is fully responsible for the strategy and merchandising of Natuzzi Italia, one which is fully responsible for the strategy and merchandising of Natuzzi Editions. Those division are increasingly exchanging view and opinion with the regions, so to come out with the best distribution strategy in each region. In addition, we created a division for furniture. As you might remember, we started a strategy to become a total lifestyle brand. We want to add to our traditional strengths of upholstery, a very convincing offering of furniture. For that reason, we create a business unit.
We have a new manager which is coming next week into the company, which is gonna be providing a very strong experience in the furniture sector. This is part of the idea of strengthening our leadership team. Other potential information which are worth sharing with you are regarding the evolution we are doing on our manufacturing. The most important achievement where we are very satisfied is the result of the Pilot 4.0, where in a plant here in Italy, we're testing really a state-of-the-art technology coming from the automotive. Something I'm not aware of is already in place in our industry, which are providing very exciting results. Those ones gonna be stabilized, those technology will be the standard base for all our direct factory, not only in Italy but in China, in Brazil, in Romania.
Two notes on our JV. As you are aware, we are in a JV since 2018 with the Kuka Home for the commercial development of China. In that JV, Natuzzi S.p.A. holds a minority of 49%, hence we don't consolidate line by line. The JV is proceeding very well on all three dimensions. Last year, we had 84 new stores in franchising. We're producing a profit which is more than the double than last year and the JV sit on a significant cash position that we are discussing how to make available also for the expansion plan of Natuzzi S.p.A. Another positive highlight that will be the subject of a specific press release.
We eventually closed as planned a joint venture for the development of the rest of Asia Pacific with a very predominant player in the region, which acquired 20% of Natuzzi Singapore for a corresponding $5.3 million investment. The JV will be a platform for the development of the rest of Asia Pacific commercially but also will be the base for strengthening our operation locally. Let me stop here just to provide a bit of executive summary of what you received to welcome your question and observation.
Thank you. We'll now be conducting our question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, if you're dialed in via phone, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If you're connecting via the web, please use Raise Your Hand function on the left side of your screen. We ask that you please phrase your questions in a soft and slow manner. Once again, please press star one if you'd like to verbally ask your question or use the Raise Your Hand function to ask your question over the web. We do ask that you ask your questions in a slow manner. If we do have one moment please. David Kanen, your line should be now live.
Great job in transforming the company. First question is in regards to transportation costs, which are up quite a bit. We track a number of companies in the logistics area and what we're seeing is signs of declines. Could you comment on that, what you're seeing?
Let me comment first and thank you for that, very good appreciation for it. In taking your question on the transportation, let me quickly comment on the fourth quarter events and what we are witnessing here. On the fourth quarter, we have been experiencing a strong spike of transportation, especially towards North America. Our practice is to pass on this cost in the form of freight surcharge in a very transparent manner to our partners. What happened in the fourth quarter is that the speed of increase of the freight did not allow our system to adjust rapidly enough. Now we have corrected that also to make more automatic some of these, let's say, price adjustment that will account for freight surcharge. Commenting on what's happening, we do see a flattening of those costs.
The situation remains very fluid because as all you are aware, not only we are experimenting a significant turbulence caused by the war but there is also still very much issue which are geographically specific like China. The Brent price is more than the oil price is more than $100. So the moment we see a flattening in some geographies a decrease but we remain very vigilant because basically we need to witness day by day what's happening. This is very much a delicate situation because we cannot say that the situation is being stabilized rather the opposite. I don't know, Pasquale, you've been in the industry for 60 years. I'm sure, you've seen more of this tomorrow. I don't know if you want to comment on the transportation price as well.
No, I never seen in my 60 years experience anything like last year and obviously even this year. I mean, transportation is, I mean, it's really very complicated because the price, you cannot plan the price because unless we are willing to pay very high price and make a contract. To be honest, in this uncertainty time, we are really, you know, looking almost day by day, the business, at least from the transportation cost point of view.
Yeah. What we, you know, made very clear to every business responsible is that safeguarding the margin is the top priority, especially in light of such a strong portfolio order flow and also strong fourth quarter demand. Every business leader and of course, U.S. is very important aspect, has really been incentivized to pass this kind of extra freight surcharge in a very timely manner. We're paying a lot of attention to avoid that we have, like last year, surprises when we close the quarter. This is a bit the way we are reacting to the situation that very clearly Pasquale mentioned of a situation outside, which still is quite dynamic.
You explain it better than I, Antonio. Let's say.
No, no, Pasquale.
It's true. Listen, it's also difficult to explain. Try to imagine what is in the reality. Okay?
Okay.
Thank you. Once again, for any further questions, please press star one if you're dialed in via phone or use raise your hand function on the Q&A side. One moment please while we poll for further questions. If there are no further questions at this time, I'll turn the floor back over. Actually, one moment, please. David, your line is now live.
Okay, I'm sorry. I had a couple of follow-up questions. Not trying to monopolize but there's a lot on my note sheet here. In regards to your backlog, I noticed that despite the continued acceleration in written orders or it looks like backlog was up about $4 million sequentially. Then in Q1, I know orders were up about 31%. We own a, I'm not gonna mention the name but we own another European furniture company based in the U.K. About a week ago, they told us their lead times from Asia are down from 20 weeks to 13 weeks, which tells me that we're seeing signs of some resolution in supply chain and bottlenecks in logistics. Can you comment on that as it relates to Natuzzi?
Is it reasonable here in the next three-six months that we would start to see you guys work down your backlog? 'Cause, you know, my math is if you continue to write orders around EUR 115 million or better and we start to work down the backlog to what's normal, it seems like we're gonna have some you know, significant increases in revenue. Can you comment on that in particular and if you're seeing your lead times start to come down or if not, when?
Okay. I think it's also a matter of reading carefully what others announce, because the backlog clearly is a function of two elements. How fast, I mean, doing an analogy with a tap of a sink which is full of water, how much water you are able to pull out, which means how fast you are able to accelerate your production and also how much additional running water gets into the sink. As far as Natuzzi is concerned, we were extremely positively surprised by the strong start of the year. The water, the running water, additional running water has been very strong. In terms of additional production, we have a very articulated production footprint. In our view, long-term will constitute an advantage and we were able to catch up quite significantly.
Since last week, the China production, which is quite important, especially when it comes to North America, is closed because of COVID. As you know, as you're probably aware, this is not just us, it's a very generic problem. Foxconn, which produces the screen for iPhone, has stopped the production near Shanghai, is stopping the production of iPhone for Apple. So not just us. We're working very hard. We just need to recognize that first, which I believe is still good news for investors, the additional orders don't seem to stop, rather the opposite, so we're getting more orders every day, at least till week 12. Second, despite all of our effort, it's really a kind of continuous battle. For instance, we were not expecting this lockdown in China because of the stringent measures they are taking.
It's already the second week that the government is postponing the reopening of the Shanghai area. For us, there's no immediate solution to that because even though they restore it, reorganize the supply chain in another district, like could be Vietnam or other district, is not something you can do overnight. To your question, Dave, we're really working very hard because that not only will mean additional revenue but also even more importantly, will mean a better service to our customer and clients. Because the moment, the, for the special order, we have not been able to reduce the timing. We're working on that.
It's not easy in a context where, you know, geographically there's always something coming up, like, you know, China we discussed, Romania, the other important plant we have is suffering because on the Black Sea, given the war, shipping cannot happen and that was a route for receiving raw material. I wish I could say the issue is solved. The issue is addressed very seriously but I could not say it's solved.
Okay. Thank you for that update. I noticed that branded product was 88% of revenue in the quarter. I know branded, you know, traditionally is much higher margin, up around 70%. Do you expect branded to get over 90% at some point this year? The other side of my question is how are blended gross margins with the investments that you're going to be making in technology and automation on the manufacturing side. Can you speak to what effect that will have on our gross margins, both the combination of a higher percentage of branded and will we get above 90% and the implementation of, as you put it, the state-of-the-art manufacturing technology?
Thank you, Dave. This allows me to answer a bit in a structured manner on a question which I believe is very close to you as investors and you generally as investors, which is about margin expansion. We see three main avenues for margin expansion and you touch upon each of them and I would like to comment. The first one is the brand mix. As you pointed out, we are on a continuous trajectory to increase the relevance of the branded business versus the unbranded. Just to give you that point, Natuzzi Italia is a margin which is 10 percentage points above the unbranded business. Every dollar we move from unbranded to Natuzzi Italia is 10 margin points more. As you mentioned, we are 88%.
We developed a five-year plan and the trend of reinforcing the branded business is central to that. We expect to continue marginally increasing the relevance of the branded business over the unbranded business. We also put a very rigid cutoff that we will not accept any unbranded business that does not match our minimum profitability requirements. Last year, we dropped some significant clients because they were not matching our new target for profitability on the unbranded business. The first avenue for margin expansion is the mix. The second one is the retail. I will ask maybe later to Jason to comment. We're continuously improving retail, especially in North America and in well-performing stores. The integrated margin means the margin that we do as a manufacturer and the margin as we do as a retailer is north of 70%.
That is also another view to increase marginality and that is very central to our five-year business plan. The third lever is the one you mentioned, which is about making more efficient, more digital our production. As I mentioned before, we saw through the Pilot 4.0 the opportunity to significantly increase the productivity and efficiency of our production. There's also a significant effort that in close agreement with Pasquale, the chairman, we want to simplify the collection, which is a bit the root cause also for some inefficiency on the supply chain. We expect that the combined effect of simplifying the collection and getting a more efficient production will result in gains in productivity, which are measured in several percentage points.
These are the three levers we are moving to get to a marginality, which will be more satisfactory for any investors in this company. I hope I addressed your question. Maybe as an additional data point, I could ask you, Jason, to comment on the performance of retail in 2021 but maybe also some initial highlight of what's happening in 2022.
Sure. Happy to do that. For the first, you know, 12 or 13 weeks of the quarter, North American Retail had, I think, a very strong showing. The 12 stores, on a comp store basis, grew about 25% in order flow growth over the year before. Essentially, that puts them basically at a double over 2019. Our top six stores, which we were, you know, talking about a $4 million pace last year, are now pacing at $5 million. We're very pleased with our start and working hard to make sure the rest of the year finishes like it started.
Okay. Thank you for that, update and congratulations. Just to finish the question that I have, Antonio, do you expect in 2022 for branded to become greater than 90% of your overall mix or is that more of a 2023 event?
Antonio, you're on mute. Antonio, you're on mute.
Sorry, guys. Now, as you see, we are basically, historically, over the last few years, added 1 percentage point of branded business every year. I expect this trend to continue also in 2022, at least.
Okay. Okay. Then the last question. Even though I'm pleased to see the JV in Singapore, I'm gonna leave that because it looks like it's not an enormous driver yet, so I'm gonna leave that for another caller. Could you speak to the China JV? You know, there's an enormous amount of cash there now and it's performing exceptionally well. When I kind of do my numbers on it appears that we have $10-$12 of value in the China JV and essentially we're getting our core business, which is a $500-$600 million now profitable growing business in transition for free. Can you speak to, you know, monetization of that, potentially a spinoff or ways that for Natuzzi shareholders, we can realize, you know, some of those exceptional results, you know, translated to our stock price?
No, thank you, Dave. That is clearly a very central topic as part of the board discussion and the discussion we are having daily with the Executive Chairman. You're very right. China, which I think is a very positive news for everyone, is on a terrific trajectory in terms of growth. We discussed the three-year plan and they expect actually to accelerate the growth. Now we need to see in the short term how the COVID will affect 2022 but on the long term there is a lot of confidence to deliver it. Currently, the JV has some EUR 62 million, which will be roughly $67 million in cash, which roughly is 30% of the total revenue of the JV, which is really a level of cash we assess to the need of the company.
Also, because the future business plan expect to increase the level of cash, not to decrease. The question how to do a better valorization of debt for the benefit of Natuzzi S.p.A. shareholder is very central. We do see two avenue to that, which I would say can be sequential. The first one is to reduce the level of cash through a capital reduction so that cash can utilize for the purpose and the priority of Natuzzi S.p.A., which include the opening of store, accelerating the factory restructuring. That is something we've been discussing and discussing with the board. As you could expect, it's a matter which is board reserved, so we need to find an agreement with our counterpart. It's been done a first proposal. We're still iterating on that level of discussion.
I believe what you said could be definitely a good option to do a separate IPO, apologies. We put this idea on the table to our partner that, as you know, is a listed company, KUKA and we are open to explore that dynamically. That is not something will happen this year but it's something that could be definitely an ambition. I know and maybe I will ask Pasquale to comment because he actually initiate this JV, that Pasquale is equally excited by me by the idea to list a company in China separately in a market where has higher multiple, where we can bring a story of a brand company from Europe growing double digit in top line and margin and also having a predominant role in this part of the business.
That, for me, would be a very natural and a great scenario for capturing value of the JV. I don't know, Pasquale, if you want to add any color on this.
You covered everything, Antonio.
Thank you, Pasquale. Dave, I want to reassure you and the other investor that we are not sleeping over the matter. It's clear and I hope I know you are quite seasoned enough about the dynamic with China, that when you are in minority, the speed of the execution of some of this deal depend on how fast you can reach an agreement with your counterpart. It's not totally in our control.
Okay. Thank you guys. Good luck and I look forward to speaking with you next quarter.
Thank you so much, Dave, for your continued trust as an investor.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question today is coming from George Melas-Kyriazi from MKH Management. Your line is now live. Hello, George. Your line is now live. Perhaps your phone is on mute.
Just congratulations on the transformation of the business. It's remarkable and thank you for the high level of reporting about all the different parts of the business. It makes it I think you're really trying to educate us on the business and I appreciate that every time. Two quick questions. One of them is on the manufacturing in North America, in Mexico. Maybe trying to see if there's any progress there. Also Jason, maybe on the U.S. retail, congratulations for a great 2021. Maybe give us a little bit some of your plans in 2022 and 2023.
George, I must start on Mexico and then I leave Jason to comment on retail. We are very much looking into Mexico. We need to recognize that Natuzzi as a company with 60 years of history, so when you take decision of direct investment, you look. It's looking at these two cycles, okay? To make sure that those are opportunity for the investors, not just next three months but next 30 years, especially when it comes about direct investment. Why I'm saying this? Because Mexico, if you factor in today the extraordinary logistics costs from Asia, would come as a no-brainer, okay? But if you need to look across cycles, you need to understand which is the intrinsic opportunity of Mexico beyond the potential differential with shipping costs. This consideration leads us to be quite cautious about Mexico but determined.
Determined because as we speak, we have started a production of sourcing with a leading player, FurnMaster , which is a listed Danish company operating in the Monterrey area, for a subset of product which are Natuzzi Editions quick program, means that are product which are highly rotating with our partner. We are testing these with 12 top partner so that we make sure that this is not only matching our quality standards, where we invest a lot of time but is also commercially viable. If that works, that quick program will be expanded to a larger number of clients in North America and this will cut radically the logistic time from 16 weeks to four or five weeks.
In moving from this to a direct investment, we want to make sure that our experience in this outsourcing confirm us that the direct investment is viable also for the long term. When it comes from outsourcing, we are fully committed, we are operational as we speak with our clients. When we come to direct investment, we want to have confirmation also through this direct experience that the investment is financially viable, not only this cycle, where definitely will be because of benefit of lower transport costs but also in a longer time cycle, given all the other element, especially the differential in cost of goods. This, I mean, long story to say, outsourcing we are active, we're starting, will be a great benefit, as being presented in my point, extremely well received by the client.
Our production, we are continuously growing, we are open but we have not started any direct investment yet. If, George, that addresses your question, I may pass over to Jason to comment on retail.
Yes. Thank you.
Good morning. Happy to do it. If I understand sort of the bent of your question, I think maybe your question is about the pace of our retail store count growth in the U.S. You know, as we mentioned, we've got 12 Natuzzi Italia stores that we manage ourselves and consolidate the full retail sales and P&L in the U.S. and those stores are off to a great start with you know, this year, up 25% over 2021 and about double over 2019. From a store opening perspective, when we look at our total store count in North America across both brands, whether they're independently owned or owned by us, we've got about 20 stores in North America between Natuzzi Editions and Natuzzi Italia.
As we have shared, we plan to open about 10 stores a year for the next three-five years. We are on track to do that this year. This summer, we'll plan to do a dedicated press release about our store openings and some of those specific locations that you'll see pop up around the country in Q3 and Q4. We did open 2 Natuzzi Editions stores in the first quarter, one in the Dallas Metro area and one in the Palm Springs area. I hope that answers your question, George.
Maybe Jason, again, we are not in the business of advertising but we have a weekly retail meeting where every country presents a bit the retail dynamics. We had one which was last Friday and it was quite encouraged by seeing that what we call projects, which are situations where a client comes to our stores, so we don't sell them an upholstery piece, a sofa but we sell them a solution for the house, are becoming more and more a regular way for us to doing business. Michelle Greener, which is our retail manager for North America, presented two projects which are above $800 each. Where the average order ticket in that circumstance has been at $100. The client entry was.
$100,000. Yeah, $100,000.
$100,000, sorry. $100,000 dollars, so $100k. We have now an average order value for Natuzzi Italia, which is EUR 8,500 and growing. We have a situation where we're selling a solution, not a piece of furniture. That, of course, is a very interesting avenue to grow the profitability of a store. Maybe, Jason, you want to comment? I mean, I already did a bit but maybe you want to add some color on these if you feel like.
No, listen, I mean, you know, a big part of our strategy to build our strengths and our reputation and to bring, you know, our brand to life in a way that feels inspiring is to, you know, make sure that we build the talent in the stores and our showrooms that can, you know, design full rooms and in some cases full homes for people, help build that loyalty and build our average order size. That's definitely a big part of our strategy.
At the same time, your other distribution channels keep growing as well. You are maintaining those and also growing those to some extent. Because for example, if I look at galleries was EUR 157 million in 2021. In 2019, it was EUR 137 million. It was some nice growth. It's sort of across the portfolio of distribution channels. Can you comment on that?
George, if you look at the data we presented, the weight of retail, where for us retail, we take a bit of customer's perspective and we include the value to operate a store in franchising because in fact, our franchising is very strictly managed. They will operate on our IT system. The choices of merchandising are taken by Natuzzi S.p.A., so from a customer's perspective, it's still retail. The weight of that part of business increased is in 2021 was 49.2% versus 43% in 2019. We increased six percentage points of that part of business. When you look at the wholesale, which includes the rest of the business, has been stable in 2021 versus 2019. Since the overall business increased, the relevance of the wholesale channel in percentage points decreased.
There is clearly a movement towards FOS in the U.S. A gallery, a well-executed gallery is a bit in between because for us it's okay. What we don't want to have is a poor representation of the brand. A well-executed gallery is very favorable to us. When we talk about wholesale, we think about a kind of life cycle where we want to elevate the quality of distribution from just the product, what we call slot business. The clients buy from us three models and basically store them on the floor together with other suppliers. We want to move from that to gallery, because gallery already presents the assortment in the way we want and the customer experience we want to have. From gallery, we want to elevate to FOS.
In an ideal world, we will have just retail and good and secured galleries for the branded business. The unbranded will be always following as lot dynamics because those, by definition, are large clients like Macy's or others, where the gallery will never be applicable. We do continue increasing the weight of retail. I don't know how you cross the data but the weight of retail is increasing. We don't discriminate galleries because gallery for us is good. What we want to reduce is the weight of branded product sold as lot, which means models, individual models together with other brands in a setting where the customer does not perceive the richness of the retail experience and the brand experience of Natuzzi .
Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you very much.
No, my pleasure, George and thank you so much for the trust in our company.
Thank you. Our next question is coming from Robert Marcin from Penn Capital. Your line is now live.
Thanks, guys. Could you comment on how the U.S. store openings went last year and whether we hit our target or not?
Last year was really a year where we got one store open last year and it was the Natuzzi Italia store with a great partner in the Dallas market. I can comfortably and confidently say that store is performing above our model of expectations. Then, you know, the momentum really builds for, you know, for this year f rom an opening standpoint.
Yeah. The question is, really what I was trying to get at was, did store openings spill over from last year into this year? Is that 10-unit number realistic or is it a combination of two years and needs to be adjusted going forward?
I think it's fair to say that we had intended to open a few more stores last year than we did. I think we now have the team, the broker network, to, you know, run at the pace that we've set for this group.
Okay. Thank you. The shareholders look forward to those 70% gross margins passing through the income statement as quickly as possible. My second question is on margins in general. The last time I was on this call, I asked if you guys would consider giving us something in an intermediate term margin target. I looked last quarter just so we could sort of have some kind of sense of where when the business is running very well globally and we're out of the you know, out of pandemics and wars and oil shocks and all that kind of stuff, what kind of operating margins the company might achieve on you know, on even a range of revenues three-five years out.
Some companies do that intermediate term thing just to sort of show off what they believe their true earnings power is when things are fixed. It's not this quarter, it's not this year, it's not 10 years out, it's not five years out like a Chinese plan but it's sort of a three-four year kind of situation. Last quarter, Restoration Hardware generated 17.5% after-tax margins and Bassett Furniture generated 3.6% after-tax profit margins. That's what we have to work with in the U.S. as comps. I would assume you're gonna be closer to the former than the latter when this business is humming. Can you sort of give us any sense of where you would want to be on an operating or net margin target two, three or four years down the road?
I perfectly remember your question and I completely understand your appetite for this kind of information. Let us be very transparent. We approved in our board basically four weeks ago, a five-year plan, which is the trajectory, Pasquale, myself and the full team is committed on. That, of course, is fully the theme of our strategy but in numbers of P&L perspective for the next five years. We do have an internal expectation and internal objective, which is based on growing significantly the top line, so double digit growth over the next five year and reaching a margin, which as you said, is more positioned on the high digit rather than the low digit. That is definitely our objective.
I n terms of being more explicit on providing guidance, we have not come with a final conclusion. As you see the world around us, it is not just because of bad will but the world around us remains very uncertain. If we had to provide a guidance on this year, that would be extremely difficult because, I mean, we started the year in a phenomenal way. Now we have in Europe and it's contaminating not only Europe at war. We have China, which is going to lockdown. So providing guidance can be powerful but also misleading and we want to do it when we feel we are pointing the investor exactly in the right direction. So be reassured we have a plan.
Be reassured the plan is based on top line growth, significant growth based on transforming the company, continue transforming the company in brand retail and getting margins which are aligned with the peers in the European peers in the brand retail business we operate in. So these are the direction. In providing the precise number, let us further consider that. We are hearing that this could be beneficial for you, so we take this request very seriously and we will, you know, come back in the next call with a decision on that.
Thank you very much. That's at least we have a five-year plan that entails significant growth and significant margins improvement. I would hope that the board was intelligent enough to include significant compensation bonuses for senior management should they achieve that plan.
Very good.
If the shareholders make money, I hope the management team participates with equity participation. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question today, you could use the Raise Your Hand feature over the web or you could press star one to verbally ask a question if you're dialed in over the phone. One moment please while we poll for further questions. Once again, you can use the Raise Your Hand feature or you can press star one to be placed into question queue. If there are no further questions at this time, I'll turn the floor back over to management for any further closing comments.
Thank you, Kevin. It seems there are no further questions at the moment, so we can conclude the conference call right now. Thank you everybody for joining the call and should you have any further question or doubt, please reach me out with an email or a call. Thank you all, guys. Bye-bye.
Thank you. That does conclude today's conference and webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.