Safilo Group S.p.A.

Good evening and welcome to the SAFILO Group's full year 2021 results. This call may contain forward-looking statements related to future events and operating, economic, and financial results for the SAFILO Group. Such forecasts, due to their nature, imply a component of risk and uncertainty due to the fact that they depend on the occurrence of certain future events and developments. The actual results may therefore vary even significantly to those announced in relation to a multitude of factors. Today's participants are Mr. Angelo Trocchia, Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Gareth Gresser, Chief Financial Officer, and Ms. Barbara Ferranti, Director of Investor Relations. I will now pass the call over to Mr. Angelo Trocchia, Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Trocchia, you may begin, sir.

Hi, thanks very much. Good evening. Good evening, everyone. And thank you for attending today's conference call on South Florida Group's full year 2021 results. Last year, it was the extraordinary work of our people around the world which led to the strong results we achieved, with a sharp rebound compared to 2020 and, more meaningful, a significant improvement compared to 2019. I really would like to thank each and every one of them for all they did in the year, which was certainly still not easy to face due to productive health emergency and during which we continue our evolutionary path toward flexible and agile ways of working, transforming the corporate culture and focusing on the trust that the group and its people place in one another. At the end of January, we pre-released our key economic highlights of the fourth quarter and of the full year. So our aim today is really to focus on and draw your attention to what we consider the main topics of our results, looking more specifically at our performances versus 2019 and how our organic business delivered in our geographies and in our Key Products category. As always, we will discuss and comment our adjusted results, excluding non-recurring costs and incomes. And, as Gail will briefly explain later on, we will review our results before the recent change in accounting policy concerning Software as a Service Agreement, the impact of which were fully accounted for in the fourth quarter. Let me therefore remind you of the four key numbers with which we close 2021. Let's start from net sales. Net sales reached €969.6 million, up and a positive 7.5% compared to 2019 at constant exchange rate. The adjusted EBITDA reached 84.9 million euro and a margin of sales of 8.8%, respectively up 29.7% and 180 basis points compared to the pre-pandemic levels. The group net debt result equaled a profit of 29.5 million euro put in the year back in black after some years and finally we are there. 94 million euros of group net debt more than half versus last year thanks to the successful capital increase we completed in early November and an overall neutral free cash flow. 2021 was an important period of transition for Sacrilo, which we prepared for with practice and determination, working with the clear objective of providing our own and licensed business with the right opportunities of growth. We closed the year over delivering our initial expectations, with each quarter's performance consistently driven by the strength of our organic business, the one fully comparable between the periods, and by our new own and licensed brand, Blenders, Privé Riveau, David Baker, Missoni, Levi's, Isabel Marant, Ports, and Under Armour, which supported the offset of the terminated license. In 2021, our organic sales were up 10.5% at concept exchange rates versus 2019, with quarter four being a positive exit to the year and confirmation of our key growth levers, as well as the farther business opportunity which lie ahead of us. In the quarter, our organic sales grew 9.9% versus 19%, North standing a business environment which was still not easy, again impacted by the renewed restriction which followed the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19 with its dampening effects seen in a number of markets. In a nutshell, I would say that our business performance continued to be driven by a strong North American market in which we achieved the 6.7 quarter of growth. the performance of prescription frames, consistently positive everywhere, and our strong position in the independent optician channel. The quarter-on-quarter rebound of the sunglasses business recording a growth also compared to Q4 2019, but remaining below pre-pandemic levels on a full-year basis. And finally, our online channel overall growing also versus last year peak. The last year, we continue to implement the strategic choices we outlined in 2019 to deliver our medium-term business plan, further progressing in our transformation strategy. In 2021, we achieved a quite significant rebalancing of our revenue mixed by brand, product, and channel portfolio, getting closer to the medium-term target we had set ourselves. By brand and excluding the terminated license, last year, our own business increased to approximately 41% of sales from around 37, which was in 2019. And a big thing in particular to the significant growth recorded by Smith. Outstanding, outstanding results by the brand. The nice rebound on Carrera and clearly the new business of blenders and Preverivo. Overall, Smith, Carrera, blenders, Preverivo really getting on the right trajectory. Last year, we were able to make significant process also toward our goal. to grow the share of our prescription frames business. While partially due to the slower recovery of sunglasses in a number of important markets, the growth in prescription frames follows our clear strategy, which we have been executing through a number of important projects, from strengthening our product assortment to progressively improving our service level. In 2021, Prescription frames accounted for approximately 40% of our total business from around 38%, the number which we had a couple of years ago. By distribution channel, our sales mix instead confirmed the dimensional jump we made in the online channels. Thanks to the acquisition of Blender and its e-commerce business growing 90%, on a pro forma basis versus 2019 and around 9% year-on-year, but also thanks to the strong growth of the Smith direct-to-consumer sales, doubling versus 2019 and growing 35% year-on-year, as well as the significant jump recorded by the internet tool player customers. In 2021, the share of the business generated by online channels amounted to 13.4% of our total sales, from 12.7% in 2020 and 3.9% in 2019. On the other hand, in 2021, we also continued very meaningfully to strengthen our competitive positioning with the main distribution channel of the independent opticians, making considerable progress in the digital transformation of our business model through the full implementation in Europe of the new B2B system UNSAFILO. We joined the digital platform already present in other markets, all together today generating around 20% of our trios revenue. The validity and the unique digital and physical ecosystem we are building around opticians to become their preferred partner was specified last year also by the strong achievement recorded in our annual customer satisfaction survey aimed at understanding customer 360 perspective on Safilo main business area, product, commercial team, customer care, service, trade marketing, and B2B websites. He metrics exponential increase in 2021 compared to the last two years. Today, over 80% of our European opticians would recommend Safilo as a business partner to other opticians, while within the overall customer satisfaction index, over 92% of the customers express full satisfaction with Safilo customer care. In 2021, we then continue to reshape and expand the reach of our business according to our specific target in terms of consumers, products, and channels to serve. We signed three new licenses. The Square, an interesting brand addition, which gives us the chance to grow in the premium segment. Carolina Herrera, already a well-established brand in hardware, which provides us with an immediate opportunity to strengthen our women's proposition in some of our key geographies. And finally, with Chiara Ferragni, a new brand in hardware which expands our reach to new generations and into the digital universe where we keep investing. Last year, keeping with the path taken the previous year, we continued to strengthen our commitment to people, product, and planet, the three cold pillars of our sustainability vision, with initiatives aimed at amending them in the fabric of our business function and operation. In 2021, we were proud to renew, until 2024, our support to the nonprofit organization Special Olympics, the international non-profit organization dedicated to transforming the lives of people with intellectual disabilities. Over 18 years of collaboration, we have donated more than 1.3 million pairs of optical frames and sunglasses to disabled athletes around the world. Last year also we sealed a new collaboration with Save the Children in Italy for a Rewrite the Future campaign specifically supporting the Punte Luce network composed of high-intensity educational centers contributed to the development of the social culture welfare of the communities. 2021 was also a particularly important year for us due to the significant number of materials and solutions with reduced environmental impact that we introduced in our collection and in our production processes. We were extremely proud to be the first player in the hardware sector to exclusively use Metalix, an innovative patent by Convencia that allows for a 90% reduction in the use of precious metal in the galvanic treatment for the production of the optical frames and sunglasses. On material last year, we had two significant additions to our collection. On one side, thanks to our 20 years partnership with Evonik, we introduced into our premium sun lenses Trogamate, a sustainable high-performance polymer made from renewable energy and with a 50% lower carbon footprint. On the other side, our partnership with Eastman has enabled us to include two other sustainable materials in our sunglasses and optical collection, Acetate Renew and Trita Renew, two innovative polyesters which have significantly lower greenhouse gas footprint. Over recent years, we have been implementing several energy-saving projects in order to reduce, to decrease energy consumption and CO2 emissions. From the installation of the first solar panel system at our Chinese plant, leading last year to electricity energy saving of 7.6 gigajoule, to the progressive conversion of the company car fleet in flavor of hybrid vehicle towards sustainable mobility with around 60% of the company cars in Italy, which were last year new hybrids. In 2021, also following the restructuring initiative implemented since 2020 within our industrial footprint, we reduced our total energy consumption by 1%, while our CO2 emissions decreased by 15% compared to 2019, remaining overall substantially stable compared to 2020, despite a quite significant increase in manufacturing activity. Thanks to these energy efficiency practices and investment, the use of sustainable low environmental impact material and the reduction of carbon emission at the end of 2020, we obtained the ISO 50001 energy management system certification for our Italian plant and for the Padova headquarters. This year we will continue along this path to evolve further and find new solutions that will enable us to take a step forward toward our sustainable vision. I stop here and hand over to Gerd for additional details on our economic and financial support.

Gerd? Thank you Angelo and good evening to all of you connected via conference call and audio webcast. Let me add some color to the main highlights already provided by Angelo. starting from our net sales performance. For the sake of time and relevance, I will primarily focus my comments on our performance versus 2019 at constant exchange rates, also summarizing the key trends we achieved in the course of the year. We are on slide seven of our presentation. Our full-year net sales grew by 7.5% versus 2019, 3.8% in the fourth quarter to take the second semester total sales growth to plus 7.3%. This positive performance reflected our strong organic business, up 10.5% in the fall year after growing sizably also in Q4 by 9.9%. Overall, then, our organic growth in the second semester of the year was plus 12.9% compared to the same period of 2019, showing an acceleration versus the organic performance of plus 8.3% recorded in the first semester. Last year, quite consistently through the quarters, these positive trends were driven by the majority of our core brands. 2021 was certainly an extraordinary year for Smith, which became the biggest brand in our portfolio. Also thanks to the significant development of its online channel, as outlined by Angelo, enhancing at the beginning of last year with the launch of a new e-commerce site. Carrera also has a strong 2021, which allowed it to surpass its 2019 sales. Last year, we took an important step towards Carrera's omnichannel strategy by launching a new Carrera D2C site, dedicated exclusively to sunglasses in the United States, as a unique opportunity to boost competitiveness and improve its market position. This investment was also intended to enhance Carrera's brand awareness in the market, with the ultimate objective of benefiting all US wholesale customers. Also, our key licenses progressed fast in 2021. Hugo Boss, Tommy Hilfiger, Kate Spade, and Jimmy Choo were all up double digits throughout the course of the year, each with its specific trends by channel and market. Polaroid had a positive year-on-year rebound however, not yet sufficient to match its pre-pandemic levels due to a business mix still skewed to sunglasses, a market segment which, generally speaking, has not yet recovered pre-pandemic levels. A big theme for us last year was the opportunity and ability to compensate the business decline deriving from the licenses terminated at the end of 2020 and at the end of June 2021 with our new own brands, Blenders and Privé de Vaux, and through the launch of the new licenses of David Beckham, Missoni, Levi's, Isabelle Marant, Ports, and Under Armour. Last year, our business, each with specific targets in terms of consumers, global, local relevance, and channels, had a very positive reception from our customers and consumers, providing eventually very effective in overcoming the gap and in this way equipping us with a strong, balanced portfolio going forward. Looking at our net sales performance by region and commenting mainly our organic performance versus 19, North America, our biggest market in 2021, represented around 48% of our total business, up from 36% in 2019. Last year in North America, we had a double positive effect. On one side, a particularly strong perimeter effect provided by the acquisitions of blenders and pre-variable. which together with the new licenses in the portfolio, and I would mention here in particular Under Armour for the second half of last year, gave a new dimension to the market. And on the other hand, a very meaningful organic business growth equal in the year to a plus 15.9% at constant exchange rates versus 2019, consistently driven throughout the quarters. With Q4 up almost 20%, in this case driven by a nice improvement of all of our core licenses, Carrera and also Polaroid up double digits, while Smith showed a high single-digit growth versus 2019, despite a tougher comp space. Europe, which represented 39% of our sales in 2021, had a strong year-organic business rebound, which led the region to close up 4.5% at constant exchange rates versus 2019. In Europe, the big driver last year was our prescription frames business, up plus 20%, very strong in all channels and for all of our brands. In Europe, we had a quite evident, however as expected, performance swing between the third and fourth quarter, with Q4 down 2.7% versus 2019, after Q3 being up around 16%. This was mainly due to a phasing in the shipment of some orders, which were anticipated into the third quarter of the year, as we had commented in the November trading update. Looking at the sum of the two periods also in Europe, our organic business performance versus 2019 accelerated in H2 compared to H1. Last year, total reported sales in Europe did not yet recover pre-pandemic 2019 levels as the region, together with Asia, was the most highly exposed to the terminated luxury licenses. In Asia Pacific, organic business also saw improving trends in H2, turning to a positive plus 1.8% versus the same period of 2019, compared to the negative performance of minus 7.6% recorded in H1. In Q4, the performance of our main owned and licensed brands in the region, namely Carrera, Smith, Tommy Hilfiger, and Hugo Boss, led to an organic growth of 13.8% versus Q4'19. fully offsetting the negative performance recorded in Q3 when the resurgence of COVID-related lockdowns and restrictions in most Asian markets and Australia were even more marked. In the full year, the organic sales in Asia-Pacific almost recovered pre-pandemic business levels, down 3% at constant exchange rates compared to 2019, thanks to our business in China almost doubling and Australia growing double-digit compared to 2019. Finally, in the rest of the world, organic sales grew sizably versus 2019, up 18.5% at constant exchange rates in the full year and 11.6% in Q4, driven by the two main emerging markets of the area, Brazil and Mexico, which remained the key growth contributors throughout the year, followed by the significant progression we recorded also in Middle Eastern markets. Looking more specifically, At our organic sales performance by product, in 2021, optical frames continue to show their well-known resiliency, indeed remaining our key growth contributor in all our regions and, as said, for all our brands. The organic prescription frames business grew 20.8% versus pre-pandemic levels, up plus 22% in the second half of the year after an increase of almost 20% in the first half of the year. Second half trends were on the right side also for sunglasses, turning 3% positive versus 2019, with both of the last two quarters of the year providing a positive contribution, notwithstanding the restrictions that continue to limit store traffic and touristic flows in important markets. Overall, on a four-year basis, the organic sunglass business remained slightly below pre-pandemic levels, down 3.4%, and this is clearly the business area where we are all waiting for a meaningful recovery this year. Sport products, which are the goggles and helmets business representing the most meaningful part of Smith's sales and our other product category, had a very strong year, up 28% versus 2019, thanks to Smith's leading position in these business segments, which were favored by a dynamic market environment for outdoor activities. Also last year, Smith confirmed and continued its legacy of disrupting design and innovation, launching in North America the new Smith IOMag imprint 3D goggle, the first custom 3D printed goggle and built to the individual features of a person's face, eliminating the light leak to do improper fit and removing pressure points or hotspots. Let's then move to our key economic results in 2021 and what we consider the key drivers behind them. As anticipated by Angelo, we are here commenting, as always, our adjusted performances, therefore, before those costs and incomes that we classified as non-recurring. Last year, we booked a total of 23.8 million euros of non-recurring expenses, of which 10.9 million at the gross profit level and 19.2 million on EBDA level. While we have 17 million euros of non-recurring income, which you may remember we booked in the second quarter following the release of a provision for risks and charges in relation to an investigation on the industry carried out by the French Competition Authority, which positively concluded for SAFILO without sanctions. As anticipated by Angelo, our comments today are also provided on our results before the impacts of the change in accounting policy starting from 2021 financial results. following the IFRICS agenda decision in relation to the capitalization of costs directly attributable to the configuration and customization of application software under software as a service arrangements. For those arrangements, which in our case are mainly related to the investments in software like Salesforce or SAP, implemented in recent years for the digitalization of our sales channels and the modernization of our IT infrastructure. We thus had to de-recognize the intangible assets previously capitalized and increase the EDP costs within the general and administrative expenses. So, in 2021, the annual impact of this change, which was fully accounted for in the fourth quarter, equaled higher EDP costs for 3.4 million euros, with an impact on EBIT of 2.1 million euros as related amortization decreased by 1.3 million and lower intangible assets for 6.2 million euros. The application of this change was retrospective, so we also had to restate 2020 and 2019 results. Of course, none of this accounting change has affected the free cash flow on a total level. Our economic results last year registered an exponential recovery compared to the operating and net losses suffered in 2020, allowing us to also exceed 2019. Compared to pre-pandemic levels, our improvement clearly materialized at the gross profit level, where in the year, on an adjusted basis, we recorded 512.6 million euros and a gross margin of 52.9%. respectively increasing 6% and 140 basis points compared to 2019. We were particularly glad about the significant recovery in gross margin we indeed achieved in the fourth quarter, which reached, on an adjusted basis, 52.3% of sales, up 530 basis points compared to Q4 2019. More meaningfully for us, in Q4, Gross margin was back in line with the industrial profitability achieved in the other quarters of the year. Overall, the key drivers of our industrial performance last year were a positive price-mix effect, driven first by our accretive online business, and second by the actions on prices we took in H2, when we started to make selective increases in response to the soaring inbound transport costs. Also, lower obsolescence costs impacted gross margins thanks to reduced sample expenses as we kept digitalizing the presentation of our collections and improved planning accuracy. Last year, we then made a good progress on our Cox Savings Plan, generating around 14 of the total 25 million euros envisaged in the 2024 business plan. In Q4, around half of the improvement we recorded versus 2019 came from the positive price mix effect and the structural savings recorded in the quarter. While lower DNA, as a result of the right sizing of our manufacturing footprint, explained the rest. Moving down to P&L and reminding you that we're commenting on our operating and net results before the impacts in the accounting policy. Last year, our SG&A cost structure benefited from the recovery of operating leverage led by the top-line growth and by a leaner overhead structure, which we continue to manage with disciplined cost control. As a reminder, last year we achieved €5 million of structural overhead savings, with which we completed the €20 million plan announced in December 2019 within our Group Business Plan. In the fourth quarter, our improvement in gross margin supported the increase of investment in marketing and new sales activities already started in the third quarter. In Q4, our adjusted EBDA increased to 16.1 million euros, up 44.5% compared to 2019, with the margin on sales standing at 6.9%, 210 basis points higher than in 2019. This quarterly result allowed us to achieve a very solid H2 performance, equalling an adjusted EBDA of 35.2 million euros and a margin on sales of 7.7%, confirming a respective increase of 45.2% and 220 basis points compared to the second semester of 2019. As H2 2020 was already a period of initial operating year-on-year recovery, it is also meaningful to notice that our H2 adjusted EBDA and margin increased respectively by 20.1% and 110 basis points versus the same period of 2020. Finally, our full-year 2021 adjusted EBDA equaled €84.9 million, up 29.7% compared to the €65.4 million recorded in 2019, with the margin on sales at 8.8%, which increased by 180 basis points compared to 2019. Below the operating line, also last year, we had a positive accounting adjustment, which equaled 32.2 million euros, reflecting the reduced liability for put-call options on non-controlling interests, namely, in particular, the revision of Privé-Rivaud's financial plans following the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, this positive adjustment had equaled 19.8 million euros. On the other hand, net financial charges at 23.5 million euros remain pretty much stable compared to 2020 and above the 7.3 million euros recorded in 2019, mainly due to the higher average gross debt and to negative exchange rate differences. Last year, finally, our effective tax rate stood at 42.5% against last year's total tax benefit of 14.4 million euros mainly as a result of the U.S. CARES Act, which provided us with the opportunity to carry back net tax losses. Finally, we closed 2021 with an adjusted group net result, which equaled a profit of 29.5 million euros and a margin on sales of 3%. Moving to our cash flow and financial performance in 2021, we also had here some positive results, ending the year almost cash neutral, with a free cash flow which absorbed 2.7 million euros against the 31.3 million euros in 2020 before our acquisitions. Looking at the different components of our free cash flow, we closed the year with a positive cash flow from operating activities before the change in working capital of 38.1 million euros, which reflected, on one hand, the significant improvement of the operating performance and, on the other, a cash out of around 19 million euros in relation to the ongoing industrial restructuring plan. Changes in working capital, which generated a cash absorption of 20.8 million euros, mainly reflected the normal increase in inventories following the good performance of the business and the preparation of new collections. In the fourth quarter, net working capital dynamics also reflected, on the one hand, a negative effect driving from greater goods in transit due to some shipment delays in the United States, and on the other, a stronger than expected cash collection, which reflected for approximately 10 million euros anticipated payments from customers. Clearly, we will miss this cash in the first quarter of the current year. In 2021, the cash flow for investments reflected for 20 million euros are CapEx investments in the maintenance and modernization of our plants, and above all in the digital transformation systems and processes on which we are working, while €10.2 million were divestments related to the sale of the industrial site in Slovenia and an administrative office in Italy. Concluding with the group's net debt, this stood at €94 million at the end of December 2021, €52.8 million pre-IFRS 16, down sharply compared to the €222.1 million we recorded in 2020. This reduction came thanks to the net proceeds equal to €133.1 million, deriving from the capital increase successfully completed in November 2021. If we look at the key components of the Group's net position last year, we moved from a gross debt of €311 million to €193 million, of which €41 million was the IFRS 16 impact, €108 million the term loan facility guaranteed by Saatchi, and €45 million the term loan facility signed with the company's banks in 2018. As for the rationale of our share capital increase, in November we fully repaid HAL's shareholder loan. We then closed the year with a cash position of €99 million. I stop here and I hand over to Angelo for his further remarks on the business evolution at the beginning of the year.

Thank you, Gher. Let's have a look to 2022. In the first month of 2022, our business, which is now enriched by the launch of three new licensed brands, signed in 2021, D-Square, Carolina Herrera, and Chiara Ferragni Collection, grew in all our main geographies and product categories, confirming a constant currency, high single-digit growth trend. We work in a business environment which is still influenced by the development in the COVID-19 pandemic, by global inflationary pressure, and more recently by the conflict in Ukraine. Our sales in Russia and Ukraine account for less than 2%, of our total business. In 2022, we will remain focused on strengthening our business model, confident that the growing power of our brand portfolio coupled with the greater competitiveness of our omnichannel distribution will push us in a new phase of the development of the group. This concludes our presentation and we are now ready to take your questions.

Excuse me, this is the conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. We will pause momentarily while participants join the queue. The first question is from Domenico Ghilotti of Equita. Please go ahead, sir.

Hello. I have a question clearly on the 2022 outlook. Particularly, I'm trying to understand how do you see the different moving parts in terms of profitability? You are mentioning cost inflation, so I'd like to understand if you have in particular any issue on the supply chains and how are you dealing with the cost inflation on your price list and with your customers? And then, if I understood properly, so far you have seen growth pretty well balanced between the different regions. I want to understand if even in terms of channels and between prescription and sunglasses, if you are seeing really the rebound in sunglasses strengthening in these early months, and what could we expect, let's say, going forward?

I tried, I catch the last one and then I leave the inflation to Gerd. I mean, the first two months, honestly, they've been really good. We've been happy really horizontally through geographies and categories. Clearly, we see that the optical keeps still going on with the pace of last year, but first sign of sun, honestly, especially in the European market, they were there. So, obviously, now we need to see what is going to happen, because we are very close to the season. The season has not started yet. But, let me say, keep the optical, keep going on, and positive sign on the sun, on the sun by sure.

Yeah. So, I will answer on the profitability of the inflation. I mean, clearly, this... This has been a headache for us last year, so we have had an impact of about 200 basis points negative on the gross profit from increased, above all, inbound logistics costs, so the costs of shipping our finished products from suppliers and from factories into our distribution centers. And then the rest is various other inflation impacts. We have, however, been able, I think, to manage this reasonably well as we were also commenting in the last call. We have been taking pricing interventions as always in a selective way across our portfolio and we believe we have been able to counter that and we have not seen negative impact on demand. So this has been positive. The inflation topic clearly continues also in 2022. Clearly we are seeing it in the first quarter as well. So still the actions we took last year, they are helping us. And considering that they have been working, we will continue with these kind of actions to address further inflationary pressures across the year. The supply chain obviously remains always a challenge. I mean, especially everything which goes by boat or by sea freight. which affects particularly some of our sport products. That's why I was also commenting we had some increase in inventory at the end of the year because there is still quite some congestion on the freight routes between Asia and North America in particular, so goods keep coming in with some delay, while for the rest of the portfolio, I would say with air freight, it costs more money, but at least it arrives timely. Thank you.

And maybe just follow up on the top line. So how do you see the online evolution? First of all, considering the strong base, but also if you can, say, extrapolate or replicate the performance of Smith with other brands. You have been mentioning Carrera in particular. I wonder if you have additional opportunities.

Yeah, I think, I mean, first of all, We do have a very strong H1 comp space that we are running against into this H1 now. We are very happy that we continue seeing the Smith D2C business growing strongly across the categories. I think Smith is somehow with the whole outdoor focus really, let me say, on trend. Blenders, which clearly has a much bigger e-commerce business, we have to remember that in Q1 last year, the blender's business grew by about 80%. So we have a quite strong base, but we are quite happy to see that, you know, overall the online business is so far continuing to grow. Now we're obviously in middle of March, but I think that, you know, what is important for us this year is that we keep growing the online business rather than necessarily increasing the percentage because we do have quite a lot of, let me say, offline business, also growing, also rebounding, especially on the sunglasses front as we were saying. So we'd like both of the channels to continue growing rather than being now focused on the percentage which was clearly impacted also by quite some base period effects.

If I can just build on the comment, obviously the priority when we talk about e-commerce is Blender and Smith. Smith, we don't see any reason. Why these good numbers will come up? As Gary was saying, the H1 blenders last year was really, the quarter one H1 was really a huge number, so we need to be careful on the comparison. On Carrera, I mean, it's going to take time. I mean, this D2C is not a month. But strategically, I think that the launch in North America has to replicate the experience of Smith where D2C and wholesale, running hand in hand, will enhance the business. I think that more and more we will see moving forward, I think what everyone now talks about omnichannel, but really playing with the two channels, not as two channels, one against the other, but one together with the other. So it will take time, but I think that the launch of career.com will have step one, the wholesale, and then omnichannel, With a little bit of time, I think that we will have some positive surprise also out of the dot-com. Thank you.

As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and 1 on your touchtone telephone. Once again, to register for questions, please press star and 1 on your telephone. The next question comes from Cedric Rossi of Brian Gagné.

Please go ahead. Yes, good evening everyone. I have two questions actually.

The first one is – I apologize. Can you speak a little bit closer to the microphone?

Thank you. Okay, sorry. So thank you and good evening everyone. So I have two questions. The first one is regarding your housing growth since the beginning of the year. Could you just give a bit more color on the region's trend? So Europe and Asia that were a bit tough last year. So do you see a sequential rebound there? My second question is regarding Smith. So of course you are competing versus demanding cons. I recall that a few years back you were planning to globalize Smith, especially in Europe. So how advanced are you in your plans to internationalize Smith in Europe or in other regions? And my third question is regarding the cost inflation. So you Gert, you mentioned some selected price increase in H2. Do we expect a second wave of price increases this year, given the record prices in terms of raw materials and higher logistic costs? Thank you.

I will answer on Smith. I mean, Smith, the priority remains North America. I think that the brand has huge opportunity in North America because I think one of the reasons behind the success of Smith is that we are enlarging. Before, we were too much snow, only snow-driven. We are investing in eyewear. We are investing in bikes. So the opportunity in bike and eyewear in North America are huge. said that, obviously the other two big markets for us is Europe, where this year we are, let me say, putting the right base. to start seeing an interesting number in 2023. And the other market where we are investing also with dedicated people and dedicated marketing investment is Australia. So yes, absolutely, I confirm that we see interesting opportunity outside U.S., but already in the US with this enlargement on refocus on bike and refocus on eyewear, the opportunity in North America can be significant. But on the two years base, yes, we have done a plan to become stronger in Europe and mainly in Australia.

On the question on the quarter one, I think what we're seeing and which is also encouraging for us is we see quite a a strong performance of our European business. And you may remember that last year this was still, let me say, a little bit more subdued due to the general environment. So we've started off very well in Europe, which is good. We also see the United States business in Q1 continuing to grow, and clearly they had already a strong rebound, realized last year. This has also been driving our 21 performance, but so far In the first quarter, we are continuing to grow there. While Asia, I would say, is more patchy, to be honest. I mean, the situation is still quite tricky in many markets. We can read it also in the newspapers. So China goes up and down or open and closed. Same with Hong Kong. While in some other markets, like Australia, we are seeing progress. So I would say Asia is still overall patchy. But where we have the big businesses, we are seeing a good start to the year. On the cost inflation, let me say that our approach is that we aim to pass through inflation as much as we can, obviously as effectively as we can, so with targeted solutions that give us a meaningful impact at the group level without endangering our competitiveness or our value proposition to the consumer. I have to say what continues to impact us mostly when it comes to inflation is actually the logistics cost situation. Clearly, we all see also some raw material increases. I think energy prices in the past weeks have been quite volatile, but those are actually impacting us less. They are impacting, but less. And so we will try also this year to continue to offsetting any inflationary pressures with the pricing.

Super. Thank you very much.

The next question comes from Adam Croker of Logbook. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, or good evening. Can you remind us when the Blender's optical business started and over time what kind of portion of

blenders business that could be and also for blenders optical is there any difference in the channel you sell to sell into and the target customers there so on um on blenders clearly the the bulk of the business has been the sunglasses business domestically in the united states through the d2c channel we started last year with international expansion of the sunglasses online in the English-speaking countries, and we are starting now also with the launch of optical frames. So last year, we spent, let me say, the time to get ready. We equipped and fitted out our lab in our Clearfield manufacturing site, so we are doing, let me say, the RX job directly for the Blenders Previvo and Smith optical frames, which the consumers can order on the website. They enter their prescription. and then we basically do the full job and we deliver it home to the consumer. So we just started this, let me say, also now to advertise it, to promote it. You can probably see it now also on the Blender site, so it's early days, but we do believe that this can be a relevant additional business driver for us.

But I think one consideration, if I can add on Blender, is that we will enlarge the footprint of the channel When we bought the business, it was 100% D2C. I think that we have taken an important decision. Always at the heart, the core of blenders will be always D2C. But we are opening this week the second shop. We are investing in selected blends. wholesale key account, and we are investing outside of U.S. So the strategy of Blender is go out of U.S. on the D2C, but look carefully with very, very tight control on the brand equity on retail, I'm talking on retail, so blender shop, and very selective wholesale. So the success of blenders will be in the future more a combination of these three channels more than just a mono-channel business.

Thank you.

The next question is a follow-up from Domenico Ghilotti of Equita. Please go ahead.

I have a few follow-up. So the first is on cost inflation. Could you give us a sense, the order of magnitude that you're talking about in terms of cost inflation or price hike that you need to... to cope with the cost inflation. And second is on CAPEX and projects that you are planning for 2022. Should we assume that it's quite similar to 2021 or you need more investments? Third question is, well, if you have a comment on, we read about Maui Gym. So if you were interested in the asset and if you have any comment on that, And last but not least on profitability, I'm trying to understand if all the moving parts are pointing to some margin expansion for 2022 or difficult to say if you commit to some or do you think you can get some margin expansion compared to 2021?

I mean, let me start from Maui. Obviously, Maui Gym is a great brand. I mean, full respect from what the founder, Walter, has built on. Obviously, let me say, we've been looking to the company with full respect. But I think, let me say, obviously there are no official figures, but we have been looking with a very clear financial framework, I would call. So, at the end, I mean, congratulations to Caring that they got it, but I think the market is getting bigger and the opportunities are maybe more interesting from a financial perspective.

Okay, on the other question, so in terms of cost inflation, what I can say is that last year, this has impacted us with about 200 basis points. Obviously, a lot of that inflation started in the middle of the year. And I mean, I don't want to give an indication on magnitude or timings of price increases, just reconfirming that we will use pricing to offset whatever inflation we are seeing clearly right now the situation is pretty volatile on a number of markets, but last year we were able to do it and we aim to continue doing that. On the capital expenditures, let me say that in principle we will go up a little bit in terms of capital expenditures next year compared to 2021, but this is natural as we have clearly started again in 2021 with a lot of system rollout projects, which now into 2022, they are going to be accelerating. But again, we will stay within the 2024 business plan, you know, cumulative CapEx commitment that we set at the time in December 2019. On profitability, I mean, look, the way I would see it is we have a pretty good OPEX cost structure after the completion of the savings there. We are growing the top line, which I think is a good start into the year. And we still have about 11 million of our 25 million Cox savings program to do. We did about 14 million by the end of last year. Not all the 11 will come in 2022, but a portion of it will come and a portion of it will come thereafter. And if all that works out and we are able to tackle the inflation as we think and we don't have, let me say, a bigger macroeconomic crisis as a result of the worldwide situation at the moment, then I think our idea for this year is indeed to expand the EBDA margin compared to last year. But as I said, we need to navigate COVID, which is always popping up again. We need to navigate the current situation that we geopolitically see and the inflation, as I was saying.

And just to close, on the marketing spending, could you give us a sense of how much was compared in 2021 compared to 2019? And if you see an additional increase in terms of, say, percentage of sales?

I mean, on the marketing expenses, clearly, some of it is driven by our channel mix. So clearly, as we are more and more growing the online business and our own brands, we basically will have higher marketing costs on that side. But on the other hand, we will also have a higher gross margin that is able to offset that. Clearly, versus 2019, our 2021 marketing expenses are about 9% higher, and that you can put basically in perspective of the top-line growth.

Okay. Thanks.

For any further questions, please press star and 1 on your touch-tone telephone. Ms. Ferrante, gentlemen, there are no more questions registered at this time.

Okay, so a big thank you to everyone, and have a nice evening, and thanks very much to have been with us.

Thank you. Thank you.

Bye. Bye-bye. Thanks.

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