4/11/2025

speaker
Conference Call Operator
Moderator

Good morning and welcome to the Homes to Life Limited Financial Results Conference Call for the fiscal year ended December 31st, 2024. Your hosts this morning are Chief Executive Officer Ms. Phua May Ving, Vice Chairman Mr. Phua Yung Kat, and Chief Financial Officer Mr. Robert Chu. At the request of the company, today's call is being recorded and will be available for replay on the Investor Relations section of the company's corporate website, homestolife.com. You may also access the teleconference replay by dialing 1-844-512-2921 or 1-412-317-6671, referencing access ID 13752874, beginning at 1130 Eastern Time today. The replay will be available until April 18th at 1159 PM Eastern Time. I would like to inform all parties that your lines will now be placed in a listen-only mode until the question and answer segment of this call begins. You will receive instructions from the operator to ask the question in that segment. At this point, I'd like to turn the call over to Scott Powell, President of Skyline Corporate Communications Group.

speaker
Scott Powell
President, Skyline Corporate Communications Group

Thank you, Operator. Before we begin, I'd like to read you our forward-looking statements provision. During today's conference call, the company representatives may make forward-looking statements. Any statements made in this presentation about future operating results or other future events are forward-looking statements under the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Please know that actual results achieved by the company may differ materially from such forward-looking statements. A discussion of factors that could cause such differences appears in the risk factors sections of the company's 20F. And now, Homes to Life Limited's CEO, Ms. Hua Mei-Ming, will present an analysis of the company's performance during fiscal 2024 as well as an outlook for 2025. Ms. Hua?

speaker
Hua Mei-Ming
CEO, Homes to Life Limited

Thanks, Scott. And thanks again to everyone for joining us on this call. As you may know, Homes to Life Limited is the holding company of one of Singapore's leading home furniture companies, comprising six retail store locations, offering premium customized furniture solutions to consumers, as well as a new subsidiary, HDL Far East Private Limited, dedicated to sourcing, distributing, and delivering premium furniture and related products through the business sector across the Asia-Pacific region. We completed our IPO and began trading on NASDAQ on October 1st of last year, raising growth proceeds of $5.75 million. We are thrilled to be trading on NASDAQ for the past six months. Although certain global economic factors continue to impact our financial performance in 2024, we are excited to have launched on October 28th, our wholesale KCL Star East subsidiary to expand our furniture business into the rest of Asia. Although this subsidiary made minor contributions to our overall revenue during 2024, it has in the first quarter of 2025 produced revenue of over $4 million. As announced in February, We expect HCL Far East to contribute revenue of $12 to $14 million this year. We expect that the company's total revenue for 2025 will be between $16 and $18 million. For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2024, expressed and rounded U.S. dollars, the company had net revenue of $4.17 million, an 18% decrease compared to net revenue of $5.07 million for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2023. The company's decrease in net revenue was primarily due to a decline in revenue from sales of our leather and fabric-upholstered home furniture products compared to such sales in fiscal 2023. This decline was driven by industry-specific challenges including shifts in consumer spending habits, the impact of inflation on discretionary purchases, and intensified market competition, which affected Homes2Life Private Limited, the company's Singapore retail sector. For fiscal 2024, the company's overall gross profit margin was 65.8% as compared to 71.7% for fiscal 2023, a decline primarily attributable to a shift in the company's sales mix and the implementation of lower pricing strategies to remain competitive in a highly intense market. For fiscal 2024, homes to live private limited gross margin was 68.1%, as compared to 71.7% for fiscal 2023. For 2024, KCL Far East, which commenced business in November 2024, had a gross margin of 12.5%. For fiscal 2024, the company also saw an increase of $1.11 million, or 32% in total operating expenses compared to fiscal 2023. This increase was primarily the result of listing expenses in fiscal 2024 of $1.06 million, consisting of $733,000 for an audit fee and $330,000 for a listing maintenance fee, compared to no such expenses in fiscal 2023. The increase in total operating expenses in fiscal 2024 also resulted from a rise in general and administrative expenses of $473,000, mainly consisting of $324,000 for salaries paid to increased office headcount compared to fiscal 2023. The increase in general and administrative expenses in fiscal 2024 was partially offset by a decrease of about $426,000 in sales and distribution expenses, mainly due to marketing support from a related party for introducing new designs and products to the market. The company had a loss from operations of $1.79 million during fiscal 2024 as compared to income from operations of $207,000 for fiscal 2023. Adding other income which amounted to $123,000 in fiscal 2024 and $27,000 in fiscal 2023, the company had a net loss of $1.67 million or $0.11 per share for fiscal 2024. as compared to net income of $237,000 or $0.02 per share for fiscal 2023. In response to the fiscal 2024 operational losses experienced by Homes to Life Private Limited, I am currently spearheading a restructuring initiative to improve financial performance. This initiative, which began on April 1, 2025, includes closing underperforming stores, including the Tagore location, revamping our merchandise offering and implementing suit expense controls, especially in marketing and advertising. Weighted average number of ordinary shares was 14,687,500 at December 31, 2024 and 13,250,000 at December 31, 2023. Cash and cash equivalents at December 31, 2024 was $3.44 million as compared to $1.37 million at December 31, 2023. Net cash used in operating activities during fiscal 2024 was $1.02 million as compared to net cash provided by operating activities of approximately $895,000 for fiscal 2023. Total long-term liabilities at December 31, 2024 was approximately $2.27 million as compared to $2.22 million at December 31, 2023. At this point, our Vice-Chairman, Mr. Poyong Tat, our CFO, Mr. Robert Hsu, and I will be happy to answer your questions.

speaker
Conference Call Operator
Moderator

Thank you, Ms. Kula. We'll now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you'd like to ask a question at this time, you may press star 1 from your telephone keypad and a confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you'd like to withdraw your question from the queue. For participants or using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys.

speaker
Phua Yung Kat
Vice Chairman, Homes to Life Limited

We'll pause for a moment while we assemble the queue and once again add a star 1. Thank you. Once again, if you'd like to ask a question, you may press star 1 from your telephone keypad at this time. Thank you. There appear to be no questions at this time.

speaker
Conference Call Operator
Moderator

I would like to turn the floor back to Mr. Powell.

speaker
Scott Powell
President, Skyline Corporate Communications Group

Thanks, Mimi, Mr. Pua, and Robert. If any callers have a question that you'd like to address to Homestolife Management, please feel free to send your question to investor at homestolife.com or info, I-N-F-O, at skylineccg.com at any time. I'll now turn the call back to Ms.

speaker
Phua Yung Kat
Vice Chairman, Homes to Life Limited

Foer. for closing remarks. Thank you, Scott. And thanks again to everyone for taking the time to join us this morning.

speaker
Hua Mei-Ming
CEO, Homes to Life Limited

We appreciate your interest in our company and we invite you to visit our website www.homestolife.com and follow our progress. Thank you and have a great day.

speaker
Conference Call Operator
Moderator

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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