Interparfums, Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the Interparfums Inc. Third Quarter 2023 Conference Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. The question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the call, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Vice President at the Equity Group and Interparfums Investor Relations Representative, Karen Daly.

Thank you, Daryl. Joining us on the call today will be Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Jean Madar. On behalf of the company, I would like to note that this conference call may contain forward-looking statements which involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from projected results. These factors may be found in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission under the headings Forward-Looking Statements and Risk Factors in their most recent annual report on Form 10-K or subsequent quarterly filings on Form 10-Q. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made, and Interparfums undertakes no obligation to update the information discussed. As a reminder, Interparfums' consolidated results reflect their two business segments, European-based operations and United States-based operations. Certain prestige fragrance products are produced and marketed by European-based operations through their 72% owned French subsidiary, Interparfums S.A. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Jean Madard. Jean, you may begin.

Thank you, Karen. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our third quarter conference call. Sadly, Michel Zmarver passed away yesterday, and understandably, is unable to join us this morning, so I will try my best to cover his financial remarks. Of course, we can arrange follow-up calls upon his return as needed. And of course, I will be able also, as I'm in New York, to answer questions if you have after the call. So the strength of the global fragrance market is still compelling. but no longer growing at the double digit rates from the last two plus years. Fortunately, and by design, our year-to-date sales growth of 27% clearly indicates our ability to outperform the industry and gain market share. The success of our newer brands has been a growth catalyst for us, along with the excellent sell-through of our legacy brands, which we have enriched with innovative extensions rather than major new product launches. Our production and distribution partners are operating efficiently and effectively to ensure that the omnichannel pipeline of fragrance sellers throughout the world are well stocked with our merchandise. These drivers produced record third-quarter net sales up 31% to $368 million, which set a new record for quarterly net sales in our 35-plus years as a public company. For the quarter, foreign exchange rates favorably impacted our net sales by 4%, and new brands represented 7% of the growth, leading to strong organic growth of 20% compared to the prior year period. Diving into detail of our business market for the third quarter, North America, our largest market, grew sales 29%, followed by Western Europe, our second largest region, with 24% growth. We also have seen a steep increase in sales in our smaller markets, particularly in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America. Eastern Europe at 73%, Middle East at 48%, and Latin America at 42% growth in the quarter. This is primarily related to a smaller base of sales coupled with ongoing recovery growth as economy began to normalize. Asia Pacific, our third largest market, saw growth of 20% in the latest three-month period, driven by sales in Australia and New Zealand. As mentioned in the earnings release yesterday, we continue to see a good sell-out in China, namely for Coach, Montblanc and Ferragamo, enabling us to manage down our stock in trade levels, which we expect will provide a favorable tailwind in 2024. For the balance of 2023, we continue to anticipate only modest sales growth in China. Please be reminded that China currently represents only a very small portion of our business and as always, we stand ready to take on this immense market opportunity when the time is right. With respect to our European-based operation, net sales increased 18% during the quarter, primarily driven by our top-performing brands, which are Coach and Montblanc, with sales increasing 32% and 20% respectively compared to the prior year period. Coach fragrances were in high demand during the quarter, across nearly all the brands' fragrances, and we enriched the family fragrance with Coach Green and Coach Love. Montblanc Fragrance saw solid performance of the Montblanc Legend and Explorer franchises, with an additional boost from the extension launched earlier this year, Montblanc Legend Platinum. Our own brands also continue to generate strong sales. Rochas Fragrance sales grew 21% during the quarter, Surpassing 30 million year-to-date in 2023, with strength in the Eau de Rochasse line and momentum from Rochasse Girl Life, Lanvin, the other own brand, in the absence of any major launches, grew sales by 6% during the quarter. Moving into our US-based operations, net sales grew 64% in the quarter, on top of a 45% growth achieved in the same period last year. Donna Karan DKNY fragrance sales increased 200% compared to the third quarter of 2022, having joined our portfolio in July of last year. This fashion house duo has become our second largest US-based brand in only one year under our expertise. In August, we introduced our first brand extension for DKNY called Be Delicious Orchard Street, a vibrant scent which captures the energy of New York City's Lower East Side, and the early returns are very promising. We are on track to launch a new blockbuster fragrance for DKNY next summer. Guest fragrance sales increased 59% during the quarter, primarily driven by the continued demand of all fragrance lines. with significant growth built upon the 45% sales increase in last year's third quarter. Growing demand for guest fragrances has been sparked by the rising popularity of guest fashion across the globe, particularly within the U.S., within Asia-Pacific, and also Europe. As we reported a few weeks ago, we recently launched the Guess Originals Trio of gender-inclusive fragrances and are now rolling out Guess Bella Vita Paradiso. We have been working tirelessly on innovation for Guess to ensure we capture the successful momentum of the brand. We have a rich pipeline of fragrances planned for 2024, including a new pillar launch for Guess, in addition to Guess Amore, Elements, Womo Tenso, and Sexy Skin Metallic. Even in the absence of a new product launch, first quarter Ferragamo fragrance sales were very strong, increasing 55% compared to the same period last year due to the legacy scents coupled with sister scents, Signorina and Story Disetta collections that debuted earlier this year. Beyond the brand's Italian borders, Ferragamo fragrances are strong sellers in the Americas. New products are in the pipeline for Ferragamo in 2024. By the way, in two years since we commenced operation in Florence, Italy, we now have about 60 management and staff members and are expanding our brand footprint with Cavalli, but also our Italian affiliate will be distributing all our brands in Italy. As mentioned in the first quarter sales release, we initiated phase one of the Abercrombie & Fitch fierce distribution rollout. While we began with only introductory distribution in select markets of this iconic fragrance during the first quarter, we are on track to commence the majority of the phase one distribution rollout in Europe before year end and launch phase two in Asia Pacific and Latin America during 2024. And lastly, touching on Roberto Cavalli and Lacoste, our two most recent license agreements. For Roberto Cavalli, we are set to begin shipping fragrance product in January 2024. and we plan to launch our first extension of Cavalli in the summer 2024. Of note, we did not buy the prior licenses' leftover inventory. Instead, we curated the collection and produced entirely new, fresh goods. Also, we partnered with one of the top luxury retailers and distributors in the Middle East, the concentrated market for the brand, to further expand the brand. We also have summer animation hair and body fragrance mist and the Just Cavalier Duo on track to see shells early and mid-summer respectively. The Lacoste license will take into effect in January 2024, and we have been using the time since the license was signed to develop go-forward strategies Unlike Cavalli, we did not buy any existing inventory. The fragrance industry remains competitive as new market participants enter the category. We are not surprised by the increased competition as we believe there are four significant attractive elements. Number one, I think, is growth. The fragrance market has grown tremendously and is expected to continue to grow in the upper single digits. with new consumers entering the category and existing consumers building out their fragrance wardrobe. The second point is resiliency. Resiliency is a very attractive element. We consider it to be generally recession-proof as other beauty and consumer segments are hit harder when faced with macroeconomic instability. This is reflected in our successful almost four years of history. The third attractive element is the desirability. Fragrances have a desirable entry price point for consumers who want to invest in their favorite luxury brands without having to purchase the higher priced luxury goods. the demand as new consumers enter the category it is often rare to see this new consumer exit the fragrance market so from a licensed perfective while while we actively scout for opportunities to add new brands that further complement our prestige portfolio we also find that brand owners tend to seek us out because of our size our expertise and excellent track record that underserved brand owners are often looking for. Our portfolio, both in legacy and new brands, is in high demand across the globe. Additionally, all of our brands have benefited from newly launched and enhanced e-commerce sites in existing markets in collaboration with our retail customers on their e-commerce sites. In fact, Our retail sales in the Amazon Premium Beauty category, an invitation-only prestige platform, have soared by an impressive 149% year-to-date through October. The remarkable growth is largely attributed to the successful launches of some of our key franchises, such as Donacaran and DKNY, who are also developing and implementing omni-channel concepts and compelling content to deliver an integrated consumer experience. Coupled with our ongoing innovation, we are confident in our ability to continue to uppace the overall fragrance market through the end of the year. So now I will turn to our financial performance. So I will do it for the first time myself because Michel, as I said before, is not able to join us. So let's try. On a consolidated basis, gross profit increased 29% to 235 million. Within our European-based operation, gross margin declined 90 basis points, primarily due to an unfavorable product mix as we shipped more gift sets in this quarter compared to prior year. On a year-to-date basis, gross margin declined only modestly due to the one-time expense related to inventory, as we reported in the second quarter. Excluding this one-time adjustment, gross margin will have been in line with the nine-month period last year. In our US-based operation, third quarter gross margin expanded approximately 190 basis points from the prior year period, driven by price increases that more than offset inflationary impacts on components that were used for production during the quarter, coupled with ongoing favorable brand and channel mix. Additionally, With our net sales at performance, we are better able to absorb fixed expense such as depreciation and point of sale expenses than at this time last year. SG&A as a percentage of net sales declined to 40.2% from 41.9% in the quarter. On a year-to-date basis, SG&A also declined to 190 basis points to 39.8% from 41.7% in the prior year period. In our European-based operation, third quarter SG&A increased 18%, which is comparable to the increase in net sales and generally in line as a percentage of net sales from the prior year period. In our US-based operation, SG&E increased 44% on a 64% increase in net sales. Promotion and advertising are integral parts of the fragrance and beauty industry and we have and we will continue to invest heavily to support new product launches. Our strongest sellers and to build brand awareness Promotion and advertising aggregated 62.8 million and 152.6 million for the current third quarter and for the nine-month period, as compared to 44.8 and 125 million for the corresponding periods of the prior year. Promotion and advertising represented 17.1% and 15.4% of net sales for the current three and nine month period respectively, as compared to 16% and 16.1% for the corresponding periods of 2022. As a reminder, as part of our strategy, the fourth quarter is typically the heaviest period for promotion and advertising, and we continue to expect to deploy 21% of net sales annually, which allocates approximately the same level of promotion and advertising year-to-date to the fourth quarter alone. Royalty expenses are included in SG&A, which ticked down slightly from the prior year period to 7.8% of net sales for the quarter, again due to changes in brand mix. Our operating margins aggregated 23.7% and 23.5% for the current three and nine month period, as compared to 23% and 22% for the corresponding period of 2022. We closed the first quarter with working capital of $514 million, including approximately $184 million in cash and cash equivalent and short-term investment, maintaining our working capital ratio of 2.4 to 1. We closed the quarter with $129 million of long-term debt associated with the Paris headquarters and Lacoste license acquisition. From a cash flow perspective, Accounts receivable is up 49% from December 31, 2022, quite reasonable based on 2023 record level sales and reflects a combination of high volume of shipments toward the end of the third quarter, as well as some payment schedules extended going into the holiday season. Additionally, Strong collection activity resulted in days sales outstanding decreasing to 72 days at the close of a quarter from 80 days at this time last year. Inventory levels at September 30th increased 26% from year end 2022 in support of our exponential sales growth. We have learned an important lesson from the supply chain issues experienced during the pandemic, and we have aimed to carry more inventory overall, source components from several suppliers, and manufacture products closer to where they are sold to ensure we protect our service levels. And finally, turning to our full year 2023 guidance, As we announced in yesterday's release, we are affirming our full year 2023 net sales guidance of 1.3 billion, or growth of 20% from fiscal year 2022, despite geopolitical tension and a very high fourth quarter 2022 base. We are also, excuse me, we are increasing earnings per diluted share guidance to 4.75 from our prior estimate of 4.55, which represents growth of 26% from the 3.78 for fiscal year 2022, thanks in great part to the operating leverage afforded by our significant growth. We expect to announce our initial guidance for full year 2024 later this month. So with that, operator, you can open the floor for questions.