PriceSmart, Inc.

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Price Smart, Inc.' 's earnings release conference call for the third quarter of fiscal year 2025, which ended on May 31st, 2025. After remarks from our company's representative, Robert Price, Interim Chief Executive Officer, and Michael McCleary, Executive Vice President, Finer, you'll be given an opportunity to ask questions of time permit. As a reminder, this conference call is limited to one hour and is being recorded today, Monday, July 14th, 2025. A digital replay will be available shortly following the conclusion of the call through July 21st, 2025 by dialing 888-660-6264 for domestic callers or 646-517-7000. 3975 for international callers, and entering replay access code 90598. For opening remarks, I would like to turn the call over to Price Marks Executive Vice President of Finance, Michael McCleary. Please proceed, sir.

Thank you, Operator.

and welcome to Price Learning Experience Call for the third quarter of fiscal year 2025, which ended on May 31st, 2025. We will be discussing the information that we provided in our earnings press release and our 10Q, which were both released on July 10th, 2025. Also in these remarks, we refer to non-GAAP financial measures. You can find the reconciliation of our non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures in our earnings press release and our 10Q. These documents are available on our investor relations website at investors.pricemart.com, where you can also sign up for email alerts. As a reminder, all statements made on this conference call, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements concerning the company's anticipated plans, revenues, and related matters. Forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements containing the words expect, believe, plan, will, may, should, estimate, and some other expressions. All forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and assumptions as of today, July 14, 2025. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially, including the risks detailed in the company's most recent annual report on Form 10-K, a quarterly report on Form 10-Q filed on July 10, 2025, and other filings with the SEC, which are accessible on the SEC's website at www.scc.gov. These risks may be updated from time to time. The company undertakes no obligation to update four lifting statements made during this call. Now I will turn the call over to Robert Price, Price Smart's Interim Chief Executive Officer. Thank you, Michael, and good day, everyone. Welcome to our third quarter earnings call. As we have previously announced, David Price will be Price Mart's new chief executive officer, effective September 1st, 2025. David is very well prepared for his CEO responsibilities. I am looking forward to working with David in my role as executive chairman of our company. I would also like to acknowledge Michael McCleary for his many years of dedicated service to our company. most recently as Chief Financial Officer. With Michael's retirement, I welcome Alberto Hernandez as Price Mart's new Chief Executive Officer. Alberto comes well prepared for his new responsibilities with significant senior executive financial experience, including working in the retail industry in South America. As always, I want to express my appreciation to our 12,000 employees for their dedication to PriceMart. We are so proud of their many contributions to PriceMart's success. Finally, I want to thank our stockholders for their support and continuing confidence. Now it is my pleasure to turn the meeting over to David.

Thank you, Robert, and good morning, everyone. Let me begin by sharing how honored I am to step into the role of CEO of Price Mart effective September 1st. Building on the legacy of my father and grandfather, Saul Price, I'm committed to leading with the same values that have guided this company from the beginning. Integrity, excellence, and community. Values that are centered on our employees, members, providers, and the communities where we operate. Over the past decade, I've had the opportunity to work across many areas of the business, from launching and scaling our digital commerce business to advancing our sustainability efforts, and more recently, to partner closely with Robert, John Sildebrand, and the executive team on our broader operations. These experiences have deepened my understanding of what makes PriceMart different, our purpose, our people, and our model, and sharpened my view of where we can go from here. As I step into this role, the bar on execution and innovation and driving sustainable long-term results for our shareholders. As we shared in May, Gualberto Hernandez joined PriceMarket's CFO on June 1st. He brings strong experience in strategic finance and operations, most recently at the Estee Lauder companies. Michael McCleary will be retiring after more than 20 years at PriceMarket, including the last five as CFO. I want to thank Michael for his outstanding service and welcome Gualberto to the team. Now moving on to the main factors and strategic priorities we are focused on to continue increasing sales and vendor value, starting with real estate. In April 2025, we opened a new warehouse club in Chicago near the capital of San Jose in Costa Rica. Additionally, we plan to open our seventh warehouse club in Guatemala located in Quetzaltenango, approximately 122 miles west from the nearest club in the capital located in La Romana, approximately 73 miles east from the nearest club in the capital of Santo Domingo. The club will be built on 5-acre property and is anticipated to open in the spring of 2026. Once these two new clubs are open, Pricemint will operate 57 warehouse clubs. We continue to pursue opportunities to expand in our existing markets and to assess opportunities in new markets. In particular, we are currently evaluating QA, as a potential new market for Pricemark. We have hired local consultants to help us in this process and are actively looking for potential sites in Chile. Having recently visited Chile myself, together with other members of our leadership team, I am excited about the potential opportunities this market offers us. However, opening Pricemark in Chile remains subject to our completing our market analysis, finding appropriate sites, and securing permits. We continue to strengthen our distribution and logistics infrastructure to better serve our members. Today, we operate major distribution centers in Miami, Costa Rica, and Panama. In fiscal year 2026, we plan to upgrade our Panama DC to support coal products and to open new DCs in Guatemala, Trinidad, and the Dominican Republic. These local facilities are expected to improve product availability, reduce lead times, and lower landed costs. Along with these new DCs, we are currently testing distribution consolidation in China. to streamline shipments directly to our markets. We are exploring ways to enhance logistics in our multi-club markets by utilizing a combination of price-managed and third-party operations. In certain countries, we have also introduced the use of our own fleet of trucks to transport merchandise directly to the clubs. And the last word on distribution and logistics. As international trade becomes more complex, our free trade zone operations in the U.S. and Costa Rica give us a strategic advantage by allowing us to consolidate strategies, such as supply chain diversification, expanded offshore consolidation, and increased free trade zone utilization, all to improve efficiency and help offset riding costs for our members. Turning now to other ways we're enhancing our membership beyond low prices. Our private label member selection remains a key part of our value proposition. For the first nine months of FY 2025, private-label sales represented 27.7% of total merchandise sales, up 30 basis points from the same period last year. In Central America, we've renewed and enhanced our co-branded consumer credit card with BAC, effective July 2025. The new agreement offers increased cash back rewards on purchases at Pricemart, Pricemart.com, BAC's travel program, and other retailers and services, adding even more value for our members. We continue to invest in omnichannel capabilities to meet our members where they are. In Q3, digital channel sales reached $79 million, a 19.8% increase year over year, representing 6.1% total net merchandise sales, our highest digital contribution to date. Orders placed directly through our website or app grew 16.7%, with average transaction value up 3.2%. As of May 31st, 62% of our members had created an online profile, and nearly one-third of those have made a purchase online. We see continued opportunity in this space, and we'll keep investing to enhance the digital experience we offer our members. We're also modernizing our processes and technology. Taking one example, our migration to the Relux platform is well underway and expected to be substantially operational by year end. This upgrade enhances employee productivity and is designed to improve inventory management, reduce spoilage, and increase in-stock availability, driving both sales and efficiency. Lastly, we recently released our fiscal year 2024 sustainability report, highlighting our commitment to environmental and social responsibility. The full report is available at investors.pricemart.com under the ESG tab, and more information can be found at pricemart.org. With that, I'll turn it over to Michael McCleary for the financial review.

Thank you, David. We had a strong third quarter, as net merchandise sales reached almost $1.3 billion, and total revenue was over $1.3 billion. During the first nine months of our fiscal year, net merchandise sales reached over $3.8 billion, and total revenue was over $3.9 billion. During the third quarter, net merchandise sales increased by 8%, or 9.5% in constant currency, and comparable net merchandise sales increased by 7%, or 8.5% in constant currency. For the first nine months of the fiscal year, net merchandise sales increased by 7.2% or 8.2% in constant currency, and convertible net merchandise sales increased by 6.5% or 7.6% in constant currency. By segment, in Central America, where we had 31 clubs at quarter end, net merchandise sales increased 7.5% or 7.6% in constant currency. with a 5.7% increase in comparable net merchandise sales or 5.9% in constant currency. All of our markets in Central America had positive comparable net merchandise sales growth. Our Central America segment contributed approximately 350 basis points of positive impact to the growth in total consolidated comparable net merchandise sales for the third quarter. In the Caribbean, where we had 14 clubs a quarter in, net merchandise sales increased 8.2% or 9.7% in constant currency, and comparable net merchandise sales increased 8.6%, or 10.1% in constant currency. Our Caribbean region contributed approximately 240 basis points of positive impact to the growth in total consolidated comparable net merchandise sales for the third quarter. In Colombia, where we had 10 clubs open at the end of our third quarter, net merchandise sales increased 10.1%, or 19.3% in constant currency. and comparable net merchandise sales increased 99.9% or 19.1% in constant trends. Columbia contributed approximately 110 basis points of positive impact to the growth in total consolidated comparable net merchandise sales for the quarter. In terms of merchandise categories, when comparing our third quarter sales to the same period of the prior year, our foods category grew approximately 7.8%, our non-foods category increased approximately 9%, Our food services and bakery categories increased approximately 6.7%, and our health services, including optical, audiology, and pharmacy, increased approximately 13.9%. Membership accounts grew 5.1% versus the prior year to almost 2 million accounts, with a 12-month renewal rate of 88% as of May 31, 2025. A key driver of our membership strategy is the Platinum Membership, which is designed to offer even more value to our most engaged members. Platinum members enjoy exclusive benefits, including an annual cashback reward on eligible purchases, which directly translates to savings that reward loyalty and increased purchasing power. Platinum accounts as of May 31st, 2025, represented 16.1% of our total membership base, an increase from 11% in the prior year third quarter, and 12.3% as of August 31st, 2024. This increase is due to additional focus on growing this important segment of our membership, which included platinum promotional campaigns during fiscal years 2024 and 2025. Total gross margin for the quarter as a percentage of net merchandise sales increased 20 basis points to 15.8% and $17.5 million, or approximately 9.4% versus the same prior year period. Total revenue margins increased 30 basis points to 17.4% of total revenue, when compared to the same period last year. During the third quarter, our average sales ticket grew by 1.9%, and transactions grew 6% versus the same prior year period. The average price per item remained relatively flat year over year, while average items per basket increased approximately 1.8% compared to the same period of the prior year. Total SG&A expenses increased to 13.2% of total revenues for the third quarter of fiscal year 2025. compared to 13% for the third quarter of fiscal year 2024, and increased 12.8% versus 12.6% for the nine-month period ended in May. The 20 basis point increase of SG&A as a percentage of revenue primarily related to planned technology investments to support the future growth of our business. Operating income for the third quarter of fiscal year 2025 increased 12.7% from the same period last year to $56.2 million. Operating income for the first nine months of fiscal year 2025 increased 4.7% from the same period last year to $179.8 million. In the third quarter of fiscal year 2025, we recorded a $7.2 million net loss in total other expense compared to a $2.9 million net loss in total other expense in the same period last year. This increase is primarily driven by an increase in unrealized losses in value of U.S. dollar denominated monetary assets and liabilities in several of our markets. This increase was also driven by an increase in our cost of premiums to convert local currency into U.S. dollars from $3.8 million in the prior year to $4.8 million in the current year. Our effective tax rate for the third quarter of fiscal year 2025 came in at 28.4% versus 30.8% a year ago. Our effective tax rate for the first nine months of fiscal year 2025 was 27.3% compared to 31.3% for the prior year period. A decrease in effective tax rate is primarily related to our implementation of certain tax optimization initiatives at the end of fiscal year 2024. On a go-forward basis, we estimate our annualized effective tax rate will be approximately 27 to 29%. Net income for the third quarter of fiscal year 2025 was $35.2 million, or $1.13 for diluted share, compared to $32.5 million, or $1.08 for diluted share, in the third quarter of fiscal year 2024. Adjusted EBITDA for the third quarter of fiscal year 2025 was $79 million, compared to $71 million in the same period last year. Net income for the first nine months of fiscal year 2025 was $116.3 million, or $3.80 per diluted share, compared to $109.8 million, or $3.62 per diluted share in the comparable prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA for the first nine months of fiscal year 2025 was $245.1 million, compared to $232.9 million in the same period last year. Moving on to our strong balance sheet, We ended the quarter with cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash totaling $183.1 million, plus approximately $94 million of short-term investments. When reviewing our cash balances, it is important to note that as of May 31, 2025, we had $75.9 million of cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments denominated in local currency in Canada and Honduras, which we could not readily convert into U.S. dollars. This is a decrease from the $77.3 million at the end of the second quarter of fiscal year 2025, driven by our ability to reduce our position in Honduras during the third quarter. While we have seen improvement in availability on Honduras of U.S. dollars during fiscal year 2025, we continue to monitor the situation actively as the underlying limitations on availability of U.S. dollars persist. From a cash flow perspective, Net cash provided by operating activities increased $13.4 million for the first nine months of fiscal year 2025, largely due to improved operating results. Net cash used in investing activities decreased by $53.6 million for the first nine months of fiscal year 2025 compared to the prior year, primarily due to a $40.3 million decrease in property and equipment expenditures and a $14 million increase in proceeds from settlements and purchases of short-term investments compared to the same nine-month period a year ago. Net cash used in financing activities during the first nine months of fiscal year 2025 decreased by $82.4 million, primarily the result of fewer repurchases over a common slot, partially offset by an increase in repayments of and a decrease in proceeds from long-term bank borrowings compared to the same period a year ago. Looking forward a little into our current fourth quarter, Our comparable net merchandise sales for the four weeks ended June 29, 2025 were up 7.7% in both U.S. dollars and constant currency. In closing, we are excited to be able to share these pivotal investments that we have made in our continued commitment to operational efficiency and excellence. We believe these changes will continue to enhance the member experience, creating a mutually beneficial relationship built on trust, value, and innovation. Thank you for joining our call today. Before turning the call over for questions, we would like to request that due to CEO and CFO transition process and that due to travel schedules, we were not able to all be on the same location today. We would like to request that you direct your questions on today's call to Robert or myself. I will now turn the call over to the operator to take your questions. Operator, you may now start taking our caller's questions.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your touch-tone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press the star followed by the two. If you're using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any key. One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from John Brat. with Kansas City Capital. John, please go ahead.

Everyone. Michael, a question on your Trinidad funding plans that you discuss in the 10-Q. How does that help solve your convertibility issue in Trinidad? how do you see the impact on the P&L and maybe your liquidity premium that you're charging? And then lastly, I guess it's a Trinidad-Jamaica type of transaction. Does that generate an additional currency issue when you have the conversion between Trinidad and Jamaica?

Hi, John. Great questions. Thanks. So basically, there's several different components of these transactions, right? There's a total of up to $65 million. The cleanest and simplest, if you will, is the U.S. dollar loan for $15 million, which we repay in Trinidad dollars. So that obviously gives us a direct connection to work on our Trinidad payables. The other $50 million As you brought up, there's a piece that's in Jamaican dollars, but it's indexed to U.S. dollars, so there won't be any additional exposure from the Jamaican currency. It's just a matter of where the investors were that were subscribing to pieces of that transaction. So, the maximum FX exposure to this transaction would be between the Trinidad dollar and the U.S. dollar for the 50 million, not for the 15 that we pay back in Trinidad dollars, and no additional Jamaican exposure. As far as the purpose, I mean, it's just another tool for our toolbox here. Obviously, you know, just like most of the rest of the countries where in Trinidad, about half of our merchandise is imported, so those vendors need

Hello? Anybody there?

Can you hear me? Yes.

Okay, great. It looks like you just cut off there at the end of your question.

I can't hear anybody.

okay let me just see what's going on here in a moment sorry Looks like we got disconnected with John. I will move on to the next question from Hector Meyer with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much, Robert, Michael. Thank you for taking the questions. I just wanted to know if you could please share with us the thinking process that went into your strategic decision to consider Chile for future openings over other markets. and also to understand how you are thinking in terms of the potential for that market, to understand what lies so appealing about this opportunity, and also how open you could be to considering other opportunities in the region.

Hello, operator, are we live? Please go ahead. Operator, are we live now?

Yes, you are live.

Okay, did my answer to John's question get fully answered before we cut off there?

No, it looks like John got disconnected near the end of his question.

Okay, so you did not hear my answer to John's question?

No, we did not.

Okay, we were getting some static, so let me try to, is John still on the line?

I'm just checking now.

Okay. Let's, can you have, do you want Hector to ask his question again? Okay. So we're going to go ahead and answer Hector's question and then I'll go back to Robert's question. I'm sorry everybody about the technical difficulty. So Hector, I'll respond here. You really had two questions, I think. One is the considerations that went into considering, you know, our decision or at least almost decisions we haven't finalized everything to enter the market in chile and then other markets that we might be considering i think that would those were your questions is that right i don't know where he is now hector is that the one still open

Okay. Operator, can you confirm that you heard Robert's answer?

I guess I heard that and I'm looking for Hector right now just to double check.

We'll just go ahead and proceed, I guess, at this point. He's not there? Okay. So why don't we have Robert go ahead. Okay. Regarding the considerations that went into our you know, at least a pretty possible decision to open in Chile. And we haven't really finaled, finaled everything. It's the fact that Chile is a strong middle class. The economics are good. There's a good trade relation and tax relationship between the United States and Chile and very stable government. I think, you know, a lot of our countries we are, challenging in terms of some of the political and economic issues that we face in our countries. Chile, we believe, would be a much more stable and more developed country, so we think it would be a positive market, and also that the market in Chile, we think we could do well because of the strong middle class. As far as other markets in Latin America, At the moment, we aren't doing any serious studies of any other markets, but we would continue to assess opportunities that might come up.

But nothing to report, really, on that.

Okay. Well, once again, I do want to apologize for the technical difficulties. The last few calls have been very smooth. Sorry about that. I want to go back to John's question here. I don't think they have them on the line anymore, but let me just try to recreate that and see if I cover the pieces of John's question. John was asking about the Trinidad financing arrangements and how that affects our liquidity situation in Trinidad to the extent you haven't already heard this answer. I don't think it went through. Of the up to $65 million, of financing that we've arranged that we expect to fund in Q4. Fifteen million dollars of that is we will receive proceeds in U.S. dollars and what we'll repay in $10,000. So that gives us a clear path towards converting our $10,000 into U.S. dollars. The other $15 million is going to be primarily in U.S. dollars. Some of it is actually tied to Jamaican dollars, but from our perspective, the liabilities in U.S. dollars is indexed to U.S. dollars, so we're not introducing any third currency as far as volatility to the U.S. dollar, Jamaican dollar exchange rate. It will just be U.S. dollar Trinidad for that $50 million entirely, and that was just a convenience factor for certain of the investors that are part of that deal. And then overall, that's just another, the $50 million is just another tool in our toolbox. Just like the rest of our country, about 50% of our products are sold in Trinidad is imported, which means we have U.S. dollar vendors primarily through Plysmart Inc. that need to be paid. And so this will allow Plysmart Trinidad to pay money up to Plysmart Inc. who can then pay it on to their vendors. and give us a path to spread that conversion over several years. Last piece of the question from John was regarding the FX accrual and how we're including the premium for our members, and that's something that we constantly evaluate to see how much that will impact our pricing, and we do consider that, and we are figuring that into our calculations for next year. We're going to do our best to make sure that that does not impact member pricing, but that's a working process.

Thank you. And sorry for that technical difficulty there. I'm not sure what happened. But as a reminder, if you do wish to ask a question, please press star 1. Okay, it looks like we have Hector with a question from Scotiabank. Hector, please go ahead.

Hi, thank you very much. Robert Michael for taking my questions. I was basically asking if you could please share the thinking process that went into the strategic decision to consider Chile for future openings over other markets. and also to understand how you are thinking in terms of the potential in that market. And would it be also fair to assume that now PRAGMAR would be open to considering other opportunities in the region, and how these could change the growth algorithm in terms of store openings in the future?

I answered most of that already. I did answer a few minutes ago most of your questions regarding, I think the one thing in Chile that you mentioned now about the potential for that market, I think it's, you know, the gross domestic product in Chile is about the same as it is in Colombia, about $350 billion. And the population is much smaller, so the much stronger middle class. And so we think, you know, although a big portion of the population is located in Santiago, we feel that we could have quite a, you know, a number of price mark locations in the capital and also in some of the secondary cities. The market potential, You know, it's really hard to say, but we think it could be pretty good for us. So it's still a work in progress as we continue to assess the market.

I understand. I'm sorry, though, that I wasn't having issues to connect initially to the call, so maybe I missed that caller.

There'll be a transcript coming out shortly, so hopefully you can catch that.

Thank you. So, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to Michael McCleary for closing remarks. Please continue.

Okay. Once again, everybody, sorry about the technical difficulties. Hopefully, everybody will be able to hear our answers clearly. I think we answered both John and Heather's questions, and thank you for your participation today. Take care.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.