Rocky Brands, Inc.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Rocky Brands fourth quarter and full year 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question and answer session. Instructions will be provided at that time for you to queue up for questions. If anyone has any difficulties hearing the conference, please press star zero for operator assistance at any time. I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded, and we'll now turn the conference over to Brendan Frey of ICR.

Thank you, and thanks to everyone joining us today. Before we begin, please note that today's session, including the Q&A period, may contain forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are based on information and assumptions available at this time and are subject to changes, risks, and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ materially. We assume no obligation to update such statements. For a complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties, please refer to today's press release and our reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2022. And I'll now turn the conference over to Jason Brooks, Chief Executive Officer of Rocky Brands. Jason?

Thank you, Brendan. With me on today's call is Tom Robertson. After Tom and I's prepared remarks, we will be happy to take questions. Our company has transformed significantly over the past few years following the impact from COVID. The organization did a very good job navigating the early days of the pandemic, integrating a large acquisition, bringing on a new distribution center, and servicing our customers and consumers during this volatile market conditions. While 2023 had its share of challenges, the fundamentals of our business are solid and we are in a great position operationally, and financially to invest in our growth. Encouragingly, our reported results improved throughout the year as solid sell-through of our products coupled with over inventory levels continuing to improve at the majority of our wholesale accounts positively impacted our sell-in. Despite some unexpected headwinds in the fourth quarter, net sales improved sequentially from the third quarter and year-over-year declines moderated to their lowest levels in 2023, due in part to high single-digit growth in our direct e-commerce channel. Equally important, we made great progress strengthening our balance sheet throughout 2023. highlighted by a 66 million or 28% reduction in our inventories and an 84 million or 33% decline in our debt levels compared with the end of 2022. Tom will cover the numbers in more detail shortly, but first I want to spend a few minutes reviewing our fourth quarter sales performance by category and brands. Starting with work, The four brands that make up this category, Georgia, Rocky, and Select Styles under the Muck and Extra Tough brands, continue to improve this quarter with several areas to highlight. The Georgia brand continued to build momentum from the third quarter as partner inventory constraints that stalled reorders throughout 2023 began to moderate. driving wholesale demand to the strongest level of the year the brand saw strong sell-in with several of our largest accounts in the farm and ranch segment this quarter increasing sales with these customers on both a sequential basis and compared to a year ago period additionally This year's cost savings and subsequent selective price decreases on certain Georgia styles helped spur a notable pickup in demand for the brand. While the recent inventory backlogs caused many accounts to be more conservative and narrow new orders to best-selling SKUs. Two new product introductions in 2023 that have been well received drove outsized demand this quarter, contributing significantly to Georgia's recent progress.

Ladies and gentlemen, we seem to be experiencing some technical difficulties. Please remain on the line while we get the difficulties resolved.

Thank you. Hello, this is Jason Brooks.

We got cut off there for a minute, so I will start with the Georgia brand. The Georgia brand continued to build momentum from the third quarter as a partner inventory constraints that stalled reorders throughout 2023 began to moderate, driving wholesale demand to the strongest levels of the year. The brand saw strong sell-in with several of our largest accounts in the farm and ranch segment this quarter. increasing sales with these customers on both a sequential basis and compared to a year-ago period. Additionally, this year's cost savings and subsequent selective price decreases on certain Georgia styles helped spur a notable pickup in demand for the brand. While the recent inventory backlogs caused many accounts to be more conservative and narrow new orders to best-selling SKUs, Two new product introductions in 2023 that have been well-received drove outsized demand this quarter, contributing significantly to Georgia's recent progress. Strong sell-through for these new styles demonstrates that the Georgia brand remains relevant and in demand with consumers, even in the current environment. Our rocky work brand remained challenged this quarter, with excess inventory levels continuing to impact replenishment orders. However, there was some positive momentum, particularly with new, higher-priced products. We've seen strong sell-through with the top-tier work boots, and we introduced a new line of similar product that retailers for more moderate prices in the fourth quarter. This new product line made in our own Dominican facility should provide solid top line and margin contributions for the rocky work in the years to head. Shifting to our rubber boot based work product, both the Muck and Extra Tough brands on their positive 2023 momentum in the fourth quarter. The Muck brand delivered a positive year over year comparison, underscoring the work we've done in recent quarters to reinvigorate the brand. As we continue to adjust MUC's brand message to communicate more directly with our targeted audience, we've seen the brand's marketing metrics significantly outperform industry benchmarks, and consumers' demand has resonated in kind. For the first time this year, we saw year-over-year growth in the U.S. wholesale market for the MUC work. Also helping fuel this demand, MUC decreased prices on several legacy products in November and also introduced 12 new styles for the fall winter season. While above average temperatures to start the fall 23 season posted a slight headwind, we are confident that MUC is well positioned coming into 2024. Extra Tough carried its positive momentum from Q3 into Q4, outpacing expectations driven by significant year-over-year growth in both the U.S. wholesale market and the e-commerce jail. We saw partner inventory positions improve as the quarter progressed, driving stronger bookings for 2024 in the period. At the same time, we persistently added at-once business for in-demand styles that resulted in very strong sell-through and left us chasing inventory in key sizes. With awareness of extra tough surging, we will look to capitalize on the growing relevance of the brand and ensuring product availability for our growing extra tough consumer base in 2024. Turning now to our Western business, while many top accounts are currently operating on replenishment only ordering, Durango was able to secure several nice bookings in the period that accelerated fourth quarter results, well ahead of the trend earlier in the year. We saw strong orders from key accounts in both replenishment inventories due to the strong sell-through and to the stock for holiday 23 and early 24. We also saw the best quarter of the year from our field accounts with new distribution channels and an improving retail climate acting as positive catalysts for the brand. Most importantly, customers are reporting that they are now in significantly improved inventory positions, which allow with our focus on modernizing our inventory to eliminate slow moving styles and better stock or best sellers to take advantage of growing demand. Positions the brand for higher terms and more favorable results going forward. Our Rocky Western business continues to stabilize and we saw several bright spots this quarter across the channel. This included strong growth with our own e-commerce channel, along with solid results from our dot-com partners and within key Western boot retailers who saw better sell through in the quarter. Looking ahead, we are optimistic that the improving retail trends we've seen this quarter will allow our overall Western business to return to its historical growth trajectory. Outdoor, which includes styles under our Rocky, Muck, and Extra Tough brands, began to stabilize in the fourth quarter after a very difficult first nine months of the year, particularly for our Rocky Outdoor boot and apparel lines. Though the quarter was still challenged by unfavorable weather conditions, e-commerce gains, improving wholesale trends, and partner inventory improvements helped the category reposition to to take advantage of improving trends going forward. Also, as I mentioned when we discussed our work product, both Extra Tough and Muck Brands delivered a notable improvement in this quarter, driven in part by new penetration of the outdoor product and more outdoor-focused marketing. Last but not least within our wholesale segment, commercial military was a bright spot in the fourth quarter, as it has been all year. Orders from suppliers of the U.S. Army and for the Division's Code Red Fire Collection drove a great fourth quarter to cap off the strongest year in recent memory for this business. Shifting to our retail segment, sales increased low single digits compared to a year ago period thanks to a very solid quarter for our direct e-commerce channel. Each of our branded sites, Rocky, Georgia, Durango, Muck, and Extra Tough, saw double-digit traffic and sales increases in the quarter. We continue to enhance our digital marketing efforts, allowing us to engage with consumers more directly, and we expect this trend to continue going forward, which should positively impact the segment's growth and margin profile. Lastly, our B2B Lehigh business was down year over year in line with expectations as we lapped a very strong quarter off growth in 2022. We expect that sales will rebound in 2024 as comparisons ease and events bookings continue to increase, along with the introduction of the several new key accounts slated for this year. As ready as I am to put 2023 behind us, I am pleased that the work we did strengthening our product innovation, brand building, consumer connections, and fulfillment capabilities started to translate into improved results towards the end of the year. By focusing on controlling what we can control, we exited 2023 with good momentum and well situated to deliver growth, enhanced earnings in 2024. Before I turn the call over to Tom, I want to thank the entire Rocky team for their efforts and the commitment to excellence. We have weathered the ups and downs over the past four years and have emerged a stronger organization that I am confident will benefit the business or shareholders over the next year and long term. Thank you, Tom.

Thanks, Jason. As Jason shared, we are pleased to see recent top-line pressures to our wholesale business begin to moderate this quarter, resulting in sequential quarter-over-quarter growth in sales and the lowest level of year-over-year declines we've seen all year. For the fourth quarter, sales decreased 9.3% year-over-year to $126 million, or 6% when you excluded service brand sales of $4.9 million, from the year-ago period. Buy segment on a reported basis. Wholesale sales decreased 13.3% or 8.8% excluding service to $85.8 million. Retail sales increased 1.5% to $37.8 million. And contract manufacturing sales were $2.3 million. Turning to gross profit. For the fourth quarter, gross profit was $50.7 million or 40.3% of sales compared to $56.7 million or 40.8% of sales in the same period last year. The 50 basis point decrease in gross margin as a percentage of net sales was mainly attributable to a tough year-over-year comparison related to a tariff recovery within an approximate impact of $2.4 million in the prior year period. This was partially offset by a higher mix of retail segment sales, which carry higher gross margins than the wholesale and contract manufacturing segments. Gross margins by segment were as follows. Wholesale down 120 basis points to 35.4%. However, excluding the tariff recovery benefit a year ago, wholesale gross margins were up 120 basis points. Meanwhile, retail gross margins were down 30 basis points to 52.9%, and contract manufacturing was down to 13.7%. Operating expenses were $36.0 million, or 28.6% of net sales in the fourth quarter of 2023, compared to $43.1 million, or 31% of net sales last year. On an adjusted basis, operating expenses were $35.2 million in the current year period and $41.4 million in a year ago. The decrease largely attributable to cost savings reviews and operational efficiencies that we achieved through strategic restructuring initiatives implemented over the past year. As a percentage of sales, adjusted operating expenses were 27.9% in the fourth quarter of 2023, compared to 29.8% in a year ago. Income from operations was $14.7 million, or 11.7% of net sales, compared to $13.6 million, or 9.8% of net sales in a year ago period. Adjusted operating income was $15.5 million or 12.3% of net sales compared to adjusted operating income of $15.3 million or 11% of net sales a year ago. For the fourth quarter of 2023, interest expense was $5.3 million compared with $5.9 million in the year-ago period. The decrease reflects lower debt levels in the quarter compared to the fourth quarter of 2022. On a GAAP basis, we reported net income of $6.7 million or $0.91 per diluted share compared to net income of $6.5 million or $0.89 per diluted share in the fourth quarter of 2022. Adjusted net income for the fourth quarter of 2023 was $7.3 million or $0.98 per diluted share compared to adjusted net income of $7.9 million or $1.08 per diluted share a year ago. The effective tax rate for the fourth quarter of 2023 increased to 29% compared to 16.1% a year ago. The year-over-year increase, which was higher than our initial projections, was driven primarily by a return to provision adjustment resulting from foreign tax credits recognized in the fourth quarter of 2023. Turning to our full year results. While the year was challenged by our wholesale partners working through excess inventories, we were encouraged by solid retail sell-through and the growing performance of our e-commerce sites. 2023 was also a year in which we made great progress strengthening our balance sheet and positioning the company for future growth. For the full year, net sales were down 25% or 24.3% on an adjusted basis to $463.4 million. excluding NEOs and service brand sales, which were divested in September of 22 and March of 23, respectively, adjusted net sales decreased approximately 20.9%. By segment, wholesale decreased 30.5%, or 27.2%, excluding the NEOs and service brands. Retail was up 1.4%, and contract manufacturing decreased 48.4%. In terms of profitability, adjusted operating income decreased 13.7% to 41.9 million, while adjusted operating margins increased 110 basis points to 9% of net sales. Adjusted net income was 14.3 million, and adjusted EPS was $1.93. For the full year, interest expense was $22.7 million, an increase of 24% compared with $18.3 million in 2022. And our effective tax rate for 2023 was 26.3% compared to 20.6% in the prior year, which was above our projected tax rate for 2023 of 20.8% due to the foreign tax credit adjustment in the fourth quarter I mentioned a moment ago. Turning to our balance sheet. At the end of the fourth quarter, cash and cash equivalents stood at $4.5 million and our debt totaled $173.1 million. We made excellent progress paying down our debt over the last 12 months with total indebtedness 32.6% lower compared to the end of last year. A big part of the debt pay down has been driven by our ability to strategically reduce our inventory levels. At the end of the fourth quarter, inventories were $169.2 million, down 66.2 million, or 28.1% compared to $235.4 million a year ago. Now to our outlook. Before I get into how we were thinking about 2024, I want to highlight a couple business changes that impact year-over-year comparisons. First, as you recall, we sold the service brand at the end of the first quarter of last year. Following the sale, we continued to manufacture and supply product to the new owners of the brand for several months as part of the transition process. The second change had to do with our distribution in Canada. In November, we switched from direct operations to a distributor model for our Rocky, Georgia Boot, Durango, Muck, and Extra Top brands. While this decision negatively impacts our top line in the near term, it contributes positively to profitability as there is little to no SG&A associated with the new agreement. In addition to these two changes, we also fulfilled an elevated amount of orders to a customer that supplies the U.S. Army with footwear. This temporary spike in demand was driven by escalation in global geopolitical events and given their current inventory position, we do not expect this level of selling to repeat itself. In total, we anticipate approximately $26 million in revenue from 2023 will not reoccur in 2024. Looking at this year, we expect revenue to be in the range of $450 to $460 million. This represents approximately 3% to 4% growth over 2023's adjusted base of $438 million, which excludes the aforementioned non-recurring revenue. In terms of cadence of revenue, We expect to see slight growth in the first half of the year before accelerating in the second half. We expect margin, gross margin to remain consistent with, consistent or to see slight improvement from the adjusted gross margins we delivered in 2023. This will be partially offset by SG&A deleverage as 2024 includes investments and marketing for our brands as well as performance-based compensation as we did not pay any bonuses in 2023. The biggest change year over year will be in our interest expense as a result of the progress we've made paying down our debt. Based on the year-end debt levels and current interest rates, we expect interest expense to be down approximately $5 million. That concludes our prepared remarks.

Operator, we are now ready for 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 1 on your touchtone phone. You will hear a three-tone prompt acknowledging your request and your questions will be polled in the order they are received. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press the star followed by the 2. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment please for your first question. Your first question comes from the line of Janine Stitchter with DTIG. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. First, on the Rocky brand, I think you mentioned some excess inventory in the channel there. I was hoping you could elaborate a bit on that. And then more broadly on channel inventories, if there's any other pockets of excess. It sounds like in general it's pretty clean. And then I also wanted to ask about ExtraTuff. You have some really nice momentum there. I would just love to hear more about how you're thinking about potential for that to become more of a year-round business and just to round out the selling period, making it less of a seasonal business. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Janine. There's a lot of questions in there. So I think the first one was about Rocky and some inventory. I think in all of the brands, we are in a pretty good inventory position on from our own inventory. And I feel like most of the retailers have gotten themselves into a pretty good place from an inventory position. Although I do believe they are still being very cautious about how they are booking orders and filling in. There's this conversation going around, obviously we're in election year, so I think that makes everybody a little bit nervous. But I believe that we are in a pretty good position and our retailers are in a pretty good position. But there's still some cautiousness around that. The other one I remember was Extra Tough. I think the first one was Rocky and the last one was Extra Tough. I'm not sure I remember them.

Yeah, the Extra Tough brand, it's unique in that since it's – more of a summer brand, if you think from a boating and fishing perspective. So we've seen success or the seasonality of that business maybe leans a little more Q2 as people load in for most of the East Coast fishing, which happens in the summer months. However, we have introduced new products like the ankle deck glacier trek boot, which is a fleece line version. And we also have the trolling pack collection, which is also fleece lined. And so we're seeing people embrace that product for their fall and winter boot as well, as well as we've also launched some new sandals, slides, and flip-flops that we anticipate selling strong in the spring as well.

Yeah, I would just add that, you know, in general, if you think of all of our brands today, I talk about us not being very sexy in Rocky, Georgia, Durango, and Muck. Extra Tough is probably the sexiest brand we have, and we see a big opportunity for expansion there. We want to be really careful about how we do it and try to control that and make sure we don't go too fast and too broad too quick. So we're really excited about that brand, and I think there's a big opportunity in Upside.

Perfect. That's helpful. And then maybe one last one, if you could just elaborate on the DTC strength you're seeing with e-commerce. Maybe just a little bit more about what you've been doing there to drive the strong growth in that business.

Yeah, I think the same thing everybody else is doing, right? We are doing more advertising on social media. We are appealing to the younger crowd. We are giving in front of them. via the Instagrams, all the platforms out there, and introducing them to our brands. And we are seeing a lot more traffic to our own websites. We are seeing a lot more transactions through our own website. And so I think the brands are resonating. And even back to the extra tough, I would tell you that that is one brand that even more resonates from an internet perspective. e-commerce kind of standpoint. So I don't know if you had anything to add, Tom.

Yeah, I think, you know, as we look into 2024, I called out in the guidance, the investment in marketing and a lot of those investments in marketing are going to be happening, you know, digitally, whether it's through social media or pay-per-click or search. So we're going to continue to drive consumers to our websites. And it's really the extra tough brand, to Jason's point, it's really apparent That consumer is much quicker to buy online than some of our other brands with almost a third of the sales in the fourth quarter for Extra Tough happening, you know, through our own e-commerce channels. So we're excited about the trajectory of our e-commerce business and continue to invest in it in 2024.

I do want to add, though, it's a balancing act. You know, our wholesale partners are very important to us, and we have to navigate that as well as we go through this.

Great. Thanks so much.

The next question comes from the line of Jeff Blick with B. Riley Financial. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, Jason and Tom. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit. Hi. Thanks for taking the question. I was wondering if you could hit on Lehigh Financial. and you know just as we look at last year as the baseline and as we filter through into 2024 you'd mentioned compares get a little easier as the year wears on maybe just talk about where that business is any key account wins uh also you know some of the stuff that you had going with the technology just kind of curious you know how that business is holding up and what we should think about for 2024. yeah um you know i'll kick this one off jeff you know the lehigh business for us

has grown over the last several years. I think this year was a little challenging for it. 2022, I think that the PPE world and the safety managers and HR managers of the world had more dollars in their budgets in 2022, and we saw that particularly at the end of 2022 when we saw people get incremental vouchers or subsidies to buy additional products, whether it be footwear or footbeds, orthotics. And so we knew we had a very tough comparison going into 2023. We expected the business to be down in the fourth quarter of 2023, and it actually met our expectations. And so I think we saw a little bit earlier in the year, too, where we started to see some businesses pulling back a little bit on their spin as they were doing their own SG&A savings or budget cuts. And so we feel that, you know, we've opened up some new key accounts at the end of this year that kicked off in January. So we feel good about the business in 2024 and presume we would get back to growth for the Lehigh business in 2024.

Great. And just one kind of follow-up, you know, kind of building on what Janine was talking about. I'm just curious, in terms of the national accounts, you know, the bigger companies, kind of needle movers. I'm just curious, you know, not asking you to name names, where things stand in terms of their willingness to, you know, maybe be a little more aggressive on, you know, call it less than buying to need and actually, you know, pre-booking and ordering a little more aggressively.

Yeah, good question, Jeff. I think we have seen this loosen up a little bit. They are definitely being more active, not only in regards to at-once business, but some booking business as well, or at least forecasting and giving us that information. So we've definitely seen that open up in the outdoor category, the farm and ranch category, the western category. And so that's been a good sign. I will say it is still, everybody still seems to be pretty cautious in what they're doing it and how they're doing it. But it's definitely changed a little bit for us.

Yeah, I think, Jeff, just to add on, as we look at our bookings for the rest of the year, bookings are up. But the calculus we're trying to do is does that mean, you know, their behavior will shift back a little bit more normalized where they're booking a, you know, 40% of the product and ordering that one 60%? Because we saw that kind of, we saw the at-once increase over the last couple years as, to Jason's point, the buyers were being more cautious and conservative. So we're trying to figure out what the new normal is. But, you know, we'll wait and see.

Great.

I appreciate it.

I'll let someone else have a chance to ask a question. Best of luck. Thanks, Jeff. Thanks, Jeff.

Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, should you have a question, please press the star followed by the one. Your next question comes from the line of Jonathan Comp with Baird. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon. Thank you. Just two questions for me. I think first, looking at the underlying revenue growth you're expecting for the year, can you just give any more color by segment or category, how you're thinking about the growth on a relative basis based on what you see? And then separately, just on the operating margin commentary, Tom, could you maybe just be specific so we're using the right numbers, what margin you see for 2024? and any ability to drive less deleverage, even on slower sales, or maybe you could quantify the incentive compensation headwind for this year that you've outlined. Thank you.

Thanks, Sean. Yeah. So I'll kick off with a little bit of growth. I think as we look at all the brands, we would look at them all about equal Except for the Extra Tough brand, we think there's probably a little bit more upside there. But the Rocky Georgia Durango, Muck brands, probably all pretty similar kind of growth rates. And then our Lehigh division, I would say we're anticipating or expecting a little bit higher growth rate there for 2024 as well.

Yeah, I think to add on to that, just for modeling purposes to help out, the $26 million that we caught out of non-recurring revenue, 23 of that would, well, 20 of that would show up, I'm sorry, in the wholesale segment. And so that's where you'll see that comparison with the other six being split between retail and contract manufacturing. Just also to give a little color from a quarterly perspective, that $26 million, I would say about $7 to $8 million comes out of Q1 and Q2, $8 million in Q3, and then about $3 million in Q4, just so all the analysts can get their quarters lined up a little bit. And then, John, the last question I believe you had was around operating expenses. Is that correct?

Just operating margin for the year. Could you just clarify what operating margin roughly you're expecting and any ability to drive less deleverage on the slower sales growth, or if you could give any more color on the G&A expenses, including the incentive compensation reset? Thank you.

Yeah, so I would say from a dollar standpoint, you know, we're looking at a few million dollar increase from an operating expense perspective. Our goal is going to be to try to keep that operating margin flat with LY. However, as we said today, we've got it just slightly under 2023 numbers.

Okay, thanks again. Thanks, y'all.

Your final question comes from the line of Bruce Galler, who is a private investor. Please go ahead.

Hey, good afternoon, gentlemen.

Hey, Bruce.

Hey, you made some really impressive progress this year on the balance sheet. And I'm curious where you think this can continue to go in 2024. Can you generate some incremental cash from inventory? If so, can you give some guidance around that? And in terms of debt pay down, similarly, I would imagine a lot of those proceeds would be channeled into debt pay down. You know, it seems to me based on some preliminary numbers, you should be able to get your debt to EBITDA ratio down below three in the current year. And if that's the case, what are also the prospects for refinancing your debt, which, you know, would, I think, further enhance the earnings growth, considering you've You've still got about $2 a share in interest expense locked up in the P&L.

Yeah. Hey, Bruce, I'll take this one, Tom. Yeah, so from an inventory perspective, we've been targeting that 30% of sales as a long-term number from an inventory perspective. So that would suggest that there's another $25, $30 million of inventory to come off. We will see how this Canadian distribution change, that should also help that number going forward. And you're exactly right. The working capital improvements there will go to paying down debt. And then your math on... The leverage ratio is correct, too. We've got ourselves in kind of the mid-two range from a total leverage ratio standpoint. And so, we'll continue to work with our lenders to try to find the right solution from a credit facility standpoint. But I would anticipate that, you know, given where this leverage ratio is, we'll be able to unlock some savings here in 2024 from an interest expense standpoint from where we sit today.

Okay, thanks. I also had a question on the revenue guidance. I think you mentioned 450 to 460, which would be, you know, about Flattish versus LY, but you also mentioned noted that you expected modest growth in the first half with accelerating growth in the second half. So there's a bit of a disconnect there because you implied that there's going to be growth throughout the year, but the aggregate number does not imply any growth. So maybe I misheard that, but if you could provide some clarification, that would be great.

Yeah, absolutely. So the comment of the 3% to 4% growth is driving back to what we're considering kind of the new base, which was like $438 million, which was essentially this year's results minus that non-recurring revenue of $26 million that we talked about. And so if you were to look at that, and I tried to give a little color on each quarter on what that new base would be, but I would say you would see kind of lower growth at 2% to 3% range in the first half of the year. and then maybe the 4% to 5% in the second half of the year to get to that blended 3% to 4% that we guided to.

Okay, thank you.

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Jason Brooks for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Eric. I just wanted to thank the Rocky team one more time. 2023 was an incredibly complicated, challenging year, and our company and the people in the company really stepped up and did an amazing job navigating it. I know we are all excited about 2024 and the future of Rocky Brands, and I look forward to working with you all. to make that happen. And I also just want to say thanks to our investors and their support in 2023 and look forward to proving to you guys that we have a great 24 in the future ahead of us.

So thank you all. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today.

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