a.k.a. Brands Holding Corp.

And welcome to AKA Brands Holding Corp's second quarter 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Emily Schwartz, Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Communication. Thank you, Ms. Schwartz. You may begin.

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining AKA Brands' second quarter 2023 conference call to discuss the results released this afternoon, which can be found on our website at ir.aka-brands.com. With me on the call today is Kiran Long, Interim Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started, I'd like to remind you of the company's safe harbor language. Management may make forward-looking statements which refer to expectations, projections, and other characterizations of future events, including guidance and underlying assumptions. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed. For further discussion of risks related to our business, please see our filings with the SEC. Please note we assume no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. This call will contain non-GAAP financial measures such as adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures are included in the earnings release, furnished to the SEC, and available on our website. With that, I'll turn the call over to Kieran.

Thanks, Emily. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining our call to discuss the second quarter. We continue to execute against our strategic initiatives and have made significant improvements in our operating efficiencies, which enabled us to deliver on our EBITDA and cash flow expectations for the quarter. We also continue to strengthen our balance sheet by way of strategically reducing our inventory and paying down our debt. And importantly, we are increasing our addressable market, particularly in the US, by introducing our brand to new customers through our direct-to-consumer and omnichannel initiatives. Net sales for the second quarter were 136 million. The US delivered 80 million of net sales, which was in line with our expectations and represented a 12% increase on a two-year basis. The U.S. continues to be our largest and most robust region, and we remain keenly focused on expanding our brand's presence and increasing awareness in this market. And we are very pleased with the ongoing progress. The inline performance in the U.S. was dampened by continued macro pressures and consumer challenges that we're facing in the Australia region. In addition to the macro environment, we have identified opportunities that we are aggressively addressing, which I'll provide further colour on in a few minutes. Despite the softer than anticipated net sales in Australia, there are a lot of green shoots and highlights to take away from the quarter. I'm very pleased that we delivered 5.6 million of adjusted EBITDA and 10 million in operating cash flow, in line with expectations. Importantly, Despite our net sales decline from the second quarter last year, we were able to deliver the same level of EBITDA, which is a testament to the discipline and incredible work the teams have done to build structural efficiencies across our operating model while controlling expenses. As I mentioned, we continue to strategically reduce our inventory, which is down 26% year over year and down 16% from the year end of 2022. We also further reduced our debt with a 12.5 million payment in the second quarter or a 16% reduction from the end of 2022. And we're incredibly pleased with our omnichannel initiatives as we're attracting new customers and creating buzz around our brands, particularly in the US. As we move through the back half of the year, we have three key priorities. First, we will continue to chase demand and build brand awareness through increasing fashion newness attracting new customers through our next generation marketing tactics, and expanding our omnichannel initiatives. Second, we will continue to improve our operations by driving greater efficiencies and bringing inventory down further. And third, we will continue to strengthen our balance sheet by paying down additional debt through the remainder of the year. I'm very proud of the team's focus and execution across our initiatives. and I want to thank them for their continued commitment and drive. Now, I'll share a few highlights from our brands, and then I will walk you through the financials. Starting with our women's brands, Princess Polly remains our largest brand and continues to appeal to customers with on-trend fashion and next-generation marketing activations. As mentioned last quarter, we are refining our marketing spend and increasing fashion units across our brands. These efforts are aimed at both attracting new customers and fostering loyalty among existing customers. Given the fast and efficient test and reorder merchandising approach, Princess Polly released 100 new styles per week in the second quarter, and saw a very strong sell-through rate, particularly in dresses. They launched their Princess Polly branded merchandise in the beginning of the year, which supports strong brand affinity and loyalty. Based on the success and positive customer reception, they will be expanding this collection and will release 20 new logo branded styles in the back half of the year. On the marketing front, as we approach the fall, Princess Polly has targeted merchandise drops and marketing events to coincide with key moments for their customers. Back to school, sorority rush and homecoming. Based on the success of the spring break and summer jeep tours, they're launching a Jeep tour on college campuses across California to meet customers face-to-face and build relationships. As next-generation marketing experts, Princess Polly remains laser-focused on reaching their customers across multiple platforms, and they continue to grow their TikTok presence and fine-tune the efficiency. Based on successful community engagement to customer content on TikTok and refreshed organic and paid strategies, they increased their reach in TikTok views by over 300% sequentially compared to the first quarter. Equally as exciting as Princess Polly's direct-to-consumer initiatives is the success of their omnichannel initiatives. I'm excited to announce that Princess Polly and Paxson have expanded their wholesale relationship, and beginning tomorrow, Princess Polly will go live in 100 Paxson stores across the U.S., up from 15 stores in the initial tests. The early success with the Paxton partnership gives us great confidence in Princess Polly's ability to expand its market reach and significantly grow the business over time in both the US and internationally. We're also looking forward to the opening of Princess Polly's first store in the Century City Mall in Los Angeles next month. As a reminder, we believe this location is the perfect strategic fit for Princess Polly's first store given the high volume of Gen Z and Millennium shoppers in the open-air mall daily. We continue to evaluate more retail locations for Princess Polly, and we'll use the learnings from the Century City store to develop our plans for future stores. Petal & Pop is also making impressive progress on both their direct-to-consumer initiatives and their omni-channel tests. They launched 26% more new styles in the second quarter versus the first quarter, and continue to see strong sell-through in their newness. Similar to Princess Polly and additional to their social media and brand marketing, Pedal and Pop is also using events and sponsorships to reach new and existing customers. They hosted five in-person events in the second quarter, engaging both influencers and customers and building broader awareness, including a large-scale activation at the Country Music Awards Festival in Nashville in June. We're also excited that as Petal & Pup continues to gain traction in the U.S., they are launching their first Influencer Capsule Collection, designed and curated by Nina Evans, a popular U.S.-based content creator in August. Petal & Pup's omnichannel initiatives are also exceeding our expectations. As announced last quarter, the brand is currently live and performing well on Target Marketplace, demonstrating that demand for Petal & Pup is strong. We continue to pursue opportunities to attract new customers to the brand and boost awareness through marketplaces and select wholesale engagements. We're very encouraged by Petal & Pop's initial success with marketplaces and we're leveraging the learnings to inform marketplace tests across the other brands in our portfolio. Shifting to our streetwear brands, we remain pleased with the momentum that Culture Kings is gaining in the US where it continues to disrupt the US streetwear industry. The Las Vegas store is performing ahead of our expectations, and we are equally pleased with the positive impact it has had on our online sales. Culture Kings embodies the collision of music, fashion, and culture, and they're bringing this to life in the U.S. through unique marketing activations, partnerships, and their signature retail tailment ethos in stores. The second quarter is a great testament to the power of the Culture Kings brand beyond just the in-store events. As momentum builds, Culture Kings began marching across the U.S. with their first partnership beyond the West Coast with the Lyrical Lemonade Summer Smash Music Festival in Chicago in June. As sponsors of an official stage, they curated an exclusive merchandising collection and the iconic Culture Kings basketball court activation, further enhancing their impact and presence at the event. Additionally, based on the success of the Rolling Loud sponsorship in LA earlier in the year, they expanded the partnership and were named the official streetwear brand for the Rolling Loud music festival in Miami in July. Country King sponsored a branded stage and full-size basketball court, which was open to the more than 250,000 festival goers over the event. The brand also designed an exclusive Rolling Loud capsule collection, which was available to shop at a pop-up store on festival grounds and on the Culture Kings website. In the second quarter, Culture Kings also deepened their sports partnerships and furthered their collaboration with the UFC. Culture Kings showcased and was a top-selling booth at UFC X, a fully immersive UFC fan experience in Las Vegas during International Fight Week in June. Their merchandise sold out in a few hours and the team quickly leveraged our in-house design and print facility to print an overnight more inventory, showcasing both the incredible demand for Culture Kings, as well as the brand's flexibility and speed to chase and replenish in under 24 hours. The Las Vegas flagship is an incredible marketing machine where the brand can host exciting one-of-a-kind events and activations. In the second quarter, popular mixed martial arts fighters Charles Oliveira and Chico Vera held the most attended in-store event to date, featuring a 22-foot MMA fight cage with over 1,000 fans showing up for the in-store event. Additionally, as Culture Kings deepens its relationship in sports in the US, they collaborated with New Era and WNBA stars Arika Ogungbowala, Dijon A.J. Carrington, who hosted a live shopping and Q&A event in the store during All-Star weekend. On the print and licensing side, Culture Kings extended its collaboration with Dreamville with an exclusive collaboration and an in-store event with JID and hip-hop duo Earthgang. And we're excited for the upcoming licensed merchandise collabs with fan favorites and 90s revival Pokemon and Looney Tunes. We remain pleased with the performance of Culture Kings in-house brands, which come at higher gross margins, including Minimal, which remains the top 10 brand at Culture Kings online and in-store. We also continue to be encouraged that Culture Kings is bringing new customers to Minimal and integrating Minimal products into Culture Kings marketing and activations. In the second quarter, Minimal launched a gifting strategy for the WNBA, and Las Vegas player Aisha Sheppard received her WNBA championship ring in full Minimal outfit, and over 20 WNBA players have been spotted wearing minimal across social media since. Before I provide more detail on the P&L, I want to give you more colour on our three regions. As I mentioned, the US continues to be our strongest region and will be the most significant driver of growth. In the first half of the year, the US accounted for 59% of total revenues, up from 52% from the comparable period last year, and the region continues to be an increasingly more important part of our portfolio growth and profitability. Second quarter, net sales in the US were 80 million, which is down 3% compared to last year, but up 12% on the two-year stack. Beginning this quarter and going forward, we're slightly adjusting our financial reporting structure to include New Zealand in the Australia region, giving the proximity and interconnectedness of the two countries. You can now find historical financial information for the updated region in our filing. In the Australia region, net sales for the second quarter were 48 million, down 28% compared to last year, and down 24% on the constant currency basis. In the first half of the year, the Australia region accounted for 35% of total company revenues, down from 42% in the first half of 2022. Similar to the US, the Australian consumer has been challenged post-pandemic. However, the environment there has remained more challenging than we anticipated. They've had 12 interest rate increases over the last 12 months, which is particularly impactful as the majority of the country have variable weight mortgages, leading to increased consumer pressure as we've gone through 2023. In addition to the macro challenges, we have also identified areas of opportunities across our brands in the region. Our teams are keenly aligned with our philosophy to manage inventories below our forward demand expectations. We are building further operational efficiencies and we're honing in on demand creation initiatives. We have completed a holistic SKU streamline initiative to focus on faster selling SKUs, which will improve overall operating effectiveness and allow for stronger and fresher merchandise season after season. Importantly, Culture Kings is also adding productive third-party footwear brands such as Salomon and Clarks. While we feel good about the quality and quantity of our women's brand's inventory as we head into their strong spring and summer seasons, we're also evaluating partnerships with select off-price retailers in Australia to move through aged inventory faster while remaining focused on our newness and overall profitability. While we anticipate that the consumer will remain challenged for the remainder of 2023 and into 2024, we're confident that these actions will benefit the Australia region over the longer term, while enabling us to manage the business appropriately in the current demand environment. The rest of the world delivered 8 million in net sales, which was down 12% from the second quarter in the prior year. Focuses on the US in the short term are strategic decisions to shift marketing dollars from the UK and Europe in the third quarter of last year continues to impact trends in these regions. Now I'll give you more detail on the P&L before taking your questions. For the second quarter, net sales were 136 million at the time of 14% compared to the second quarter last year. On a constant currency basis, net sales were down 11% compared to last year. Total orders for the second quarter were 1.7 million, or flat in a two-year stack, and down 11% to last year. Order volume was impacted by overall lower demand in the Australia region and lower conversion across regions. As we ramped up marketing efforts and the flow of noodles normalized, we saw improvements in traffic, However, conversion rates continue to lag prior year trends as customers remain somewhat more selective in their purchasing behavior. We serve 3.6 million active customers on a trailing 12 months basis, which is flat sequentially to the first quarter of 2023. Average order value of $82 decreased 4% compared to the second quarter last year on a reported basis and was flat in constant currency. Our return rate for the second quarter was 20.5%, which remains one of the lowest among our peers. Moving to profitability. Gross margin in the second quarter was 56.9% compared to 55.2% in the same period last year, or up 170 basis points. Above our expectations of roughly flat to last year. This gross margin upside was driven by improved full-price sell-through, due to the increased newness, particularly in the US and lower freight expenses. The teams have been hard at work improving our operational efficiencies over the last 12 months, and I'm very pleased with the incredible progress we've made. Selling expenses declined 21% to 36 million compared to 45 million in the second quarter of 2022. Selling expenses were 26.4% of net sales and leveraged 220 basis points compared to the second quarter last year. I'm really proud of the incredible work the team has done on shipping carrier optimization, finding labor efficiencies, and improving our costs throughout the supply chain. Marketing expenses in the quarter were 18.4 million compared to 19.1 million in the second quarter of 2022. On a rate basis, marketing expenses were 13.5% of net sales compared to 12% of net sales in the second quarter of 2022, driven by lower effectiveness in the Australia region. Throughout the second quarter, we continue to ramp up our marketing investments in line with the increased newness in the assortment to drive top-line improvements across brands. General and administrative expenses declined by 6% to $24.2 million compared to $25.7 million in the second quarter of 2022. On a rate basis, G&A expenses were 17.8% of net sales, compared to 16.2% of net sales in the second quarter of 2022. The change in our rate basis was primarily driven by lower sales volume compared to the prior year. It is important to note that our expense base is largely fixed and improvements in sales will require nominal incremental G&A expenses, supporting opportunities to leverage this line in the future. Adjusted EBITDA was 5.6 million in line with our guidance despite slightly lower than expected net sales. This compares to 5.9 million in the second quarter last year. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the second quarter of 2023 expanded to 4.1% compared to 3.7% in the same period last year. Net loss was 5 million or 4 cents per share in the second quarter of 2023, compared to net loss of 4.2 million or 3 cents per share in the same period last year. Turning to the balance sheet. I want to reiterate that strengthening our balance sheet is a top priority for us and I'm very proud of the actions we took over the last few quarters to lower our debt levels and improve inventory levels and working capital. We ended the quarter with 26 million in cash-to-cash equivalents and 120 million in debt. At the end of the second quarter, we had total liquidity of approximately $57 million. In the quarter, we continued to make additional debt repayments, bringing our total debt pay down to $24 million year to date. Additionally, in June, our board of directors authorized the share repurchase program to repurchase up to $2 million of shares of the company's common stock. In the second quarter, we repurchased 673,000 shares for a total cost of approximately $300,000. As mentioned, I'm really pleased with our inventory levels, which at the end of the quarter totaled 106 million, compared to 144 million at the end of the second quarter of 2022. Total inventory dollars were down 26% and units were down 22% compared to last year. We feel confident in the overall composition, newness and quality of our inventory, and expect to see continued decline in inventory dollars and units in fiscal 2023 on a constant currency basis. Going forward, we expect to run the business with inventory growth below sales growth, and I'm encouraged that we return to this dynamic in the quarter. Along with maintaining a healthy balance sheet, generating strong cash flows is another key priority for us. In the second quarter, we generated 10.3 million of operating cash, which compared to cash use of 8.7 million in the second quarter of 2022. This 19 million year over year increase in operating cash flow was primarily driven by positive EBITDA and inventory improvements. In the quarter, we generated free cash flow of 8.5 million. As we look at the remainder of 2023 and beyond, we're excited by our brand's strategic initiatives and the channel expansion opportunities to drive heightened brand awareness. However, based on the trends we're seeing with the consumer, primarily the continued pressure on the consumer in the Australia region, we're lowering our back half expectations to reflect the current environment. We now expect to deliver between 555 and 565 million in net sales and between 21 and 25 million EBITDA for the year. For the third quarter, we expect to deliver net sales of between 138 and 143 million, and adjusted EBITDA in the range of six to eight million. To give more color in the middle of the P&L, we expect gross margins, selling expenses, and marketing rates in the third quarter to be similar to the rates in the second quarter of this year. Before I take your questions, I want to let you know that Jill continues to work through her medical issues, but she's doing well and appreciates everyone's regards. Our priorities for the remainder of the year are clear. We are creating demand opportunities and reaching new customers through our direct consumer growth initiatives and omnichannel expansion plans. We're diligently focused on improving and finding even more operating efficiencies by reducing our inventory and managing our expenses. and we're taking the necessary steps to strengthen our balance sheet and pay down even more debts. We remain confident in the future of our brand and the long-term potential and are committed to driving shareholder value through delivering both growth and profit. Now, we'll open it up for questions.