Birkenstock Holding plc Ordinary Shares

Good morning and welcome to the Birkenstock fourth quarter and fiscal year 2023 earnings call. Please note that all participants are in a listen-only mode and the call is being recorded. Following the presentation, we will conduct a Q&A session. The company has allocated 60 minutes in total to this conference call. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Alexander Hoff, Vice President of Global Finance. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for Bookstock's fourth quarter and fiscal year 2023 earnings call, which is our first earnings call as a public company. Earlier this morning, we announced our latest fourth quarter and fiscal year 2023 results. As a reminder, our fiscal year ends in September. You may find a supplemental presentation connected to today's discussion on our IR website. Before we begin, we would like to remind you that some of the information provided during this call is forward-looking and, accordingly, is subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Federal Securities Force. These statements are subject to various risks, uncertainties, assumptions, which could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. These risks, uncertainties, and assumptions are detailed in the morning press release, as well as our SSC filings, which can be found on our website at goodstock-holding.com. We undertake no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements or information except as required by law. During our call today, all revenue growth rates were decided on a constant currency basis, unless otherwise stated. We will also reference certain non-IFRS financial information. We use non-IFRS measures as we believe they represent the operational performance and underlying results of the business more accurately. The presentation of this non-IFRS financial information is not intended to be considered by itself or as a substitute for financial information prepared and presented in accordance with IFRS. Reconciliations of IFRS to non-IFRS measures can be found in the MonExpress Police and in our SFC Hub. Joining us on the call today are Oliver Reichert, Chief Executive Officer, Eric Machmann, Chief Financial Officer, David Carr, President America, Nico Goya, President Euro, and Klaus Baumer, Chief Sales Officer. Following our prepared remarks, we'll open the call for your questions. With that, I'm very happy to hand over the call to Oliver.

I would like to welcome everyone to the call today, and I'm happy to discuss fiscal 23 and fourth quarter results. On today's call, I will share a quick recap of the building stock equity story we presented during the IPO and some highlights regarding our fiscal 2023 performance. Next, David, Nico, and Klaus will give you an overview about their respective regions. Then you will hear from Eric and Alexander with a review of the financials and our initial outlook for fiscal 2024. So let me begin with a brief overview of our equity story. We are aware that it's not easy to compare Birkenstock to any other listed company. Our business model is unique in many ways. We are the inventor of the footbed. We are in the footbed business, offering a functional benefit to consumers that never goes out of style. We are guided by a simple, yet fundamental insight. Human beings are intended to walk barefoot on natural yielding ground, a concept we refer to as Naturgewolltes Gehen. Our purpose is to empower all people to walk as intended by nature. We are a brand backed by a family tradition of a quarter of a millennium with the resilience timeless relevance and credibility of a multi-generational business which supports a strong heritage and drives the premium feeling of the brand. For us, 2024 is a very special year in which we celebrate our 250th tradition anniversary. We are a universal brand. catering to all people regardless of age, gender, and geography. We have a growing global following, exhibiting high engagement and brand loyalty. For instance, U.S. consumers own 3.6 pairs on average today, and 90% of our buyers come to us through unpaid channels. Our total addressable market is the global population. Our products cover a broad range of price points. We have a significant addressable wide space across geography, category extension, and user occasion. Additionally, we also have wide space with our own store openings and expansion of our DTC penetration. We are made in Germany. Over 95% of our products and 100% of our footbeds are produced in one of our six owned factories in Germany. 100% of our footwear is produced in the EU, one of the safest and most regulated markets in the world. Most raw materials are sourced from Europe, which ensures supply chain reliability And the materials also adhere to strict quality and social and environmental standards. We are committed to uncompromising premium quality. Our products are made to last. We are a unique business. We are neither luxury nor fashion or footwear. But our business model has elements that are typical of the luxury industry. That is a premium quality product. Market capacity and the high desirability of the brand, which all together translate into a premium margin. Other than the luxury industry, which is primarily built on price and social status, BILTENstock is a true purpose and zeitgeist brand. As such, we are beyond fashion. Our disciplined, engineered distribution model drives consistent and predictable revenue growth by strategically allocating products across channels and segments to maximize profitability and to balance demand and supply to create scarcity in the market. We deliver a strong financial profile, 20% revenue CAGR over a decade, 60% plus gross profit margin, 30% plus adjusted EBITDA marks. And our fiscal 23 figures underscore this once again. Eric and Alexander will review our financial performance in more detail shortly. But here are a few highlights from fiscal 23. We are very pleased to announce that we delivered extraordinary revenue growth of 20% in fiscal 23. marking the best year in building stock history with revenues of 1.49 billion euros. Our fourth quarter contributed to that development with 22% growth. These numbers tie in with our great performance in the last decade with a revenue CAGR of 20% and demonstrate the sustainability of our growth. We are delivering all that in uncertain times and macroeconomic backdrops, which reflects our optimism in the future growth trajectory of the business. Our revenue development in fiscal 23 is driven by both unit growth of 6% and ASP increase of 14%. Compared to fiscal 22, our unit growth doubled from 3% to 6%. Our ASP growth was primarily driven by steering consumers to premium products with higher price points. This effect accounts for 50% of the ASP growth. The ASP is further driven by a favorable channel mix towards B2C and RSP increase. Both effects accounted for 25% of the ASP growth. We achieved strong full price realization, which demonstrates our unique outlier position and brand strength. Within each of our geographies, we saw a high consumer demand for Birkenstock, resulting in a double-digit revenue growth in all three segments in fiscal 23. Our two channels, B2B and D2C, grew double digits, with DTC especially outperforming and achieving a penetration of 14%. This demonstrates how broad-based our revenue growth is. The same applies to the product perspective, where most of our categories grew double digits. Fiscal 23 marked another year with industry-leading margins. We achieved a gross profit margin of 62.1%, and an adjusted EBITDR margin of 32.4%. At this time, I will hand the call over to David and his team for reviewing America's performance.

Thank you. In the Americas, we achieved a revenue growth of 20% in fiscal 23, making the region the largest contributor to overall revenue growth in 2023. Due to our brand strength, Birkenstock outperformed a generally flat market with retail partners who have seen overall challenges in both traffic and conversion. We know retailers are seeking to shift investments to the highest performing brand. This is an opportunity for us to increase our share and drive top line as we are one of the true must-have brands. And while we will take this opportunity to grow with partners, we will do so without compromising on our profit-led product allocation strategy. We chose to remain very disciplined in B2B channels so that we leave a significant unrequited demand and ensure scarcity across all retail partners with healthy inventories at retail. This approach led to B2B revenue growth of 16% in fiscal 23. Using our engineered distribution strategy, we have steered greater inventory to capture more of this consumer demand in our own B2C channels, where the profit per pair sold is the highest. D2C revenues grew in fiscal 23 by 26% on a level far above B2B, which leads to a further expansion of D2C penetration. During fiscal 23, we have also gained significant penetration in our closed-toe shoe silhouettes, which supported the AST increase. closed-toe performance is approximately three times higher in our own channels compared to B2B, which shines a light on the growth potential not only in D2C, but also in B2B. In our fourth quarter, revenues increased by 40%, primarily driven by a strong B2B quarter with 73% growth. We experienced strong consumer demand in spring and summer, which even gained further momentum in the back-to-school retail season. In Q4, we took advantage of the macroeconomic situation to execute what we term land grabs in white spaces, particularly shoes, based on our heightened leverage in sandals and clogs, maintaining strong sell-through and healthy inventory at retail. In addition, we made significant inroads in expanding our distribution so that the benefits of our footbed may be front and center in running specialty shops. This is a new initiative and brings the benefits of our footbed directly where the most discerning consumers purchase their performance sports products and whereby this consumer can benefit from Birkenstock as a recovery item as part of their athletic lifestyle. The mantra we use is run, Birkenstock, repeat. And this helps us ensure the benefit of our flip bed leads a growing revenue base to complement purchases made by some who may buy for fashion-led reasons. Please note that by and large, we do not expand distribution other than in some specific doors where we believe an end user may be underserved. Here, run specialty sport recovery is a good example. Let me now hand over the call to Nico to discuss Europe's performance.

In our Europe segment, we have cemented our strong position in a challenging market environment, which is driven by consumer caution and increasing sales promotions due to material inventory levels. This strength is built on our disciplined, engineered distribution model to manage scarcity, resulting in strong overall sell-throughs and superior full-price realizations. For Europe, fiscal 23 was a successful year in terms of business transformation, with a significant volume shift from lower quality distribution into higher AFPs and higher profitability. We increased revenues by 18%, with revenues significantly outgrowing units. Our B2B transformation in Europe is now completed. We have significantly increased our distribution control by converting further distributor markets of Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg to own distribution, and by further rationalizing our wholesale partner portfolio with a stronger focus on strategic partners and new distribution in the premium sneaker segment, both supporting our premium brand positioning. Our recently taken back markets, France and Scandinavia, both operating as own distribution markets since fiscal 22, are well set up, both delivering over-proportionate builds. These transformational efforts resulted in 15% revenue growth for B2B. Simultaneously, we saw great progress in our DTC transformation towards higher quality and stronger member centricity. In fiscal 23, we closed a substantial part of our legacy retail stores and took strategic investments in our membership and analytics capabilities. We experienced consistently strong consumer demand in our own channels with record-breaking sales in both retail and online throughout the summer. Fiscal 23 DTC revenues increased by 24%, significantly outperforming B2B, and thus resulting in further DTC penetration. Both quarter revenues in Europe were up 5%. The single-digit increase was impacted by shipment timing effects and B2B partner termination effects following our wholesale cleanup. In fiscal 2022, we experienced shipment delays in the first half of the year, leading to an exceptional revenue level in the second half. This elevated sales level in Q4 of fiscal 2022 has been the base for Q4 of fiscal 2023. Furthermore, we phased out the biggest terminated wholesale partners in fiscal 2023, which impacted Q4 2023 results. By taking out these timing effects, revenues would have grown double-digit in Q4 of fiscal 23. ETC revenue growth in Q4 was 20%, slightly impacted by store closures in Europe following our transformation. And our closed-door suit penetration in Q4 increased significantly.

I'm handing over to Klaus for APMA discussion. Our APMA segment showed the highest growth rates of all segments in the fiscal year 23 with 27%. APMA entered into the acceleration mode after a successful distribution cleanup. All over the region, we are with teams on grounds to drive future revenues. Within the channels, B2C is the growth backbone in APMA. We managed to double the D2C revenues in fiscal year 23 by capitalizing the growing demand, adding web shops in different countries, and opening own retail stores in India and Japan. We managed to implement premium distribution through partner stores all over the region. We grew in underpenetrated countries like Greater China, marketplaces more than 60%. India Digital grew more than 70%. and Japan Digital more than 50%. So let me remind you at this stage that our D2C expansion is not at the expense of B2B growth. It is all incremental. Despite distribution cleanup, B2B grew double digits at 12%. We focused on monobranded partner store openings and upscale customers to more premium products by following our global segmentation strategy. of placing the right product in right places or adding exclusive products to our own channel. In Greater China, we recently appointed Tiffany Wu as a managing director to drive brand equity and sales in the region. With this new appointment, we aim to further strengthen our expanding footprint in the most dynamic APMA region and the growth region with the largest untapped white space potential for the company. alongside with India and Japan. So having said that, let me hand over to Eric, who will review the financial stickers in detail.

As outlined earlier, we achieved remarkable revenue growth of 20% in fiscal 2023. Our fourth quarter tied in with this performance and came in with growth of 22%. Gross profit margin for fiscal 23 was 62.1%, up 180 basis points compared to fiscal 22. Let me remind you that last year's number was unfavorably impacted by 24.4 million euros of expense reflecting the effect of applying the acquisition methods of accounting for the transaction in 21 to inventory valuation and subsequent impact on cost of sales. When adjusting this fiscal 22 effect, gross profit margin slightly decreased 20 basis points from 62.3% to 62.1%. The decrease was driven by inflationary costs for raw materials and labor. In fiscal 22, we took an early sales price increase ahead of the anticipated cost inflation, while cost of sales inflation mainly hit us in fiscal 23. However, the unfavorable cost of sales inflation effect in gross margin was largely offset by favorable effects from an increased DTC penetration and further sales price increases. Gross profit margin in the fourth quarter increased by 140 basis points from 64% to 65.4%, due to a strong ASP increase following an improved product mix and with slightly higher D2C penetration. Adjusted selling and distribution expenses represented 29.8% of revenues in fiscal 23, up 190 basis points compared to prior year. The increase was primarily driven by higher costs in relation to the above average growth of DTC revenues and cost inflation. Adjusted general administration expenses represented 5.4% of revenues in fiscal 23, down 70 basis points compared to prior year. providing operational leverage. Our fiscal 23 adjusted EBITDA of 483 million euros was up 11% compared to fiscal 22. With 32.4%, we again achieved top-tier EBITDA margins. The margin decline of 260 basis points compared to prior year was driven by inflationary headwind while we increased sales prices primarily in fiscal 22. Thus, last year's margin was elevated by this favorable pricing effect. Our fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA was 96 million euros, slightly down by 6%. The moderate decline was primarily driven by cost inflation and negative FX effects from currency translation due to the weaker US dollar compared to fourth quarter of fiscal 22. Our effective tax rate for fiscal 23 was 51.2% compared to 25.3% for the prior year. This increase mainly relates to one-time non-cash share-based compensation expenses that are treated as non-deductible. The increase also includes one-time IPO costs resulting in tax losses for which no deferred taxes are recognized. Adjusting for the tax rate impacts of the just-mentioned extraordinary expenses of 65 million, resulting from non-cash share-based compensation and 34 million euros resulting from IPO costs, would lead to a normalized effective tax rate of 27.9%. These results accumulated in pro forma fully diluted adjusted earnings per share of Euro 110 in fiscal 23 compared to Euro 0.93 in prior year, representing growth of 19%. Fourth quarter, pro forma fully diluted adjusted earnings per share were Euro 0.13. Earning per share metrics are calculated based on a total number of outstanding shares of 187.8 million, representing the post-IPO number. With that, I will hand over to Alexander. Burton Stock is a cash flow generating business, which provides us optionality in terms of capital allocation. In fiscal 2023, we achieved cash flow from operating activities of $300 59 million, up 53% compared to prices. The increase is primarily driven by the strong operational performance as well as a lower inventory increase compared to fiscal 22. Inventory increased 11%, which is approximately half of the revenue growth rate, providing us with an improved inventory to revenue ratio. We are extremely focused on inventory health, especially as we grow. Let me remind you at this stage that we hold approximately 100 million euros of raw materials and semi-finished goods as we have the production in-house. Within finished goods, the largest part relates to core and non-seasonal products, which we sell for many years or even decades. The majority of finished goods is already contracted or allocated against customers. Accordingly, risks for allowances are low, while the inventory gives us flexibility to react fast to an increase in demand and to generate additional sales and gain market share. That cash flow moves the investing activities for €101 million, primarily driven by the production capacity expansion. Our strong cash flow generation allowed us to completely pay for that capital expenditure . In addition, we repaid loans and borrowings of 53 million in fiscal 23 while increasing our cash position. As announced in early November of 2023, We continued our deleveraging process post-IPO and utilized the net proceeds together with cash on hand to repay existing debt. We early repaid $460 million of the U.S. dollar terminal fee and 100 million euros of the vendor loan in the first quarter of 2024, which reduced leverage to below 2.5% IPO. Now turning to the future. We will provide guidance on a full year basis rather than quarterly, reflecting the way we steer our business towards long-term success. For fiscal 24, we expect revenue to be in the range of 1.74 billion and 1.76 billion euro on a constant currency base. This range represents a growth of 17% to 18% relative to fiscal 23, with all segments and channels contributing to that growth. We continue to see strong consumer demand for stock brands, but present a range which is better than internal expectations at the time of the IPO. We expect adjusted EBITDA margin to be approximately 30% in fiscal 24, resulting in an adjusted EBITDA between 520 million and 530 million euro on a percentile basis, based on the earlier mentioned revenue guidance. With the production start of our new factory in Carmel, September 23, we are very happy In taking an important step of our capacity, we are on track with the project to build the factory on budget and in time. The added capacity will help us to fulfill future demand, and we are on schedule to realize the benefits of this capacity expansion later in fiscal 24 and the upcoming years. In the current year, we expect model segment to adjust the aid margins compared to fiscal 2023 due to planned ramp-up costs and an initial under-absorption of funding. This impact is consistent with what we communicated through the IPO process. Long-term, we expect an adjusted ETA margin in the low 30s with slight variations based on our estimates. Our capital allocation priorities are first, to invest in the business, and second, to balance the leverage. We expect to invest approximately 150 million euros of capital expenditure in fiscal 2024, primarily relating to our ongoing production capacity expansion, mainly in Portugal, and our global retail stores. In addition, Brimstone plans to continue the leveraging process and aims to achieve a leverage ratio below two within the next 18 months. With that, operator, can you please begin your day?

Certainly. At this time, we'll be conducting a question and answer session. In an effort to get as many questioners as possible, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Once again, that's star one if you wish to ask a question. And please hold while we poll for questions. The first question today, is coming from Edward Iruma from Piper Sandler. Edward, your line is live.

Hey, good afternoon, guys. Thanks so much for taking my question. I guess I'm curious on how you feel about inventory on a SKU basis. It seems like you've had a lot of very popular SKUs like the Boston, particularly in the US. So kind of curious how you feel about some of your hotter SKUs right now and kind of inventory levels in the channel. Thank you.

Thanks for your question. Yes, a topic we have been discussing before. Inventory compared to revenue came down in 23 from 36% to 30%. So you see we are constantly working on optimizing this. Still, as you know, more than 75% are already allocated to customers. And And most, more than 75% is timeless and carry over products and fillets. So nothing I'm worried about. And I'm very positive with the inventory level we have. You know, as a company that's producing our own goods, we always want to be in the position to deliver D2C, which we will grow. So we need inventory. We will increase inventory, but still we optimize it constantly.

Thank you. The next question is coming from Matthew Boss from JP Morgan. Matthew, your line is up.

Great, thanks. Great, thanks, and congrats on a nice quarter. So, Oliver, could you speak to maybe the broad-based strength and demand that you continue to see across geographies? Have you seen any change in top-line momentum through holiday or your December end first quarter relative to the more than 20% constant currency growth that you delivered in the fourth quarter? And just how would you rank white space category opportunities in 2024? Hi, Matthew.

I would say, you know, you've seen the growth rate in Q4, which is 22%. So we can't see any kind of downside here for the Q1 and the full year. So as you know us, we are Pride Conservative. We try to be very realistic here. You may have heard about the inflation increases again in Germany. And so we are very careful in this segment to be on the right side and not to... let's say optimistic, but, you know, the demand for purpose-driven brands are unbroken. It's a bit of a difference to the desire-driven luxury brands. I think they're much heavier on the pressure. We are not. We see growth everywhere. Your question about the upcoming territories, like Abma, the white space, As we said before in the roadshows and in the testing the water sessions, we don't see any significant impact on our business in 2024 because we are just about to start this. And the investment in retail and the right partners and develop this region carefully is the leading guidance here for us at the moment. They will kick in later, you will see, and then they will generate much more growth and they will carry much more EBIT as they do today.

Thank you. The next question is coming from Louise Singlehurst from Goldman Sachs. Louise, your line is live.

Hi, thank you. Hi, Oliver and Eric and team. Thanks for taking my question. If I could just ask about the factory and in terms of how that's gone. I think it opened in September. It's obviously very important for the volume increase for the year ahead. And it'd be interesting to know just where you are in terms of expectations and any learnings since September. Thank you.

Hey, Louise. We, as you know, the new factory in Pasewalk and the refitting in Golec and some refitting in our factory in Portugal, in Arruca, will give us in the next years the opportunity to double the capacity. So that's really a big moment for us to really grow the capacity. And of course, as we said before, you see some negative impact on our margin within the 24 numbers because of this Pasebalg one-off effects. And to be super honest, we see also some pressure from inflation, you know, coming in 24. As you know, we are very sensitive, but our customers are very loose with our pricing power. So we have enough leg space to further increase pricing. And and helping digesting the one-off costs through this factory improvement and the further investment in our capacity. So we are on track here, and this will give us a completely different situation from 2025 onwards. So we expect that this growth preparation will be heavily digested within 24, and then you will see a quick recovering of margins and efficiency and hopefully less inflation as well.

Thank you. The next question is coming from Michael Benetti from Evercore ISI. Michael, your line is live.

Hey guys, good morning and congrats on your first quarter out of the gate here. I just wanted to clarify one comment from before on fiscal 24. Did you say, as we think about the cadence of the year a little bit, I know you're guiding on an annual basis, but did you say to look at the 22% constant currency growth rate in fourth quarter as a good way to think about how the revenues grow early in the year in the December quarter? And if I was right, and then to the question about the new factory coming online. Could you speak to what you think we should, how we should think about the pace of unit volume growth building as we move through the year and to the comment you made about later in the year, you'll start to see some of the effects of the new factory ramping. And then David, if you wouldn't mind for a second, tell us about maybe a little bit about what you referred to as the land grabs in Americas, please.

That's a lot of questions, Michael. I will start with the beginning. We do see a unit growth, of course, within 24. This will give us some movement to improve our engine distribution model. Coming back to your Q4 numbers and the outlook in Q1, I mean, it's really, you know, you know what, we are conservative, but we were not disconnected to the reality. I mean, our growth rate in Q4 is 22 percent. OK, so why should this drop so dramatically? I mean, the full year guidance is between 17 and 18 percent. But the truth is we are kicking in on a level of 22% in Q4. And yes, this is not dramatically declining. And we are very positive about our Q1 already. But we're talking about a full year guidance. So as you know, on the conservative side, being rookies in this segment of IPO presentations and communications, we want to make sure that we're on the right side. And that's why we're sticking with our guidance, the full year guidance of 17 to 18%. Okay, and then hand over to David to give you a bit of a color of the U.S. market.

And, yeah. Thanks, Oliver. Thanks, Michael, for the question. But land grab is a term we use where we really aggressively take some share. I mean, what we're seeing in the U.S. right now is it's almost a little counterintuitive, but the more challenged the consumer spending power has been. Really, the better it's been for the brands that are really in high demand. And like Oliver said, what we're seeing is this incredible shift right now in shopping patterns from general shopping to real intentional purchasing, where people are searching out those products, brands, experiences they really want. And obviously, Birkenstock is one of those few that's benefiting. And when we had an opportunity in the recent months to take some share and to provide, especially our retail partners, with a brand that is selling through at near record levels of full price realization, we took that opportunity to fill some more shelf space.

Thank you. And once again, it is star one on your phone today if you wish to ask a question. That's star one on your phone to enter the Q&A queue. Next question is coming from Dana Tulsi from Tulsi Group. Dana, your line is live.

Good afternoon, everyone, and congratulations. Oliver, David, Eric, as you think about ASP and units sold and even by region, How are you thinking about new categories and new products on the ASP side versus core in terms of do you take price increase given the inflation? Do you not take price increase? Does it differ by channel and region? And with the new introductions of new items this year, what's the pace like compared to last year? Does it differ in terms of timing as to what we should see by quarter? Thank you.

Thanks for the question, Dana. We have taken price increases over the past few years on an ongoing basis on our core products. And what we're seeing is the consumer response to leather, to more higher priced products has been far beyond our expectations. It's exactly what I spoke about. There's incredible intentional purchases where consumers or brand fans are searching out products. And it just so happens to be that some of those products, especially the closed-toe ones, are obviously at higher average selling prices. So the consumer who's come to our brand by way of our core products, as you know, we average 3.6 pairs per consumer. They might come to us from a core purchase, and then their next purchase and their next purchase and their next 3.6 purchases may be closed-toe or clogged products. that just happened to be higher average tickets. So we're seeing no price compression whatsoever, and we're actually seeing a growing demand for our higher priced products, which are just resonating with the consumers. Hey, Dana.

This is Nico. Maybe I can also add a bit of color from the European perspective. So in Europe, over the course of the last two years, we have increased pricing, weighted average around 25%, which is really significant. And for us, pricing, just generally across the group, is a seasonal exercise. So every season, we look at the entire portfolio, the entire collection, and look at input costs, look at the COPs, and then also look at what equity we have for each individual product and what can we charge for that product. So we are currently selling in autumn-winter 24. We sold in spring-summer 24. For Europe, again, a significant price increase in that season, and that's going to continue. the the price increases that we have done so far did not result in any negative impact from the consumer perspective so the demand remains unchanged remains unbroken and that's quite special for us as a brand across the globe thank you the next question is coming from paul lejuez from city paul your line is live hey thanks guys i'm curious

What surprised you, if anything, on a regional basis, both positive and negative, and maybe how does that shape how you're thinking about growth by region in F24? Maybe if you can talk about which regions will come on the higher end of that 17% to 18% growth rate that you got it to versus the lower end or below. Maybe you can provide by region. Thanks.

Thanks for your question. As you know, the big two geographies, Europe and America, are more or less growing on the same speed, which is very encouraging because it shows that even in the traditional markets, we are growing very, very strong. You have to keep in mind that that our capacity is still very limited. That's why we didn't have enough product to further, on the unit side, further push more into the APMA region. So that's why APMA as a region is only growing by 27%. But in the near future, once we have Pasewalk up and running and the improvements in the other factories in Gollitz, and in Aruka and Portugal, then we will be able to fulfill much better the very, very strong demand in China and the Atma region as a whole. Gauss can give you some color on this after my explanation. One thing, and you asked for downsides, to be super, super honest, we underestimated the inflation effects. So if you try to understand the bridge from 22 numbers with a 35% margin going to our outlook, which is conservative. Please have this in mind. Our conservative outlook for 24, we come to 30%. So the bridge from the 35 to the 30 is we didn't manage enough price increases in 22. They were fully in our books in 22. That's why we had this outstanding margins. Then the inflation on 23 kicked in and we lost more or less like two and a half percent due to this inflation impact. And we cannot adjust the pricing between the years. So we need at least like 10, 12 months in advance to prepare ourselves for price increases. That's what we're doing this year again. So the inflation will be, and that's really like the question mark here for the 24 numbers, how big will the inflation come back again in 24? We know that Pasewise will digest some of this margin. So just roughly from 22 to 23, we lost 2.5 due to inflation margin points or 250 basis points. And the inflation will further cost us, our calculation at the moment, 120 basis point in 24 and 120 basis points, the idle cost of Parsevalve or the whole factory rearrangement setup, right? So, Klaus will follow up with some Chinese news.

Hello, Paul. Klaus here. Just for your question about positive and surprising effects, the expansion in... Gernot Wagner- Later China or an APP ma gives us also a big trust because we're taking over the DTC and we are having more own stores running which are very over performing and driving not only the business also the ASP. Gernot Wagner- And obviously the rollout will continue all the all the campaigns, we are running in greater China are doing very, very well, so I with the growing capacities, we have I mean we can. Constantly supporting that demand and delivering to the countries. That is very positive.

Thank you. The next question is coming from Randy Koenig from Jefferies. Randy, your line is live. Randy, your line is live. Please check your mute button.

Can you hear me now? Yes, go ahead, sir. All right. Sorry about that. Thank you. I guess question back to David. You talked about a flat market in 23. Just want to get some perspective on your thought process on the market overall for 24. It sounds like you're thinking a little bit more challenging. So maybe just become a little more specific there of how you're thinking about it. And then as you think about just the opportunity from a wholesale perspective, What's the opportunity you're thinking through from a door count expansion potential, if at all? And then how are you thinking about what's going on with order patterns? Are the accounts on the wholesale side kind of taking on more SKUs, more units, volume of existing SKUs? Just give us a little bit more flavor of how you're seeing the overall market in the Americas this coming year, as well as the different opportunities for door count and order growth. Thanks.

Sure. And just to start, just a reminder, it's not demand driven from the wholesale side. Everything we do is completely allocated from our side. So it really becomes more of a self-fulfilling prophecy. What I would say is the U.S. consumer, I've said before, is somewhat fragile, but, you know, is resilient. And it is a bit counterintuitive because the more the buying power of the consumers has been constrained, the more it's been focused on those products that they most covet and demand. And we are one of the few real key intentional purchases that people are searching for. And I think they're searching with even more vigor than ever before for those few brands that are really important to them. So we can really manage and dictate a lot more of what you see at wholesale than you've ever seen before. Having said that, we're not going to compromise our discipline in any way. There's no real significant door count expansion, except where we think we may have some underserved markets or underserved end users. But suffice to say, everything we do will still be done with the highest level of maintaining relative scarcity and a bit of what I would say unrequited demand, which becomes, quite frankly, a demand flywheel. I mean, the more that we do put into the market, the higher the demand keeps expanding. So I'd say we're expanding, but with extreme discipline. And we're also, based on the incredible momentum we've had in direct to consumer, we're fluid. Even in the middle of a quarter, in the middle of a month, we're able to steer available product wherever we think that the highest return and the most benefit will be. If you look at some of the numbers from the past few quarters, that reflects real-time movement of inventory to capture demand where we think we can best manifest it.

Thank you. The next question will come from Simeon Siegel from BMO Capital Markets. Simeon, your line is live.

Thanks, everyone. Happy New Year. So congrats on a really strong gross margin this quarter. Can you speak to maybe the drivers there a little bit more and how to think about that across the year ahead embedded within the guide? And then just if you can remind us, Within B2B, what percent of sales now are driven by distributor versus more traditional wholesale and any way to think about the distributor model going forward? Thanks, everyone.

Thanks for the question, Simeon. This is Alexander, and I will take that over. So our Q4 of this year is up a little bit and is influenced by positive as well as negative effects. We saw a really strong A&P. The colleagues from the sales side already touched on that. We see great performance in our higher price point products. DTC penetration is a little up. We took some pricing. We had some American share, which was overproportional, especially in DTC, and all that drives a growth margin. Then we have some negative effects on the FX side, because last year there was roughly parity, US dollar versus Euro. That gave some headwind, but overall an increase in gross margin. This 65 is clearly also coming from strong DTC penetration this specific quarter, so this is nothing what we guide for the future. I think we also touched on that 24 number where we see some kicking in effects from the capacity expansion. So clearly we will see that in combination with the inflation, which will bring some slight headwinds to gross margins. On the distributor piece. Hey, this is Nico. So for Europe, as you know, we traditionally, we were pretty distributor heavy market. Along our transformation plan, we exited many distributors. In fact, we've come down from 10 distributors to five over the course of the last two years. The remaining distributors, big distributors, are Italy, Turkey, and some smaller distributors around Greece. They will remain as we look forward into the next two or three years. In Italy, it's worth mentioning that we do own our own DTC. So the DTC channel is owned by us. and the distributor is serving the wholesale part simply because we believe Italy is quite complex in regards of distribution. And we are very careful with entering a market. The recently transformed distributor markets for Europe are Benelux. We just opened our office in Amsterdam and are set up there. The recently taken back markets generally are over proportionally performing well, delivering over-proportionate growth in regards of top line.

Speaking for APMA, the remaining distributors we work with is Australia and Taiwan. Obviously, with Australia, we have a long relationship. It's a very good distributor, but all of all, the distributor share is also coming down.

Thank you. And the next question is coming from Sam Poser from Williams Trading. Sam, your line is live.

Thank you guys for taking my questions. So I just want to clarify two things and then I have three things. One, David, have you seen any, what kind of change have you seen in the underlying US demand for your product? And then how are you managing that?

Sam, thanks. I use the term the demand flywheel, and it really makes a lot of sense. The more product we continually put into the market, as long as we do it in a disciplined manner, leads to more demand. So demand is not a finite measure. Demand keeps going up. The higher we increase our top-line revenue, the more demand keeps outstripping it. So we're learning more and more about how infinite that demand really is, especially as we start to connect with different end user groups. And that's why that example of like the same shoe just used in a recovery environment opens up a whole new end use for us. That's the perfect example we gave of how exponential the demand really is.

Thank you. That does conclude today's Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to Oliver Reichert for closing remarks.

Okay. Thank you for joining us in this call. Overall, we are very pleased with our fiscal 23 results. Thanks to the team, it has never been better positioned for both near and long-term financial performance. We believe that once we develop our capacity that we will continue our path also on the margin side. This will definitely be the case, so you shouldn't worry about this. Our outlook overall is very positive and hopefully you will Join us in our Q1 call, and then you will understand what I'm talking about. So enjoy the day. Have a nice day, and thanks to the team on both sides. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.

Thank you. This does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.