Birkenstock Holding plc Ordinary Shares

Good morning. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Birkenstock's third quarter 2025 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. The company has allocated 60 minutes in total to this conference call. I would like to remind everyone that this conference call is being recorded. I will now turn over the call to Megan Kulik, Director of Investor Relations.

Hello, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today. On the call are Oliver Reichert, Director of Birkenstock Holding, PLC, and Chief Executive Officer of the Birkenstock Group, and Ivica Crollo, Chief Financial Officer of the Birkenstock Group. David Kahn, President Americas, Nico Bouyaf, President of EMEA, Klaus Baumann, Chief Sales Officer, and Alexander Hoff, Vice President, Global Finance, will join us for the Q&A. Today, we are reporting the financial results for our fiscal third quarter of 2025, ended June 30th, 2025. You may find the press release and supplemental presentation connected to today's discussion on our investor relations website at birkenstock-holding.com. 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 federal security laws. These statements are subject to various risks, uncertainties, and assumptions which could cause our actual results to differ materially from these statements. These risks, uncertainties, and assumptions are detailed in this morning's press release as well as in our filings with the SEC and can be found on our website at birkenstock-holding.com. We undertake no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements or information except as required by law. We will reference certain non-IFRS financial information. We use non-IFRS measures as we believe they represent the operational performance and underlying results of our business more accurately. The presentation of this non-IFRS financial information is not intended to be considered by itself or as a substitute for the financial information prepared and presented in accordance with IFRS. Reconciliations of IFRS to non-IFRS measures can be found in this morning's press release and in our SEC filings. Now, I'll turn the call over to Oliver.

Good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining us today for our third quarter results. Once again, we delivered against our guidance with a 16% revenue growth in constant currency. We continue to grow double-digit in every segment and channel. At the same time, we significantly improved profitability Gross margin was up 100 basis points to 60.5%. And EBITDA margin was up 140 basis points to 34.4%. Our best third quarter margin ever. And we did this in a global environment with pressure from tariffs and currency volatility. We continue to see the shift to in-person shopping, which amplifies our brand. We are a touch and feel product, especially for consumers who are new to the brand. We have over 12,000 high quality touch points through our B2B partners compared to our own fleet of 90 doors. That is why this shift in consumer behavior favors our B2B channel over D2C. We are winning at retail, gaining shelf space and taking share. In a flat US market, retail revenue at our top 10 wholesale partners was up 25%. As you do your channel checks for Back to School, you will hear that Birkenstock is the winner with very strong sellout and fast inventory returns. Same for EMEA. Retail revenue at our top 10 partners was up 20%. Within our B2B channel, Over 90% of the growth came from within existing doors. We are committed to maintaining relative scarcity and managing tightly our distribution growth. In our own retail, we accelerated the pace of openings, adding 13 new doors. Our new stores generally deliver a higher ASP and higher units per transaction from day one. and we see a return of capex within 12 to 18 months. We are on track to reach our goal of around 100 stores by the end of this fiscal year. This will allow us to capture more in-person shopping demand within our own TTC business and allows us to showcase the full breadth of our product assortment. Our brand heat is stronger than ever. no matter if you look at sell-through, full-price realisation or our strong order book. This is especially true in the emerging youth market. Our demand is strong across all product categories and target groups. Sales of our classic leather silhouettes grew double digits. Demand for our iconic styles such as the Arizona and Boston remains strong and is accelerating within the younger demographic. At the same time, we are growing in expansionary categories such as lace-up shoes. Close-toe share of revenue increased by 400 basis points year-over-year. Now, let's briefly review our segment performance. In the Americas, revenue was up 16% in constant currency with both the B2B and D2C channels growing double-digit. Our B2B business was especially strong. Importantly, we saw no pushback or cancellations following the July 1st price increases implemented in response to tariffs. We opened three additional stores, bringing the total number of stores to 13. In EMEA, we delivered double-digit growth of 13%, while both channels grew double-digit. B2B outpaced D2C, driven by strong sell-through at our retail partners. Our online business started off slower than planned in April and May. However, in June, online growth re-accelerated. We saw healthy growth in our own retail with same store sales up in the mid-teens. We further expanded our brand presence with the opening of new stores in the Netherlands and Spain, bringing our store count to 39. The APEC region was up 24% in constant currency. Timing of goods in transit shifted revenue from third quarter into the fourth quarter. We forecast an acceleration in the fourth quarter in line with our expectation that APEC will grow twice as fast as our other two segments for the full year. We opened eight new owned retail stores, bringing the total number of stores in the region to 38. We also expanded our strategic partnerships, increasing our monobrand partner doors by around 20% compared to last year. Our business in China was particularly strong and accounted for 20% of APEC revenue in the quarter. I will now turn it over to Ibiza to discuss our financial results in more detail.