Leatt Corp

Greetings and welcome to the LIAT Corporation first quarter 2025 results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. Should anyone 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, Michael Mason of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Thanks, Ashi. Good morning and welcome to the Liat Corporation investor conference call to discuss the financial results for the first quarter 2025. The company issued a press release today, Wednesday, May 14, 2025 at 8 a.m. Eastern and filed its report with the SEC. The press release is posted on Liat's website at liat-corp.com. This call is being broadcast live and may be accessed on the company's website. An audio replay of this call will be available for seven days and may be accessed from North America by calling 844-512-2921 or 412-317-6671 for international callers. The replay pin number is 13753843. A replay of the webcast will be available immediately following this call and will continue for seven days. Certain statements in this conference call may constitute forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those discussed in this call. LEAD Corporation does not undertake any obligation to update such statements made in this call. Please refer to the complete cautionary statement regarding forward-looking statements in today's press release dated May 14, 2025. The company will make a presentation on the quarterly results and then open the call to questions. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Sean McDonald, CEO of LIAC Corporation. Good afternoon to you in Cape Town, Sean.

Thank you, Mike, and thank you all for joining us today. The first quarter of 2025 was a strong and encouraging start to the new year. Global revenues increased by $4.75 million, a 45% increase over last year's first quarter. It was our third consecutive quarter of revenue growth, in the second consecutive quarter of double digit growth. Growth profit was up 68% to $6.72 million, and growth profit as a percentage of sales increased from 38% to 44% compared to last year. Overall, we believe that we are making important progress in working our way back to a position of sustainable growth after the contraction that we experienced post-COVID. All of our major product categories grew by double digits compared to last year. Body armor revenues by 37%, helmet revenues by 101%, other products, parts, and accessories sales by 33%, and neck brace sales by 21%. Helmet sales were particularly strong as we continued to ship strong ADV helmet orders, and sales of our innovative and consumer-focused lineup of MTV helmets were exceptionally strong. We continue to invest in design and innovation, and are building a promising pipeline of cutting-edge products in ADV and our other categories that will fuel our growth in future. International distributor sales increased by 79% as strong rider participation continues, inventory is being digested, and sales through and constrained ordering patterns continue to improve. The uptick in orders from our international distributors is filtering through to our revenues. a trend that we believe will continue as our expanded long-term distributor partners grow sales over the next several quarters. Consumer direct sales increased by 14%. Domestic sales on our consumer-facing channels in the U.S. continue to gain momentum. And Lear.co.za, our consumer direct platform in South Africa, continues to deliver very strong sales. Dealer direct sales in the U.S. at the brick-and-mortar level contracted by 9%. as US motor and MPB dealers continue to manage some elevated inventory levels and some short-term turmoil. We expect to see an improvement over the next several quarters and a return to sales momentum as our reorganized US sales force gains traction. Our revenue growth and momentum is being fueled by encouraging international sell-through and restocking dynamics and the important work of our distribution partners and our sales and brand managers around the world. As reordering patterns continue to improve, we expect growth to continue. Now I will turn to more details on sales of our product categories for the first quarter of 2025 compared to 2024. Sales of our flagship neck brace were $680,000, a 21% increase attributable to a 21% increase in the volume of neck braces sold. Neck brace sales represented 4% of our total revenues for the first quarter. Our body armor products are comprised of chest protectors, full upper body protectors, knee braces, knee and elbow guards, off-road motorcycle boots, and mountain biking shoes. Body armor revenues were $6.87 million, a 37% increase over 2024. The increase was primarily the result of a 48% increase in revenues from sales of upper body and limb protection. Body armor products represented 45% of our revenues for the quarter. Helmet sales were $3.4 million, a 101% increase over last year. The increase is primarily attributable to a 51% increase in sales of helmets for mountain biking, off-road motorcycle and adventure motorcycle riding over last year. Helmet revenues represented 22% of our total revenues for the quarter. Our other products, parts and accessories category is comprised of goggles, hydration bags and apparel items including jerseys, pants, shorts and jackets. Revenues were $4.42 million, a 33% increase over last year. While sales of our motor apparel line decreased, the increase in revenues during the quarter was primarily due to strong shipments of our ADV and MCV apparel lines for mountain biking and adventure motorcycle riding. Our other products, parts, and accessories represented 29% of our sales for the quarter. Now I will turn to our financial results in a bit more detail. Total revenues for the first quarter of 2025 were $15.37 million, up by 45%, compared to $10.61 million for the first quarter of 2024. The increase in global revenues is primarily attributable to a $1.84 million increase in body armor sales, a $1.71 million increase in helmet sales, a 1.09 million dollar increase in sales of other products parts and accessories and 120 000 increase in necro cells gross profit for the first quarter was 6.72 million dollars up by 68 percent compared to 4 million dollars for the first quarter of 2024 and net income for the first quarter of 2025 was 1.12 million dollars or 18 cents per basic and $0.17 per diluted share, up by 237% as compared to a net loss of $820,000 or $0.13 per basic and $0.13 per diluted share for the first quarter of 2024. Liat continues to meet its working capital needs from cash on hand and internally generated cash flow from operations. Our liquidity continues to improve as we continue to manage our working capital and invest for the future. Cash increased by $331,000 with cash flows provided for operations of $768,000. And at March 31, 2025, the company had cash and cash equivalents of $12.7 million and our current ratio at quarter end was 7.321. In conclusion, this was a strong and encouraging quarter. I've recently returned from trips to China and the U.S. for meetings with our long-term vendors and U.S. sales and marketing teams. Everyone is excited about the future. Our motor, ADV, and MTB teams are making positive strides, and it's really great to see our new team taking shape. Of course, we face some industry-wide geopolitical and economic headwinds, particularly in the U.S., where the trade war could impact inflation, consumer confidence, and potentially demand to some extent. To that end, we are working closely with suppliers and customers to mitigate tariff risks and costs wherever possible. We are continually refining our global selling capabilities and are confident that the newest additions to our team will have a strong impact on our performance going forward. These investments can take time to make a significant impression on results, but we believe our success in building a great team is a cornerstone for our future growth. It was particularly encouraging to see all of our product categories, body armor, neck braces, helmets, and other products, parts, and accessory sales returning to double-digit growth. Cutting-edge product engineering and design remain at the core of the expanding Lear brand. We do expect working capital investment to grow in the coming period, as ordering patterns at the consumer, dealer, and distributor levels continue to show encouraging growth. We are confident that we have sufficient liquidity to fuel this expansion. Importantly, inventory continues to be digested, rider participation remains strong, and ordering patterns are improving and are faltering through to our revenue. We expect these trends to continue. In conclusion, we remain very enthusiastic about our future. Given our strong portfolio of innovative products in the market and in the pipeline, a multi-channel sales organization that continues to grow and develop and a robust balance sheet to fuel our brand expansion and revenue growth. We remain confident that we are well positioned for future growth and sustained shareholder value. As always, we'd like to thank our entire Lear family, our dedicated employees, business partners, and team writers for their continued strong support. With that, I'd like to turn the call over for any questions. Operator?

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 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. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. The first question is from Olivier Colombo from a private investor. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, Sean.

Hi, Olivier.

Congrats on the very big Q1. It's nice to see a double-digit growth in all category that you have, and this is the best quarter since Q4 of 2022, so quite an achievement.

Thank you, Olivier.

I have four questions. I have four questions for you. You just mentioned that you were recently in Asia to see your distributors. Can you tell us what their concerns and your concerns are regarding this trade war between China and the US and how you plan to work together in the future? Has anything changed from the past?

Yes, I think it's a good question and I think it's a very relevant question right now. Of course, I think our vendors are concerned regarding the pricing of stock that's going into the U.S. if one adds on what the proposed tariffs are. And they're concerned about what the landed cost will be in the U.S. and what impact that will have on our relationship moving forward and our manufacturing decisions. I mean, that's the basic concern that they have. We're quite committed to working with them. We've seen that tariffs have started to cool down just a little bit, and it is a pause now. I don't think anybody feels that a tariff of 145%, which has now been paused, is sustainable. I think the tariffs will also not settle on zero, but probably somewhere in between. Currently, we're sitting on about And at that kind of a level, we can work with our suppliers on pricing, of course, as far as possible. And we can also work with our customers in the U.S. Of course, as we sit here right now, U.S. sales as a proportion of our total sales in terms of shipments into the U.S. is about 20%. in terms of revenues, it's obviously higher. So far, the U.S. is a very important market and it's very important for us to be working with customers in the U.S. as well as with our vendors to make sure that we can get stock into the U.S. at the right price and also at the right time. I think one of the additional concerns, of course, is that as tariffs do cool off, We could face issues with shipments because a lot of companies have put shipments on ports and of course now things are going to be opening up and we will probably see what I would call some congestion at the ports and in terms of containers. But we're doing everything that we can now to make sure that we can ship products into the US so that we have products available for sale.

That's perfect. Thank you very much. My next question is regarding your very impressive 79% international distribution sales increase during the quarter. I wanted to know if you have made any significant new distribution with your partners to justify this growth and if you could highlight to us what part of the world are doing the best for the company for the time being.

Sure. So, yeah, we do have a few new distributors that we've brought on in emerging markets in South America. We have a few new distributors. And, of course, in the UK, we have Zyra Fisher, who's our new distribution partner that is doing really well for us on the MTB side. You know, we brought them on after the unfortunate issues with Wiggle CRC. So that's been really positive for us in the UK. We've started to see Europe and what we would call rest of the world, so outside of the US and outside of South Africa, we've started to see a general recovery in terms of ordering patterns as confidence has improved a little bit. And also, of course, stock levels have started to return to a level of what you could say are sustainable levels. So the biggest reason really for the increase is as our distributors start to reorder based on the demand that they see in the market and based on their forecasting of their stock levels moving forward. And that has been throughout Europe. It's been in South America, in Oceania, and really all the countries outside of South Africa and the U.S. where we sell into distributors. So it's a function of restocking and demand in those areas.

That's perfect. Thank you very much. This is very helpful. And then my final question is regarding the ADV line, which seems to be doing extremely well for you. On the press release, Dr. Liat commented that you have a pipeline of new innovative products in that category. Can you tell us a bit more about that?

Absolutely. I mean, I think for us, you know, we've made a really strong entrance into the ADB category. We've got some products that are already in the market now that have got fantastic reviews at the consumer level, with dealers, you know, with our customers. It's been a huge success in terms of boots, in terms of apparel items, jackets, pants. gloves and helmets. That's been really, really strong for us. So I think Chris's comment was really referring to how we're going to widen out the line. You know, really the line currently is in its infancy and it is you know, 15 to 20% of our sales now. So that's really encouraging to see. So as we normally would go into a market, we start out with top line kind of in terms of protection and in terms of pricing, and then we filter out and develop products around that. We do also have some innovative cutting edge areas that we will be touching on and some really exciting things that we release to the market in due course up our sleeve. But I'll leave that to Chris to announce when we're ready to do so. But in the interim, we certainly are working on a pipeline of very exciting products to widen our offering to ADV riders.

The next question is from Erin Gelband from Warren Street Capital. Please go ahead.

Hi, Sean. Congrats on a great quarter, and it's nice that we're starting to see the recovery. Two questions for you. One, you've mentioned kind of the need for inventory build. Over the last couple years, inventory as a percentage of sales has been higher than historical averages and kind of the 40% annual sales range, and it used to be kind of 25%, 30%. I'm just wondering kind of how you think about inventory as a percentage of sales going forward now that there's more SKUs and all that. And then the second question is on the level of OpEx. So we've kind of been running at 21, 22 million annualized. And I'm just kind of curious, you know, obviously there's been a lot of investment in strengthening the team and building for growth. And I'm kind of curious what, level of sales this type of OPEX could support? Can we go back to 70, 80 million of sales without needing to add much more OPEX? Trying to get a feel for operating leverage. All right. Thank you.

Understood. Hi, Aaron. Thanks. Very good questions. In terms of inventory, of course, I mean, in the past few years, we've increased our SKU level significantly. We've got over 7,300 SKUs now. So we've got a really wide product offering and that is, you know, I mean, we've also entered the ADV market, which is, of course, added quite a lot of need to hold inventory. I'd say that 25% of sales is on the low end and I'd say that 40% of sales is on the high end. And I think we'll settle somewhere in between. I'd say You know, we have inventory now. Obviously, most of the industry we hold is in the U.S. and South Africa, which keeps things really efficient because 70% of our sales is not inventory that we're holding. We're manufacturing, obviously, for distributors. So I'd say we're settled somewhere in between 25% and 40%. I think our inventory has reached a point now where it is a lot more efficient than where it was and a large portion of the inventory that you see in stock at the end of Q1 will be shipping out because a lot of it is really new. So that's great to see. I think we're getting a lot more efficient in terms of our inventory turns. So I would imagine that inventory will drop down as a percentage of sales moving forward. And then in terms of your second question on operating expenditure, I think we're going to return to, we can get to $70 to $80 million of sales without having significant increases in our OPEX. So we're setting ourselves up, obviously, for future growth. In terms of our sales team, we've actually been working really hard in the U.S. to make sure that we are a lot more efficient in terms of the sales structuring there. We brought Rob Ramblos on as a VP of sales on the motor side, working with the brick and mortar dealers and the brick and mortar reps. I think that's going to add a lot of efficiency in terms of our sales. To answer your question, the kind of OPEX that we're sitting on now, 20 to 21 to 22 million, I think we can still leverage that significantly before needing to go to any kind of much higher level. So we are building a base now really for future growth.

There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the floor back over to Sean McDonald for closing comments.

Thank you all for joining us today on this call. We look forward to our next call to review the results of the 2025 second quarter.

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.