Puig Brands, S.A.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us this morning for the presentation of our results for the first half of 2024, our first presentation as a public company. Today, we have with us our Chairman and CEO, Mark Butch, and our CFO, Joan Albiol. Mark will share an update on the business through the lens of our performance during the first half of 2024 and our expectations for the rest of the year. Joan will comment in great detail on our financial results. Good morning, everyone.

Today we present our first ever earnings call as a publicly listed company, which we have been looking forward to. We have had an eventual first half of the year, as you know, most notably punctuated by the milestone of the IPO, an achievement that required a big effort from our teams. But first, let me remind you the strength of our portfolio of love brands. Our brands operate across three business segments, fragrance and fashion, makeup, and skincare. And three of these brands, Rabanne, Carolina Herrera, and Charlotte Tilbury, with a one billion euro ambition. Today, our own brands represent 96% of the net revenues from our love brands. Shortly, I will walk you through the performance of the business for the last six months and tell you why I am confident in the outlook for the rest of this year. To start with, we have a short video that summarizes the highlights of our performance over the first half and speaks about our commitment to innovation and creativity while maintaining the values that have defined Putsch for the last 110 years. We're pleased to report Robo's first half of 2024, demonstrating the success of our strategic choices. We're driven by a focus on premium beauty while prioritizing our own brands, building a unique niche fragrance portfolio and successfully diversifying into makeup and skincare. We continue to outperform the market Our net revenue for the first six months grew to $2.2 billion, which is a 9.6% increase over the first half of 2023 on a reported basis, and 8.5% growth like-for-like in line with our medium-term guidance of high single-digit like-for-like growth provided at IPO and well ahead of the premium beauty market. We achieved this while delivering a record gross margin position, which was 75.8% for the first half, a 70 basis points improvement over the comparable period in the first half of 2023, and reflects well the continued primitization of our portfolio and the stronger execution capabilities at scale. Our adjusted EBITDA margin for this period was 18.9%, well on track to deliver our guidance of 2024, being in line with 2023 levels for the full year. Our margin was 40 basis points lower than the first half of 2023, mostly due to a two percentage point increase in AMP investments, which was partially offset by improvements in gross margin and distribution cost. I would like to mention that our business is managed on an annual basis, And this result is in line with our expectation for the period as we experience some seasonality and phasing of the cost across the two halves of year. And also in line with our launch calendar. Joan will discuss this in further detail later in the presentation. Our adjusted net income came in at 238 million or 11.0% of sales implying 46 cents of euro per share. In addition to the half-year results, we are further encouraged by the performance of puts in July and August. All this confirms our confidence in the guidance that we provided at the IPO. Now let me explain the results in more detail. We start with the net revenues. the 2.2 billion of net revenues were a result of 8.5% growth like for like, 1.4% from the acquisition of Dr. Barber's term, and a negative 0.3% impact from foreign exchange. This result is ahead of the premium beauty market growth, thanks to the desirability of our brands and our portfolio becoming more premium. We have been able to continue capturing value market share in our core markets of EMEA and Americas, and we continued our diversification into skincare with organic growth, complemented with the incorporation of our first niche skincare brand in our portfolio. Now we're looking at a very high level at our business segments. Our fragrance and fashion segment grew 10.7% on both reported and constant perimeter basis. Having generated 1.6 billion in revenues in the first six months, this segment represented 73% of our total sales for the period. Our makeup segment contracted by 1.8% on both a reported and constant perimeter basis. This segment contributed 50% of our total sales for the period of 334 million. And our skincare segment grew 25.2% on a reported basis and 11.6% on a constant perimeter basis. Having generated 256 million in revenues in the first six months, this segment represented 12% of our total sales for the period. We will now look at each of these segments in a little more detail. First, we start with our fragrance and fashion business segment, which is our largest segment, and generated nearly 1.6 billion in net revenue, growing at 10.7%. Our strong performance in this category can mainly be attributed to continued execution of our core business and is proven by our value market share positions for the first half of 2024. According to our estimates, globally we achieved an impressive 11.3% of value market share, VMS, which is a 60 basis points improvement upon our VMS position of 10.7% for the six months ending in June 2023 in selective frequencies. We achieved 8.9% VMS in North America, reinforcing our position in this region, 26.5% in LATAM, and 11.6% in Europe. In Asia Pacific, we navigated a challenging environment. The region is relatively smaller part of our business today, and we play in this market selectively, leading with our niche brands. I would like to highlight the key drivers for this performance. Now first, outstanding success of Jean-Paul Gaultier. 30 years after entering the fragrance category, And for the first time in its history, Jean-Paul Gaultier rose into the top fragrance brands globally, joining in Rabanne and Carina Rare. So now we have three brands out of these top ten. Gaultier has always stood for revolutionary self-expression with diversity and inclusivity at its core. No other brand has been as consistent in this purpose and vision for over 40 years. And now it has successfully captured the imagination of a new generation of young freelance consumers. And it is also interesting that TikTok has been one of the channels where the new generation has been discovering and building an emotional connection with this brand that is so rich in heritage. The second driver is that our core lines continue to perform with franchises like Good Girl, continuing to capture positions in highly competitive markets like the U.S., and maintaining its number two ranking in fanning frequencies globally. One of our strengths that has helped us grow market share over time has been our ability to innovate and bring newness to consumers. Our growth in this segment is complemented by new prestige launches over the first half of 2024, such as the Intense version of Fame and Phantom by Rabanne. Charlotte Tilbury also launched the first fragrance collection, which came to market in April. We also continue innovating in niche. For example, at Penhaligon's, we launched Alula to reinforce the brand for our Middle Eastern consumers. Now, moving to our makeup business segment. This segment generated nearly 334 million in net revenue, 1.8% less than the comparable period last year, which is below expectations. A few factors contributed to this result. While our overall exposure to Asia Pacific, and specifically China, is limited, we felt the impact the most in our make-up segment, specifically with Christian Louboutin Botte, which has higher exposure to the region and resulted in a decline in its sales. To a lesser extent, the exposure to APAC also impacted Charlotte Tilbury make-up, which combined with destocking at certain retailers during the first half resulted in an overall flat net revenue performance for city make-up. Charlotte Tilbury makeup continues showing strength in the market with double digit sellout growth in core markets. In that sense, we continue our leadership in the UK market with Charlotte Tilbury as the number one makeup brand and gain market share in the US where the brand has now become the number two makeup brand for the first half of 2024 for the first time. In chart we mentioned the entry into ALTA in the U.S. at the beginning of 2024, which is performing well, and we continue to see ample room for growth. In our key markets, in EMEA, we are seeing strong traction. For example, we recently expanded in the DAC region through Douglas. We saw continued performance across all of our hero products lines along with good early traction for our new launches. With respect to the remaining brands in the category, we are in the early days of building out the makeup offering of Roban and Carolina Herrera, and we continue to invest in these efforts as it relates to both innovation and also distribution. These are still at a smaller scale within our business and will not crash in their expansion. As we explained during the IPO, we're very selective with the brands we develop into three axis. while preserving each brand's equity and unique position in each new category. These are long-term projects. Finally, moving on to skincare, our fastest growing segment. Skincare generated 255 million in net revenue, 25.2% growth over the comparable period last year on a reported basis. In January, we announced the acquisition of Dr. Barber's term, which contributed to this growth. On a constant perimeter basis, this segment grew 11.6%. Our performance in skincare was even in particular by the strong growth in our derma brands, with Uriage in double digits, led by hero products like Chemoz. We are in the early stages of scaling our skincare wellness brands, Kama, Ayurveda, and Lotto del Sur. As an example, we are seeing good early feedback for the UK prototype for Kama Ayurveda, which we will use as a case study for its international expansion. Very much in line with our strategy to execute curated and selective M&A, we are excited to welcome Dr. Barbara Sturm to the Putsch Home of Love Brands. While we are in the early stages of integration, it is off to a good start and performance is in line with expectations. We intend to take our time to develop the future strategy to prioritize sustainable growth for the long term while protecting the desirability of the brand. Now with the addition of Dr. Barbara Stern, we now have a portfolio with diversified streams within the skincare segment for the longer term across niche, derma, skincare wellness, and prestige skincare. We plan for skincare to continue experiencing a strong performance for the second half of the year. As we have been mentioning, this year our launch calendar is heavier towards the second half. We pride ourselves in being a home of creativity and we work hard to innovate across all business segments and categories. While we will not mention them all, I want to take a moment to talk about a few examples that illustrate the newness that we are bringing to the market in the second half of 2024. Most notably, within our prestige fragrances, we are delighted for the launch of Million Gold and Million Gold for Her from Rabanne. This is a new fragrance, Universe from Rabanne with Gigi Hadid as a phase of the feminine franchise. We're also incredibly excited for the new La Belle and Les Beaux, Le Parfum from Jean-Paul Gaultier. Unlike Prestige, where we tend to have a few large launches, We have several smaller launches in niche to preserve and build upon the exclusivity that these brands represent. This week has been quite busy for us with launches from Penhaligon's, Bairedo, and Ries Van Noten. Charo Tilbury has been at the forefront of innovation in makeup with the latest example in Exager Eyes, Volume Mascara, and the revolutionary foundation stick Unreal Skin. Lastly, in skin care, I wanted to highlight some new innovations in the form of new products in our HESIAC line from URIASH focused on acne solutions. Now, turning to our performance by region, summing up some of the color we have provided during the discussions of our segments. Our core markets, EMEA and North America, continue to show strength. EMEA, our largest geography, contributing 53% of net revenues for the period, delivered a significant 12.1% growth on a reported basis and 10.5% growth on a constant perimeter basis. The Americas, our second largest geographical segment, contributing 37% of our net revenues, grew 8.6% on a reported basis and 7.0% on a constant perimeter basis. The U.S. delivered a very strong performance, well in the double digits. In Latin, the growth has been more moderate due to the fluctuations in foreign exchange, in particular in Argentina. In Asia Pacific, which is our smaller region, representing 9% of our net revenues, We delivered mildly positive growth of 0.7% both in our reported and constant perimeter basis as we navigated a more challenging market backdrop. We have recently transitioned our operating model in some markets from a distributor to a subsidiary, for example, in Japan, India, and South Korea, and expect to see the benefits of these transitions building up in the future. We expect to continue to see strong momentum across our core geographies in EMEA and Americas, while we believe that Asia Pacific will continue to remain soft for the remainder of the year, in particular due to consumption levels among Chinese customers being below expected levels. Our business has grown exponentially over recent years and so has our global presence. In the first half of 2024, we inaugurated the new Puig Tower in Barcelona, including an innovation center, in a ceremony presided over by their Majesties, the King and Queen of Spain. We also inaugurated our new London headquarter in Covent Garden and reopened our renovated offices in Brussels. In the Americas, we inaugurated our new US office in the iconic Rockefeller Center in New York, And in Asia-Pacific, the first half of 2024, we officially established our subsidiaries in Japan and in India to further our commitment to invest in these geographies for the longer term. To finalize, there are three events I would like to talk about and that reflect how we do things at Butch. One, on May 3rd, we became a publicly traded company. a very important milestone for Putsch and the reason why we are all here today. The IPO came after 110 years of company history, a history that could not have been possible without the contribution of all Putsch employees. At Putsch, we wanted to recognize their dedication and effort, And we granted to all Putsch employees an extraordinary IPO bonus that amounted to 94 million euros in aggregate. The second thing I would like to highlight is an event that will take place in a few weeks here in Barcelona, which is the first feminine regatta in the 170 years of history of the oldest trophy in sports. We're very proud sponsors of this event that will be named Putsch Women's America's Cup. And the third topic I would like to mention, which has been an ongoing effort at Putsch for over a decade, is our ESG agenda. We strive to be at the forefront of ESG in our industry, and it is a core element of our long-term strategy. We have had some recent developments in this front. In the first half of 2024, our net zero target has been approved by the SBT, where we committed to reduce greenhouse global emissions 90% by 2050 from a 2022 base year. We were recognized on CDP's A-list for climate change and we were awarded a 20.7 score by Sustainalytics, which is number nine in the household product industry out of 105. Finally, Kama Ayurveda has recently been awarded the butterfly mark by Positive Luxury. I will now hand over to Joan for his comments on the financial performance.

Good morning. Thank you, Marc. We would like now to spend some more time on putsch financial performance during the first half of 2024. I would like to start providing you with a summary of our income statement for the first six months of 2024, where we can highlight our net revenue increased to €2.2 billion, which represents a year-on-year growth of 9.6%, of which 8.5% corresponds to like-for-like growth ahead of the beauty market. The position of our premium brands, our scale, and our best-in-class operational efficiency allow us to reach record 75.8 gross margin during first half 2024. This is 70 basis points higher than last year's half of 2023, at the high end of the beauty industry. We deliver an attractive 410 million euro of adjusted EBITDA or 18.9% adjusted EBITDA margin during the first half in line with our expectations. Confirming our confidence in the delivering of a stable adjusted EBITDA margin for the full year in line with 2023 levels. This all resulted in a 238 million euro adjusted net profit for the period. Focusing on the top line first, our strong brand portfolio continues to drive growth ahead the premium beauty market, with our prestige brands contributing meaningfully to this growth. Out of the like-for-like growth of 8.5%, we estimate that approximately 5% is due to price increase. The acquisition of Dr. Barbara Strump during the first half of the year had a 28 million euro positive impact, or 1.4% of the growth year-on-year. A change rate effect has a negative 6 million euro, or a minus 0.3% impact, mainly driven by exposure to some emerging markets offset in part by the British pound. Moving into the profitability indicators, we managed to maintain our strong adjusted EBITDA margin around 19%, primarily driven by strong gross profit margin performance, reaching 75.8%, driven by continued premiumization and the desirability of our brands, coupled with efficient cost management and operating leverage. We also improved 50 basis points year on year on our distribution cost from normalization versus early 2023 levels. These positive impacts were offset by a 200 basic point increase in AMP during first half as it was planned. We expect this impact to smoothen out over the course of the year as we manage the P&L on an annual basis. Based on these results, our launch calendar, and given the typical seasonality patterns in our business, we are confident in our adjusted EBITDA guidance. As explained earlier, the increase in AMP across our portfolio to maintain the desirability in our brands dropped down our operating margin across our three segments when compared to the first half of 2023. Looking at each segment into more detail. Our fragrance business remains the largest and most profitable segment, thanks to its unique scale and competitive positioning on a global basis, which allows for better efficiency on our AMP and SG&A costs. Our make-up segment profitability was impacted by high AMP investment to support the make-up exercise for our fragrance-led brands, which are in the early stage of the growth. This was further impacted by a lower profitability in Christian Louboutin Beauty. However, Charlotte Tilbury maintained a stable profitability level. Lastly, our skincare segment was impacted by the integration of Dr. Barbara Stone, which we acquired in January and had a marginally dilutive impact as anticipated. Over time, as we gain scaling makeup and skincare, we expect to continue generating efficiencies across our business. Similar to our comments with respect to adjusted EBITDA, we manage our P&L on an annual basis, and we expect to improve overall in the second half of the year. Focusing on the bottom line, we managed to maintain our double digit adjusted net profit margin, reaching 11% or 238 million euros. Reported net profit of puts decreased 27% year-on-year, mostly impacted by non-recurrent items. These items are the IPO cost, M&A expenses, another adjustment which net of taxes amount to 84 million euro. The largest of these adjustments was an extraordinary one-off IPO bonus that Marc has mentioned, given to all puts employees. amounting in a total of 94 million euros in cash. Moving into the cash flow. Before we enter into the details, we would like to provide you with some operational context. In our business, in order to serve the heavier demand during the holiday season in the second half of the year, the business requires an increase in working capital during the first half. During the first half of 2024, our free cash flow from operations remained similar to the first half of 2023, improving by €4 million, despite the growth of the business. This improvement is due to better working capital management and capex remaining in line with the first half of 2023. This is at 3% of net revenues. Operational cash flow worsened to a negative €257 million, mostly due to the negative impact of non-recurrent IPO-related outflows. As we had explained at the time of our IPO, we executed some important transactions during the first half of 2024. These transactions, along with the IPO itself, have impacted our capital structure, which we will discuss in further detail shortly. To recap these events in order. In January, we announced the acquisition of a majority stake in Barbra Storm. Ahead of the IPO, we formed agreements with VDT and Manzanita Capital and Ben Gochum to accelerate their exits of their minority stakes in Charlotte, Tilbury and Varedo at what we believe to be attractive terms. Both payments were largely denominated in new put shares. that were delivered at IPO, subject to standard lockups, while the rest were funded in cash. Lastly, we listed on the Spanish Stock Exchange on the 3rd of May. Our net financial leverage currently stands at 1.7 times net debt to adjusted EBITDA, which is below our two times medium term target, allowing to maintain both operating and financial flexibility. Focusing on the evolution, over the past six months, our net debt was stable in the first half of 2024, relative to full year 2023, with various factors contributing in particular. The positive impact of 1.4 billion of capital raised at IPO offset by 863 million euro M&A cash outflow related to the acquisition of Dr. Barbara Stern and cash paid for the stakes of Bairedo and Charlotte Tilbury acquired. 184 million dividends paid to shareholders, which is 40% of the reported net profit of full year 2023. This was paid before the IPO. negative €257 million operational cash flow generated during the first half. As a result, we now have a more strengthened capital structure post-IPO. As briefly previewed during the first half of 2024, we simplified our balance sheet by accelerating the put-and-call options of some of our minority partners. We now own 100% of Bairedo. We also accelerate the remaining stake held by financial investors in Charlotte Tilbury. These two transactions decrease our liabilities from business combination by 1 billion euro. Following the acquisition of Dr. Barbara Stern, we have also recorded 161 million euro liability on our balance sheet related to the subsequent put call options for the remaining stake that we don't already own. As a combination of these activities, our liabilities from business combinations were reduced by a net amount of approximately 800 million euro. Furthermore, not reflected on the chart at this post-first half 2024, on July 25th, Puig also executed a call option over minority interest in Charlotte Tilbury, amounting to 115 million euro, which further increased our ownership stake in the company to 78.5%. In conclusion, our performance during the first half of the year coupled with the continued momentum into the second half give us the confidence to confirm our medium-term guidance. To recap the key message, we deliver a record net revenue of 2.2 billion for the first half, growing at 9.6% reported and 8.5% like for like, while lapping a year of very strong growth in an uncertain market. We increase our value market share in core categories and geographies, reinforcing our competitive positioning. We achieve adjusted EBITDA margin of 18.9%, which allow for virtuous investment into our brands, on track for our full year target. We deliver adjusted net profit of 238 million euro. Further to it, we executed several transactions to simplify our balance sheet, and with the IPO, our leverage reduced to 1.7 times net debt to adjusted EBITDA by end of June 2024, in line with the medium-term leverage target below two times, and we expect to see further improvement over the course of the year. We recap here our medium-term outlook, maintaining what we said at the IPO. We target high single-digit like-for-like net revenue growth well ahead of the premium beauty market growth. Our adjusted EBITDA margin is expected to remain stable in 2024, with upside potential in the medium term, allowing for virtuous reinvestment in our brands. Maintaining a capital structure where the net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio does not exceed two times. Our intention is to maintain 40% dividend payout ratio on reported net profit in line with our track record. We intend to remain highly selective approach to M&A while maintaining our capital structure targets. With that, we conclude our comments on financial performance.

Thank you, Joan. With that, we come to the end of our prepared remarks and we will begin the Q&A session. The first question comes from Celine Panuti from JP Morgan.

Thank you. Good morning. So my first question is on fragrances, which did extremely well in the first half. Could you give us a flavor of what Q1, Q2 performance was, and as well performance by main brands? I understand that Jean-Paul Gaultier was very good, but what did Rabanne, Carolina Herrera, and Byredo do? And also, how do you see the remainder of the year in terms of the fragrance market? Is there a deceleration that we should be aware of for H2? My second question is on makeup. You said that Charlotte Tilbury or the performance was impacted by destocking. Are we done with this destocking? Where does this talking, and can you provide, you said the sellout was double digit in many regions. Am I right to believe that UK, US, and Europe were at double digit, or if you could give us the sellout? Thank you.

Thanks, Celine. regarding frequency, we have heard other companies mention a certain deacceleration of the growth. It's true that the growth that we saw in the years right after COVID was very extraordinary. But during IPO, we mentioned that our hypothesis, our expectations is to see growth for the next few years through 2027 in between 6-7% growth and we are at this point maintaining that as our basis of the growth of the market. in our case we have had a spectacular growth or gotye but we see strength overall our brands and as we mentioned we have a very strong second half so we are confident with our guidance that's what we can say regarding fragrance Regarding makeup, yes, we said that charlatanry, sellout, growth, double digit in the core markets, meaning Europe and Americas, and there's a certain destocking, and we feel that there is gonna be reduction of this gap between sellout and selling over the next months.

The next question comes from Jose Rito from Casabank.

Yes, good morning. So I have two questions. The first one on the ENP investment in H1. We have these two percentile points.

The what, sorry?

ENP, yes. So these two percentile points increase on the E&P in H1. And in the presentation, you also mentioned that you expect a strong launch in the second half. So my question is, what are the company's expectations in terms of E&P investments in the second half? And if this poses any risk to margin, I think that, well, the company is rating the margin for the stable margin for this year. So my question is, based on the investment in H1 and the fact that we expect an increase in H2, or at least a strong launch, should we assume that eventually, post these investments, we should expect a sales acceleration that should mitigate these investments? So this will be my first question.

We run the company on an annual basis, and normally this very harsh analysis of the first half is something that we normally don't do. So that's for us also a first exercise in that sense. our expectations is for the overall year to come up at the similar EBITDA margin, which means that since we are improving gross margin, maybe there's more investment in AMP. But the fact that we have a strong second half of launches doesn't mean that it will be maintaining an extra effort in AMP. high diversification of brands, markets and sometimes the combination of certain investments or certain upfront investments or launches that we are expecting for the second half but maybe we launch it in June already or May or April. So that's, we shouldn't conclude that because we have a higher AMP in the first half and we're launching the second half then we will maintain that AMP. We're planning for the year to end up as we anticipated.

The next question comes from Fernando Abril from Alantra.

Hi, thank you very much for the presentation. I would like to ask about the gross margin, so big expansion in first half. So my question is, or at least I thought that makeup was, you know, above the average of group, no? However, in the first half, it had a worse performance compared to the other business lines. So why of this improvement in the gross margin? That's the first question. And then secondly, just wanted to understand seasonality in terms of working capital because I saw a smaller consumption in working capital in first half. I was wondering if there could be an improvement in second half or even a working capital generation for the full year. So reversing past trends as well.

Let me start with the second one and maybe Juan would like to add or maybe comments. After COVID, we saw there was a lot of difficulties in supplying the increase, the big growth in the business that we had, and that happened for the industry as a whole. So we were forced to anticipate and increase our delays or anticipate the demands and build our stock and not be as efficient as we used to be before COVID. that we will be normalizing also our working capital needs in the balance sheet as In terms of gross margin, Makeup doesn't have a lower gross margin than the other categories. The truth is that when you don't have the scale and when you don't have some of the brands that we are in this category, like some of the makeup efforts that we're doing with some of our prestige brands, initially that's costly, and that's why the operating profit for the category is lower, and we did say in the IPO that yes, until we don't get critical mass, it will be a higher effort than the others. And maybe Juan, you want to add?

No, I think on gross margin, you are right. It's makeup and especially Charlotte Tilbury is having a higher gross margin. And as I said, overall, the profitability of Charlotte Tilbury is maintained. What we see is that the mix of optimization of our brands is helping us to increase gross margin and remember that As I mentioned, we estimate that the price increase has been 5%. So all in all, we had a good result in gross margin. Also, for us, the dollar strength, it helps us. So on this, we are enjoying the disability of our brands and the optimization of our portfolio. And on stocks, you are totally right. What we said during the IPO is that we expect in 18 months to go to more cash conversions of EBITDA of around 50%. We maintain that guidance and we expect to see in the second part of the year a good reduction on level of inventories. But because of the strong demand of our brands, we wanted to build up all this inventory level for the first half of the year.

The next question comes from Olivier Nicolet from GS. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Mark. Good morning, Joanne. Just a follow-up on makeup, actually, too, please. Some of your peers are seeing a slowdown in makeup category in the U.S. Do you also share that concern? And do you believe that's what's driving retailers to somehow destock on brands like Charlotte Tilbury? And then, secondly, a bit more longer-term questions. Again, about makeup and mostly about the U.S. But are you concerned about the rise of dupes in makeup? And do you think it could effectively damage the growth of Charlotte Tilbury? And what kind of measures do you take against that? Thank you.

We have heard from some peers that there is a slowdown, but our presence in the U.S. still make up in terms of market share as a whole. We have a very strong brand, but it is quite small. But as long as we do a good business, we see good prospects for growth still for those brands. Regarding dupes, yes, it is frustrating when a company like us prides itself on innovation and creativity. I guess part of the price you pay is that some look at what you do and sometimes they take advantage and it may be frustrating. response to that is that we just have to keep being leading and finding new ways and new solutions and new responses to the needs of the consumer. And that's the only way to be one step ahead is the only way to compete for dupes. Yeah.

The next question comes from Jeff Stent from BNP Paribas, Exane. Please go ahead.

Thank you and good morning. Just one quick question. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Hello? Yeah. All right. Okay. Sorry. Apologies for that. One quick question. You said that the performance in July and August was encouraging. Should we expect a sequential acceleration in like-for-like growth in Q3? Thank you.

We said that our second half has a strong pipeline of encouraging launches. The fact that first half has been 8.7% like for like, if I'm not mistaken. We are encouraged by the trends of July and August, and we are confident with the guidance of this high single digit growth for the full year. So we see a second half of this encouraging.

The next question comes from Mariano Schachtman from Santander. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. First, on makeup, I want to follow up on the Celi versus Callout. If you could provide a bit more color, what could we expect? In the second half, you mentioned that there should be a reduction in this gap. If you could provide more color, what are you seeing from retailers? Are they more conservative in terms of buying? So that's my first question. And my second question is on Charlotte Tilbury on the fragrance line. If you could provide some initial feedback on this new line launched in the second quarter, what is the reaction from consumers and how do you expect this line to weigh from the overall portfolio? Thank you.

No, look, in makeup in general, the biggest brand in that category for us is evidently Charlotte Tilbury. As we said, in the sellout for the first half, it has shown a strong double-digit growth in the core markets. And yes, there has been some gap between selling and sellout because some of the stocking of some distributors and retailers. But we do expect this gap to... and then we see a second half that will be improving from the first half performance. In terms of the fragrance line, it's still early days. It was launched in April. The distribution was relatively small compared to, for instance, what we have in some of our prestige brands. So as I said, early days. See what happens in Christmas, a high point of the fragrance campaign. In any case, as we mentioned in the IPO, the extension on the three axes for any brand, we are very careful. In our case, we have basically only allowed, let's say, or taken the opportunity to go into three axes with the three biggest brands in our portfolio. And as we said in the IPO, You have to be patient because that takes time and it is not necessarily, you know, you do that the first day. So encourage, but early days.

The next question comes from Tom Sykes from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everybody. Thank you for your time. Firstly, I just wanted to ask about consumption trends versus mixed trends in fragrances. So are you able to say anything about sort of the physical amount that you're selling and sort of literage or volume and the growth of that versus things like shift to smaller bottle size, higher concentration, et cetera, and how those trends are developing and their contribution to the fragrance growth, please. And then you mentioned the launches and obviously you've seen very strong growth in Jean Paul Gaultier. How much of your growth is coming from sort of hero SKUs that have been available for three plus years and how much is really coming from new launches? Is the growth skewed really at the moment to kind of hero SKUs, please?

In general, the fragrance category has been enjoying big momentum after COVID. And one of our reads on that is because, you know, human beings are social animals and we've been stuck or we were stuck for many months at home and when we went up back again to the road and had an opportunity to interact with our peers. Frequency is a way for many people to give them confidence in that interaction or for others to express who they are, and we believe that that's something that has increased in their priorities on the way they behave and on their daily routines. Now, we've seen growth in premium brands, premium products, and sophisticated fragrances, because for some people, fragrance is a way to express who they are, and they want to have the differentiation, something that is exotic or different, and so we've all seen for many years now the growth of what we call niche territory, but we have also seen the entrance of a new consumer much younger, particularly in the male 12 to 15 year old, that have started to participate in this category in ways that we had not seen necessarily in the past. And in that sense, Cotille has been one of the winners in this trend. And what we have is, when you call hero products or new launches, basically what we have is, we call them, within a brand, you have lines. For instance, in Gautier, you have le mal, and you have the male shape of a bottle, and you have what we call classique, which is the female shape of a bottle. Now, within those lines, we have newness, le mal, Elixir, and that every year we come up with a new proposition and we take out one old one, let's say, and that's so it's building up innovation within existing lines. In the case of Gautier, we have only four lines. Le Mal, Classique, and we have Scandal for Men and Scandal for Women. And within those lines, we keep bringing new shifts, new shapes, a different version of the fragrance. And overall, that's a very solid proposition because there's no cannibalization of all lines is a whole line that is growing. And that's a brand that has seen, for instance, Le Mal was a line that was launched in 1985. And Classic, the female, was even earlier, 1983. So it's growing through the solid basis of the brand portfolio.

We open for further questions in the room. We have another question from Jose Rito from Cashabank.

Yes, again, I just on the makeup, just a question if you mentioned that the stock in H1 has been one of the reasons to the division to perform slightly below expectations. So my question is, if your brands are maintaining market share, so the performance only related with the destocking, or eventually some of the brands had some decline in the market share?

We mentioned one of the brands that has declined during the period has been Christian Louboutin. Because this brand, we took over the license, it's one of the few licenses we have in the portfolio. in 2018, and it had a very high penetration within the small size of the brand or the relatively small size of the brand in China. And we have seen in the last, in the first semester, the performance in that market has been not disappointing, and that's one of the reasons why our overall makeup has shown the small regression this first half.

That was our last question. Thank you all for your questions today. We will be publishing a brief sales update at the end of October with some of our comments for our Q3 results. I will now pass it back to to make some quick closing remarks.

Before finishing, I would like to leave you with a video where the sailors that will participate in October in the historic first ever Butch Women's America's Cup explain what this trophy will mean for them and for the sport. We are proud to support an event that embodies so many of our values and that talks about our commitment to Barcelona, sailing, and equality. Thank you for joining us today.

I'm super excited to say that the first ever Puge Women's American Cup later this year in Barcelona

Racing in the Mediterranean in the autumn should be amazing sailing conditions. It should be a great spectacle.

I think it's a great opportunity to showcase this female talent in sailing and I can't wait to get on the water.

competing from countries like Spain, the US, Australia.

I can't wait to line up against the best female athletes in the world.

This will have a huge impact on the future of women's sailing. Women, here we go. Women, here we go.