Samsonite Group S A

Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to SAMHSA NIAID Group 2025 Annual Results Conference Call. To ask a question during the session, you need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Alvin Consencion, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Welcome to the Sapsonet Group fourth quarter conference call. On the call with us today are Kyle Gendro, Chief Executive Officer, and Tom Pizzuti, Chief Financial Officer. Before starting today's call, we would like to remind you that any forward-looking statements made on the call involve risks and uncertainties that are subject to the company's provisions as stated in disclaimers in the company's press release and earnings announcement, and that actual results can differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Kyle.

Okay. Thanks, Alvin. Thanks, everyone, for joining us. We're sitting here in New York in our TUME offices, and we're happy to talk about Q4. I'm on page five of the deck. In Q4, we turned to positive net sales growth for our business. Our net sales increased on a reported basis 2.2% and approximately 1% on a constant currency basis. The chart to the right of the page, you can see the sequential improvement that we were talking about as we exited Q2 into Q3 and then meaningfully accelerating to positive growth in Q4. That was driven by many things, but importantly, innovative products. We had some terrific products that launched at the back half of Q3 and Q4 and strong execution across our teams across the globe. In particular, we had a strong portfolio of new products, as I said. And we had very strong growth in our D2C business and our non-travel business, despite headwinds. We're key drivers for improving to positive net sales growth in Q4. Additionally, we saw sequential improvements in our travel category, driven by continued strength in global travel and, again, global operating execution. Despite tariffs, our gross margins expanded for the quarter. Q4 gross margins, 60.3, a 10 basis point improvement over last year. due to regional mix, brand strength, and really strong mitigations of the tariffs that we saw in the United States. We continue to be focused on our key strategic growth pillars. We will continue to execute the pillars and the roadmap to leverage our skill advantages in product innovation, increase marketing spend, and enhance consumer engagement to drive our net sales in 2026. On page six, another lens of what we were talking about, we talked about the net sales growth and sequential improvement really from exiting Q2, strong improvements in Q3, and again, back to positive growth on a constant currency basis for Q4. You can see the gross margin improvement, not just from last year, but from Q3 to Q4, very strong. That has to do a bit with mix and channel mix as our D2C business accelerated, and also our higher brands delivered a meaningful improvement. You can see on the EBITDA side, our EBITDA in dollars was flat to last year, Q4, and as a margin percentage in the 20s, 20.3% for the quarter. If I go by brand on the next page, you can see all brands delivering performance. Meaningful improvement, I said strong sequential improvement in our Samsonite business. That was driven across Asia, North America, and Europe, and meaningful improvements from Q3 to Q4. Just about positive for the quarter. To me, held strong. We had a very strong Q3 and a very strong holiday season. And it's another quarter where all three of our major regions were positive in Q4 for Brandtumi. We saw some improvement in American Tourister, so I'd say sequential improvement Q3, Q4. But importantly, our Asia business was back to positive growth. Asia is a big driver for American Tourister, and we saw 2.3% growth in Q4 versus a minus 3.6 in Q3, so meaningful improvement in American Tourister. And on page eight, if we look at regions, you'll see this steady movement in Asia. Asia meaningfully improved. This was a region that started to show meaningful improvement in Q3 and reached 5.1% growth on a constant currency basis in Q4. We saw meaningful improvements in China, Korea, and strong performance in India and Japan. And these are big markets that really moved the needle for Asia. And as they started to move back to strong growth positions, we had a great result for Asia. You saw a tremendous shift in North America, still negative, facing tough prior year comparisons, but meaningful improvements in both U.S. and Canada in both our direct-to-consumer and our wholesale businesses. And then I would label Europe as steady, you know, 1% growth both quarters. We saw very strong D2C performance, particularly in Q4 in Europe. Overall, 5.6% growth. D2C retail up 4.4%. and our e-comm was up over 9%, so strong and steady improvement or performance in Europe. And then Latin America looks like it took a dip in Q4. If I exclude Mexico, and Mexico for much of this past year, we were talking about the wholesale customers being impacted with trade imbalances, particularly with the US. If I exclude Mexico for Q4 or plus 8.2, And encouragingly, as we get into the first quarter of 2026, we're seeing Mexico back to strong growth as these consumers, these wholesale customers are buying. So Mexico or Latin America is in a good place for us, particularly as we step into Q1. On page nine, you've seen this slide before. I think the important piece is here is our net sales growth has historically tracked well with travel. As you remember, in the coming out of pandemic, we had surged in growth. So 2021 to 24, we grew six times the industry. We see the travel continuing to grow as we stepped into 24 and 25. And importantly, as we get to Q4, we turn to growth. And really, I expect this business to continue to correlate to travel really well. But a bit of the dip that we saw at the start of this year was really off the back of really strong, strong performance coming out of COVID, the few years coming out of COVID. And you can see our performance versus travel on the left of the page. Global passenger miles up 109 or 9% to the 2019 levels. And our business is up 24% to 2019 levels. We saw tremendous progress in our D2C e-commerce business. It's our fastest growing channel, leading to significant increases in our D2C mix. So if you look Q4 of last year to this year, our D2C is now 45.1% from 43.1% last year. D2C e-commerce overall was up 12%, and our D2C blended was up 5.2. We saw a slight increase in our retail business, 2% growth, with a comp that was slightly negative, but we've had store openings as well that is feeding a good direct-to-consumer combined business. Wholesale was still a decline, down 2.3%, but we saw a sequential improvement from the prior quarter, which was down 4.5%. We still have customers within the U.S. channel buying in a lumpy way, And that's part of the pieces that we've been seeing all throughout 2025. And that carried a bit into Q4 as well. But overall, moving in a good direction, both wholesale and for sure retail. We've talked a lot about the opportunities in non-travel. We've been steadily growing here. And in Q4, we saw non-travel category grow 6.7% versus the prior year. And you can see as a percent of sales, this continues to move for us, 37.6% of sales versus 35.5 last year. So continuing to move in a direction that we'd expect. There's a slight decrease in travel, 2.2% versus the prior year, but sequentially improved from the negative 5.3%. So as we continue to see travel growth, and we start to get past the inflection point of revenge travel, and we see consumers leaning in and buying on the travel side as well. Page 12, just in one page, Clearly spells out the strategic priorities that we're focused on as a company across the entire company to drive accelerated growth. We really characterize these in four buckets. Amplify and elevate the awareness of our iconic consumer-centric brands. I'll cover each of these in just a bit on the pages to follow. Be the clear winner in digital to further support our multi-channel growth. And when I talk about digital, it's our own D2C, e-com, wholesale, e-retailers, and across the network that help feed the entire channel growth for the business. Seize the white face opportunities in lifestyle bags and accessories, what I just talked about. We continue to grow there, and I think there's tremendous opportunities to grow more there. When we look at the market share in that channel compared to our luggage channel, we see meaningful opportunities to evaluate and grow further, which we've been doing consistently for many years. I think we can do more. And they can continue to win with products that resonate globally. And I'll show you a few examples of that as I go through the deck. And this is a meaningful effort on our part to be more coordinated in our product development and to have big winners across the globe on the luggage side. Elevating, I'm on page 13, elevating our iconic brands via world-class storytelling. We're very focused on elevating The level of storytelling, we've been doing this for a while, but we've added a new global function, a global marketing and e-comm office led by our new VP marketing and e-comm to coordinate enhanced global brand building and digital efforts across the globe. We're very focused on amplifying our iconic consumer-centric brand, strengthening global brand consistency while ensuring regional flexibility for local relevance, which we've been doing for a long time, but harnessing the power of a global organization. Drive higher impact storytelling across channels to elevate awareness and brand perception. And importantly, related to this, drive marketing efficiency and impact. We expect to increase our marketing spend. I think I talked about this on the last call. You should expect me to step this up. We're planning and targeting 6.5% of net sales in 2026 to be deployed with greater consistency and impact across all of our brands. We're leveraging scale and experience to become the clear winner in digital. And what do I mean by that? This is really focusing on digital execution strategy, drive engagement, conversion, and customer lifetime value. We're investing in a more unified digital experience with personalized user journeys across both D2C and e-retailer channels. We're promoting e-commerce excellence through the newly created GMEO resources. And we're leveraging data-driven capabilities to align digital marketing strategies across channels and brands. Everything with an enhanced focus as we move to be a leader, the clear leader in digital. As I said, there's tremendous opportunity in what we label the white space of non-travel within our business. We have exciting new products that we've launched in this cycle. Tumi Alpha, Alpha 4 is a top collection. I'll cover it in another page. We launched this in January 26 with very good reception, and this backpack is a driver for the Tumi business. It is really well-received and off to a great start. We talked about Samsonite Parallax in our last calls. This is an award-winning design, two-in-one backpack. This continues to perform. And Samsonite EcoDiver, you can see the bag on to the right, that's a top collection, within the top five of our Europe overall collections, continuing to grow and we're expanding the offering. And I think importantly, a space we plan to take a deeper dive into defining the opportunities within this lifestyle bag space with resources dedicated to exploring the full potential. On the product side and products that have global resonance, I have a few examples in the pages here. This is Nexus, launched in Q1 in Europe. It'll launch in Q2 across the rest of the world. And it's off to an amazing start, exceeding our expectations. This is a product that's evolving lightweight with Samsonite materials. It's really one of these next global collections. It looks and feels like Samsonite. It's crafted using our Roxton technology, one of our most advanced shell materials. manufactured in our European facilities, and it really combines exceptional strength with ultra-lightweight performance. And you'll start to see this across the globe as we step into Q2. And again, it's off to a tremendous start. And then last year, we talked about Parallux, and Parallux has been a really amazing global launch. We launched this in Q3 of last year. It was so successful in certain styles, we ended up out of stock by the time we stepped into the start of 26th. We're in the midst of replenishing right now, and I expect this to really capture pent-up demand and be a big driver of our sales for the year. It's generated $18 million of sales in a very short order in 2025. And this is a collection that demonstrates success in combining award-winning innovation, designed with all of our designers across the globe with high-impact, cohesive media campaigns. And we brought both of those together, and it speaks to what we're capable of doing when we get products that have global recognition. We're adding new colors here, and we're adding new collections on the non-travel piece for this as well. I expect this to be a big driver for us in 2026. And then we're messaging with younger consumers. This was an exciting – I don't know if you're a Stranger Things fan, but I'm a Stranger Things fan. And in Asia, we launched Expanding Your Stranger Side, a collaboration with the Stranger Things. Both pieces really interesting. My son's traveling with the blue one there and gets comments all the time. And it really drives and captures the imagination of a younger consumer with Brand American Tourister. And this was really well received, well placed within Asia, and talks about the capabilities across all of our brands to really message to the consumers we're looking for. And then lastly on the product, we introduced the Next Generation Alpha 4 Collection. This is a meaningful collection, top collection within our 2Meet portfolio. And it really speaks to our ability to launch these collections. It's a more streamlined product, streamlined pocketing, silent magnetic closures, intuitive access points, and really engineered, and I might even say engineered with a lighter construction. It's really noticeably different, both on the travel pieces and the backpacks. And it's off to a good start, particularly on the backpack side, well, well received across the globe. And you can see campaigns, two campaigns. We have our global Ambassador Lando Norris on the left, and Asia Pacific Grand Ambassador Wee Dachshund that we've added, and both have been well-received as we launched this product. You couldn't have missed it in Q1 of this year. And just lastly on sustainability, just two things. One, we're being recognized, okay? And I won't go through all of what we've accomplished. Our ESG report will come out next month, and I always tell people, read the ESG report. You've got to lens into our business and what we're capable of doing from an innovation perspective and from a sustainability perspective. And we're recognized, I think importantly, we're recognized in time as world's best companies in sustainable growth, 25 and 26. We were number 74 out of 500 and number six in retail, wholesale, and consumer goods. That is a meaningful recognition of what we're doing. And Parallax, which I covered earlier, was a winner of two Red Dot Awards, one on sustainability design and one on overall design, speaks to what we're doing in this space. And then from a ratings perspective, my view is we're right where we want to be. From an MSCI rating, a double A, that's a step up. In CDP, we continue to be a climate score B, which is exactly where we want to be. We're being recognized. We're getting special mentions across many industries or many lenses on what we're doing on the sustainability side. And again, last, before I hand off to our new CFO, Tom Pizzuti, definitely take a look at the report. It'll be out in April. So I'll hand off to you, Tom, and I'll come back for some outlooks at the end.

Thank you, Kyle. While it's only been seven weeks since I joined the company, I've served as an advisor for the past several years. Over those years, I became impressed by the strength and resilience of the company with a team that has stepped up no matter how challenging the environment. I'm thrilled and grateful to be in a position to help the company enter into its next exciting phase of growth. I'm sure someone will ask about my initial observations and what my priorities are, so I'll go ahead and address those now before reviewing the financial results. It's clear to me that this is a very well-run organization with a large runway for continuing its profitable growth track record. The company is in a good position to capitalize on the strong consumer demand for travel with their iconic and innovative brands, as Kyle mentioned. as well as continuing to grow in the interpenetrated non-travel category with stylish and functional lifestyle bags and accessories. The empowered local teams across the globe do a great job leveraging our advantages in product innovation, market leadership, platform, and scale. And these teams are nimble and decisive, which is a big reason why financial performance has been so resilient regardless of the macro environment. The organization is brimming with highly talented and motivated employees around the world. and is hyper-focused on successfully executing on the strategic growth pillars that Kyle described earlier. I've been impressed by the quality, dedication, and professionalism of the global finance team and the company's commitment to maintaining a strong control environment and robust corporate governance. This is empowered by our local teams in coordination with global leadership and oversight. All these reasons are why I'm highly confident that we'll be able to create significant shareholder value over many years to come. And with a potential dual listing in the U.S., we're excited by the prospect of more investors being able to join us on this journey. As for my priorities, I'd like to ensure that we take a balanced approach towards driving sustainable sales with a robust margin profile, to leverage our asset-light business model to invest in growth, return cash to shareholders, and further deleverage what is already a very healthy balance sheet. Three, continue to evaluate strategic acquisition opportunities that align with our long-term value creation goals. And lastly, to underpin all of this, promote continued discipline of the global finance function, a strong control environment, and good corporate governance, while ensuring continued investment in best-in-class systems for our finance colleagues across the world. So with that, I'll now go into the financial review. Starting at slide 23, this will be just a brief recap, as Kyle has already covered a lot of this in his review. So constant currency growth in Q4 improved sequentially from Q3 to nearly 1% growth, despite a sequentially tougher prior year comparison. Overall, we saw broad-based improvement across our regions and brands in the second half of the year compared to the first half of the year as the market returns to a more normal growth pattern. Gross margin was 60.3% of 10 basis points, despite comparing to a strong Q4 margin last year. We're proud of the discipline that we've had on promotional activities to drive net sales and benefited from favorable geographic brand and channel sales mix, as you heard from Kyle earlier. We also effectively mitigated U.S. tariff impacts, thanks to the teams across the globe who managed these so well all year long. And as the U.S. tariff landscape continues to evolve, I'm confident we will continue to manage it well with our highly experienced teams in deep and long-standing relationships with suppliers. Distribution expenses as a percentage of sales were 30.3 percent in the fourth quarter, up from 29.1 percent last year. The increase was primarily due to the addition of 31 net new company-operated retail stores added in 2025. as well as increased salaries and employee benefits. Marketing expenses as a percentage of sales were 5.7% in line with the prior year. G&A expenses as a percentage of sales were 5.7% down 30 basis points from the prior year. As a result, adjusted EBITDA margin was 20.3% in the fourth quarter of 2025. Q4, as you know, is typically a strong EBITDA quarter for us, and we clearly delivered on that. while still investing in opportunistic new store openings to help us elevate our brand presence and drive long-term sales growth. Adjusted net income was $106 million compared to $116 million in the prior year. Overall, we're happy that we were able to maintain an efficient cost structure while finding smart opportunities to invest in our long-term growth in an environment where many consumer businesses were pulling back. So with a return to sales growth combined with a robust margin profile, I think these were good results for the quarter. Moving to slide 24, we present our full year 2025 results. The first half was challenging, as you heard earlier with Kyle, as we faced weakening consumer sentiment due to significant macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty. We remained focused, however, on launching new and innovative products with impactful marketing campaigns. We improved our sales mix towards higher margin regions, in the direct-to-consumer channel. We successfully mitigated tariff cost pressures, and we invested in our business for long-term growth. As a result, in the second half of the year, constant currency net sales growth improved sequentially, and gross margins expanded year over year. Adjusted EBITDA margin was solid at 17.3%, which is normalizing from two higher margin years in 2023 and 2024. Reflecting the normalization of the adjusted EBITDA margin, Adjusted net income was $293 million, down from $370 million in the prior year. Moving to slide 25, we provide a few other highlights that showcase our ability to navigate a challenging demand environment and invest in our long-term growth, while also generating solid free cash flow and strengthening our balance sheet. We generated operating profit of $528 million in 2025, compared to $629 million in 2024. as we strategically invested in 67 and 31 net new company-operated retail stores in 2024 and 2025 respectively, which increased distribution in G&A expenses by 2.8% to $1.3 billion. This increase was partially offset by a reduction in advertising spend from 6.3% of sales in 2024 to 5.9% of sales in 2025, as we flexed our spending in light of lower net sales on a reported basis while still ensuring adequate marketing investment to drive future sales. With this financial performance, we delivered strong adjusted free cash flow of $246 million for the year, and in Q4 it was $170 million, which is an improvement of $35 million from the same period in the prior year. The balance sheet remained healthy, with a net debt position of approximately $1.1 billion at the end of the year, which is a leverage ratio of 1.8 times EBITDA. adjusted EBITDA, and that's after returning $193 million to shareholders via a dividend of $150 million and $43 million of share repurchases during the year. As we detailed in our last earnings call, we successfully executed a comprehensive refinancing of our senior notes and senior credit facilities, which significantly extended debt maturities across all tranches, increased available liquidity, and significantly reduced near-term refinancing risk. Speaking of investments, turning to slide 26, we continue to invest in new stores, as you heard, remodels, as well as in our strategic initiatives. Full year 2025 capital expenditures were $93.8 million, down from $111.5 million in the previous year, as we were more selective on strategic store openings and remodels. We plan to increase capital expenditures to a range of $135 to $140 million next year, as we invest in a multi-year project to enhance our European distribution center, make ERP and e-commerce software additions, and add 30 to 40 net new company-operated retail stores. That said, we'll be nimble and flexible in our spend and spend appropriately based on the changing market conditions. So, in summary, we returned to sales growth in Q4, effectively navigated uncertain trade policies, and delivered solid margin performance. We also continued to generate significant cash flow. We de-risked and strengthened our balance sheet, and we continued to invest in the business while returning a sizable amount to shareholders. So with that, I'll turn it back to Kyle for the 2026 outlook.

Okay, thanks, Tom. I'm on page 28. We are confident in the long-term tailwind supporting our business, including continued growth and travel, as well as our ability to execute our strategic priorities and accelerate growth. Further, as the industry leader, we expect to benefit significantly from renewed consumer demand in luggage and travel bags over the next several years, following a more recent period of moderated growth off the back of revenge travel that we saw in 2021 to 2023. Nearer term, we expected a continuation of our net sales growth momentum during Q1 of 26, prior to the onset of the conflict in the Middle East. But as the conflict continues, we now expect Q1 to be approximately flat on a constant currency basis compared to Q1 of 25. We saw strong momentum as we started the quarter, and we saw impact as we get to the middle of March. We believe we have an opportunity to achieve sequential constant currency net sales growth as 26 progresses. However, inherent uncertainties around the duration and potential impact of the conflict makes it impractical for us to provide a specific outlook for the full year. We do believe our scale advantages, our supplier relationships, and our ability to effectively navigate through uncertain geopolitical and macro environment conditions will continue to enable us to maintain strong gross margin profile in 26 and beyond, despite the uncertain conditions in the market. FY26, our marketing spend as a percentage of sales is expected to increase. As we lean in our strategic priorities, I plan to bring that up to 6.5% to make investments to elevate awareness for iconic brands and to drive long-term growth. With that said, we continue to maintain flexibility and can adjust that if needed, but I have a high intention to continue to push the business in the back half of the year. We're focused on continuing to leverage our asset-light model, as Tom just went through. with an investment in growth, returning cash to shareholders, and further deleveraging our balance sheet as we go forward, while continuing to evaluate strategic acquisition opportunities that align with our long-term value creation goals. Our preparation for a dual listing in the United States continues. Our board of directors and management firmly believe a dual listing will enhance shareholder value creation over time and will continue to improve. With the continued improvement in our business, we intend to complete our dual listing in 2026 while being conscious of the current market conditions around us. So with that, I'll turn it back over to you, Alvin, and we'll take some questions. And thanks, everybody.

Thank you, Kyle and Tom. Operator, we can go into Q&A now.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 11 on your phone. and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please stand by as you compile the Q&A roster. Just a moment for our first question, please. First question comes from Anne Ling from Jefferies. Your line is now open.

Hi, management team. Thank you very much for doing the call. And I have two questions here. First, Carl, thank you very much for sharing the year-to-date performance and also the first quarter update. And if you could share a bit more in terms of performance by market, how we are seeing like you know the trend you know by different markets you know whether like you know whether there's any other market that is more resilient so that's my first questions secondly is on the cost side you know given the current conflicts in the middle years all price increase you know if you could share with us like you know the the cost some of these are in the raw material price Is there any risk that the margin might be under pressure because of this short-term product raw material volatility? And how are you able to mitigate that? So that would be my second question. Thank you.

Yeah, two good questions. I would say we're seeing sequential improvement across all of our businesses as we're going into Q1. And where we saw some immediate impacts in our business was largely in the Middle East. Middle East is around 1.8% of our sales, so a pretty small piece, but we saw a meaningful decline as we stepped into March, as you'd expect. We saw a bit of halo of that in India. So we saw our India business impacted a bit more than other parts of the region. But we saw a strong growth, and we talked about it in Q4. We saw continued strong growth in the markets of Japan, Korea, and Japan. China, I meant. Did I say China? Japan, China, Korea were very strong. And Southeast Asia continued to be strong. So we saw some resilience in Q1 across those impacted by what we saw, and as you'd expect, the immediate impacts of that. Our Europe business was generally steady in Q1, and our North America business was, you know, I would say sequential improvement is what we were seeing as we went through the quarter. So it's a bit early to tell, right? You know, I think as we step out of Q1 and Q2, that's really where the uncertainty comes. But there are real pockets of resilience, but I don't think we've really, and the consumers have really felt or reacted to the ultimate impact. And as I said, the duration of the conflict and resolution, it's hard to predict today what that looks like. From the cost side, we saw some early indications, as you'd imagine, anything tied with fuel. So we've seen some short-term kind of impacts on shipping costs pretty quickly. They're in kind of a range that won't really affect us. They're in ranges that we typically anticipate. And as you know, on shipping, we enter into forward arrangements and agreements on that. And so I think we're in a very good place there as of now. I do think there'll be some impacts on things like plastic costs. We saw some meaningful increases in India fairly quickly. But the reality is that takes just a bit of time to pass through. And as we face this in past crisis, we'll be working with our suppliers. We're working with our sourcing teams on that relationship. We typically have five to six months of inventory to manage, so we have plenty of time to navigate that. And our intentions would be to navigate that and do the best we can to maintain margins. And that's what we're focused on. But again, it's early to tell the impacts, you know, and so we've seen some of the early indicators on the areas that you'd anticipate, and we'll react to that as we manage the business with the suppliers along with the positioning of our products.

Okay, got it. Thank you very much.

Yep.

Thank you. Just a moment for our next question, please. Next we have Akshay Gupta from HSBC. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. I have two. The first one you mentioned about Q1 sales expected to be around flat and constant effects. Maybe can you share some color on the margin expectations for the quarter? And second is on the store expansion plan. So you mentioned about adding 30 to 40 stores this year. If you can talk about which markets will be the key focus for the year. Thank you.

Sure. Our gross margins are generally holding strong. If not for conflict, I would tell you that our margin profile for the full year would continue in the ranges that we've at, and as we were looking at the quarter, it looks like it was holding there. I'd expect not a meaningful impact in Q1 on margin profile. MIPS will have some piece to do with that, but I think it'll be in a consistent lane to what you saw for 2025. For the back half of the year, it's hard to predict on that front. But as I just got done saying, we would be looking to mitigate impacts that we might see. And again, we have a strong history of managing that. As far as store expansion plans, they're kind of in line with what we've been talking about. We have opportunities within Asia and Europe. We have opportunities within Tumi. We've been actively looking at Tumi locations and expanding on the Tumi side. And I would weight that within Asia and next Europe. And there'll be a handful of stores in the U.S.

Thank you.

Yep.

Thank you. Just a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone. Next, we have Perry Yun from UBS. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much for the opportunity, and congratulations, Tom, for the new role. We look forward to hearing the insights in the coming quarters. And I just have two questions. So one is related to the revenue trend. So I hear Kyle has mentioned that we've seen a broad base growth momentum coming through in Q1, but there's been some disruptions coming through due to the Middle East conflicts. But more specifically, not sure if you can provide some colors in terms of the trend in North America. Obviously, we know one of the biggest drag last year is really the wholesale channel. Do we see the appetite or the sentiment has changed across our wholesale customers in North America? That's my first question. And my second question is related to shareholder return. And I guess during the call, we make a lot of emphasizes on the shareholder return and also the strong free cash flow generation. After the standard listing, what sort of expectations would we have, especially given that it might be more tax efficient for share buyback? size or scale or the ballpark that we should expect in terms of the future shoulder return. Thank you.

Okay, revenue trend for North America. I think wholesale customers are still buying a little bit lumpy. What we can see in North America is sell-through is strong, but particularly off the back of kind of the recent tensions, I think wholesale customers are buying in a careful way. So like what we were experiencing last year, it's a bit lumpy, and that continues. Our North America business, excluding Tumi, looks like it's trending to be an improving trend. What we saw in North America in Q1 is our Tumi business was a little bit softer. And we saw our other luxury players, particularly as we get into February and March, and there's a little bit of weather. We're a bigger retail presence. That has some impact. But a softer trend for Tumi North America and our Tumi Samsonite business, an improving trend. though lumpy. So blended, it looks to be in a consistent level to what we saw in Q4 for North America, is what I would say. As far as shareholder returns, we'll have a dividend program that kind of lines up with what we've historically done. We have a typical payout ratio of around 45% of adjusted net income. That will be the case as we step into this year. And we're still evaluating shareholder buyback. I think in the midst of Working on our dual listing, we're not actively in that market. But once we get to the other side of that listing, we'll come back and evaluate the blend of shareholder buyback or share buyback versus dividend. I think we'll have a foundation of a dividend policy. We've got a long history of dividend since we've listed the company. And you should expect that to continue. And then we'll be added on share buyback once we get to the other side of the listing as I'm thinking about it. We have plenty of cash flow capacity to do both.

Thank you very much.

And thank you for the wishes.

Thank you. At this time, we will conclude our Q&A session.

Okay. Alvin, anything to add?

That's it. Thank you, everyone.

Good. Thanks, everybody. Appreciate it. Have a great morning, afternoon, evening. Thanks.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.