Aritzia Inc.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to Aritzia's second quarter fiscal year 2022 earnings call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero. I will now turn the conference over to Carly Bishop, Executive Manager, Office of the CEO. Please go ahead.

Carly Bishop Thank you, Carl, and thanks for joining Everett CSE Center's fiscal 2022 earnings conference call. On the call today, I'm joined by Brian Hill, our Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, Jennifer Wong, President and Chief Operating Officer, and Todd Engledue, our Chief Financial Officer. Following management's discussion, we'll host a question and answer period open to analysts and investors. Please note that remarks on this call may include our expectations, future plans, and intentions that may constitute forward-looking statements. Due to the material impact of COVID-19 on business operations in fiscal 2021, certain references to our pre-pandemic results in the second quarter of fiscal 2020 have been included where management deems to be a more meaningful measurement of performance. The uncertain and dynamic nature of COVID-19 and its ongoing impact could continue to materially alter our performance. We would refer you to our most recently filed management discussion and analysis and our annual information form, which include a summary of the material assumptions as well as risks and factors that could affect our future performance. and our ability to deliver on these forward-looking statements. Our earnings release, the related financial statements, and NDNA are available on CDAR and the investor relations section of our website at arisia.com. I will now turn the call over to Brian.

Thank you, Carly, and thank you for joining us this afternoon. I'm incredibly pleased to share with you, together with Jennifer and Todd, our results for Q2. The outstanding performance of our brand continued through the second quarter of fiscal 2022. We are seeing accelerated momentum across all geographies and all channels as our United States business grew at an unprecedented pace. Our e-commerce channel continued to surge and sales in our boutiques surpassed our most optimistic expectations, exceeding pre-pandemic productivity levels. For me personally, these results speak to our world-class team. who I'm deeply grateful and proud of for facilitating our rapid growth of unprecedented demand while delivering exceptional everyday luxury experiences for our clients. All on the backdrop of supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, and the ongoing effects of COVID-19. Looking forward, I could not be more excited as we focus on our fundamentals and invest in the infrastructure required to enable our growth for years to come. While Todd will provide a detailed financial perspective, I'm extremely pleased to share our performance highlights for the second quarter. We delivered record net revenue of $350 million with growth of 75% or $150 million from $200 million last year and 45% or $109 million compared to $240 million two years ago. I would also like to note that for the first half of the quarter, Ontario, which comprises 50% of our Canadian boutiques, was closed. We continue to advance our business and brand awareness in the United States at an unprecedented pace. As we develop deeper relationships with our existing and many new clients, net revenue in the United States increased 174% from last year and 108% from two years ago. The United States now accounts for 42% of our revenue. Importantly, over the last 12 months, our active clients grew more than 50% in the United States. Our e-commerce channel continued to surge as net revenue increased 49% from last year and 171% from two years ago, accounting for 37% of our revenue in the quarter. Our boutique sales were also exceptional, with our entire retail business open to clients as of the second week of July and capacity restrictions lightened. This positive resurgence resulted in retail comparable sales growth of 60% from last year and 14% from two years ago, exceeding pre-pandemic levels in both Canada and the United States. Our ongoing investment to optimize our everyday luxury experience of engaging service, beautiful products, aspirational environments, and captivating communications continued to drive our business. In e-commerce, we further enhanced our digital experience with new features and functions being added on a regular basis. We also delivered on our Omni capabilities initiative. We launched store, inventory visibility, SIV, allowing clients to view store inventory availability while shopping online. At the beginning of August, so far, this has yielded positive results and contributed to our boutique sales surpassing pre-pandemic levels. Jennifer will speak to this and the remaining Omni initiatives in a few minutes. In addition to reopening our entire store fleet in Q2, we expanded our presence in the United States, In the quarter, we opened two new boutiques in California, one in Topanga and another one at the Grove in West Hollywood, to outstanding client response. As the performance of our new and existing boutique continues to exceed all of our expectations. In Canada, we expanded our Sureway Gardens boutique in Toronto with tremendous success as well, breaking our record for a new boutique opening that day. With boutiques open and capacity restrictions eased in the majority of markets, our team is excited to continue welcoming new and loyal clients, surpassed only by our clients' enthusiasm to enjoy our everyday luxury experience. Shifting to product, our clients responded exceptionally well to the launch of our fall-winter season, as our team delivered on meaningfully extending our assortment breadth. with new styles and depth, with new colors, sizes, and lengths across our various brands and categories, accomplished while navigating the pandemic's continued supply chain disruption. To grow on our already strong full-price selling strategy, as we did with our spring lighten-up sale, we made the decision to not hold our traditional fall layered-on sale. While this may put a little pressure on our top line, importantly, It will result in improved gross margin and motivate our clients to purchase our beautiful products at full price. As we have previously stated, we completed our expansion and amends as we closed the Raining Champ deal in late June. The Raining Champ team have done an excellent job continuing to independently manage their business as most of our resources have been focused on our rapid growth. We are now in the process of prioritizing where we leverage our world-class infrastructure to grow the reigning champ business. We continue to develop our suite of marketing capabilities as we welcome Dana Gers as CMO. We expect her exceptional leadership and particularly her digitally native experience will significantly advance our marketing initiatives. Her hiring, a testament to the growth of our brand and ability to attract top talent from across the globe. Although Jennifer will provide more detail, I'm proud to say we remain relentless in our commitment to being responsible for the planet and the people who live on it as we continue to embed sustainable practices across our business. I'll now turn it over to you, Jennifer.