Earnings Call Transcript - AKA Q1 2024

Operator, Operator

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining a.k.a Brands first quarter fiscal 2024 conference call to discuss the results released this afternoon, which can be found on our website at ir.aka-brands.com. With me on the call is Ciaran Long, Interim Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started, I'd like to remind you of the company's Safe Harbor language. Management may make forward-looking statements, which refers to expectations, projections and other characterizations of future events, including guidance and underlying assumptions. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed. For a further discussion of risks related to our business, please see our filings with the SEC. Please note, we assume no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. This call will contain non-GAAP financial measures, such as adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures are included in the release and available on our website. With that, I'll turn the call over to Ciaran.

Ciaran Long, Interim CEO and CFO

Thanks, K.C. Good afternoon, everyone, and thanks for joining our first quarter earnings call. Before I review a few key highlights from the quarter, I would like to thank our teams for their unwavering dedication and continued commitment to building on our portfolio of next-generation brands for the next generation of consumers. Our teams remain steadfast in executing our strategic priorities and operating with tremendous agility and flexibility every step of the way. It is their hard work and dedication that gives me great confidence in the many profitable future growth opportunities we see for a.k.a Brands. Before I go through the results in more detail, let me share a few first quarter highlights. Net sales exceeded the high end of our guidance, fueled by U.S. growth of more than 6%. We registered a strong gross margin of 56.2% and delivered positive adjusted EBITDA of $874,000, also exceeding the high end of our guidance. We saw trailing 12-month active customer growth of 5.5%. We continue to leverage our test-and-repeat merchandising approach with inventories down 19% compared to last year and newness representing a meaningfully higher penetration of our mix of goods on hand. We ended the quarter with a significant 22% reduction in debt compared to last year. Princess Polly successfully launched an activewear collection, which has been well received by both existing and new customers. We expanded our omni-channel marketplace presence through the launch of Petal & Pup on Nordstrom's website with strong initial results. And lastly, the Culture Kings U.S. business delivered another quarter of strong double-digit net sales growth. Turning now to the first quarter, we delivered $117 million of net sales, which is stronger than expected, down 3% compared to last year and down only 1% on a constant currency basis. We were again pleased to register another quarter of solid growth in the U.S. at 6.2%. The growth in the U.S. region is further validation that we are expanding our reach, our products are resonating, and we are capturing new customers in what remains our most profitable growth region. For the quarter, our U.S. business accounted for 66% of total a.k.a Brands net sales, a penetration increase of 10%. As expected, our Australia and New Zealand region results were below the prior year, but we remain confident we will begin to experience gross margin expansion in the region in the back half of this year. On the bottom line, as I mentioned, we delivered adjusted EBITDA of $874,000, exceeding the high end of our expectations. On the heels of a transformational 2023, 2024 is off to a great start. And I'm really excited about the tremendous opportunity we see in the U.S. to expand our brand portfolio and the total addressable market. Let me take a moment to reiterate our strategic operating framework for 2024, including our three key strategic priorities. Priority number one, retain existing and attract new customers. During the first quarter, we added 200,000 new customers on a trailing 12-month basis, benefiting from our test-and-repeat merchandising approach, combined with delivering meaningfully higher levels of product newness, increased newness frequency and introducing new product categories. The composition and quality of our inventories, particularly in the U.S., are in excellent shape and we are chasing into many winning styles. We are well-positioned to continue our growth in active customers, driving higher full price selling and expanding our gross margins. Priority number two, we remain committed to showing up for our customers wherever they choose to shop with us. In addition to enhancing our online channels, we will continue to test and expand our omni-channel strategies, including experiential stores, marketplaces, and wholesale. I will touch on each of our omni-channel strategies with a brand-level review shortly. Priority number three, continuing to streamline our operations to deliver financial benefits across the company. We've created a culture anchored on finding additional operating improvements across the P&L. This is less about simply removing costs and more about driving efficiencies, sharing best practices, and leveraging scale. For example, we are achieving improved inbound freight rates through a combination of lower rates and a better mix of air versus ocean shipping. We've also begun to action store operational opportunities at Princess Polly, which we will roll out to our planned 2024 openings. Now let me share some highlights from our brands. Our largest brand, Princess Polly's mission is to make on-trend fashion sustainable and accessible for everyone. Targeting Gen Z and millennial women, Princess Polly entered a new fiscal year with more than 5.3 million global email subscribers and approximately 2.3 million global SMS subscribers, representing growth of 4% and 7%, respectively. We launched the Princess Polly brand into the physical world with the December 2023 opening of the brand's first store in Century City L.A. The store continues to perform exceedingly well, attracting both existing and new customers while also creating a halo effect for our online business. The team is doing an excellent job of crafting unique and personalized experiences to engage influencers, college ambassadors, and customers alike. Q1 showcased a variety of immersive brand moments from influencer events like exclusive in-store sip-and-shop gatherings and the Princess Polly activewear launch event to a Spring Break Jeep Tour in Florida tailored for students, along with curated influencer edits to boost strategic brand awareness and cultivate further trend-driven content. We remain on track to open three Princess Polly stores in the third quarter: one in Scottsdale Fashion Square, one on Newbury Street in Boston, and another in Fashion Valley Mall in San Diego. From a product perspective, a key pillar of Princess Polly's merchandising strategy is continued focus on product innovation. Following January launches of sleepwear and loungewear, we launched an activewear collection that garnered a significant positive customer response. Leveraging our test-and-repeat model and the early success we have seen, we will continue to build out sleepwear, loungewear, and activewear as well as test additional categories throughout 2024. Moving to our other women's brand, Petal & Pup. Petal & Pup entered 2024 with over 1.7 million social media followers around the globe and continues to experience great success in the U.S. Targeting a slightly older customer base than Princess Polly, Petal & Pup is best known for its impeccably designed and forward-trending collections, offering more elevated event-based styles. We're seeing nice strength in dresses, which is a dominant portion of Petal & Pup's category mix, and we are very pleased with the March launch of a wedding guest collection named Romance. The collection comprises 75 styles of reimagined bestsellers and new styles available on the Petal & Pup site. At the showcase of the collection launch, the brand hosted a successful influencer and media event in New York City. The success we are seeing across the Petal & Pup assortment sets the brand up for expansion into additional lifestyle categories in the future. Shifting to our marketplace omni-channel tests. Following successful launches on both Macy's and Target sites, Petal & Pup expanded its distribution in March on Nordstrom's website, which has exceeded our initial expectations, setting the stage for accelerated growth in the future. Across Petal & Pup's marketplace presence, we continue to see a high percentage of customers who are new to the brand. And finally, our successful wholesale tests with Victoria's Secret and Liverpool have resulted in follow-on orders. Turning now to our streetwear brands. As I mentioned earlier, in the U.S., our Culture Kings business saw another quarter of strong double-digit net sales growth. As a premier global streetwear brand and retail destination, Culture Kings offers a unique blend of music, shorts, and fashion found across the globe. We remain bullish on Culture Kings' long-term growth potential in the U.S. as well as globally. Culture Kings is disrupting the streetwear market, and we are thrilled with the consistently strong sales performance and overall profitability in the U.S., particularly the flagship Las Vegas location. The store experience is truly unique, offering an unforgettable atmosphere and an exclusive buying experience on an international stage. We also remain pleased with the continued strong performance and broadening acceptance of our first-party brands, which account for more than 50% of total Culture Kings U.S. sales. Loiter, American Thrift, and mnml, our top first-party brands, which would further complement exclusive third-party offerings. Straight off of the Super Bowl hype, Culture Kings partnered with Rolling Loud for another legendary weekend of music, culture, and collaborations in L.A. The brand sponsored the Emerging Artist stage and had their signature branded Basketball Court Activation. New to this year's event, Culture Kings set up a screen print station, where fans could select from exclusive designs to get custom screen print hoodies and T-shirts on the spot. Activewear brand mnml also continues to disrupt the streetwear market. In March, mnml launched an exclusive capsule collection with NBA star Tre'shaun Mann with great fanfare. Mnml also continues to expand its brand distribution channels for their exclusive products through retail streetwear stores. Now I will provide more detail on the P&L before taking your questions. For the first quarter, net sales were $117 million, down 3% and 1% on a constant currency basis compared to the first quarter of 2023 as strength in our U.S. sales was offset by softer trends in Australia and New Zealand. As I mentioned, net sales in our U.S. business increased 6.2% compared to the first quarter of last year. Sales in the Australia and New Zealand region, as expected, were challenging and declined 19.1% for the quarter. Net sales in the Rest of World declined 3.5% for the quarter. Total orders for the first quarter were $1.5 million, up 1.3% compared to the first quarter of last year, with strength in the U.S. We served 3.8 million active customers in the first quarter, a 5.5% increase compared to the first quarter of 2023. As a reminder, our active customer count is calculated on a trailing 12-month basis. Our first quarter average order value was $77, down 3.8% compared to the first quarter of last year on a reported basis and down 2% in constant currency, due primarily to softness in Australia and New Zealand. Turning to profitability. Gross margin in the first quarter was 56.2% compared to 56.9% in the same period last year. We were pleased that our direct-to-consumer channel generated gross margin expansion of Princess Polly, Petal & Pup, and mnml. During the quarter, we continued to take actions to improve our inventory levels and composition at Culture Kings, which impacted our overall gross margin. Selling expenses were $34.2 million compared to $34.4 million in the first quarter of 2023. Selling expenses were 29.3% of net sales, up 70 basis points compared to 28.6% in the first quarter of 2023 due primarily to the effect of growing marketplace initiatives and additional stores. Marketing expenses in the quarter were $14.9 million compared to $14.8 million in the first quarter of 2023. On a rate basis, marketing expenses were 12.7% of net sales compared to 12.3% of sales in the first quarter of 2023. Despite reduced marketing effectiveness of Culture Kings in Australia, we were pleased with the improved marketing effectiveness of Princess Polly and Petal & Pup, and importantly, we saw positive growth in active customers. General and administrative expenses decreased 12.4% to $22.7 million compared to $25.9 million in the first quarter of 2023. On a rate basis, G&A expenses were 19.4% of net sales compared to 21.5% of net sales in the first quarter of last year. We delivered adjusted EBITDA of $874,000 compared to $2.2 million in the same period last year, ahead of our guidance range. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the first quarter of 2024 was 0.7% compared to 1.8% in the same period last year. Turning now to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with $21.9 million in cash and cash equivalents. Debt totaled $103.6 million at the end of the quarter, a 22% reduction compared to $132.4 million a year ago. Turning now to inventory. We continue to focus on rightsizing our inventory position and ended the quarter with inventory down 19% to $91.5 million compared to $112.5 million a year ago. We are comfortable with the level and composition of our inventory at Princess Polly, Petal & Pup, and mnml. And we are pleased with the progress we have made rightsizing Culture Kings Australia inventory in preparation for the full transition to the test-and-repeat model in the back half of 2024. A quick update on our stock repurchase program. In the first quarter, we repurchased 106,153 shares for a total cost of approximately $1.1 million. As of the end of the quarter, we have $1.8 million remaining in our share repurchase authorization. Now turning to our outlook for 2024 and beyond. Based on the solid initial start to the year, we are raising the low end of our net sales guidance range and now expect $545 million to $555 million in net sales for the year. We are also slightly raising our full year adjusted EBITDA outlook range to $17 million to $19 million. As you update your models, I would like to take a moment to help everyone understand that as we expand our total addressable market through omni-channel tests, we would expect a neutral to marginally accretive impact on our overall EBITDA margins. However, we anticipate that there will be shifts in the lines of the P&L, including a slight drag on our gross margin while benefiting marketing expenses. We expect this dynamic will begin to modestly influence our P&L in the back half of the year as these channels grow. Importantly, we see our omni-channel initiatives as drivers of long-term portfolio brand awareness, top line, and EBITDA dollars. For the full year, we expect gross margins between 55.5% and 56%. We expect gross margins will increase in the back half of the year as we lap the actions we took to move through inventory at Culture Kings in 2023, slightly offset by a higher mix of marketplace and wholesale sales. We anticipate selling expenses to be approximately 26% of net sales and marketing expenses of approximately 12.5% of net sales. Marketing expenses will be slightly higher in the second quarter and leveraged throughout the year as we expand our omni-channel initiatives. We expect G&A expenses between $100 million and $110 million for the full year of 2024. And as mentioned, we are raising our adjusted EBITDA expectations to a range of $17 million and $19 million for the year. We expect the weighted average diluted share count of 10.6 million, capital expenditures of $10 million to $12 million, and an effective tax rate of 10%. For the second quarter, we expect net sales between $133 million and $138 million and adjusted EBITDA of between $4.5 million and $5.5 million. In summary, 2024 is off to a great start with first quarter results that exceed the high end of our net sales and adjusted EBITDA guidance. I'm extremely confident in the many profitable future growth opportunities we see for a.k.a Brands, particularly the tremendous white space runway we see in the U.S. to expand our brand portfolio reach and total addressable market. We remain focused on executing our strategic priorities, which position us to grow our brands and deliver consistent long-term growth. Now I will open the call up to your questions.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Our first question today comes from Eric Beder with SCC Research. Please proceed with your questions.

Eric Beder, Analyst

Good afternoon. Congrats on a solid bounce back quarter.

Ciaran Long, Interim CEO and CFO

Thanks, Eric.

Eric Beder, Analyst

I want to talk a little bit about Culture Kings. Obviously, that Las Vegas store is an amazing store. And it’s probably not replicable, but are there opportunities to have more incremental Culture Kings stores in the U.S.? And I know that you're moving in terms of Australia and New Zealand through the test mode. How have the, I guess, preliminaries for that and how are the changes happening? And what's the confidence that you’ve that that's going to be the next key driver there?

Ciaran Long, Interim CEO and CFO

Yes. Thanks, Eric. I think, firstly, yes, on Culture Kings in Las Vegas, I think there is certainly opportunity. And I think, look, as we look at the overall portfolio, we certainly feel that the strategy is working. It's great to be up 6.2% in the U.S. for the quarter. And overall active customer growth of 5.5% is just a great indication of the opportunities we have here across all of the brands. As I said in the prepared remarks, Culture Kings is again up double-digit growth in the U.S. We feel we will open more stores for Culture Kings and probably not at the level that we had in Las Vegas, but we certainly feel that there's opportunities for them. Right now, we are very focused on opening our three stores for Princess Polly in Q3, but we are certainly looking for store opportunities for Culture Kings, and we do see tremendous runway for that brand. At the moment, 50% of the product that we sell in Culture Kings are first-party brands that we own ourselves. So we feel it's really resonating with the customer. And as we think about Australia, I think the macro conditions there are more unfavorable than we've seen in the U.S. But we know that we need to get Culture Kings on to that test-and-repeat model that we see just being so strong and really underpinning that growth that we're seeing in the U.S. across the other brands. We are seeing some early signs. Some of the new products that they've brought in is hitting all of those sales metrics that they would look at and expect. And they're building a model where they can replenish into that really fast, leveraging the expertise that we've and the model that we've built with the other brands. So look, I think we feel confident that as we go into the back half, we will see gross margin expansion coming from getting Culture Kings in Australia onto that test-and-repeat model.

Eric Beder, Analyst

Great. I'd like to ask a follow-up. You've done an impressive job managing inventories, and you continue to do so. How should we approach the second half as the business begins to normalize with the test model and other changes? What should we expect in terms of a more stable rate of change in inventory moving forward? Thank you.

Ciaran Long, Interim CEO and CFO

Yes. Thanks, Eric. Yes, really good progress on inventory, down 19% and over $20 million year-over-year. And doing that, we are able to get the U.S. business growing at that 6.2%. As we think about the rest of the year, I would say the U.S. business is certainly in chase mode when it comes to inventory. And so I think there will be some buildup as we go through the U.S. and continue the growth there. I think there's still some actions we will take in Australia that will bring our overall inventory down sequentially quarter-over-quarter. And I think as we go through the year, overall, we will see small sequential improvements or reductions in inventory dollars. But I think that we have made the big progress there overall.

Operator, Operator

Our next question is from the line of Ashley Owens with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please proceed with your questions.

Ashley Owens, Analyst

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I guess I know you talked about some better response and newness within each of the brands. But I was wondering if you could give a little bit of color on the intra-quarter cadence and exit trajectory heading into 2Q. And then also just active customer is very solid even with the sales softness, could you provide any color on how you're thinking about that piece? I know it's trailing 12 months, but should that continue to trend ahead of sales growth for the year? And I guess, how are you engaging new buyers on the platform and if you're seeing most of this growth concentrated in any one region?

Ciaran Long, Interim CEO and CFO

Sure, thanks, Ashley. We are very pleased with our Q1 performance, especially in the U.S., where we exceeded our sales guidance with a 6.2% growth. Throughout the quarter, we saw positive momentum building as we approached Q2, which is a strong season for us across our four brands. While some categories like swim were affected by weather and seasonal changes, overall, we are very satisfied. Regarding active customers, we are excited about the growth we are seeing across all brands. This growth is evident in all channels, including direct-to-consumer, our stores, and marketplaces. Over 30% of customers at the Princess Polly store in L.A. are new to the brand, and after six months, we see that this store is positively impacting our online sales in that area. This virtuous cycle of online and store interactions is working well. Additionally, more than 95% of customers in our marketplace channels are new to Petal & Pup, which is performing excellently in those areas. It's encouraging to see our strategy and model proving effective, supported by our test-and-repeat approach. All brands are actively engaging across various marketing channels and are pleased with their inventory. The new products introduced during the quarter quickly became bestsellers, allowing us to restock those items, which is essential to our model. It’s not just about testing new styles, but also identifying winning styles that can be replenished. Overall, the brands feel optimistic about their position and see plenty of opportunities in the market.

Ashley Owens, Analyst

Great. Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Our next question is from Youssef Squali with Truist Securities. Please go ahead with your questions.

Nicholas Cronin, Analyst

This is Nick Cronin on for Youssef. So on the prior call, I think it was called out that you had expected Australia to show a mid 20% decline versus the 19% decline that was reported. So just curious if there's anything that drove the upside there. And then as we go throughout the rest of the year, just what's baked into the 2024 guide between the relative geographies? Thanks.

Ciaran Long, Interim CEO and CFO

Thank you, Nick. As we progressed through the quarter, we have been working diligently to implement the test-and-repeat model for Culture Kings. We frequently discuss this because we see its effectiveness and how well it's performing across other brands. We are beginning to notice early signs that the new products they are introducing are resonating with customers, and we are focusing on that effort. This gives us assurance that we will see the advantages of adopting the test-and-repeat approach and experiencing some growth in gross margins in the latter half of the year. However, we recognize there is still significant work to be done in Q2 and beyond. I apologize, Nick, I overlooked the second part of your question regarding what is included in the guidance for the three regions.

Nicholas Cronin, Analyst

Yes, what's baked on the guide across the three geographies.

Ciaran Long, Interim CEO and CFO

Yes. Look, I think as we think about the guide, we are very much thinking the trends that we saw, and the regional trends that we saw in Q1 will continue through the year. I think, look, we are over 66% of the business now is in the U.S., so certainly, by far, our largest market. It's where we are furthest along in developing the different channels. And we're going to continue to lean into that strategy. We've got three stores opening for Princess Polly, probably in late Q3. So we will see some benefit there really in that Q4 period. And that's really how we've built the kind of model as we think about the revenue for the rest of the year.

Nicholas Cronin, Analyst

Got it. And then could I just ask one follow-up on capital allocation.

Ciaran Long, Interim CEO and CFO

Sure.

Nicholas Cronin, Analyst

How are you thinking about balancing the debt pay down versus stock repurchases versus investing organically behind the business? Can you just kind of give us an updated framework there?

Ciaran Long, Interim CEO and CFO

Yes. Thanks. I think, look, we feel really good last year when we paid down $50 million of debt, down 35% and just strengthened the overall business. As we sit here today, I think it's very much going after the growth first. And we've got four great brands. They're resonating with customers. So I think as it pertains to capital allocation, it's really going after the growth opportunity there. As we've talked about, we'll spend $10 million to $12 million of CapEx this year. I think that is a key focus for us, but we will continue to pay down the debt. We'll continue to look to strengthen our balance sheet. We are not looking for this to be a highly leveraged business going forward.

Nicholas Cronin, Analyst

Got it. Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. At this time, we've reached the end of our question-and-answer session. And I’ll turn the call over to Mr. Long for closing remarks.

Ciaran Long, Interim CEO and CFO

Thank you. Thank you all for joining us on the call. And I look forward to talking to you and giving you updates on where we are and the progress all of the teams across the U.S. and Australia are making on bringing great products to customers and really showing off what these brands can do. Thank you all.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. This will conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.