Lanvin Group Holdings Ltd Q4 FY2023 Earnings Call

Thank you for joining us and welcome to the Lanvin Group's Fiscal Year 2023 Financial Results Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note this event is being recorded. Now please take a moment to review the disclaimers. During this presentation, the company will be making certain forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to the future performance and the industry outlook. Forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, and they are not guarantees of performance. For today's presentation, I would like to introduce Eric Chan, CEO of Lanvin Group; and David Chan, Executive President and CFO of Lanvin Group. Siddhartha Shukla, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Lanvin Brand and Silvia Azzali, the CEO of Wolford, and Andy Lew, the CEO of St. John. With that, I would like to turn it over to Mr. Eric Chan to start the presentation.

Thank you for joining us today. I'm Eric Chan, the CEO of Lanvin Group. Since joining the group in 2023, I have had a chance to meet some extraordinary people. As I've always said, the managers drive companies and their teams drive results, and I am thoroughly impressed by the effort of our managers and our teams to maintain growth and continue to forge a path of profitability in a challenging market environment. For 2023, we attributed our trend of growth to achieving revenue of €426 million compared to €422 million for 2022, representing a growth of 1%. Our three-year compound annual growth since 2020 was 24%, with all our brands maintaining double-digit growth over the three-year period. Our gross profit for the year increased to €251 million with our margin improved to 59% versus 56% in 2022. We continue to optimize our cost structure in 2023 with multiple initiatives and expect improving results throughout 2024. In 2023, our brand continued to raise awareness and stock brand heat with targeted marketing campaigns, powerful collaborations, and effective service offerings. We believe luxury fashion is not just a product but an experience and a lifestyle, if you will. As such, we have focused on creating an ambiance for our clients that goes beyond the point of sale to the experience of living with our brands. We instilled those emotions into our clients in 2023, and in parallel, we made significant progress in enhancing our delivery vehicle from improving our retail footprint to the kickoff of our US digital platform. Over the past few months, I have visited many of our new locations. With each visit, I find myself increasingly excited about the growth of our retail base and the opportunities that exist to expand it. The opening of our first B2B long-time project in Reno comes at a better time with the brand heat that has been generating throughout Lanvin’s for the launch and the regions actually shared enough about our brands that we can accomplish much in the Middle East. Therefore, I am pleased to say that we are developing new projects in the Middle East in 2024 with two of our brands. Moreover, as David will discuss later, in 2023, we continued to leverage our strategic partnership ecosystem. We have piloted with best-in-class operations of distribution retail, profit development, and material sourcing around the world. We continue to seek new strategic partners to develop our ecosystem and improve our product offerings and services. All of these factors drove our financial results. As you will hear, our financial performance continued to improve in 2023. I was most impressed by our revenues during the Chinese New Year; we were able to adapt to changing market environments and changing trends. Although headwinds may persist in 2024, I am confident in our ability to stay on track and to achieve our goals. With that, I'd like to turn it over to our CFO, David Chan, to go through some of our details.

Thank you, Eric, and I'd like to thank everybody for joining us today. I’m David Chan, the Executive President and CFO of Lanvin Group. Before we get into the results, I want to make a few high-level points. I think back to the beginning of Lanvin Group and our journey and how far we've come; what sometimes gets forgotten is that we embarked on this in 2018. We were starting a new platform with a distinctive concept of being an Asia-based global luxury group. We were essentially a startup. Since 2018, we have put together a strong ecosystem of strategic partners that help us with production, distribution, and development. Furthermore, we have built an energetic platform that each of the brands contribute to and benefit from. We've also built a backbone for the Group, a shared service that benefits all our brands. Most importantly, we've put together a resilient group of managers and team members to continue to deliver growth regardless of the challenges they face. In 2023, we continued to build our platform by delivering growth in challenging environments, transitioning the creative strategy at our flagship brand, and further driving margin improvements. Throughout 2023, we continued to make changes and add the necessary elements to reach profitability. Among our 2023 achievements, we established a fabric center that was jointly created with our strategic partner, a world-class fiber development company. Additionally, we started the U.S. digital platform to enhance our e-commerce offering and logistics in North America for our brands. All that to say, when I review our group's 2023 achievements and results, it gives me confidence that we remain on track to reach our profitability goals. With that, I'd like to discuss Page 4 and 5 of our presentation. The group grew its revenue despite macroeconomic headwinds. A key highlight was the Lanvin brand's ability to improve its growth trend in the second half of 2023 while market conditions grew steadily worse. Additionally, we showed strong growth in the APAC region with nearly 8% growth and Greater China growing by 9%. One of the key pieces of our DTC channel, e-commerce, posted a gain of 3% with the growth from leveraging our U.S. digital platform, an indication that our digital strategy is paying off. Furthermore, we continue to improve our retail footprint by enhancing store productivity, putting our fleet of doors in the best position they have ever been to facilitate our expansion strategy. Another highlight in 2023 was the opening of Lanvin's first Middle East boutique in Riyadh. We were extremely excited to open our first location in the region and have plans to open additional boutiques for all our brands in 2024. Another key achievement in 2023 was the reacquisition of Lanvin's Japan license and trademarks. The strength of Lanvin in Japan is a testament to the power and value of the brand. We're excited for the opportunity to drive further development of Lanvin brands in Japan. Overall, the story of 2023 for Lanvin Group was about our persistence in delivering growth and improving profitability. The overall growth for the Group and improvement in the quality of our revenue allowed us to improve our margin, with gross profit margin improving by over 250 basis points, contribution profit margin improving by 255 basis points, and adjusted EBITDA margin increasing by nearly 200 basis points. Our brands made significant progress in 2023. And with that, I'd like to turn to Page 12 and introduce Siddhartha Shukla, the Deputy CEO of Lanvin Brand, to discuss some of the Lanvin's highlights. Sid?

Thank you, David. For Lanvin, 2023 was indeed a fruitful year with a continued transition and a persistent focus on long-term brand and business building. After several years of relative instability, concrete actions have been executed systematically from the inside of the organization out, establishing, first, a clear brand vision and business strategy; second, a strong infrastructure of talent to support development and innovation; and third, a diversified global business that has stabilized and is now poised for growth. In a market context where the global wholesale and digital multi-brand channels were quite strained and in contraction, the house was nonetheless able to improve its sales trend in the second half, as David mentioned, with targeted product and marketing campaigns executed via direct channels. Despite a softening top line versus 2022, a 7% negative, the company delivered operational efficiencies through a calculated rationalization of expense levels, improved gross margin at plus 8 points versus the previous year due to a favorable channel product mix and a focus on full-price selling, all of which sequentially improved Lanvin's contribution profit. In April, as part of the new merchandising strategy, the House announced a creative reorganization powered by singular vision framed by the rich heritage of France's oldest couture house and our founders. Alongside the foundation of men's and women's ready-to-wear collections, two new vertical organizational structures were established: one fully dedicated to leather goods and accessories and the other to the advent of Lanvin Lab. The final step in this holistic reorganization will come with the imminent appointment in the second quarter of 2024 of a new artistic director for the collections. That still means that the leather goods and footwear business saw important progress driven by key product initiatives in the second half, notably such as the relaunch of the iconic ballerina flats, the curb sneaker collaboration with the surgeon, and the pencil box campaign featuring global brand ambassador Cheng Yi. All of these products have now firmly become Lanvin icons. The first edition of Lanvin Lab was successfully launched in the fourth quarter with the acclaimed Grammy-winning artist Future. An experimental space for the cultural expression of the brand, Lanvin Lab has already proven to be a dynamic international platform confirming Lanvin's brand equity and far-reaching influence. The second edition of Lanvin Lab, a monumental public sculpture by the Austrian contemporary artist Erwin Wurm, has just been launched in a six-city tour across Mainland China. As concerned network expansion, the retail footprint saw a net increase of five new boutiques, including the brand's new concept flagship boutique on Madison Avenue in New York, and as David mentioned, its first freestanding boutique in the Middle East in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 2024 promises new openings in Cannes, Galeries Lafayette in Paris, and the debut of digital marketplaces with select retail partners around the world. Thank you all for your time. And with that, I will turn it back to David.

Thank you. Lanvin accomplished a lot in 2023, and I'm eager to see what we can achieve in the coming 2024. Now I'd like to introduce Silvia Azzali to discuss Wolford.

Thank you, David. I am Silvia Azzali, the CEO of Wolford, and I am happy to share the remarkable achievement of Wolford in the year 2023. Despite significant challenges, our commitment to improving profitability, announced last August, has yielded fruitful results, marking a pivotal moment in our journey. It means an improvement of more than €10 million compared to 2022. This year marks the culmination of our significant restructuring efforts initiated in 2022 and underscores the dedication and resilience of our team in navigating turbulent market conditions and executing strategic initiatives with precision. And I am saying that because our journey to this significant improvement was not without its obstacles. We navigated through challenging market conditions characterized by geopolitical tension and inflationary pressure. And last but not least, extreme warm weather up until November significantly delayed the start of the fall season, which represents more than 60% of our sales. Because of all of that, Wolford achieved a modest 1% same-store sales growth in 2023 following three consecutive years of double-digit growth. Particularly noteworthy was the double-digit increase of 11% in wholesale revenue attributed to strategic collection alignment by our new Artistic Director, Nao Takekoshi, and the acquisition of significant new wholesale customers. The Asia Pacific region reported an impressive 32% growth, while the India region faced macroeconomic challenges. Contrary to wholesale, retail faced pressure with an overall decline of 3%. As I say, the second semester sales were soft due to unexpected adverse weather conditions and tensions in the growth area, which dampened sentiment among European and American consumers. Despite this challenge, we are pleased to highlight successful new openings including IFC in Hong Kong, a pop-up store in Istanbul, and the refurbishment of Bal Harbour in Miami, Frankfurt Airport, and Milan. These flagship stores now showcase our new store concept, W.O.W., for lounge signed by Nao Takekoshi, reinforcing our commitment to elevating the retail experience for our customers globally. Even though sales were soft in the second half of the year, we improved our profitability without only cutting costs. In 2023, our workforce celebrated several significant achievements that reinforced our brand presence and refinanced in the market. Our company will grow starting February due to a successful partnership with Number 21 and John Thompson, and the launch of our new website in November all contributed to bolstering our digital footprint and enhancing the customer experience. Digital sales maintained a stable 19%, showcasing the resilience of our brands. Lastly, I am especially proud of the introduction of our Revolutionary W.O.W. Leggings, which further underscored our commitment to innovation, driving an impressive 137% growth in leggings compared to the previous year and solidifying our iconic W Collection as a cornerstone of our brand strategy. Through strategic restructuring efforts, we significantly reduced our operating costs, resulting in a reduction of operating expenses by €9.6 million, while continuing to invest in strategic assets like omnichannel, people, and store innovation. Looking ahead, we remain optimistic about the future, with a solid foundation in place achieved in 2023. We are poised for continued success in 2024 and beyond. Thank you for your time. And with that, I'd like to turn it back to David.

Alright. Thank you, Silvia. I'm pleased with the steady growth and progress W.O.W has made in 2023. The new leggings are truly one-of-a-kind, and represent what W.O.W is all about. At this point, I'd like to introduce Andy Lew, the CEO of St. John, to discuss some of their 2023 achievements. Andy?

Thank you, David. I'm excited and eager to share our 2023 results, as well as mention some of what 2024 has in store for St. John's. While 2023 started strong, many global businesses hit headwinds in the back half of the year. We are proud to have maintained DTC revenue growth for the fiscal year. The year was truly transformative, as we updated our supply chain to improve operating efficiency. The transition continues to unfold smoothly, as we focus on the highest standards, which our clients not only deserve but candidly expect from us. We continue to refine our wholesale partnerships, allowing us to directly control inventory and align our offerings more effectively. With our clients top of mind, we launched our foundation collection at the very end of 2022, creating must-have essentials as the building blocks of one's wardrobe, perfectly paired with our more classic pieces. Within its first full year, the foundation collection has grown to 23% of our overall business. We've since added new colors to expand that category. Our retail team saw 10 of our top stylists sell over $1 million each, with four exceeding $2 million. This aspect of clienteling is a big focus as we opened four new boutiques in 2023, with additional relocations ahead. Our Own Your Power campaign was a first for us, creating a powerful message focused on digital and streaming by partnering with Hollywood's Shonda Rhimes. We were able to not only work with an existing client, but also appeal to a new demographic through various collabs, such as our recent Edie Parker at St. John handbag capsule, which is an important way to further diversify our product offerings through price points and categories and bring in new demographics. We are also in the process of updating our e-commerce platform to Shopify to make us more agile and improve the online experience. Not only does this benefit St. John's, but it provides a synergistic platform for all of Lanvin Group in its e-commerce and distribution in North America. Having been with St. John as part of Lanvin Group since 2021, I can tell you we haven't had a significant e-commerce presence in North America. The development of our U.S. digital platform is a big help for not only St. John, but also for the group. We now have an efficient way to centralize logistics and improve customer experience, which benefits all of our brands. We are thrilled to be reestablishing new flagships in key U.S. cities: Madison Avenue in New York, Brighton Way in Beverly Hills, and Post Street in San Francisco. These are major shopping destinations which add to our retail footprint. We are also diligently building philanthropic partnerships and a community around our boutiques. These events and alignments have been crucial in engaging current, new, and lapsed clients. These efforts will strengthen our business in North America, allowing us to then focus on growing in the rest of the world and exploring new partnerships. At St. John, we are committed to empowering women to look and feel their best through luxurious style, soft designs, and unmatched quality. We feel fortunate to have Lanvin Group behind us on this mission. Thank you, and I'll give the floor back to David.

We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Our first question comes from Tracy Kogan from Citi. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thanks, everybody. I was wondering if you guys could talk about performance year-to-date in 2024, since we're so far into the year and maybe kind of characterize that performance by region. And then I have a follow-up. Thanks.

Sorry, Tracy, I got dropped off. So we actually have done maybe another 10 minutes for the reports. So maybe hold off on the Q&A session. Just a little bit. Sorry about that. Sergio Rossi, in 2023, was also a transformational year with the hiring of a new CEO, Helen Wright, to lead efforts at the iconic brand. In addition to new leadership, the brand expanded its customer demographic by revitalizing its brand image and executing strong product launches that included the iconic Mermaid and Steve Rossi collections. The brand also initiated new events to enhance customer engagement and grow brand awareness through targeted campaigns in key geographic regions. These efforts led to revenue growth of 70% in North America, which is a key region for growth. Additionally, e-commerce grew over 5%, and like-for-like revenue growth was up over 6%. Sergio Rossi's white label offering, our third-party production business, remained a focus of the brand's industrial facilities. In 2023, we strategically emphasized and enhanced the white label business to promote year-round capacity utilization, improved volume, productivity, and take advantage of our unique production capabilities. Next, I'd like to discuss some of the achievements of Caruso in 2023. The brand had a strong year of growth and margin improvement. Caruso achieved a significant milestone of adjusted EBITDA breakeven for the first year by driving strong results in its Masion business. These changes that Caruso has implemented provide an extremely strong foundation for the brand's growth and profitability in the years ahead. Moving ahead, I’d like to highlight our outlook for 2024. We expect continued macroeconomic challenges this year, but we're confident our strategy will lead to continued growth and profitability in 2024. Our strategy will remain the same, focusing on improving and expanding scales and profitability. We plan to approach the market tactically to capture opportunities in the same fashion we did with each of our brands in 2023. As I mentioned, one of our core brands achieved adjusted EBITDA breakeven in 2023, and we expect two additional brands to achieve that goal in 2024. Taking tactical steps allows Caruso to expand its production capability to capture additional market shares and drive profitability. We will continue to perform the same approach with all our brands. Furthermore, we plan to focus on development of our strategic ecosystem. Our ecosystem is a point of differentiation for Lanvin Group. We have strategic partners throughout the world to help us with a variety of business facets from production to distribution. We plan to add more partners to facilitate regional growth, improve logistics, and expand product categories in 2024. We’re fully engaged in our near-term goals, but we are also looking at the bigger picture of what our brands and our platform can be, continuing to align our strategies to achieve balanced growth and profitability. Now, I'd like to touch on some of the details of our financial results, starting on Page 20. As I mentioned, we continue to drive growth year-over-year with our compound annual growth rate since 2020 at 24%. On the next page, you will see that we continue to strategically target regions where we want to emphasize our growth, including North America, the Middle East, and Asia. I mentioned earlier that we opened our first Lanvin boutique in Riyadh. This is just the beginning of our expansion into the region, and we have plans to add additional Lanvin doors in the Middle East. Our brands have significant awareness in the region, and our near double-digit growth in Greater China is a testament to our ability to take market share. Another highlight in 2023 was the reacquisition of the Lanvin Japan license in March. Lanvin's business in Japan was twice over the past two decades, and we were very pleased to be able to reacquire the license and trademarks. We now have the ability to further drive development and growth in Japan and are excited for the opportunities that are available in the country. Moving to Page 22, we continue to pursue growth in our D2C channel through retail expansion and growth in e-commerce. We have taken a tactical approach to the wholesale channel as we view it as a staple of our distribution strategy, but one where we need to refine our partnerships given the challenges that the wholesale channel is facing industry-wide. The group's revenue by channel was generally flat, but the group did have an increase in other revenue from the reacquisition of Lanvin's Japan license and associated royalty income. Next, I'd like to quickly touch on our retail footprint. With the changes in our product mix and product offerings in 2022 and 2023, we have established a blueprint for our boutiques moving forward. This requires a rationalization of the network as we prepare for our expansion strategy. While rationalization of the network is an ongoing process, it's worth noting that we began to expand Lanvin's footprint in 2023 with a total of five net new stores. One additional point I'd like to make is that while our total base of stores decreased by 12, we maintained our D2C channel revenue at a steady level, a testament to our improving unit economics. Moving on to Page 24, I'd like to discuss the group's improving profitability. We achieved record gross profit margin for the group landing at 59% for the year for €281 million, up from €238 million at a 56% margin in 2022. This was driven by a combination of changes in our product mix and balance of accessories versus ready-to-wear and changes in our distribution channel mix. In 2023, the group continued efforts to focus on margin-enhancing product categories as a basis for the future. Additionally, with continued efforts to efficiently manage variable costs, including selling and marketing, the group's contribution profit nearly doubled from €13 million to €24 million at a margin of 6%. You can see that this focus on our variable margin has yielded the desired result with nearly all gross profit and contribution profit gains falling down to the adjusted EBITDA line. Adjusted EBITDA continued to improve in 2023, with a margin improvement of nearly 200 basis points. Furthermore, as I mentioned earlier, Caruso achieved breakeven adjusted EBITDA in Q1 2023, and we expect two additional brands to achieve adjusted EBITDA breakeven in 2024. While the Group has focused on rightsizing the cost structure, we are seeing our results increasingly improve from optimizing the product and channel mix. 2023's performance makes us confident that we're nearing the inflection point, where we can focus more on expanding our scale to accelerate our path to profitability. Next, I'd like to touch on working capital efficiency. As you can see year after year, we continue to improve our working capital efficiency. In 2023, for the first time, we had a cash conversion cycle of less than 100 days. Throughout this webcast, I've emphasized our focus on profitability but want to be clear that we view cash flow efficiency as an equally important objective. To recap in 2023, we continued on the path we outlined in 2018, with growth and significant improvements in profitability and cash flow efficiency. We continue to pave the way for our future and are optimistic for continued improvement into 2024. Now, I'd like to highlight some of the brand-level financials, starting with Lanvin. The brand underwent a creative transition in 2023, in face of a softening global luxury market. However, as the market condition worsened, management was able to improve its sales trend in the second half through successful product launches and marketing campaigns. The brand landed at a revenue decrease of 7% for the year, an improvement from the 11% decrease in the first half of 2022. Most of the decrease came from the wholesale channel, which faced difficulties industry-wide. Lanvin showed resilience with the ability to improve its gross profit margins significantly from 50% to 58% by enhancing its product mix and heavy emphasis on accessories, as well as better full price sell-through. Gross profit increased by €4 million in 2023, and most of that gain dropped to the contribution profit line. Moving to Wolford; since Silvia provided details on financial results, I'd like to only point out a few additional highlights. Wolford has had the most significant change to its retail footprint, with the introduction of the new legging and continued emphasis on a leisure product being the future of the brand. The Wolford name is synonymous with phenomenal technology and product development. Returning to the strategy has proven successful, and with that change, we started modifying the merchandising blueprint in 2022, leading to positive changes in Wolford's footprint. So far, the strong uptakes in both of these product lines have improved the quality of our revenue and profitability, which makes us confident that we will continue to make the right strategic decisions. Next, I'd like to discuss the financial results for Sergio Rossi. Revenue decreased by 4% to €60 million, due to a decrease in white-label third-party production sales, which the brand includes as wholesale revenue. Conversely, DTC growth grew with the Sergio Rossi brand increasing revenues, particularly in APAC, leveraging brand's post-pandemic momentum, and by improving its marketing efforts. The brand saw growth in Greater China and double-digit growth in Japanese wholesale accounts. Sergio Rossi improved its gross profit margin and contribution margin, with its brand revitalization marketing efforts and product launches in January 2023 contributing to higher-margin sell-through. The brand does have room to improve by streamlining the supply chain and production efficiency, with a key focus on accelerating its speed to market. As I mentioned, starting in 2023, efforts were made to enhance and emphasize Sergio Rossi's white-label business, which will be an important part of the brand going forward. Moving on to St. John; as Andy mentioned earlier, significant progress was made by the brand in 2023. From operational efficiencies to marketing improvements, the brand drove 5% growth landing at €90 million for 2023. DTC revenue grew 7%, and more impressively, the brand saw e-commerce growth of 14% through the use of the group's digital U.S. platform. We see St. John's as a good test case for our U.S. digital platform, and I'm pleased to see such strong results. The DTC growth led to a gross profit margin increase to 62% in 2023. Additionally, the refining of wholesale partnerships also contributed to better gross margin. Finally, I'd like to discuss Caruso; Caruso had an impressive 2023. The brand was able to improve its production efficiency and expand its production capability to take advantage of the offering scarcity in the market. For men's sportswear, revenue increased significantly by 30% to €40 million in 2023, further improving its growth trend from 2022, which was also impressive at 25%. Gross profit was up by €4 million to €11 million from €7 million, with a margin of 28%. Its contribution profit margin also improved significantly, moving from 18% to 24%. Caruso's impressive improvement through its Maisons business, which grew by double digits. In 2023, the brand has shown that the groundwork laid to expand scale and improve operational efficiency and production capability has yielded significant results. Caruso also achieved breakeven adjusted EBITDA in 2023, a significant milestone. We anticipate continued growth in revenue and profitability as Caruso further develops its business and captures additional market share. At this point, I'd like to have Eric provide some final remarks.

Thank you, David. To close our result call, I would like to highlight some of the key takeaways. First, in 2023, we entered a challenging macroeconomic environment. We expect the headwinds to persist in 2024. However, the resilience that our brands and our teams showed in driving our financial results in 2023 is a testament to our resources and the strength of our brands. Secondly, there is significant room to grow in many of our geographic regions, so we will continue to focus on balancing our regional growth to take advantage of opportunities at both our retail doors and online. Thirdly, we continue to drive profitability improvement throughout our organization, and are able to show the fruits of our labor through our improving gross profit margins and our increase in contribution profits. Lastly, we are nearing an inflection point, and we have laid the groundwork for accelerating footprint growth and market share gains. Now we have the ability to capitalize on the operating leverage we have built in our group to amplify our profitability. My team, along with our brand managers, remains resolute in our mission to grow our brand and drive profitability and cash flow efficiency. Lanvin Group and our brand have a provenance and heritage second to none. I'm proud of what we accomplished in 2023, and we are collectively on a journey, and I'm very optimistic about our future. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Our first question comes from Tracy Kogan from Citi. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks guys. I will ask the same question I asked earlier, which was I was hoping you could give us a sense of how your business has trended year to date and maybe talk about that regionally. And then I have a follow-up. Thanks.

Yes, I can. Thank you, Tracy, for the question. Our business is like a lot of other brands. I would say in the macroeconomics, we are seeing some resilience in 2023, but in Q1, we noticed a general softness. That’s why I mentioned in our script that all our brands need to re-shift some strategy, whether it's creating products or marketing that are more tailored to this specific macroeconomics we're facing. To attract and entice certain audiences, maybe I don't know if Eric or maybe even the more representative brands for Lanvin can elaborate on this? We saw a trend coming for the broader luxury market in the second half of 2023, which is why we shifted our strategy to some capsule and marketing initiatives. Sid can provide some further insights into the product launches or collaborations we did in the second half of the year which continued into 2024.

Sure. I mean, I think what I would say is that I fully agree with your observation. Despite ongoing macroeconomic challenges, we remain very optimistic. We've had a year of hard work, and some of our key initiatives are set to unlock the growth potential that exists. Particularly with the launch of Lanvin Lab last year, which continued into this year, we see strong selling from that effort. We also have seen remarkable resilience in our core commodity icon businesses with the relaunch of women's formal shoes and leather goods, indicating promising signs of growth. So we feel confident that there are opportunities at both the channel and product level to explore further, which we will aim to uncover by the end of the year.

I think you just said that the Lanvin Lab had a second drop. I'm wondering what you’re seeing from that initiative, and whether Lanvin Lab is a higher-margin business because it's fashion-forward. How does that all play out on the margin side?

Yes. Sid, do you want to take that?

Certainly. The important thing about Lanvin Lab is its recognition of Lanvin as a cultural brand as much as it is a fashion one. This initiative offers us a platform to situate our projects and contextualize them. They do provide interesting sources of revenue, but they're not only about that. Our projects tend to have dynamism built into them. For example, the first edition was linked to a well-known artist with current top songs trending on Billboard charts, driving significant attention to the subsequent waves in stores now.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you, Sid.

My follow-up, David, is just on CapEx. It was up significantly this year, and I was just wondering what the drivers were. I know you had more store openings this year, and I wasn't sure if it was that or if there's more IT or all of the above? And then just wondering what you're targeting for CapEx for 2024. Thanks a lot.

Yes. I think we still want to keep it pretty consistent, at a single-digit percentage of sales. A lot of the efforts you will see will still come from rationalization. What you see towards the end of 2023 with a net loss of stores will continue. A lot of actions will be noticeable in Wolford, especially with its success in the leisurewear and legging segment, as we're introducing innovations to attract customers.

Yes, hi. Hello, everybody. Just wanted to stick on the margin trends here. They've been heading in the right direction, which is good to see. I wondered, David, if you have a target for group-wide breakeven on EBITDA margin, and maybe discuss a few key initiatives underway to get there?

Thank you, Doug, for the question. We are aiming for adjusted EBITDA breakeven by 2024. However, there is a delay; we are now looking for a cash breakeven at a group level by 2025 due to unforeseen macroeconomic headwinds that emerged in the second half of 2023. In terms of key initiatives, we are focusing more on the accessory and leather goods segment, as well as refining our partnerships within the wholesale channel. We're also prioritizing our direct-to-consumer models and refining our product offerings to enhance margins.

Okay. That's very helpful. So, it sounds like marketing and selling expenses have settled into the low to mid-50% range, and it's really at the cost of goods and the G&A where the opportunities are, is that right?

Yes, I do believe so. Our strategy has been to invest in our brand rather than cut back on marketing and selling expenses, which could potentially damage brand equity. We will continue investing in marketing to ensure long-term success.

Okay. That's helpful. Thanks, Dave.

Thank you.

There are no more questions in the queue. This concludes our question-and-answer session, and the conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.