Betterware de Mexico SAPI de CV (BWMX) 2022 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Thank you, and welcome to Betterware's third quarter fiscal year 2022 earnings conference call. With me on the call today are Betterware's Executive Chairman, Luis Campos, Chief Executive Officer; Andres Campos, and Corporate Chief Financial Officer, Alejandro Ulloa. Before we get started, I'd like to remind you that this call will include forward-looking statements, which are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. Any such statements should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary statements and the safe harbor statement in the earnings release and risk factors discussed in the reports filed with the SEC. Betterware assumes no obligation to update any of these forward-looking statements or information. A reconciliation and other information regarding non-GAAP financial measures discussed on the call can be found in the earnings release issued yesterday as well as the Investors section of the company's website. (Operator Instructions). I would now like to turn the call over to the company's Executive Chairman, Luis Campos. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our third quarter 2022 earnings call. In terms of the agenda for today, I will begin my remarks by providing highlights on the performance of the Full Betterware JafraGroup as well as Jafras business strategies. Then Andreas will discuss the progress made in Betterware's business strategies and the actions taken to recover our profitability. And finally, Alejandro will discuss our quarterly and year-to-date financial results and our expectations for the rest of the year. We are encouraged about third quarter results for both Betterware and Jafra. As for Betterware, we are particularly proud of our team's ability to stabilize our sales force in Q3 as well as the completion of the organizational and expenditure restructuring in this quarter. Continuing with our strategic transformation plan, which will deliver annual savings of around MXN 300 million in 2023.

Both achievements will be key to resume accelerated growth and increased profitability starting in Q1 2023. As for Jafra Mexico's results, we are very pleased with the strong results delivered this quarter with revenue growth of 11% from Q3 '21. marking the first period since 2017 that revenue grew year-over-year. Our focus on adding new consultants to our base was successful and has been key to achieve this improving trend. In particular, September saw the addition of 51,000 new consultants and now come not seen since May 2021. We expect to build upon this growth as we release a new product catalogue and execute promotional campaigns, which will give our sales force additional tools from which to drive sales. The identification and execution of synergies and efficiencies is staying well, which along with continued focus on our strategic priorities have us posed to continue improving Jafra Mexico's profitability and cash flow generation.

To achieve continuous growth and profitability, we have established strategic imperatives in the commercial front focus of products, sales program and digital capabilities and at growing our market share, growing our sales network and improving consultants and end consumers experience. The launching of new products within our team and color portfolios, target promotions to increase average sales ticket, brand renewal and repositioning will increase our share of market, an innovative incentive plan to accelerate the incorporation of our consultants, geographic expansion and penetrating new segments will drive our sales network growth.

As we look to leverage the power of social media amongst our consultants to grow brand awareness, we are also developing digital tools sourced at our Jafra app currently being deployed. -- a virtual store and artificial intelligence, which will keep prime efficiencies and productivity jointly with an improved experience for consultants and end consumers. Combined, we expect these initiatives will give us the ability to deliver high syndrome to low double-digit growth in net revenues in 2023. Regarding Jafra USA, which is still a small contributor to the whole group and is performing below its underlying potential. Our efforts remain focused in resolving issues that existed prior to the acquisition.

Corrective actions are ongoing to regain control, profitability and growing the sales force with the aim of resuming net revenue growth and achieving improved profitability by Q3 of 2023. We reaffirmed that the Jafra acquisition is accretive, as demonstrated already by better-than-expected results, which represents progress toward our goal of resuming revenue and earnings growth. Jafra's and Betterware's management teams will remain focused on their respective business and continue operating as independent companies, while supported by the corporate structure, which will be overseeing both companies. Successfully mirroring Betterware's business model at Jafra will be key to achieve outstanding results and solidify its position as a leading consumer products company. As we look ahead to consolidate the group's expansion, we continue making progress for better work to begin operations in the U.S.A in late 2023.

A followed by further international expansion in Colombia and Peru between 2025 and 2026. Jafra will enter Guatemala in 2023, and Colombia and Peru will follow in the coming years. This will pave the way to enter into other new geographies in the longer term, while we continue leveraging our business model to elevate Jafra's distribution model. We have never been more confident in our future. We are nicely positioned to establish Betterware or Jafra Group as a benchmark of constant growth, profitability and cash flow generation, laying the foundation for long-term sustained shareholder value. I will now turn the call over to Andres to discuss better words business strategies.

Thank you, Luis, and good morning to everyone. Having stabilized our sales force at an average of 870,000 associates and 43,000 distributors from mid-May today, in line with the second quarter's favourable trend -- and having completed our operational and expense restructuring, our focus is now on gradually resuming growth and profitability throughout 2023. To this end, our powerful innovation pipeline will lead the way by increasing our product offering, serving an ever-expanding customer base and maintaining customer engagements. The launch of our differentiated cleaning product line and new product categories such as Baby and kids and wellness, jointly with an increased range of products within the hydration, home improvement and table top territories will be part of our focus for 2023.

In addition to innovation, we are advancing in 5 key commercial initiatives, which are already in place. First, our digital and physical catalogues are both undergoing a profound renovation. Regarding the digital catalogue, developed under a mobile-first approach, it will have improvements that will allow our sales force to easily pass it along and connect with new customers in the short term, improve our knowledge of the end consumer and allow for an easy interaction within Whatsapp to achieve a higher sales conversion rates. On the other hand, we are leveraging our physical catalogue to achieve maximum visual appeal while making easier for customers to understand offerings in each category using improved marketing techniques as well as including promotions that create a sense of opportunity that will drive net revenue growth.

Second, we have identified relevant opportunities to add value to our commercial business model through predictive churn models and incentive structures to be developed and released in the short term with the purpose of growing our sales force segmentally. Third, aligned with the return to normality and with the aim of attracting new associates, we have relaunched our person-to-person companion program to support our associates in developing their business. Also, the resumption of live sales meetings will contribute towards our deeply and unit person-to-person business model. Fourth, the launch of Berger experts, which is our masterclass-type digital training platform, which is complementary and additive to our traditional training programs. It is helping us achieve enhanced results among our associates and distributors, with over 50% of them already leveraging on the power of digital connectivity to build engagements.

And finally, we continue to make progress in commerce as we review our strategy and business model to improve results. Accordingly, we are in the process of upgrading our e-commerce website, which will allow us to increase our penetration, attract new customers who are currently not served by our traditional model and improve our data analysis and consumer insight capabilities. We firmly believe in our model, and we will continue betting on it in our group's net revenue and EBITDA growth strategy. Finally, we will continue evolving and enhancing our core model, which is part of our competitive advantages and key to continued growth in the future. We will remain focused on increasing profitability while executing internal actions to stabilize and improve our business trend. I will now turn the call to Alejandro, who will discuss our financial results for the quarter.

Thank you, Andres. Good morning, everyone. From a financial standpoint, a summary of the (inaudible) we sold will be as follows. In the case of Betterware, we laid the foundations for a recovery of net revenue and profitability by stabilizing the sales network and streamlining expenses. In the case of Jafra, we grew revenues and increased margins and are strongly poised to continue delivering consistent growth and profitability well into the future. Our focus is on generating value for our shareholders. And to that end, the short- to medium-term priorities going forward are: one, growth in the case of Betterware resumed sequential and year-over-year growth. As for Jafra, realizing its full potential, two, profitability, delivering increased profitability for both Betterware and Jafra with a special focus on Jafra USA.

Three, cash flow, generate greater operating and net operating cash flow to reduce the debt burden and return value to shareholders through dividends. Based on these priorities, in the case of Betterware, it is Imperative to consolidate net revenue growth and compatibility in the coming quarters. As far as the top line is concerned, the key actions behind this are embedded in the commercial strategy commented by Andres, all of which will drive the growth of sales force and parents. The higher operating leverage resulting from increased sales reported by the streamline of spent structure, coupled with a good spending inventory after the promotional investment made in recent months will return our EBITDA margins to historical levels of 20%.

As for Jafra, we should separate between Mexico and the U.S. business -- in the case of Mexico, the results are tangible just a few months after the acquisition, registering year-over-year and sequential growth already, demonstrating our ability to attract consultants, identify opportunities and execute them in an agile and accurate manner while preserving the essence of the business and the brand. In this way, in this case of Jaca Mexico, the top line profitability will continue to grow to our new product base, strengthen and be (inaudible) and propelled by the commercial strategies already mentioned by Luis. In the case of Jafra USA, we will not expect to obtain results like those of Jafra Mexico in the (inaudible) as we are rebuilding the fundamentals of the business to prepare for and achieve figure and consistent growth, of which we are starting -- within this, the rebound in the sales force achieved in the quarter is certainly encouraging, but there is still a lot to be accomplished within our strategy.

Today, the U.S. business has a negative contribution for the entire look, but once the structural issues are resolved, we will achieve breakeven, and then we will be able to accelerate the penetration of the American market and grow the business. In the long term, we aim at continuing with the expansion of Betterware Jafra Group through the scalability of our model and penetrating new markets in the continent in a gradual and orderly manner. Finally, I would like to conclude my remarks by highlighting several relevant points of the entire group land. One, (inaudible) Between Jafra and Betterware work will translate into stronger financial performance. The adjustment portfolio, the consumable beauty and personal care leads in both frequent repurchases, Betterworks portfolio is more durable and seasonally driven.

The independence of complementary portfolios become valuable assets that contribute to the group's residing growth, financial stability and improved performance in challenging market conditions as today, that is the Jafra (inaudible) translates into a whole new operating hedge. Two, the current level of leverage resulting from GAAP acquisition will be resolved not only from continued financial discipline and enhance operating cash flow generation resulting from the recovery of net revenues and profitability. -- but also from the sale of unproductive assets, improvements in terms of credit synergies and efficiencies, all of which add up a cash regrowth of MXN 700 million to MXN 900 million in 2023. Three, the Board of Directors have determined a dividend payment of MXN 50 million for this term. The total dividends pay-out during full year 2022 will sum up MXN 950 million.

The board will be discussing the long-term dividend policy that the group will follow as we move forward with the ongoing initiatives. Last, in the expansion of the group capability for model, penetrating new markets in the continent, in (inaudible) and (inaudible). Over and above fourth quarter results, I would like to mention that my priority as corporate CFO of the whole Betterware Jafra Group will be on developing and executing financial strategy for the company to optimize the use of resources and maximize profitability. After a period where, we experienced massive growth alongside acquisition of Jafra, it is now time to focus on finding efficiencies all over the organisation, -- our high-performance management team has already identified potential synergies that will balance and increase availability.

Now our main concern is to make things happen in (inaudible) together with strengthening the team and (inaudible). Henceforth, we will be concentrated on 5 main elements that will reinforce our financial performance. one, people. We're working on hiring, retaining and developing the best time to have solid teams. We are getting to achieve high performance teams accountable for every function that they execute, things, focus on continuous improvement across the company; two, planning, either financially strategic, we will work on data mining to better project results and have medium- and long-term visibility of risks and opportunities ahead; three, control, standardized policies, processes and procedures across the companies to enhance internal control without interfering business growth.

Four, business former approach. -- flowing with a new trend, I will be strategically supporting businesses, identifying windows of opportunity and adding value to the organization by allocating optimal resources to other projects or investments, Five, technology. All the previous will be supported with the best use of technology to optimize organizational structures, job quality, (inaudible) of response and controls, among others. The goal is to better be prepared to deal with externalities and competitors in today's landed market. I will now turn the call over to operator, and we'll take any questions you may have...

Thank you very much. At this time, we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) We have a first question from the line of Cristina Fernandez with with Telsey Group, please go ahead.

I have a couple. The first one would be on the Betterware business, you outlined a lot of initiatives to drive growth next year with that being the goal. I wanted to ask how much do you need the macro to improve the economic environment to be able to drive growth next year? Is that also baked in your assumption to return to growth?

Cristina, this is Andres. I think that we have confidence that these strategies will bring us back to growth. As we mentioned in the statement, we have seen a stabilization in the last 4 to 5 months of revenue because of some of these strategies that we have started laying out. And this means from our point of view that we will be able to start growing back at beginning in early of next year. So in summary, we believe with the macroeconomics as they are today, we believe that we can get back to growth starting next year.

Now second question is around the Jafra U.S. business. I know I took (inaudible) . But I was wondering how much investment is needed to improve it? And if the launch of Betterware in the U.S. condition of that business being breakeven or starting to grow again?

Cristina, this is Luis. I don't think we will have to invest too much in order to turn around the Jafra U.S. -- business. This is only a question of recovering the business model, the original business model. several changes were made during 2021 that didn't work well because they were far away from our original data business model, then we are just going to go back to this last one on our strong business model in Jafra, then we do not think this will require a large investment. I mean this will be almost normal. We will continue restructuring our expenses and put together an organizational structure that can work as it used to be in the U.S. Regarding Betterware U.S.A., I mean, as in Mexico, this is going to be a totally independent business. And we are working on the way we are going to approach the U.S. market, hopefully, by the end of next year, and we are working on that. As of today, it seems to be viable our business in the U.S.

And the other question I had was around the debt payment in 2023. Do you have an estimate of how much of the cash inflows, you mentioned MXN 700 million to MXN 900 million will be used towards the repayments.

Christina, this is Alejandro. As you can see in our balance sheet, our long-term debt totaled MXN 5,900 million. But what we're expecting is to have some proceeds as you can read in the statement, but it will be an amount between MXN 500 million and MXN 700 million. So those proceeds are going to be directly reducing the debt. That's our main concern right now. And this will improve our debt to equity structure. Additionally, we will use any excess cash flows from the operations to prepay even more long-term debt. We are allowed to do so. So the idea is that taking advantage that contracts with banks allow us with -- to prepay debt without penalties. We're going to do that. By the end of 2023, we expect to have a lower outstanding debt long term. And we expect a reduction that will be around 10% to 15% less. So the idea is to improve our balance sheet and to use proceeds to those with us.

And the last question around inventory. Can you talk about how much of the inventory is kind of day-to-day recurring goods that can go over to next season and how much I guess, items that you need to clear that we would like to (inaudible) as inventory sooner rather than later?

Yes. Christina. The first thing I would mention with inventory is that it is very important to see that better words inventory has come down from second Q of 2022 to third Q. It was MXN 1,500 million around in -- at the end of second Q and it's now at MXN 1,300 milllion -- so this means that our structural operational day-to-day inventory is performing well now, and we have to get rid of the excess inventory that still is there. Remember that the excess inventory was due to 2 things. One is that we purchased extra inventory because of the supply chain problems and the second one is the lowering of demand. We expect that excess inventory to be out of our inventory by the end of the first quarter of 2023. But to reiterate, inventories have started coming down, and we'll continue those to come down as we have stabilized our sales...

Thank you.

We have next question from the line of Eric Beder with SCC Research.

Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Just a quick question on Q3 income. Why was the tax rate, so high, and what should we think about that going forward?

Hi Erik, this is Alejandro. The reason why tax is so high is because we are -- we have an inflationary effect on our balance sheet. Debt is larger than our assets. So the Mexican IRS has a rule that if you are having more credit, those credits are seen as income. So considering the high inflation rate that we are experiencing right now, we have this inflationary effects on taxes, and we are making a provision of MXN 150 million in the quarter. So we are expecting to see if we have any adjustments in the fourth quarter, but the main idea here is that if things go on the same way, we are going to be experiencing this effect for the whole 2022 in the whole year. So we are making some...

Look, I will add, Eric, this is Luis. The only thing I would add to that is that this MXN 150 million of income tax is in addition to the normal or regular income tax from our profits. And the other thing I want to mention is that this is because Betterware Mexico itself is taking 100% of the debt coming from the Jafra acquisition.

Okay. (inaudible) how, obviously, it's still continuing in Mexico and most of the world. How are you writing that in terms of your supply chain and in terms of your ability to pass on price increases to customers?

Eric, this is Andres. So during this year, we have a high impact in -- from the supply chain prices, especially containers and raw materials. But so we increased prices throughout the year approximately 15% both. And the good thing is that container prices have been coming down in the last weeks aggressively, both in the U.S. and in Mexico. Still not a total trend, but it's still not a total confirmation of trend, but it's come down a lot. And at the same time, we have seen ability to negotiate better prices with our factories. -- and because also of the raw materials that are starting to decrease. So we think even as this is just some weeks that this has started happening, we believe that it could be an extra opportunity to both increase margins and be more competitive with prices to drive consumer demand.

Okay. So final question. In terms of Jafra, I know you picked up the factory there at the same time. When you look at that opportunity, what is kind of the opportunity to increase both capacity and potentially to make it more efficient in terms of spending.

Can you repeat the question maybe because I didn't get it very well.

Oh I'm sorry. (inaudible) How do you look upon the opportunity to leverage that production plan in terms of both, I guess, more production and in terms of better efficiency?

Yes, I think we have a great opportunity. We have an available capacity in our manufacturing facilities in Queretaro. Then I will tell you that some of the products that -- or the cleaning products that Betteware is flagging to launch next year, very disruptive and attractive cleaning product line, will be manufactured in our Queretaro facility, what will make us to utilize more of the capacity we have now. Then I think we will have nice opportunities in the factory. In fact, as we are mentioning in the report for now, we have identified MXN 140 million of efficiencies for next year 2023 in the manufacturing facility. That will obviously be important for our commercial side of the business in Jafra because this will represent, let's say, lower increased costs in our products, okay? Then this is basically the way it's going to work.

Thank you. We have next question from the line of Andres Lemery with LCA Capital.

We are excited for Betterware's profitability in 2023. My question is based on the pro forma statements. I was wondering if we could expect to see maybe a greater breakdown of both Jafra and Betterware in the upcoming quarters?

Definitely, yes. Quarter after quarter, we will be reporting very clearly what is being the performance of Jafra, Mexico, Jafra U.S. and Betterware the Mexico in every single number, okay, including income, profit and loss, including balance sheet and including cash flow. We have put together all the necessary systems and the platform in order to be able to do that. Then you will notice a huge improvement when we report our results for the fourth quarter.

Excellent. Thank you very much. And as an analyst point of view, I really really appreciate that.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you -- ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of the question-and-answer session. And I'd like to turn the and over to Luis Campos. -- executive Chairman, for closing remarks. Over to you, sir.

Over to you, sir. Sure. Thank you. Well, first of all, I would like to confirm that we will keep focus on delivering value to our shareholders, including our dividend of MXN 950 million this year. We will continue with our dividend policy. The only thing is that beginning of next year in our first world meeting next year, we will define our criteria, our dividend policy for the quarters to come. But this practice will continue for the future. Thank you again for joining our call today. We would like to wish everyone a happy and healthy holiday season. I look forward to speaking with you when we report our fourth quarter results. Have a good day.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.