iMedia Brands Inc (IMBI) 2022 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Greetings and welcome to the iMedia Brands Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2022 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. (Operator Instructions) As reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Alex Wasserburger, Senior Vice President, General Counsel for iMedia Brands. Thank you, sir. You may begin.

歡迎來到 iMedia Brands 第四季度和 2022 年全年收益電話會議。此時，所有參與者都處於只聽模式。 （操作員說明）作為提醒，正在錄製此會議。我現在想將會議轉交給您的主持人 Alex Wasserburger，他是 iMedia Brands 的高級副總裁兼總法律顧問。謝謝你，先生。你可以開始了。

Good morning and thank you for joining us. We issued our Q4 earnings release earlier this morning. If you do not have a copy, it is available through the news section of our IR website at imediabrands.com. This release is also an exhibit to the Form 8-K we filed this morning. A webcast recording of this call will be available via the link provided in today's press release as well as on our IR section of our website.

早上好，感謝您加入我們。我們今天早上早些時候發布了第四季度收益報告。如果您沒有副本，可通過我們 IR 網站 imediabrands.com 的新聞部分獲取。此版本也是我們今天早上提交的 8-K 表格的展示。可通過今天的新聞稿中提供的鏈接以及我們網站的 IR 部分獲取此次通話的網絡廣播錄音。

Some of the statements made during this call are considered forward-looking and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. These statements reflect our expectations about future operating and financial performance and speak only as of today's date. We undertake no obligation to update or revise these forward-looking statements. We believe the expectations reflected in our forward-looking statements are reasonable but give no assurance such expectations or any of our forward-looking statements will prove to be correct.

本次電話會議期間做出的一些聲明被認為是前瞻性的，並受到重大風險和不確定性的影響。這些聲明反映了我們對未來運營和財務業績的預期，並且僅代表今天的情況。我們不承擔更新或修改這些前瞻性陳述的義務。我們認為我們的前瞻性陳述中反映的預期是合理的，但不保證此類預期或我們的任何前瞻性陳述將被證明是正確的。

For additional information, please refer to the cautionary statement in today's earnings release and our SEC filings. Finally, we will make references to non-GAAP measures on this call, such as adjusted EBITDA. Please refer to our earnings release for further information about these measures, including reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures, where possible with reasonable efforts.

有關更多信息，請參閱今天的收益發布和我們向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件中的警示性聲明。最後，我們將在本次電話會議上提及非 GAAP 指標，例如調整後的 EBITDA。請參閱我們的收益發布，了解有關這些措施的更多信息，包括在可能的情況下與最可比的 GAAP 措施的對賬。

Now I would like to turn the call over to the CEO of iMedia Brands, Tim Peterman. Tim?

現在我想把電話轉給 iMedia Brands 的首席執行官蒂姆彼得曼。蒂姆？

Thank you and good morning, everyone. Let's start with the obvious quote early, which is by Mike Tyson, "Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." Completing our debt reduction event this week was a milestone win for us. But make no mistake, it was a struggle to complete. The challenge began shortly after Thanksgiving when a new asset appraisal became effective, materially reducing our company's liquidity. We worked collectively with our asset-based lenders, who fortunately provided us with the time to shift our priorities from net sales growth and customer engagement into short-term cash optimization activities to fund principal repayments.

謝謝大家，早上好。讓我們先從邁克·泰森 (Mike Tyson) 的名言開始吧，“每個人都有一個計劃，直到他們被打到嘴裡。”本週完成我們的債務削減活動對我們來說是一個里程碑式的勝利。但別搞錯了，這是一場艱苦的努力。感恩節後不久，一項新的資產評估生效，大大降低了我們公司的流動性，挑戰開始了。我們與基於資產的貸方合作，幸運的是，他們為我們提供了時間，將我們的優先事項從淨銷售額增長和客戶參與度轉移到短期現金優化活動中，為本金償還提供資金。

We shifted our management team's valuable time and energy away from day-to-day priorities. We stretched our employees and we stretched our vendors. We drained internal creative and financial resources, and we pressured our customers' loyalties but we, as a culture, rose to the challenge, day by day, inch by inch. And we reestablished compliance with our senior lender by making $19 million in principal repayments in about 2 months.

我們將管理團隊的寶貴時間和精力從日常優先事項上轉移了出來。我們擴展了我們的員工，我們擴展了我們的供應商。我們耗盡了內部的創意和財務資源，我們對客戶的忠誠度施加了壓力，但作為一種文化，我們日復一日、一寸一寸地迎接挑戰。我們在大約 2 個月內償還了 1900 萬美元的本金，從而重新建立了對我們高級貸款人的遵守。

I want to emphasize that we could not have achieved this without all our stakeholders' efforts, meaning our employees, our lenders and our vendors being part of this effort. This short-term achievement, though, we knew would come with a short-term cost and that was our financial performance in Q4 2022 and our expected Q1 2023 financial performance. Now that we have simultaneously closed these 6 transactions that are all connected by the singular purpose of reducing our debt by $53 million and reducing our annual interest expense by $7 million, our teams and vendors are rapidly shifting their focus back to our normal day-to-day fundamentals.

我想強調，如果沒有我們所有利益相關者的努力，我們不可能實現這一目標，這意味著我們的員工、我們的貸方和我們的供應商都參與了這項努力。不過，我們知道這一短期成就會帶來短期成本，那就是我們 2022 年第四季度的財務業績和我們預期的 2023 年第一季度的財務業績。現在我們已經同時完成了這 6 筆交易，這些交易都是為了減少 5300 萬美元的債務和減少 700 萬美元的年度利息支出，我們的團隊和供應商正在迅速將他們的注意力轉移到我們正常的日常工作上-天基本面。

However, this is not an overnight fix. We have merchandise categories and vendors that require time, attention and capital. We have customers to recapture. We have market share to win back from our competitors. I estimate our shareholders will start to see the positive financial impacts of our refocusing efforts in the back half of this year. For more details on our DRE, please see our Q4 IR supplement published with our release today. As I think about our overall 2022 report card, I think back to our priorities we shared at our Capital Markets Day in February 2022. We explained why we would prioritize the integration of our 2021 acquisitions, the reduction of our content distribution expenses and the strengthening of our balance sheet.

但是，這不是一夜之間就能解決的問題。我們有需要時間、注意力和資金的商品類別和供應商。我們有客戶要奪回。我們有市場份額可以從競爭對手那裡贏回來。我估計我們的股東將在今年下半年開始看到我們重新調整工作重點的積極財務影響。有關我們 DRE 的更多詳細信息，請參閱我們今天發布的 Q4 IR 增刊。當我思考我們 2022 年的總體成績單時，我回想起我們在 2022 年 2 月的資本市場日分享的優先事項。我們解釋了為什麼我們會優先考慮整合 2021 年的收購、減少我們的內容分發費用和加強我們的資產負債表。

Now that we have talked in detail about how we have finally strengthened our balance sheet, let's go back and review our progress on the first two 2022 priorities. Regarding the integration of our 2021 acquisitions, beginning in Q3 of 2022, we began launching our best-performing ShopHQ Networks brand on air on 123tv which helped drive noticeable improvement in 123tv's gross margins, average selling price and net sales productivity.

既然我們已經詳細討論了我們最終是如何加強資產負債表的，那麼讓我們回顧一下我們在前兩個 2022 年優先事項上的進展。關於我們 2021 年收購的整合，從 2022 年第三季度開始，我們開始在 123tv 上推出我們表現最好的 ShopHQ Networks 品牌，這有助於推動 123tv 的毛利率、平均售價和淨銷售生產力的顯著改善。

We also launched our 123 auction app on shophq.com, which will be now our second SaaS product after Float Left's OTT app. This 123tv auction app launched on shophq.com, is the first phase of 123tv's product development road map as it continues on its timeline to launch its stand-alone travel auction site focused on disrupting the online travel shopping marketplaces here in the U.S. We also expanded our digital advertising offerings to include offering OTT inventory from our Float Left OTT app and offering on-air advertising opportunities from ShopHQ, ShopBulldogTV and ShopHQHealth. Equally important, this year, we completed the difficult data mining process of aggregating our company's first-party data into unified data lakes to help us internally drive improved digital advertising conversions.

我們還在 shophq.com 上推出了我們的 123 拍賣應用程序，這將是我們繼 Float Left 的 OTT 應用程序之後的第二款 SaaS 產品。這款在 shophq.com 上推出的 123tv 拍賣應用程序是 123tv 產品開發路線圖的第一階段，因為它繼續按時間表推出其獨立的旅遊拍賣網站，專注於顛覆美國的在線旅遊購物市場。我們還擴展了我們的數字廣告產品包括從我們的 Float Left OTT 應用程序提供 OTT 庫存，以及從 ShopHQ、ShopBulldogTV 和 ShopHQHealth 提供廣播廣告機會。同樣重要的是，今年，我們完成了將公司的第一方數據聚合到統一數據湖中的艱難數據挖掘過程，以幫助我們在內部推動改進的數字廣告轉化。

Since all of our businesses are targeting the same boomer demographic, this is another unique strategy of what we're doing here. We also expanded Christopher & Bank's retail footprint based on consumer demand. As you may recall, in Q3, we terminated the underperforming Shaq partnership, which enabled us to preserve future airtime for our more productive brands. This includes high-performing brands returning to ShopHQ from recent tours on our competitors, big brands like Joyce Giraud, Anushka, Gems en Vogue.

由於我們所有的業務都針對相同的嬰兒潮一代人口，這是我們在這裡所做的另一個獨特戰略。我們還根據消費者需求擴大了 Christopher & Bank 的零售足跡。您可能還記得，在第三季度，我們終止了表現不佳的 Shaq 合作夥伴關係，這使我們能夠為我們更俱生產力的品牌保留未來的通話時間。這包括近期在我們競爭對手的巡迴演出中返回 ShopHQ 的高性能品牌，如 Joyce Giraud、Anushka、Gems en Vogue 等大品牌。

Regarding the reduction of our content distribution expense, I will remind stakeholders that fixing the expense structure with content distributors is a full contact sport and that is why ShopHQ really hasn't attempted it in its last 30 years to our long-term success. Our decision to not renew DISH until we came to an agreement on future expense reductions, created a short-term reduction in our 2022 net sales but it was critical and a necessary first step to position us to achieve our milestone of reducing our content distribution as a percent of net sales in 2023.

關於減少我們的內容分發費用，我會提醒利益相關者，與內容分發商一起固定費用結構是一項全面的接觸運動，這就是為什麼 ShopHQ 在過去 30 年中確實沒有嘗試過我們的長期成功。我們決定在就未來削減開支達成協議之前不續訂 DISH，這導致我們 2022 年的淨銷售額在短期內有所下降，但這是至關重要的，也是必要的第一步，可以讓我們實現減少內容分發的里程碑，因為2023 年淨銷售額的百分比。

Before I give more color on our financials, I want to remind everyone about what we believe our reason for being is here at iMedia. Beginning in 2019, iMedia established a growth strategy and an entrepreneurial culture focused on operating 4 television networks, ShopHQ, 123tv, ShopBulldogTV and ShopHQHealth. Each of which have been uniquely crafted to focus on the same boomer demographic consumer and to drive multiple revenue streams, t-commerce, e-commerce, digital advertising, OTT SaaS revenues and brick-and-mortar retail.

在我詳細說明我們的財務狀況之前，我想提醒大家，我們相信我們存在的理由是在 iMedia。從 2019 年開始，iMedia 制定了增長戰略和創業文化，專注於運營 4 個電視網絡，ShopHQ、123tv、ShopBulldogTV 和 ShopHQHealth。每一項都經過精心設計，專注於相同的嬰兒潮一代消費者，並推動多種收入來源、電子商務、電子商務、數字廣告、OTT SaaS 收入和實體零售。

Our diversified revenue model and singular focus on one customer demographic enables us to accelerate the share growth of net sales from digital products and reduce our historical reliance on the sale of physical inventory products that, as we all know, require logistics expenses, working capital, storage.

我們多元化的收入模式和對一個客戶群體的單一關注使我們能夠加速數字產品淨銷售額的份額增長，並減少我們過去對銷售實物庫存產品的依賴，眾所周知，這些產品需要物流費用、營運資金、貯存。

Turning my comments to our financial statements, Q4 consolidated net sales were negatively impacted by the Q4 liquidity challenge and the DISH carriage disruption. Q4 net sales were $133.5 million, a decrease of about 31% compared to the same prior year period. Q4 consolidated gross margin was 36.8%, which was a 150-basis point decrease over the same prior year period.

將我的評論轉向我們的財務報表，第四季度的合併淨銷售額受到第四季度流動性挑戰和 DISH 運輸中斷的負面影響。第四季度淨銷售額為 1.335 億美元，與去年同期相比下降約 31%。第四季度綜合毛利率為 36.8%，比去年同期下降 150 個基點。

Q4 consolidated operating expenses were $64.4 million, a decrease of about 13.5% or $10 million. Q4 adjusted EBITDA was $2.5 million, an 84% decrease over that same prior year period. For full year fiscal 2022, full year net sales were $544.5 million, a 1% decrease over the same prior year period. Full year 2022 gross margin also decreased to 38.6%, a 180-basis point decrease over 2022. Full year 2022 consolidated operating expenses were $257.3 million, an increase of about 10.3% or $23.9 million.

第 4 季度綜合運營費用為 6440 萬美元，下降約 13.5% 或 1000 萬美元。第四季度調整後的 EBITDA 為 250 萬美元，比去年同期下降 84%。 2022 財年全年淨銷售額為 5.445 億美元，比上年同期下降 1%。 2022 年全年毛利率也下降至 38.6%，比 2022 年下降 180 個基點。2022 年全年綜合運營費用為 2.573 億美元，增長約 10.3% 或 2390 萬美元。

This increase was primarily driven by the $30 million in onetime integration costs incurred in 2022 related to the 2021 acquisitions. Full year 2022 adjusted EBITDA was $25.4 million, a decrease of 39% or $16.2 million, most of that decline happening in Q4. Regarding our cash liquidity as of Q4, the total unrestricted cash was $7.1 million compared to $11.3 million at the same time prior year. In terms of our outlook, the company anticipates Q1 net sales to continue to be negatively impacted by the Q4 liquidity challenge and expects to report Q1 net sales of approximately $105 million, a 31% year-over-year decline similar to Q4.

這一增長主要是由 2022 年與 2021 年收購相關的 3000 萬美元一次性整合成本推動的。 2022 年全年調整後的 EBITDA 為 2540 萬美元，下降 39% 或 1620 萬美元，其中大部分下降發生在第四季度。關於我們截至第四季度的現金流動性，不受限制的現金總額為 710 萬美元，而去年同期為 1130 萬美元。就我們的展望而言，公司預計第一季度淨銷售額將繼續受到第四季度流動性挑戰的負面影響，並預計第一季度淨銷售額約為 1.05 億美元，同比下降 31%，與第四季度相似。

The company anticipates positive Q1 net income driven primarily by several onetime gains related to the company's debt reduction event completed on April 10, 2023. The company has approximately $390 million in federal NOLs and does not expect to have any federal income tax payments on the debt reduction event transactions nor the company's 2023 net income. In anticipation of this short-term Q1 net sales pressure and to enable the company to produce stable profitability and cash flow, in February 2023, the company completed a cost reduction event that reduced annual operating expenses by over $20 million.

公司預計第一季度淨收入為正，這主要是由與公司於 2023 年 4 月 10 日完成的債務削減活動相關的一次性收益推動的。該公司擁有大約 3.9 億美元的聯邦 NOL，並且預計不會為債務支付任何联邦所得稅減少事件交易或公司 2023 年的淨收入。考慮到這一短期的 Q1 淨銷售壓力並使公司能夠產生穩定的盈利能力和現金流，公司於 2023 年 2 月完成了一項成本削減活動，將年度運營費用減少了超過 2000 萬美元。

The company anticipates Q1 adjusted EBITDA to be approximately $1 million in line with Q4 adjusted EBITDA. As always, I appreciate your trust on this journey together. Thank you for your time this morning. I will turn the call back over to the operator for Q&A. Operator?

公司預計第一季度調整後的 EBITDA 約為 100 萬美元，與第四季度調整後的 EBITDA 一致。一如既往，我感謝您在這段旅程中的信任。謝謝你今天早上的時間。我會將電話轉回接線員進行問答。操作員？

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Thomas Forte with D.A. Davidson.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自 Thomas Forte 和 D.A.戴維森。

Great. I have one question and one follow-up. So can you talk about for ShopHQ. You've discussed in your prepared remarks your focus on liquidity and things of that nature. So can you talk about, I guess what gives you confidence that ShopHQ will be able to rebound? And then how should I think about the video retailing categories performance? Historically, it holds up relatively well during periods of macroeconomic challenges.

偉大的。我有一個問題和一個跟進。那麼你能談談 ShopHQ 嗎？你在準備好的評論中討論了你對流動性和類似性質的關注。那麼你能談談，我猜是什麼讓你有信心 ShopHQ 能夠反彈？然後我應該如何考慮視頻零售類別的表現？從歷史上看，它在宏觀經濟挑戰時期表現相對較好。

So, a, what gives you confidence that you'll be able to, I guess, restart ShopHQ and b, what gives you confidence that it has the resource to historical trades it has had in the past to be more resilient during macroeconomic challenges.

所以，a，是什麼讓你有信心，我猜，你將能夠重啟 ShopHQ 和 b，是什麼讓你有信心，它擁有過去在宏觀經濟挑戰中更具彈性的歷史交易資源。

Sure. Thank you, Tom. That's a 2-part question. I'll start with one on the ShopHQ recovery first. So let's think about chronological events, right? So we talked about this in Q3. We were focused on the sale -- closing the sale leaseback, transitioning to a new lender at the -- really at the end of the calendar year end of December. Now that delay, based on some complexities, put us on a path. But before we got to the end of the year where that was delayed, we were looking at, at the beginning of December, a new asset valuation report that really materially became effective at the beginning of December and reduced our liquidity.

當然。謝謝你，湯姆。這是一個由兩部分組成的問題。我先從 ShopHQ 恢復開始。那麼讓我們考慮一下按時間順序排列的事件，對嗎？所以我們在第三季度談到了這個。我們專注於銷售 - 結束售後回租，過渡到新的貸方 - 實際上是在 12 月的日曆年末。現在，基於某些複雜性的延遲使我們走上了正軌。但在我們推遲到年底之前，我們在 12 月初查看了一份新的資產估值報告，該報告在 12 月初真正生效並減少了我們的流動性。

And so when that happened, we found ourselves in a situation where we were shifting from the normal holiday activities into, moving into cash optimization situations where we were creating the funding, the cash from our working capital to fund repayments on our ABL loan.

因此，當發生這種情況時，我們發現自己處於一種情況，即我們正在從正常的假期活動轉變為現金優化情況，我們正在創造資金，從我們的營運資金中提取現金來償還我們的 ABL 貸款。

Now as that moves through December and through January, the -- and moves into the amendment that we just signed, you can see that our liquidity is improving with the amendment that we have in place now post Pontus. But if you go back to Q4, if you go back to December and January, you have to think about a couple of examples of how that shrinking liquidity that was moving to repay principal payments affected ShopHQ. They were definitely not macro environment related. They were really around the Occam's razor.

現在，隨著 12 月和 1 月的推移，-- 並進入我們剛剛簽署的修正案，你可以看到我們的流動性正在隨著我們在 Pontus 之後實施的修正案而改善。但是，如果你回到第四季度，如果你回到 12 月和 1 月，你必須考慮幾個例子，說明流動性萎縮如何影響 ShopHQ 以償還本金。它們絕對與宏觀環境無關。他們真的在奧卡姆剃刀附近。

It's really around the most basic things that we do. For example, jewelry. Jewelry is a category that it's the most important category in holiday. And as you know, Tom, the jewelry business is unique in that it doesn't have a long lead time. They ship it in overnight. You pay for it cash on delivery as opposed to home or fashion, where you're bringing the products in 30, 60, 90 days in advance and selling them in that fashion. So with jewelry, when you find our -- when we found ourselves in the situation where the liquidity was moving into another situation, we couldn't bring in jewelry.

它實際上圍繞著我們所做的最基本的事情。例如，珠寶。首飾是節日中最重要的品類。正如你所知，湯姆，珠寶行業的獨特之處在於它沒有很長的交貨時間。他們連夜發貨。您需要貨到付款，而不是在家或時裝店，您提前 30、60、90 天帶來產品並以這種方式銷售。因此，對於珠寶，當你發現我們的 - 當我們發現自己處於流動性正在轉向另一種情況的情況時，我們無法引入珠寶。

And you can see that in the chart that we provided, our receipts, our inventory receipts in Q4 for jewelry were over 50% decline. The inventory balance is 50% decline, the hours we are contributing. So we had to immediately shift out of jewelry and that was frustrating to the customer and move into other categories that really aren't used to that much airtime. And as you think about our business, jewelry and watches, we report together, but if we reported them separately, you would see that -- and we provided this in the IR chart, watches, for example, in Q4, we had to over-rotate it, I think the airtime went up 40-plus percent.

你可以看到，在我們提供的圖表中，我們的收據，我們在第四季度的珠寶庫存收據下降了 50% 以上。庫存餘額下降了 50%，這是我們貢獻的時間。所以我們不得不立即轉移出珠寶，這讓客戶感到沮喪，並轉向其他真正不習慣那麼多通話時間的類別。當你想到我們的業務、珠寶和手錶時，我們一起報告，但如果我們單獨報告它們，你會看到——我們在 IR 圖表中提供了這一點，例如，手錶，在第四季度，我們必須超過-旋轉它，我認為通話時間增加了 40% 以上。

And as you over-rotate categories to make up for that jewelry airtime that you can't air because of the inventory receipts, you find that the DPM or the revenue productivity of that category plummet. So as you can see with watches, that went down in the 40%, 50%. So the example of the short-term nature of not being able to acquire jewelry receipts, which then causes us to over rotate in certain categories, watches being the example is the element of the decline that we talked about in Q4 that generated this, what would be the highest Q4 decline in our company history.

當您過度輪換類別以彌補由於庫存收據而無法播出的珠寶播出時間時，您會發現該類別的 DPM 或收入生產力直線下降。因此，正如您在手錶上看到的那樣，下降了 40%、50%。因此，無法獲得珠寶收據的短期性質的例子，然後導致我們在某些類別中過度輪換，手錶就是例子，是我們在第四季度談到的導致這種情況的下降因素，什麼將是我們公司歷史上第四季度的最大跌幅。

Another example, again, because we're not just about ShopHQ but our digital advertising business, right? That is an ecosystem that is made up of publishers and advertisers and we really weren't able to provide the liquidity and the working capital to pay those customers on time. And again, that pressures the net sales and when you think about the path back from that, I talked about in my prepared remarks about winning back share and doing the fundamentals of day-to-day operations.

再舉一個例子，因為我們不僅關注 ShopHQ，還關注我們的數字廣告業務，對吧？這是一個由出版商和廣告商組成的生態系統，我們確實無法提供流動性和營運資金來按時支付這些客戶。再一次，這給淨銷售額帶來了壓力，當你考慮從中回歸的道路時，我在準備好的發言中談到了贏回市場份額和做好日常運營的基礎工作。

But it's really, as fundamental as -- now that we have more liquidity, we're buying more jewelry and gold receipts. It's filling back up to the normal levels that it appears on our calendar. It is satisfying the customer demand that has been with us for 30 years. So the mechanics of how we move out of the situation are about as fundamental as the mechanics of how we faced the squeeze in the first place.

但它真的很重要——現在我們有更多的流動性，我們正在購買更多的珠寶和黃金收據。它正在恢復到我們日曆上顯示的正常水平。滿足了陪伴我們30年的客戶需求。因此，我們如何擺脫困境的機制與我們最初如何面對擠壓的機制一樣基本。

And then for my follow-up, I wanted to ask a question that I received from an investor. You announced earlier the hiring of the Chief Transformational Officer, what are his responsibilities? And what inspired you to add that role?

然後對於我的後續行動，我想問一個我從投資者那裡收到的問題。您早些時候宣布聘請首席轉型官，他的職責是什麼？是什麼激發了您加入這個角色？

Great question. So Huron is the group -- that is our Chief Transformational Officer. Again, you move back in time, you say at the end of Q3, when we talked about what we were doing and how we were monetizing our balance sheet with the sale leaseback and moving into a different transition from a lender perspective, when we went into the situation at the beginning of December, this new asset valuation really put us in a tough situation almost immediately.

很好的問題。所以休倫就是這個團隊——這是我們的首席轉型官。再一次，你回到過去，你說在第三季度末，當我們談論我們在做什麼以及我們如何通過銷售回租將資產負債表貨幣化並從貸方的角度進入不同的過渡時，當我們去進入 12 月初的情況，這種新的資產估值幾乎立即讓我們陷入困境。

And fortunately for us, our lenders were very accommodating and flexible and they worked with us to provide us the time to make those repayments. As part of that amendment that we had with our lenders, we brought in Huron, which, Huron was really back in -- we brought them back in, in November, was really part of the effort to improve communication, the effort to maximize cash opportunities to do planning, all the different elements of what you would think about in a lender transition scenario is what Huron specialty is. Smart folks to come in, in short time frames to really help a company and the lender move on.

對我們來說幸運的是，我們的貸方非常樂於助人和靈活，他們與我們合作，為我們提供時間來償還這些款項。作為我們與貸方達成的修正案的一部分，我們引入了休倫，休倫真的回來了——我們在 11 月讓他們回來了，這實際上是改善溝通的努力的一部分，努力最大化現金做計劃的機會，你在貸方過渡場景中會想到的所有不同元素都是 Huron 的專長。聰明的人進來，在短時間內真正幫助公司和貸方繼續前進。

And that is really what they've been doing since early November. Now their scope increased as a result of these final 6 party simultaneous transactions that you saw us easily pull off, just kidding, saw close this week. As part of that, they are helping us move through after structuring these simultaneous transactions, moving through the next 3 to 4 months as we work with a investment banker to run an organized RFP in order to replace our senior lenders in an organized period of time. Again, everybody here in this ecosystem of ours, whether it's employees, lenders, vendors, they're all working with us together in order to make sure that there is an organized transition. And we believe that transition will happen in -- it started here in Q1 and then we think it will close in Q2.

這確實是他們自 11 月初以來一直在做的事情。現在，由於最後 6 方同時交易的結果，他們的範圍擴大了，你看到我們輕鬆地完成了，開玩笑，本週結束了。作為其中的一部分，他們正在幫助我們在構建這些同時進行的交易後繼續前進，在接下來的 3 到 4 個月內，我們與一位投資銀行家合作運行有組織的 RFP，以便在有組織的時間段內更換我們的高級貸款人.同樣，在我們這個生態系統中的每個人，無論是員工、貸方、供應商，他們都在與我們一起工作，以確保有組織的過渡。我們相信過渡將發生在 - 它從第一季度開始，然後我們認為它將在第二季度結束。

Thank you. I'll get back in the queue for any additional questions.

謝謝。我會回到隊列中回答任何其他問題。

Our next question comes from the line of Mark Argento with Lake Street Capital Markets.

我們的下一個問題來自 Mark Argento 與 Lake Street Capital Markets 的合作。

Tim, just to follow up on your last comments there. Maybe just walk us through kind of your current liquidity position? How much runway do you guys have to execute kind of a turnaround here? And then just a follow-up on the $20 million in cost reductions, how -- it seems obviously pretty aggressive and understandably so but what did you do to get to $20 million out of the business?

蒂姆，只是想跟進你最後的評論。也許只是讓我們了解一下您目前的流動性狀況？你們有多少跑道在這裡執行某種轉變？然後只是對 2000 萬美元成本削減的後續行動，如何 - 這顯然非常激進並且可以理解，但你做了什麼才能從業務中獲得 2000 萬美元？

Sure thing, Mark. Let's talk about how we came out of Q4. So as we saw this pressure in Q4, we realized as we were finalizing our game plan and budget for 2023, that we had to reduce our cost structure. And as we've done in the past, think about how we do things differently. So the $20 million, I would say, a little bit over half of that was around labor, employee staffing and then the other were different structural changes, whether it is in the agreements in the IT area, different ways that we've been optimizing our infrastructure, not just around our staffing levels.

當然可以，馬克。讓我們談談我們如何走出第四季度。因此，當我們在第四季度看到這種壓力時，我們意識到在敲定 2023 年的遊戲計劃和預算時，我們必須降低成本結構。正如我們過去所做的那樣，想想我們如何以不同的方式做事。所以 2000 萬美元，我想說，其中一半多一點是關於勞動力、員工人員配置，然後是不同的結構變化，無論是在 IT 領域的協議中，還是我們一直在優化的不同方式我們的基礎設施，而不僅僅是我們的人員配置水平。

So it was an important step to make sure that as we navigated through, what we knew would be a recovery period of Q1 and then into Q2 based on what we saw in Q4 that we needed to make sure that we were cash flow durable and sturdy to move through that. So bring down the cost basis instead of hoping for a miraculous and immediate net productivity revenue increase, is what we did. So when you think about the liquidity moving into Q1 that we're in today and moving into Q2, there's really 2 parts. One is short term and one is long term.

因此，這是一個重要的步驟，以確保在我們前進的過程中，我們所知道的將是第一季度的恢復期，然後根據我們在第四季度看到的情況進入第二季度，我們需要確保現金流持久且穩健通過它。因此，降低成本基礎而不是希望奇蹟般地立即增加淨生產力收入，這就是我們所做的。因此，當您考慮流動性進入我們今天所處的第一季度和進入第二季度時，實際上有兩部分。一種是短期的，一種是長期的。

Short term, we're fortunate enough to look at this pay down of our debt. Let's go through that for a minute because it's important because that's the short-term liquidity that now our company has. It starts with the Pontus transaction, great group, that we did with the sale-leaseback transaction. An accretive transaction for shareholders and where the net proceeds of, call it, $42 million were used to immediately pay down the term debt with GreenLake, $28.5 million, as well as the pay down of our ABL senior lender in the $12 million range, as well as a discounted pay down of our 123 seller notes.

從短期來看，我們很幸運能夠看到我們債務的減少。讓我們仔細研究一下，因為這很重要，因為這是我們公司現在擁有的短期流動性。它始於 Pontus 交易，偉大的集團，我們在售後回租交易中所做的。對股東來說是一項增值交易，其中 4200 萬美元的淨收益被用於立即償還 GreenLake 的定期債務 2850 萬美元，以及我們 ABL 高級貸款人在 1200 萬美元範圍內的償還，作為以及我們的 123 賣家票據的折扣首付。

So when you think about the leverage of the cash that we used to pay down debt and reduced interest, we paid down $53 million of debt on $42 million of proceeds and reduced our interest expense in 2023 by $7 million. It really was around our opportunity to take some of the debt off the table at a discount and provide some noncash elements of those retirements, principally with the 123 seller note, the 10% equity in 123, the business in Germany.

因此，當你考慮我們用來償還債務和減少利息的現金的槓桿作用時，我們用 4200 萬美元的收益償還了 5300 萬美元的債務，並將 2023 年的利息支出減少了 700 萬美元。我們確實有機會以折扣價擺脫一些債務，並提供這些退休的一些非現金元素，主要是 123 賣方票據，即德國業務 123 的 10% 股權。

So as we moved out of the $53 million debt reduction and the decrease in the $20 million in operating expenses and the decrease in the $7 million of interest expense and as you look at 2023, and you realize that we are not going to again have the roughly $28 million of onetime integration expenses incurred in 2022 and '23, the path for liquidity and cash flow is a much different picture in 2023.

因此，當我們不再削減 5300 萬美元的債務、減少 2000 萬美元的運營費用和減少 700 萬美元的利息費用時，當你展望 2023 年時，你會意識到我們不會再有2022 年和 23 年發生的一次性整合費用約為 2800 萬美元，流動性和現金流的路徑在 2023 年大不相同。

And when you look at that scenario, then you look at the amendments in the forbearance agreement that we've established with our ABL lender today that has a 6-month term along with a 3-month extension at our election. Again, this entire transition is intended to replace our ABL lender in an organized way. You can look at it and say, well, how does that liquidity from a cash minimum perspective, how does that compare to what was in place in Q4. And the liquidity situation is much stronger in Q1 for 2 reasons. #1, in Q4, we paid back over $20 million in principal payments on the senior loan, whereas, we're not doing that anymore. Now we're back in compliance with the senior lender.

當你看到這種情況時，你就會看到我們今天與我們的 ABL 貸方建立的寬容協議中的修正案，該協議的期限為 6 個月，並在我們的選舉中延長了 3 個月。同樣，整個過渡旨在以有組織的方式取代我們的 ABL 貸方。你可以看看它，然後說，從現金最低的角度來看，流動性如何，與第四季度的流動性相比如何。由於兩個原因，第一季度的流動性狀況要強得多。 #1，在第四季度，我們償還了超過 2000 萬美元的高級貸款本金，而我們不再這樣做了。現在我們重新遵守高級貸款人的規定。

The other is that the cash minimum, absent the Pontus transaction, the proceeds from that is half of what it was in Q4. And so that additional liquidity is also important for us as we move forward. So it's -- the cost structure is low that the below-the-line costs are significantly lower and the liquidity in partnership with our lender is actually stronger now that we're moving into Q1. So those are the elements of why short term, we feel better about the balance sheet to move through this recovery in Q1, at the beginning of Q2.

另一個是現金最低，沒有 Pontus 交易，從中獲得的收益是第四季度的一半。因此，隨著我們前進，額外的流動性對我們也很重要。所以它 - 成本結構低，線下成本顯著降低，並且與我們的貸方合作的流動性實際上更強，因為我們正在進入第一季度。因此，這些是為什麼短期內，我們對資產負債表在第二季度初的第一季度經歷復甦感覺更好的因素。

And long term, obviously, we feel very strongly that the assets we have and the business and the durability of what we have is going to be a very quick -- I won't say very quick, I would say a reasonable solid transition in Q2 to a new ABL lender.

顯然，從長遠來看，我們非常強烈地認為，我們擁有的資產、業務以及我們所擁有的東西的持久性將非常快——我不會說很快，我會說一個合理的穩固過渡Q2 給新的 ABL 貸方。

Thanks for that color, Tim. And just lastly, any color on the performance of the business so far this quarter, given the macro environment like was referenced previous, are you seeing kind of a return to some normalcy as you're able to add some inventory or maybe just talk a little bit about what you're seeing now versus 3, 4 months ago?

謝謝你的顏色，蒂姆。最後，考慮到之前提到的宏觀環境，本季度迄今為止業務表現的任何顏色，您是否看到某種程度的回歸正常，因為您能夠增加一些庫存或者只是談論關於您現在看到的與 3、4 個月前相比的一些情況？

Sure, Mark. When we started this journey back in 2019, we were coming off a very tough year when I came back and started as CEO. And from that experience and others, we knew that it isn't an easy fix to take a quarter after a downturn and then will immediately ramp back up. That's why we put the guidance out we did for Q1 where you have a roughly 30% decline in net sales in Q4 and we expect the same in Q1 and that's how we're preparing for it.

當然，馬克。當我們在 2019 年開始這段旅程時，當我回來並開始擔任首席執行官時，我們度過了非常艱難的一年。從那次經歷和其他經歷中，我們知道在經濟低迷後度過一個季度然後立即回升並非易事。這就是為什麼我們發布了我們為第一季度所做的指導，第四季度的淨銷售額下降了大約 30%，我們預計第一季度也會出現同樣的情況，這就是我們為此做準備的方式。

The elements of how you turn around net sales, and in our case, it is not macro, it's really about the mechanics of putting the jewelry back on the calendar, not over-rotating watches. It's about advertising the fundamentals of paying the advertisers and suppliers. Those elements are the backbone of how we improve the business. It is not a -- it's not -- it's not easy, it's not overnight but it's not complicated, right? So I would say, based on our experience of turning a company like ShopHQ because that's just one of our brands, moving that back in the right direction, we know it takes 3 to 4 months after what we experienced in Q4. And having done it before already, we understand the basic building blocks of what needs to occur and we feel good about that.

你如何扭轉淨銷售額的要素，在我們的例子中，它不是宏觀的，它實際上是關於將珠寶放回日曆上的機制，而不是過度旋轉手錶。這是關於廣告支付廣告商和供應商的基本原則。這些要素是我們改進業務的支柱。這不是——不是——這並不容易，不是一蹴而就，但也不復雜，對吧？所以我想說，根據我們轉變像 ShopHQ 這樣的公司的經驗，因為這只是我們的品牌之一，將其推回正確的方向，我們知道在第四季度的經歷之後需要 3 到 4 個月。並且之前已經做過，我們了解需要發生什麼的基本構建塊，我們對此感覺很好。

Our next question comes from the line of Alex Fuhrman with Craig-Hallum Capital Group.

我們的下一個問題來自 Alex Fuhrman 與 Craig-Hallum Capital Group 的對話。

As you start to add inventory back, I'm curious where you anticipate that demand has held up the best. It sounds like you mentioned that there's a fairly constant demand for gold jewelry. What are the other categories of yours that are the most sticky that you can lean into as you start to build back your inventory?

當您開始增加庫存時，我很好奇您預計哪裡的需求保持最好。聽起來你提到對黃金首飾的需求相當穩定。當你開始重建你的庫存時，你可以依靠的最粘性的其他類別是什麼？

Alex, thanks for the question. Well, absolutely, the first step that we're doing right now is around jewelry. And in particular, it's around 14K gold. In particular, it's around Stefano, our largest and most popular gold brand. If you look at -- if you were watching over Q4, you would see that, that was greatly reduced. So just reestablishing those mechanics of having the lead time for Stefano to increase is the Italian production of the gold that we offer is, first and foremost, the most important part of what we're doing.

亞歷克斯，謝謝你的提問。嗯，當然，我們現在正在做的第一步是圍繞珠寶。特別是，它大約是 14K 金。特別是，它圍繞著我們最大和最受歡迎的黃金品牌 Stefano。如果你看 - 如果你正在觀看第四季度，你會發現它大大減少了。因此，只要重新建立讓 Stefano 增加交貨時間的機制，我們提供的意大利黃金生產首先是我們正在做的最重要的部分。

Behind that, you have Beauty. Beauty is our second category, again, very similar to jewelry in that the lead time for us to acquire Beauty inventory receipts and the payment of those is almost immediate. There -- it's not a long lead time. So they have a unique characteristic of being impacted when there's a liquidity situation and they just happened to be the 2 most important categories for us. So as we move through back into Q1 and Q2, it's simply about reinvesting with those vendors simply about engaging the customers and it's that mechanical.

在那之後，你有美麗。美容是我們的第二個類別，再次與珠寶非常相似，因為我們獲得美容庫存收據的準備時間幾乎是即時的。在那裡 - 準備時間不長。因此，當存在流動性情況時，它們具有受到影響的獨特特徵，而它們恰好是我們最重要的兩個類別。因此，當我們回到第一季度和第二季度時，這只是與這些供應商進行再投資，只是為了吸引客戶，這就是機械。

Now as you think about our reason for being, in particular, since we're talking about ShopHQ, its merchandising strategy is around these wearable categories. But first and foremost, it's jewelry and beauty. And quite frankly, we never like to waste a challenge. So we are actually accelerating our migration into jewelry and beauty at a quicker rate in Q1 and Q2 in order to stabilize and then continue to a growth pattern in the customer file in total for ShopHQ.

現在，當你想到我們存在的原因時，特別是因為我們正在談論 ShopHQ，它的營銷策略圍繞這些可穿戴類別。但最重要的是，它是珠寶和美容。坦率地說，我們從不喜歡浪費挑戰。因此，我們實際上在第一季度和第二季度以更快的速度加速向珠寶和美容產品的遷移，以穩定並繼續在 ShopHQ 的客戶檔案中繼續增長。

So you'll see from us in Q1 and Q2 an accelerated pace on that. We were taking a much more moderated pace. But now given this opportunity, as we like to say, a challenge, we're moving at a quicker pace.

所以你會在第一季度和第二季度看到我們在這方面的步伐加快。我們的步伐要緩和得多。但現在有了這個機會，正如我們喜歡說的那樣，這是一個挑戰，我們正在以更快的速度前進。

Okay. That's really helpful. And then if I could ask on the digital advertising side of the business, what is the path to winning back the business you lost there? Is it, like it is on the retail side of the business, where it's just as simple, as having a little bit more working capital will enable you to go after business that you couldn't in Q4 and Q1? Can you talk a little bit about that?

好的。這真的很有幫助。然後，如果我可以問一下業務的數字廣告方面，贏回您在那裡失去的業務的途徑是什麼？是不是就像在業務的零售方面一樣簡單，因為擁有更多的營運資金將使您能夠從事在第四季度和第一季度無法開展的業務？你能談談嗎？

Sure. Taking a step back, right, we've talked about the different examples. I think that's what your question is about, the different examples of the liquidity challenge and how it impacted our business much more so than is there a macro environment that's touching on advertising or a macro environment that's touching on ShopHQ. I mean certainly, you still have the macro environment of 123tv in Germany with the conflict in the Ukraine. But here in the U.S., it really is about us putting back in place the game plan that we had and had and delivered on over these 8 previous quarters.

當然。退後一步，對，我們已經討論了不同的例子。我認為這就是你的問題，流動性挑戰的不同例子以及它對我們業務的影響遠大於涉及廣告的宏觀環境或涉及 ShopHQ 的宏觀環境。我的意思是當然，你仍然有德國 123tv 的宏觀環境和烏克蘭的衝突。但在美國這裡，這真的是關於我們將我們在前 8 個季度中擁有和交付的遊戲計劃放回原位。

So as it relates to the -- what we call iMDS, or really our digital advertising arm of ShopHQ, it is as simple as just getting the working capital back in line and without aged payables in terms of engaging the suppliers, those mechanics are very easily fixed and we know all the players and have strong relationships with them. And quite frankly, they were also very flexible in this. They understood and -- the value that we provide on our advertising platform with now as we infuse our first-party data in there from the different businesses.

因此，它與我們所說的 iMDS，或者實際上是我們 ShopHQ 的數字廣告部門有關，就像讓營運資金恢復正常一樣簡單，並且在與供應商合作方面沒有老化的應付賬款，這些機制非常很容易修復，我們了解所有玩家並與他們建立了牢固的關係。坦率地說，他們在這方面也非常靈活。他們理解並且——我們現在在我們的廣告平台上提供的價值，因為我們將來自不同企業的第一方數據注入其中。

It's a unique offering, right? We have unique supply out there in a marketplace that is crowded with advertising units that had been passed along to 3x to 4x to 5x before it gets to the customer from where it started at the advertiser. We believe that the platform that we have is because of this unique nature of what our first-party customer data is bringing to the table, is a sought-after product. And that's why these advertisers and suppliers are quickly moving back up to speed with us as our liquidity increases.

這是一個獨特的產品，對吧？我們在一個充斥著廣告單位的市場上擁有獨特的供應，這些廣告單位在從廣告商開始到達客戶之前已經傳遞了 3 倍到 4 倍到 5 倍。我們相信，由於我們的第一方客戶數據帶來的獨特性，我們擁有的平台是一種搶手的產品。這就是為什麼隨著我們流動性的增加，這些廣告商和供應商會迅速跟上我們的步伐。

Okay. That's really helpful, Tim.

好的。這真的很有幫助，蒂姆。

Our next question comes from the line of Eric Wold with B. Riley Securities.

我們的下一個問題來自 Eric Wold 與 B. Riley Securities 的對話。

I want to follow up on inventory. A lot of the earlier questions kind of were around "building back inventory." I guess, you're still sitting already at the end of the year, you're still sitting on $112 million of inventory. Can you talk about what you see that inventory, I guess the currentness, if that's a word, of that inventory? I know that during the early supply chain issues, you were able to lean on kind of other inventory categories and areas to kind of stay in front of consumers, stay engaged them and keep sales momentum going, even though you couldn't get some of the stuff you're hoping to kind of get delivered in on time.

我想跟進庫存。許多早期的問題都圍繞著“重建庫存”。我想，到年底你仍然坐在那裡，你仍然坐擁 1.12 億美元的庫存。你能談談你看到的那個庫存嗎？我知道在早期的供應鏈問題中，你可以依靠其他庫存類別和領域來保持在消費者面前，與他們保持互動並保持銷售勢頭，即使你無法獲得一些您希望按時交付的東西。

What's holding you back from maybe doing something similar in Q4, Q1? I guess back rounding that to the first part of the question, maybe talk about that $100-plus million of inventory and the value of that and how -- what you -- can you still increase it this year? Or do you have to really build it up from that level into '23, long question?

是什麼阻礙了您在第 4 季度、第 1 季度做類似的事情？我想回到問題的第一部分，也許談談 100 多萬美元的庫存及其價值，以及如何 - 你 - 你今年還能增加它嗎？還是您真的必須從那個級別將其構建到 23 年，長問題？

That was a long question, Eric and I appreciate it and it's a great question. Let me try to peel it back in pieces. Starting with inventory and it really is about the composition. Start with where we were last year, where we are today. And if you look at over the last couple of years, remember, our total inventory starts with really 3 components. You have ShopHQ. You now have our new business, Christopher & Banks, and you have 123tv in there as well.

這是一個很長的問題，埃里克和我都很感激，這是一個很好的問題。讓我試著把它剝成碎片。從庫存開始，它真的是關於組成。從我們去年的位置開始，我們今天的位置。如果你回顧過去幾年，請記住，我們的總庫存實際上是從 3 個組件開始的。你有 ShopHQ。您現在擁有我們的新業務 Christopher & Banks，並且您也擁有 123tv。

The Christopher & Banks and 123tv are in the $10 million to $12 million range. And so when you look at year-over-year growth or look at year-over-year decline, those pieces are relevant. But as we look at ShopHQ, it really is -- and the major flagship revenue of our business is around ShopHQ. So let's just focus on that and put Christopher & Banks and 123tv aside, even though they create anomalies when you look at year-over-year comparisons. At ShopHQ, the inventory that we have today, it's about composition. If you look at the IR slide that we presented, you can see that the inventory in jewelry, for example, is at 50% of what it was in -- at the beginning or in the middle of Q4. And rebuilding that and bringing down home and bringing down health, all happens in a very organized way in our business and it works like this.

Christopher & Banks 和 123tv 的收入在 1000 萬到 1200 萬美元之間。因此，當您查看同比增長或同比下降時，這些部分是相關的。但當我們看看 ShopHQ 時，它確實是——我們業務的主要旗艦收入是圍繞 ShopHQ 的。因此，讓我們只關注這一點，將 Christopher & Banks 和 123tv 放在一邊，即使當您查看同比比較時它們會產生異常情況。在 ShopHQ，我們今天擁有的庫存與構成有關。如果你看一下我們展示的 IR 幻燈片，你會發現珠寶庫存是第四季度初或中期的 50%。重建它，破壞家園，破壞健康，這一切都在我們的業務中以非常有組織的方式發生，並且它是這樣運作的。

We have this grouping of by category inventory and we have that inventory and then we have future receipts, obviously, with open-to-buy. As we look at the recovery, as we could call it, into Q1 and Q2, I would say 80% of our new receipts are focused purely on jewelry and beauty. And what you were doing as a consequence of that and with 0 receipts or very low receipts in those other categories, is selling down the existing inventory we have in those categories. Now is it the maximum DPM on some of these items is not ideal but from a balance perspective, we feel good about the margin of 42%, 43%, 44% because of the increased airtime back into jewelry and beauty.

我們有這種按類別庫存的分組，我們有庫存，然後我們有未來的收據，顯然，有開放購買。當我們回顧第一季度和第二季度的複蘇時，我想說我們 80% 的新收入完全集中在珠寶和美容產品上。因此，在其他類別的收據為 0 或非常低的情況下，您所做的是出售我們在這些類別中的現有庫存。現在，其中一些項目的最大 DPM 並不理想，但從平衡的角度來看，我們對 42%、43%、44% 的利潤率感到滿意，因為返回珠寶和美容的通話時間增加了。

We have a demonstrated history here and we call it the [sprinkle] strategy, of moving our inventory regardless of age at a very positive margin, 25%, 30-plus percent each and every quarter. So that's the unique ability of our programming strategy and really this business is, to be able to shift your receipts on a composition level to improve a particular category and reduce future receipts, sell what you have on existing which then creates the cash flow for the working capital.

我們在這裡有一個證明的歷史，我們稱之為 [spring] 戰略，無論年齡如何，我們的庫存都以非常積極的利潤率轉移，每個季度 25%、30% 以上。因此，這就是我們的編程策略的獨特能力，實際上，這項業務能夠在組合層面上轉移您的收入，以改善特定類別並減少未來的收入，出售您現有的東西，然後為營運資金。

So I think that to your question about inventory, I would say composition-wise, you'll see more from jewelry and beauty, and you'll see the overall ShopHQ inventory level remain stable. It's just the composition will be shifting. And I think that you'll see the Christopher & Banks come down some in 2023. And I think that you will see the 123tv inventory staying relatively the same. Does that address some of those questions?

所以我認為對於你關於庫存的問題，我會說在構成方面，你會從珠寶和美容中看到更多，你會看到整體 ShopHQ 庫存水平保持穩定。只是成分會發生變化。而且我認為你會看到 Christopher & Banks 在 2023 年有所下降。而且我認為你會看到 123tv 庫存保持相對不變。這是否解決了其中的一些問題？

It does. It does. I appreciate it. And then just a follow-up on the iMDS media business. Obviously, you talked there about the liquidity being an issue there as well in terms of facility and the payments back and forth. If that was not an issue, how do you think that business would have performed in Q4 and Q1? What are you seeing underlying macro-wise, is that still a growth business in '23 barring the liquidity headwind?

確實如此。確實如此。我很感激。然後只是對 iMDS 媒體業務的跟進。顯然，你在那裡談到流動性也是一個問題，在設施和來回付款方面也是如此。如果這不是問題，您認為該業務在第四季度和第一季度的表現如何？你從宏觀角度看到了什麼，除非流動性逆風，否則這在 23 年仍然是一項增長業務嗎？

Yes. As you -- great question. When you think about what I was monologuing about, which is our reason for being, it really is around increasing the share of our digital products, right? We believe the biggest growth area in our company in terms of percent sales growth year-over-year will be in this digital advertising, the SaaS products like the auction widget that continues to be developed by 123.

是的。和你一樣——很好的問題。當你想到我在獨白的時候，這就是我們存在的原因，它真的是圍繞增加我們數字產品的份額，對吧？我們相信，就銷售額同比增長百分比而言，我們公司最大的增長領域將是數字廣告，即 123 繼續開發的拍賣小部件等 SaaS 產品。

We recently launched it on shophq.com and that auction widget is being advertised in placement by iMDS, our advertising arm as well. So as you asked about the macro environment, the macro environment for digital advertising, particularly with the assets that we have, is strong. Now the year-over-year decline, if you look at our IR presentation, you can see a rather acute decline in Q4 and that was all driven by these liquidity challenges we talked about. But the fundamentals and when I say fundamentals, the win percentage of our spots or advertising opportunities is strong and has been strong.

我們最近在 shophq.com 上推出了它，該拍賣小部件也由我們的廣告部門 iMDS 投放廣告。所以當你問到宏觀環境時，數字廣告的宏觀環境，特別是我們擁有的資產，是強大的。現在同比下降，如果你看一下我們的 IR 演示文稿，你會發現第四季度出現了相當劇烈的下降，而這都是由我們談到的這些流動性挑戰驅動的。但基本面，當我說基本面時，我們的廣告位或廣告機會的獲勝百分比很強，而且一直很強。

It dipped in Q4 and it's moving back in the right direction as we now bring back our advertisers, as we now bring back our syndicated supply of content. So it's not a macro environment for us on iMDS, it really is maximizing the original integration opportunity we had with digital advertising. And that is bringing the promotional power of ShopHQ, bringing the first-party data into that ecosystem. Remember, if you think about digital advertising on the web and if you think about the opportunity of digital advertising in the OTT space, people are talking a lot about the OTT space as the [mecca].

它在第四季度有所下降，並且正朝著正確的方向發展，因為我們現在帶回了我們的廣告商，因為我們現在帶回了我們的內容聯合供應。所以它不是我們在 iMDS 上的宏觀環境，它確實是在最大化我們與數字廣告的原始整合機會。這就是 ShopHQ 的促銷力量，將第一方數據帶入該生態系統。請記住，如果您考慮網絡上的數字廣告，如果您考慮 OTT 空間中數字廣告的機會，人們會經常談論 OTT 空間作為 [麥加]。

But we know, because we have a business in the OTT space that 60% to 70% of that ad inventory goes unmonetized still today. So the maximum opportunity for us is really around taking consumer engagement apps like our 123 auction app and our first-party data and making those elements more important for our advertising arm to go out and sell digital advertising on the web today. It's a very big opportunity for us and one that I can't talk enough about.

但我們知道，因為我們在 OTT 領域開展業務，所以 60% 到 70% 的廣告庫存至今仍未貨幣化。因此，對我們來說，最大的機會實際上是採用消費者參與應用程序，例如我們的 123 拍賣應用程序和我們的第一方數據，並使這些元素對於我們的廣告部門今天走出去並在網絡上銷售數字廣告更加重要。這對我們來說是一個非常大的機會，也是一個我無法談論的機會。

Got it. And then just final question for me, if I may. I'm not sure if it's something you can address here or not. But I guess given the sale leaseback, the pay down of all the debt and kind of the ongoing discussions with your lead lender, should all of that be able to remove the growing concern that's within your financial or is that something that's still may not be addressed?

知道了。然後是最後一個問題，如果可以的話。我不確定您是否可以在這裡解決這個問題。但我想考慮到售後回租、所有債務的償還以及與你的主要貸款人正在進行的討論，所有這些是否能夠消除你財務中日益增長的擔憂，或者是否仍然存在一些可能無法解決的問題處理？

Well, when you let it -- I'm not really sure how to answer that question. But I could start with -- just look at the facts, right? Let's start with the Q4 performance and the liquidity challenge that we just traversed and with the completion of these what we call the debt reduction event, right?

好吧，當你讓它 - 我真的不知道如何回答這個問題。但我可以開始——看看事實，對吧？讓我們從我們剛剛經歷的第四季度業績和流動性挑戰開始，以及我們稱之為債務削減事件的完成，對吧？

You can look at the history of the amendments that we've done. You can look at our cash flow. You can look at the elements of our guidance where we talked about the net sales, again being pressured but also the fact that we've taken our cost structure down. All of those elements work in unison when a company and its orders are looking at a growing concern and whether that's an issue or not. I think that if you were looking at all the facts, I would say that you would follow the path right along the path that I'm describing, which is you'll begin to see the efforts. The financial impact of our reengagement efforts around net sales growth, around consumer engagement happening in the back half of the year.

您可以查看我們所做的修正案的歷史記錄。你可以看看我們的現金流。你可以看看我們談到淨銷售額的指導要素，再次受到壓力，但我們已經降低了成本結構。當一家公司及其訂單正在關注日益增長的問題以及這是否是一個問題時，所有這些要素都會協同工作。我認為，如果您查看所有事實，我會說您會沿著我所描述的路徑走下去，您將開始看到這些努力。我們圍繞淨銷售額增長、圍繞今年下半年發生的消費者參與度的重新參與努力的財務影響。

So we're in Q1 now. So you could do the math on Q1 and Q2 but we think that we'll be right back on track and you'll see that in our financials in the back half of the year.

所以我們現在在第一季度。所以你可以對第一季度和第二季度進行數學計算，但我們認為我們會回到正軌，你會在今年下半年的財務報告中看到這一點。

Our next question comes from the line of Thomas Forte with D.A. Davidson.

我們的下一個問題來自 Thomas Forte 和 D.A.戴維森。

Great. Two quick follow-ups. So Tim, can you first start with the high-level comments on, this is where you are today from a debt standpoint and then this is your plan at a high level for reducing debt on a go-forward basis?

偉大的。兩次快速跟進。那麼，蒂姆，你能否首先從高層評論開始，從債務的角度來看，這就是你今天所處的位置，然後這是你在前進的基礎上減少債務的高層計劃？

Sure thing, Tom. As we talked about -- and you were there at our Capital Markets Day in February 2022, we talked about 3 priorities, right? And I went through this in my prepared remarks, one of them being on strengthening the balance sheet. We knew as we put together the pieces in 2021 to be able to execute our growth plan and our growth strategy that we talked about today that we were a little bit heavy in debt and we needed to move that down through 2022.

當然可以，湯姆。正如我們所說的那樣——你在 2022 年 2 月的資本市場日上，我們談到了 3 個優先事項，對嗎？我在準備好的發言中經歷了這一點，其中之一是加強資產負債表。我們知道，當我們在 2021 年整合各個部分以執行我們今天談到的增長計劃和增長戰略時，我們的債務有點沉重，我們需要將其降低到 2022 年。

We talked about targets in the $25 million to $30 million range on a methodical basis and taking that down over time. As you can see, the complexity of the delay in Pontus into where it ended today, it ended up fortunately for us and shareholders, reducing our debt by $53 million rather than the $20 million to $25 million. So if you think about Q1 last year, we were at $207 million in debt. And if you think about where we are today in that $123 million range, it's a significant decline because our debt repayment efforts didn't begin and end with this debt reduction event. As you know, that has been happening each quarter as we move through 2022.

我們有條不紊地討論了 2500 萬至 3000 萬美元範圍內的目標，並隨著時間的推移將其降低。正如你所看到的，Pontus 延遲到今天結束的複雜性，對我們和股東來說幸運的是，我們的債務減少了 5300 萬美元，而不是 2000 萬至 2500 萬美元。所以如果你想想去年第一季度，我們的債務是 2.07 億美元。如果你想想我們今天在 1.23 億美元的範圍內所處的位置，這是一個顯著的下降，因為我們的債務償還努力並沒有隨著這次債務削減事件開始和結束。如您所知，隨著我們進入 2022 年，每個季度都會發生這種情況。

So if you start with where we are today in this $123 million range, you're looking at our nonamortized bonds that are out there and you're looking at our ABL and some smaller seller notes with Synacor. We -- those are -- all have a very organized, methodical way of going down over time without any kind of event, just out of the working cash flow of the business. With Synacor it's a quarterly payment, with the GCP, these are -- whether it's stock or cash, whatever it happens to be. So we feel good about moving it down again throughout 2023 in an organized way, not in an event way like we did now.

因此，如果您從我們今天在這個 1.23 億美元範圍內的位置開始，您正在查看我們的非攤銷債券，您正在查看我們的 ABL 和 Synacor 的一些較小的賣方票據。我們——那些人——都有一種非常有組織、有條不紊的方式，隨著時間的推移，沒有任何事件，只是從企業的營運現金流中走出來。對於 Synacor，它是按季度支付，對於 GCP，這些都是——無論是股票還是現金，無論它是什麼。因此，我們很高興以有組織的方式在整個 2023 年再次將其下調，而不是像我們現在那樣以事件的方式。

This (inaudible) that we pulled out of Q4 with this debt structure where it is, it's kind of a onetime restructuring that we feel good about and we will move that down over time in a non-eventful way through 2023.

這個（聽不清）我們以這種債務結構退出了第四季度，這是一種我們感覺良好的一次性重組，我們將隨著時間的推移以一種平穩的方式將其降低到 2023 年。

All right. And then last question for me. You had previously given a handful of levers you could pull on a as-needed basis to do additional deleverage. You've told some of them, like the sale leaseback -- can you give your updated thoughts on levers you can pull to delever? It was very helpful when you did in the past, kind of appreciate an update.

好的。然後是我的最後一個問題。您之前已經提供了一些槓桿，您可以根據需要使用這些槓桿來進行額外的去槓桿化。你已經告訴他們中的一些人，比如售後回租——你能給出你對可以拉動去槓桿化的槓桿的最新想法嗎？當您過去這樣做時，這非常有幫助，感謝您的更新。

Sure. As you think about the market cap of our business and if you think back at Q2 and Q3 and why we were moving into the sale leaseback to monetize 3 out of our 4 buildings, the completion of this transaction did not include the fourth building. So our fourth building is obviously an asset we have in the business that is also available down the road if we choose to create a debt reduction event. When you also think about the business and the balance sheet that we have, we really are as from an asset-based lending perspective around -- it's really focused on the physical assets of our business. They aren't really tied and we don't feel like in today's world of our lending today is focused on IP.

當然。當你考慮我們業務的市值時，如果你回想一下第二季度和第三季度，以及為什麼我們要進行售後回租以將我們 4 座建築物中的 3 座貨幣化，那麼本次交易的完成不包括第四座建築物。因此，我們的第四座建築顯然是我們在業務中擁有的資產，如果我們選擇創建債務減免活動，也可以在未來使用。當您還考慮我們擁有的業務和資產負債表時，我們確實是從基於資產的貸款角度來看——它確實專注於我們業務的有形資產。它們並沒有真正聯繫在一起，我們不覺得在當今世界我們的貸款重點是知識產權。

We know that we have IP that is down the road another asset, just like the buildings that we can lever in the event that we wanted to take another debt reduction event in course. Not something that we're planning on but it is something as we move through with our investment banker, which we'll be announcing here in the next couple of days to replace our existing lenders. It will be about not only the physical assets that are traditional asset-based loan but also the IP. We've got some strong IP here and that is something that we'll look out.

我們知道我們擁有的 IP 是另一項資產，就像我們可以在我們想要進行另一場債務減免活動時利用的建築物一樣。這不是我們正在計劃的事情，但這是我們與投資銀行家一起進行的事情，我們將在接下來的幾天內在這裡宣布，以取代我們現有的貸方。它不僅涉及傳統的基於資產的貸款的實物資產，還涉及知識產權。我們在這裡有一些強大的知識產權，這是我們會注意的。

The most easy and leverageable asset that you've heard me talk about and that we've demonstrated over time we can do in a period of 6 months, is inventory. As I talked about before, we have a 7-year history of moving aged inventory, by category inventory, lumps, bumps whatever it happens to be, the way we do it with, as I would call it, our [sprinkle] strategy, at margins that are acceptable to us as a balanced perspective to still achieve that 42%, 43%, 44% is something that is unique about even us -- I think in the TV retailing world, we don't buy in a way that forces us to purge at a significant lost inventory. So as you watch us this year, the leverageable event you're going to see us do, is to bring down, as we change the composition as well but to bring down that inventory on a methodical basis that generates cash flow.

您聽過我談論的最簡單、最可利用的資產是庫存，我們已經證明我們可以在 6 個月內完成。正如我之前談到的，我們有 7 年的移動陳舊庫存的歷史，按類別庫存，塊狀物，無論碰巧是什麼，我們用我稱之為我們的 [spring] 策略的方式，作為一個平衡的觀點，我們可以接受的利潤率仍然達到 42%、43%、44%，這對我們來說也是獨一無二的——我認為在電視零售世界，我們不會以這樣的方式購買迫使我們清除大量丟失的庫存。因此，當你今年觀看我們時，你將看到我們所做的可利用事件是降低，因為我們也改變了構成，但有條不紊地降低庫存，從而產生現金流。

As you look at the report card for 2022, you can see the working capital that we've been able to manage or the cash that we've been able to generate from our working capital management continues to be a significant lever that we always have demonstrated we can do. So I would say, if you wanted to think about 2023, you will see as a normal course, us managing our inventory as a lever down. And then you'll see as an opportunity, as we find our -- and partner with our new ABL lender to look at the IP opportunities.

當您查看 2022 年的成績單時，您會看到我們能夠管理的營運資金或我們能夠從營運資金管理中產生的現金仍然是我們一直擁有的重要槓桿證明了我們可以做到。所以我想說，如果你想考慮 2023 年，你會看到一個正常的過程，我們管理我們的庫存作為一個槓桿。然後你會看到一個機會，因為我們找到了我們的 - 並與我們新的 ABL 貸方合作以尋找知識產權機會。

The bonds are certainly something out there that are interesting, who couldn't comment on these bonds, so I'm going to comment on these bonds. They are trading at a significant discount. It is an anomaly out there that we are looking at, obviously, but that's all, really I could say about them is that there is an opportunity with bonds but it's not something that we think is the best use of our capital today. It really is about reestablishing the growth in jewelry and beauty. It's really about reestablishing the faith of delivering our consensus after the Q4 situation. Those are our top priorities as you look out over the next 60 to 90 days.

這些債券肯定是一些有趣的東西，誰不能對這些債券發表評論，所以我要對這些債券發表評論。他們以大幅折扣交易。顯然，這是我們正在關注的一個異常現象，但僅此而已，我真的可以說，債券是有機會的，但我們認為這不是我們今天資本的最佳用途。這實際上是關於重建珠寶和美容的增長。這實際上是關於在第四季度局勢之後重新建立達成共識的信念。在接下來的 60 到 90 天內，這些是我們的首要任務。

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our time allowed for questions. I'll turn the floor back to Mr. Peterman for any final comments.

謝謝。女士們，先生們，我們的提問時間到此結束。我會把發言權轉回給彼得曼先生，讓他發表最後的評論。

Thank you. Listen, as always, we appreciate everybody's time and faith and we look forward to talking to you again in a short period of time about our business and what we're doing. And you can talk about what we've done and how we're doing it. Thank you.

謝謝。聽著，一如既往，我們感謝大家的時間和信任，我們期待在短時間內再次與您討論我們的業務和我們正在做的事情。你可以談談我們做了什麼以及我們是如何做的。謝謝。

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

謝謝。今天的電話會議到此結束。此時您可以斷開線路。感謝您的參與。