Playboy Inc (PLBY) 2022 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Greetings, and welcome to PLBY Group's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2022 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Ashley DeSimone with ICR. Thank you. You may begin.

您好，歡迎來到 PLBY Group 的第四季度和 2022 年全年收益電話會議和網絡直播。 （操作員說明）提醒一下，正在錄製此會議。現在我很高興向您介紹主持人 Ashley DeSimone 和 ICR。謝謝。你可以開始了。

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to PLBY Group's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2022 Earnings Conference Call. I'm Ashley DeSimone from ICR. Hosting today's call are Ben Kohn, Chief Executive Officer; and Lance Barton, Chief Financial Officer. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call up for questions when we will also be joined by Ashley Kechter, President of Global Consumer Products.

大家下午好，歡迎來到 PLBY Group 的第四季度和 2022 年全年收益電話會議。我是來自 ICR 的 Ashley DeSimone。主持今天電話會議的是首席執行官 Ben Kohn；和首席財務官 Lance Barton。在我們準備好的發言之後，我們將公開提問，屆時全球消費品總裁 Ashley Kechter 也將加入。

The information discussed today is qualified in its entirety by the Form 8-K that has been filed today by PLBY Group, which may be accessed on the SEC's website and PLBY Group's website. Today's call is also being webcast, and a replay will be posted to PLBY's Investor Relations site. Please note that statements made during this call, including financial projections or other statements that are not historical in nature may constitute forward-looking statements. Such statements are made on the basis of PLBY's views and assumptions regarding future events and business performance at the time they are made, and we do not undertake any obligation to update these statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks, which could cause PLBY's actual results to differ from its historical results and forecast, including those risks set forth in PLBY's filings with the SEC, and you should refer to and carefully consider those for more information. This cautionary statement applies to all forward-looking statements made during this call do not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements.

今天討論的信息完全符合 PLBY 集團今天提交的 8-K 表格，該表格可在 SEC 網站和 PLBY 集團網站上訪問。今天的電話會議也進行了網絡直播，重播將發佈到 PLBY 的投資者關係網站。請注意，本次電話會議期間作出的陳述，包括財務預測或其他非歷史性陳述，可能構成前瞻性陳述。此類聲明是根據 PLBY 在作出聲明時對未來事件和業務績效的看法和假設做出的，我們不承擔更新這些聲明的任何義務。前瞻性陳述存在風險，可能導致 PLBY 的實際結果與其歷史結果和預測不同，包括 PLBY 向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件中規定的風險，您應該參考並仔細考慮這些風險以獲取更多信息。本警示聲明適用於本次電話會議期間所做的所有前瞻性陳述，請勿過分依賴任何前瞻性陳述。

During this call, PLBY will be referring to non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP measures are not prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. A reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is available in the earnings release, PLBY filed with its Form 8-K today. I will open the call to Ben Kohn. Ben, please go ahead.

在這次電話會議中，PLBY 將參考非 GAAP 財務措施。這些非 GAAP 措施不是根據公認的會計原則編制的。 PLBY 今天提交的 8-K 表格的收益發布中提供了非 GAAP 財務指標與最直接可比的 GAAP 指標的對賬。我將打開給 Ben Kohn 的電話。本，請繼續。

Thank you, Ashley, and good afternoon, everyone. So much has changed with the company since we last spoke in November that we want to level set where we were, where we are and where we are going. We are one of the most valuable brands in the world, Playboy. This is a brand that drives billions of dollars in consumer spend and has almost 100% global awareness. Our business is now on solid financial footing post our $70 million debt pay down. We also have additional levers we can still pull internally to build additional cash reserves or pay down more debt should we choose to, without raising more equity at today's prices.

謝謝阿什莉，大家下午好。自從我們去年 11 月上次談話以來，公司發生了很大變化，我們希望調整我們過去的位置、現在的位置和前進的方向。我們是世界上最有價值的品牌之一，花花公子。這個品牌推動了數十億美元的消費者支出，並擁有幾乎 100% 的全球知名度。在我們償還了 7000 萬美元的債務後，我們的業務現在處於穩固的財務基礎上。我們還有額外的槓桿，我們仍然可以在內部使用以建立額外的現金儲備或償還更多的債務（如果我們願意的話），而無需以今天的價格籌集更多的股權。

To maintain our current financial flexibility, we are changing our business model and moving to a capital-light model with a singular focus on Playboy and Honey Birdette. Our new model gives us a combination of strong cash flow from our licensing segment, high growth potential through our creator platform in Honey Birdette and less operational complexity by eliminating non-profitable business units and noncore assets.

為了保持我們目前的財務靈活性，我們正在改變我們的商業模式，轉向專注於花花公子和 Honey Birdette 的輕資本模式。我們的新模式為我們提供了來自許可部門的強勁現金流、通過我們的 Honey Birdette 創作者平台實現的高增長潛力以及通過消除非盈利業務部門和非核心資產降低運營複雜性的組合。

Within Playboy, we are focusing on 2 things: first, our licensing and strategic partnerships business. The business has a lower risk profile, $346 million of future royalty guarantee payments through 2031, high-quality recurring cash flows and the opportunity to be much larger than it is today. We intend to scale this business through a JV approach to supplement licensing's current high cash flow generation and to optimize it globally. In 2022, the licensing business produced approximately $61 million of revenue, and we believe through the right partnerships, we can more than double this business over the next few years.

在花花公子內部，我們專注於兩件事：首先，我們的許可和戰略合作夥伴關係業務。該業務的風險狀況較低，到 2031 年的未來特許權使用費保證金為 3.46 億美元，高質量的經常性現金流以及比現在大得多的機會。我們打算通過合資方式擴展這項業務，以補充許可當前的高現金流產生並在全球範圍內對其進行優化。 2022 年，許可業務產生了大約 6100 萬美元的收入，我們相信通過正確的合作夥伴關係，我們可以在未來幾年內將這項業務增加一倍以上。

Second, our greater platform. This is our Hero Playboy product moving forward, and it returns the company to its roots as the place for creators to be seen and discovered. The business is growing at over a 9% weekly CAGR since we launch in mid-September 2022, with pro forma annualized weekly GMV already in excess of $15 million. We are approaching monthly cash flow breakeven with our fixed costs under $500,000 a month.

第二，我們更大的平台。這是我們向前發展的 Hero Playboy 產品，它使公司回歸本源，成為展示和發現創作者的地方。自我們於 2022 年 9 月中旬推出以來，該業務的每周復合年增長率超過 9%，預計每週 GMV 已超過 1500 萬美元。我們每月的固定成本低於 500,000 美元，接近每月現金流收支平衡。

At Honey Birdette, we are excited about the future and believe there is a huge opportunity for growth in the U.S. and Europe. In 2022, our U.S. stores generated 38% 4-wall EBITDA margins, not including the incremental e-commerce they drive in their local geographies, and we see a total market opportunity of at least 100 stores domestically. Given our capital-light model, we are engaging an adviser to raise growth capital at the Honey Birdette level to accelerate the execution of our growth strategy. This new focus on these 3 units is the right direction moving forward. And one, I am confident we will be able to execute.

在 Honey Birdette，我們對未來感到興奮，並相信在美國和歐洲存在巨大的增長機會。 2022 年，我們的美國門店產生了 38% 的 4 壁 EBITDA 利潤率，這還不包括他們在當地推動的電子商務增量，我們看到美國國內至少有 100 家門店的總市場機會。鑑於我們的輕資本模式，我們正在聘請顧問在 Honey Birdette 級別籌集增長資本，以加速我們增長戰略的執行。對這 3 個單元的新關注是前進的正確方向。第一，我相信我們能夠執行。

When we went public in 2021, our investor base and expectations were different and the capital markets were happy to accommodate different growth-focused business models. The world today is different, and we believe our new business plan aligns well with what we have heard from our current investor base, which is capital-light, higher margin, simplicity of execution and making sure we have sufficient runway to execute on business priorities with less financial leverage.

當我們在 2021 年上市時，我們的投資者基礎和期望是不同的，資本市場樂於適應不同的以增長為重點的商業模式。當今世界不同了，我們相信我們的新業務計劃與我們從當前投資者群那裡聽到的內容非常吻合，即資本輕、利潤率高、執行簡單，並確保我們有足夠的跑道來執行業務優先事項財務槓桿較小。

The first step to transform the business model was to deal with the debt burden and ensure we have more than a sufficient runway to execute on this transition. Management and our Board are aligned with our shareholders and believe in our business model moving forward. It's why I invested over $1.2 million and why [RISI] invested almost $30 million in the rights offering. We paid down $70 million of debt over the past 3 months, which in turn significantly reduces our interest expense moving forward.

轉變商業模式的第一步是處理債務負擔，並確保我們有足夠的跑道來執行這一轉變。管理層和我們的董事會與我們的股東保持一致，並相信我們的商業模式向前發展。這就是為什麼我投資超過 120 萬美元以及 [RISI] 投資近 3000 萬美元用於配股的原因。我們在過去 3 個月償還了 7000 萬美元的債務，這反過來又大大減少了我們未來的利息支出。

Now that our balance sheet and liquidity are more secure, I want to discuss what we won't be doing. First, on the cost side, we eliminated $18 million of annualized costs last year and had identified a minimum of $15 million of additional annualized cost cuts, $10 million of which we implemented this week. The rest will be accomplished as we continue to simplify the business. In addition to the $15 million, we expect additional direct cost reductions related to the sale of business units.

現在我們的資產負債表和流動性更加安全，我想討論一下我們不會做的事情。首先，在成本方面，我們去年削減了 1800 萬美元的年度成本，並確定了至少 1500 萬美元的額外年度成本削減，我們本週實施了其中的 1000 萬美元。其餘的將在我們繼續簡化業務時完成。除了 1500 萬美元之外，我們預計與業務部門銷售相關的直接成本還會進一步降低。

Second, we are very close to selling the Yandy and expect the deal to close in the coming weeks. Third, we have also done a strategic review of our Lovers business, which we bought for approximately $25 million or roughly 5x EBITDA at the time. Lovers is still producing roughly the same cash flow as when we bought it, and we will be reviewing strategic alternatives for Lovers future as part of the PLBY Group in the coming months.

其次，我們非常接近出售 Yandy，預計交易將在未來幾週內完成。第三，我們還對我們的 Lovers 業務進行了戰略審查，我們當時以大約 2500 萬美元或大約 5 倍的 EBITDA 收購了它。 Lovers 仍在產生與我們購買時大致相同的現金流，我們將在未來幾個月作為 PLBY Group 的一部分審查 Lovers 未來的戰略選擇。

Lastly, we have grown Playboy e-commerce from basically 0 in 2020 to $22 million of revenue in 2022. But given the cost to build the team, develop private label products and acquire customers, the business still lost in excess of $7 million in 2022. Given the losses in operational complexity, we are exploring alternatives to significantly reduce or eliminate those losses altogether. One alternative would be to convert the business to a JV or a licensing deal. The second would be to shrink the revenue and SKU count and significantly reduced paid marketing. In both scenarios, the products will still be available at our website, and our customers will not experience any change. We will use our creator platform as the primary way to market the products.

最後，我們將花花公子電商的收入從 2020 年基本為 0 增長到 2022 年的 2200 萬美元。但考慮到建立團隊、開發自有品牌產品和獲取客戶的成本，該業務在 2022 年仍然虧損超過 700 萬美元. 鑑於操作複雜性的損失，我們正在探索替代方案以顯著減少或完全消除這些損失。一種替代方案是將業務轉換為合資企業或許可交易。第二個是縮減收入和 SKU 數量，並大幅減少付費營銷。在這兩種情況下，產品仍將在我們的網站上提供，我們的客戶不會有任何變化。我們將使用我們的創作者平台作為營銷產品的主要方式。

After such a restructuring is complete, we would expect to have a much simpler business model and one that allows us to have laser focus on our core licensing business, our creator platform and Honey Birdette. Assuming the intended restructuring is completed, all of our business units are projected to become profitable. We have posted a new investor deck to our investor website that outlines our focus moving forward as well as pro forma revenue and costs for what the business would have looked like last year had the restructuring occurred. Lance will give you more details in a few minutes.

在這樣的重組完成後，我們希望有一個更簡單的商業模式，一個讓我們能夠專注於我們的核心許可業務、我們的創作者平台和 Honey Birdette 的商業模式。假設預期的重組完成，我們所有的業務部門都有望實現盈利。我們已經在我們的投資者網站上發布了一個新的投資者平台，概述了我們未來的重點，以及如果重組發生，去年該業務的預計收入和成本。蘭斯將在幾分鐘內為您提供更多詳細信息。

As I said earlier, our focus moving forward is in 3 core areas. First, our creator platform. The creator platform is the most strategic and high-growth potential business we could have invested in over the past year. And it is truly differentiated from the competition given our brand and what that means to creators.

正如我之前所說，我們前進的重點是 3 個核心領域。首先，我們的創作者平台。創作者平台是我們過去一年可以投資的最具戰略性和高增長潛力的業務。考慮到我們的品牌及其對創作者的意義，它真正有別於競爭對手。

So why is this so strategic? First, it returns to companies to its roots as the place to be and be seen for creators, and it brings heat to everything we do in the future. Second, it creates a flywheel for the rest of the business because those creators bring their audiences to Playboy, allowing us to sell those audiences, other products, whether they are our own or from our licensing partners. And third, the business scales very quickly, and the long-term cash flow dynamics are superb. We have limited fixed costs and our revenue is 20% of GMV generated by the creator. We believe over time, there are other value-added services we can offer to increase that percentage.

那麼為什麼這如此具有戰略意義呢？首先，它回歸公司的本源，作為創造者存在和被看到的地方，它為我們未來所做的一切帶來熱度。其次，它為其他業務創造了一個飛輪，因為這些創作者將他們的觀眾帶到花花公子，讓我們能夠銷售這些觀眾和其他產品，無論它們是我們自己的還是來自我們的許可合作夥伴。第三，業務規模非常快，長期現金流動態非常好。我們的固定成本有限，我們的收入是創作者產生的 GMV 的 20%。我們相信，隨著時間的推移，我們可以提供其他增值服務來提高這一比例。

I'm excited to share some early numbers since the September relaunch at single the platform's progress. We have registered about 1.4 million users to the platform with no marketing spend. If you annualize our weekly GMV today, assuming no growth, we would do over $15 million in GMV this year. And that's with only about 1,500 active creators. However, our weekly growth in GMV since relaunch has been over 9%, with that growth rate accelerating over the past 4 weeks to over 18% weekly as the network effect starts to take hold and we have increased the number of new creators joining. There have been 40 million messages to through the platform. Users are coming to interact with a message with creators.

我很高興分享自 9 月重新啟動以來的一些早期數字，以了解該平台的進展情況。我們已經在該平台上註冊了大約 140 萬用戶，沒有任何營銷支出。如果你今天將我們每週的 GMV 年化，假設沒有增長，我們今年的 GMV 將超過 1500 萬美元。而且只有大約 1,500 名活躍的創作者。然而，自重新啟動以來，我們的 GMV 每週增長超過 9%，隨著網絡效應開始發揮作用，並且我們增加了新加入的創作者數量，過去 4 週的增長率加速到每週超過 18%。已有 4000 萬條消息通過該平台發送。用戶前來與創作者進行消息互動。

Our average earning creator is on track to generate over $12,000 in GMV per year, and our top creators are on track to generate GMV well into the millions. The vast majority of our creators earn money via connecting with their fans with safe for work content and conversations. Based on reported data, our understanding is that Playboy creditors are earning multiples of what average creators earn on competitive pay wall platforms.

我們的平均收入創作者有望每年產生超過 12,000 美元的 GMV，而我們的頂級創作者有望產生數百萬的 GMV。我們的絕大多數創作者通過使用安全的工作內容和對話與他們的粉絲聯繫來賺錢。根據報告的數據，我們的理解是花花公子債權人的收入是普通創作者在競爭性付費牆平台上收入的數倍。

We've achieved this progress for 3 key reasons. First and foremost, as I talked about in our last earnings call, we now have a world-class product and technology team. Our product today is on par with our competitors from a feature and functionality perspective and has been built with the capacity to scale and innovate much faster. Just last Friday, we rolled out new profile designs to further enhance the creator and user experience. We also improved our search functionality to support our creators and expanding their Playboy fan bases.

我們取得這一進展有 3 個關鍵原因。首先，正如我在上次財報電話會議上所說，我們現在擁有一支世界一流的產品和技術團隊。從特性和功能的角度來看，我們今天的產品與我們的競爭對手不相上下，並且具備更快地擴展和創新的能力。就在上週五，我們推出了新的個人資料設計，以進一步提升創作者和用戶體驗。我們還改進了搜索功能，以支持我們的創作者並擴大他們的花花公子粉絲群。

The second driver of our recent progress has been quickening the pace of accepting creators onto the platform from our waitlist. Tens of thousands of prospective creators have now applied. With the recent migration of the platform to playboy.com and expanded grassroots promotion, we are hearing incredible excitement within the creator community that Playboy is their top choice platform. Something important to note here is that we hear from our creator community how excited they are to be part of an elevated and exclusive platform, one that does not allow the explicit content that our biggest competitor does. And most importantly, they want to be part of a platform that they are proud to show off. Being accepted to become a Playboy bony is now something that creators are so excited to promote across our social media platform. This point of pride is something that no one else can replicate.

我們最近取得進展的第二個驅動因素是加快了從候補名單中接受創作者進入平台的步伐。數以萬計的潛在創作者現已申請。隨著平台最近遷移到 playboy.com 並擴大草根推廣，我們聽到創作者社區內令人難以置信的興奮，花花公子是他們的首選平台。這裡需要注意的重要一點是，我們從我們的創作者社區聽到他們對成為一個高級和獨家平台的一部分感到多麼興奮，這個平台不允許我們最大的競爭對手發布露骨內容。最重要的是，他們希望成為他們引以為豪的平台的一部分。被接受成為花花公子的骨幹現在是創作者非常興奮地在我們的社交媒體平台上推廣的事情。這種自豪感是其他人無法複製的。

And third, our in-house creator team has been hard at work building out creator success tools to support those creators we accept onto the platform. We've seen an enormous desire from our creator community to participate in the full Playboy lifestyle. And we've gone testing perks for top performers, such as the opportunity to model in Playboy fashion contains, attend Playboy events and more. As you may have seen, we just announced the return of the ultimate perk for creators, the chance to be featured in the Playboy Magazine. Unlike so many crater led platforms trying to scale, we have a formidable and unreliable tool, the magazine.

第三，我們的內部創作者團隊一直在努力構建創作者成功工具，以支持我們接受到平台上的創作者。我們已經看到我們的創作者社區強烈希望參與完整的花花公子生活方式。我們已經測試了表現最好的人的額外津貼，例如在花花公子時尚雜誌中擔任模特、參加花花公子活動等機會。您可能已經看到，我們剛剛宣布回歸創作者的終極福利，即有機會登上《花花公子》雜誌。與許多試圖擴大規模的火山口導向平台不同，我們有一個強大且不可靠的工具，即彈匣。

We will be bringing back the magazine in a digital first form to serve as a huge promotional platform for our top creators as well as to continue working with celebrities across Playboy covers and editorial features to drive big traffic numbers into the platform. We are thrilled to tease new magazine experience with the release of the Playboy cover seat featuring one of our top creators October 2011 Amanda Cerny. Amanda's fan can also pay for special access to behind-the-scenes content on her own Playboy channel.

我們將以數字優先的形式帶回該雜誌，作為我們頂級創作者的巨大宣傳平台，並繼續與名人合作，製作花花公子封面和編輯專題，為該平台帶來大量流量。我們很高興通過發布花花公子封面座椅來戲弄新的雜誌體驗，其中一位是我們的頂級創作者 2011 年 10 月 Amanda Cerny。阿曼達的粉絲還可以付費觀看她自己的花花公子頻道的幕後內容。

Here is what to expect from here. First, we will continuously improve the product experience for our creators and their fans. For creators, we are focused on making it as easy as possible to make money and to grow your fan base to make even more money. For fans, we're focused on making it as seamless as possible to find your favorite creators to follow and support. We have begun exploring how AI tools can optimize the creator and fan experience.

這是對這裡的期望。首先，我們將不斷提升創作者及其粉絲的產品體驗。對於創作者，我們專注於讓賺錢變得盡可能容易，並擴大您的粉絲群以賺取更多收入。對於粉絲，我們專注於盡可能無縫地找到您最喜歡的創作者來關注和支持。我們已經開始探索人工智能工具如何優化創作者和粉絲體驗。

Second, we are always working to enhance our value propositions creators. And this is where the digital magazine comes in. We will be rolling out more editorial like features for top creators for the chance to truly feel like they've made the cover of Playboy. In addition, creators will soon have expanded opportunities to become Playboy fashion affiliates across Playboy and Honey Birdette. Our goal is to continue to scale our creator base, ensuring maintaining Playboy's high standards of representing our brand. By year-end, I would like to get to 10,000 creators earning money on the platform.

其次，我們一直致力於提升我們的價值主張創造者。這就是數字雜誌的用武之地。我們將為頂級創作者推出更多類似社論的功能，讓他們有機會真正感受到他們登上了《花花公子》的封面。此外，創作者很快將有更多機會成為花花公子和 Honey Birdette 的花花公子時尚分支機構。我們的目標是繼續擴大我們的創作者基礎，確保保持花花公子代表我們品牌的高標準。到年底，我希望有 10,000 名創作者在平台上賺錢。

And lastly, across all areas of our organization, including licensing in Honey Birdette, we are working to leverage our creator community as built-in organic marketing machine. We expect creators will make more money on Playboy than on the other platform that becoming affiliates and being paid for selling products. Our Playboy creators deliver big brand buzz and drive meaningful monetization from the audiences they attract. Further, they are the embodiment of the aspirational lifestyle that both Playboy and Honey Birdette brands represent in the world.

最後，在我們組織的所有領域，包括 Honey Birdette 的許可，我們正在努力利用我們的創作者社區作為內置的有機營銷機器。我們希望創作者在花花公子上賺到的錢比在其他成為附屬公司並通過銷售產品獲得報酬的平台上要多。我們的花花公子創作者帶來了巨大的品牌影響力，並從他們吸引的受眾中推動有意義的貨幣化。此外，它們體現了花花公子和 Honey Birdette 品牌在世界上所代表的理想生活方式。

Our second core area of focus is our licensing and strategic partnership business. We made significant progress on a number of fronts during 2022 on our strategic partnerships and licensing business. I recently returned from Hong Kong after not traveling there since COVID-19 started and met with our largest licensing partners. 3 years ago, we began setting the stage to transform our business in China from an outsourced licensing business with limited sales and distribution visibility to a joint venture operating model that gives us more control of the brand and brings us closer to the end consumer.

我們的第二個核心重點領域是我們的許可和戰略合作夥伴關係業務。 2022 年，我們在戰略合作夥伴關係和許可業務方面在多個方面取得了重大進展。自從 COVID-19 開始並會見了我們最大的許可合作夥伴以來，我沒有去香港旅行，最近從香港回來了。 3 年前，我們開始搭建階段，將我們在中國的業務從銷售和分銷知名度有限的外包許可業務轉變為合資經營模式，使我們能夠更好地控製品牌並拉近我們與最終消費者的距離。

As part of this evolution, we met with the Fung Group 3 years ago. And while it took longer than anticipated, given the impact of the global pandemic and China's zero COVID policy, we are now pleased to report that we have partnered with the Fung Group retail brand management unit for China. The goal of the Playboy China is threefold. First, partner with trusted operating teams in China with experience across apparel, supply chain, product design, retail execution, brand marketing, trademark enforcement and above all, strong relationships with the online sales platforms in China. It is not our intent to directly operate a retail or e-commerce business or take on the financial burden associated with inventory and operational complexity. Our goal is creating a best-in-class in-country team who truly understands the China market and has the right experience and relationships to hold our licensees accountable and replace them should the need arise.

作為這一演變的一部分，我們在 3 年前會見了馮氏集團。儘管花費的時間比預期的要長，但考慮到全球大流行的影響和中國的零 COVID 政策，我們現在很高興地報告，我們已經與馮氏集團中國零售品牌管理部門合作。花花公子中國的目標有三個。首先，與在服裝、供應鏈、產品設計、零售執行、品牌營銷、商標執法方面經驗豐富的中國值得信賴的運營團隊合作，最重要的是，與中國在線銷售平台建立牢固的關係。我們無意直接經營零售或電子商務業務或承擔與庫存和運營複雜性相關的財務負擔。我們的目標是打造一流的國內團隊，他們真正了解中國市場，並擁有合適的經驗和關係，可以讓我們的被許可人承擔責任，並在需要時更換他們。

2 weeks ago, we began the process of establishing new ground rules with our licensees for how and where Playboy branded products are sold to ensure greater consistency and control across the market. This includes potentially restructuring our agreements so that from a financial perspective, the JV will manage the flagship e-commerce stores to track online sales and ensure quality control and design across all Playboy branded products. In essence, our licensees still supply approved products and keep inventory, but the JV will control the gateway to the consumer and the overall brand experience. The JV will enable us to work together with the e-commerce platforms to control how Playboy is sold and ensure that JV is capturing online sales data and enforcing shutdowns on counterfeiters and unauthorized stores.

2 週前，我們開始與我們的被許可人就花花公子品牌產品的銷售方式和地點制定新的基本規則，以確保在整個市場上實現更大的一致性和控制。這包括可能重組我們的協議，以便從財務角度來看，合資企業將管理旗艦電子商務商店以跟踪在線銷售並確保所有花花公子品牌產品的質量控制和設計。從本質上講，我們的被許可人仍然提供經批准的產品並保留庫存，但合資企業將控制通往消費者的門戶和整體品牌體驗。該合資企業將使我們能夠與電子商務平台合作，以控制花花公子的銷售方式，並確保合資企業能夠獲取在線銷售數據並強制關閉造假者和未經授權的商店。

Second, have stronger relationships and broader reach to take advantage of emerging product categories that Playboy has not entered to expand our lifestyle offerings and accelerate growth. In just a few weeks, our new JV partner has developed the strongest and most diverse new business pipeline we have seen in years for China. Third, reduce the operational burden by transferring our management product approval and legal complexity of operating in China to a highly experienced partner in the local market. Finally, the China JV structure has allowed us to significantly reduce the amount we pay our licensing agent on a cash basis and enables our new partner, the Fung Retailing Group, to earn up to 15% ownership of the China business at a $250 million valuation.

其次，擁有更牢固的關係和更廣泛的影響力，以利用花花公子尚未進入的新興產品類別來擴展我們的生活方式產品並加速增長。在短短幾週內，我們新的合資夥伴就為中國開發了多年來我們所見過的最強大、最多樣化的新業務渠道。第三，通過將我們在中國運營的管理產品審批和法律複雜性轉移給當地市場經驗豐富的合作夥伴，減輕運營負擔。最後，中國合資企業結構使我們能夠大幅減少以現金支付給授權代理的金額，並使我們的新合作夥伴馮氏零售集團能夠以 2.5 億美元的估值獲得中國業務高達 15% 的所有權.

We believe the JV we have established in China is a good model for other parts of our licensing business especially as we think about when our contract expires in 2028 with our global licensing agent, which we were paying approximately $9 million annually too. We have over 180 licensees and trying to manage them from California is no easy task. Operationally, the JV model allows us to do less at corporate while gaining region or product-specific expertise for business growth and management. We are currently looking to take this JV model to other parts of the world or product categories where we see huge growth potential.

我們相信，我們在中國建立的合資企業是我們許可業務其他部分的良好模式，尤其是考慮到我們與全球許可代理的合同將於 2028 年到期時，我們每年也支付約 900 萬美元。我們有 180 多個被許可方，要在加利福尼亞州管理他們並非易事。在運營上，合資模式使我們能夠在企業中做更少的事情，同時獲得針對業務增長和管理的區域或產品特定的專業知識。我們目前正在尋求將這種合資模式推廣到世界其他地區或我們認為具有巨大增長潛力的產品類別。

Another JV we established was with our spirits partner. In addition to the $30 million they previously raised, they have commitments for up to another $20 million of additional investment. We own 20% of the operating spirits business on a fully diluted basis, plus we generate an annual license fee. To date, Playboy Spirits has launched limited edition collector items in the (inaudible) categories. What we are most excited for is the launch of ready-to-drink cocktails later this year. Again, we are partnering with a management team that have domain and operating expertise and leveraging their organizations to build businesses, which not only pay us to licensing fee, but also provide us with the equity upside.

我們建立的另一個合資企業是與我們的烈酒合作夥伴。除了他們之前籌集的 3000 萬美元外，他們還承諾再投資 2000 萬美元。我們在完全稀釋的基礎上擁有 20% 的經營烈酒業務，此外我們還產生年度許可費。迄今為止，花花公子精神已經推出了（聽不清）類別的限量版收藏品。最令我們興奮的是今年晚些時候推出即飲雞尾酒。同樣，我們正在與擁有領域和運營專業知識的管理團隊合作，並利用他們的組織來建立業務，這不僅向我們支付許可費，還為我們提供了股權優勢。

Lastly, our Playboy pleasure line of products is off to a great start at Lovers stores, generating on average $100,000 in weekly sales only at Lovers. We set this up as a licensing deal and plan to aggressively expand that product line and distribution with our partner. We have already secured over 1,000 third-party retail location to carry the product starting this week.

最後，我們的 Playboy 快樂系列產品在 Lovers 商店開局良好，僅在 Lovers 就平均每週產生 100,000 美元的銷售額。我們將其設置為許可交易，併計劃與我們的合作夥伴一起積極擴展該產品線和分銷。從本週開始，我們已經確定了 1,000 多個第三方零售點來銷售該產品。

Let's talk to more detail about Honey Birdette, our third core area of focus because I continue to believe that business is a $1 billion opportunity based on the current revenue and EBITDA growth profile. When we bought Honey Birdette in 2021, the business was doing approximately $73 million in revenue on a trailing 12-month basis and grew to $84 million in 2022. Although 2022 was a very tough year with significant inflation that we believe affected demand, inventory over by supply chain issues, as well as competitors discounting, the brand remains extremely strong. In the first 3 quarters of 2022, we had to discount our inventory more than the business had historically given the macroeconomic environment and excessive inventory purchase prior to our acquisition of Honey Birdette.

讓我們更詳細地談談 Honey Birdette，這是我們的第三個核心關注領域，因為我仍然相信，根據目前的收入和 EBITDA 增長情況，該業務是一個 10 億美元的機會。當我們在 2021 年收購 Honey Birdette 時，該公司過去 12 個月的收入約為 7300 萬美元，到 2022 年增長到 8400 萬美元。儘管 2022 年是非常艱難的一年，我們認為嚴重的通貨膨脹影響了需求，但庫存超過通過供應鏈問題，以及競爭對手的折扣，該品牌仍然非常強大。在 2022 年前三個季度，鑑於宏觀經濟環境和我們收購 Honey Birdette 之前的過度庫存購買，我們不得不對庫存進行比歷史上更多的折扣。

Starting in Q4, we made the decision to limit promotional activity moving forward and to focus on brand health. It was a tough decision from a financial perspective because even at discounted prices, it is still a high-margin business, but it's the right long-term brand decision. The stores we have opened in the U.S. over the past year are off to a great start. Our average store in the U.S. is producing over $1 million annually, which is double the average store in Australia, with our best store doing $1.8 million. In the U.S., we are averaging a 38% 4-wall EBITDA margin compared to 34% in Australia. Average order volume or AOV in the U.S. is $230 compared to $135 in Australia. The U.S. now represents 38% of the total revenue and Australia, 49%. Given the attractive economics, we believe there is a long-term opportunity to open more than 100 stores in the U.S. We hope to open 4 to 6 new stores this year. It takes time to find the right mall locations, especially given our small footprint of 800 to 1,000 square feet.

從第四季度開始，我們決定限制向前的促銷活動並專注於品牌健康。從財務角度來看，這是一個艱難的決定，因為即使以折扣價，它仍然是一項高利潤業務，但從長遠來看，這是正確的品牌決策。過去一年我們在美國開設的商店開局良好。我們在美國的平均商店年產值超過 100 萬美元，是澳大利亞平均商店的兩倍，我們最好的商店每年產值 180 萬美元。在美國，我們的平均 4 壁 EBITDA 利潤率為 38%，而在澳大利亞為 34%。美國的平均訂單量或 AOV 為 230 美元，而澳大利亞為 135 美元。美國現在佔總收入的 38%，澳大利亞佔 49%。鑑於誘人的經濟效益，我們相信在美國開設 100 多家門店的長期機會。我們希望今年能開設 4 至 6 家新店。找到合適的購物中心位置需要時間，尤其是考慮到我們的佔地面積僅為 800 至 1,000 平方英尺。

Before I turn it over to Lance, I want to set the record straight on some misperceptions and reiterate why I am excited for the future. First, I and the named executive officers have never sold a share of stock for personal game. The company does not net settle equity grants as other companies do as the payment of employee taxes would be a drain on balance sheet cash. And hence, forces the employee to sell shares of settled grants to pay the (inaudible) tax. The only stock we have sold is to pay the taxes required with the exercise of options or settlement of other grants as is legally required. In fact, I have bought stock personally 3 different times since we went public. The last time is part of the rights offering where I invested over $1.2 million, and RISI invested almost $30 million.

在我把它交給蘭斯之前，我想澄清一些誤解，並重申我為什麼對未來感到興奮。首先，我和指定的執行官從未為個人遊戲出售過股票。該公司不像其他公司那樣以淨額結算股權贈款，因為支付員工稅會消耗資產負債表的現金。因此，迫使員工出售已結算贈款的股份以支付（聽不清）稅。我們出售的唯一股票是為了按照法律要求支付行使期權或結算其他贈款所需的稅款。事實上，自我們上市以來，我親自購買了 3 次股票。最後一次是我投資超過 120 萬美元的權利發行的一部分，RISI 投資了近 3000 萬美元。

Second, I want to clarify how stock-based compensation is accounted for in the financial statements. All equity grants are initially valued based on the value of the underlying stock on the date of grant, applying different valuation models to different kinds of grants. Expense for equity grants is accounted for both as of the date of grant and each quarter thereafter for the remaining life of the grant, in each case based on the grant date valuation regardless of subsequent changes in market value of the underlying stock. Thus, even in quarters without equity grants, the company is required to show expense for existing prior grants based on their initial valuations.

其次，我想澄清一下基於股票的薪酬在財務報表中是如何計算的。所有股權授予均以授予日標的股票的價值為基礎進行初始估值，對不同類型的授予採用不同的估值模型。股權授予的費用在授予之日和授予剩餘期限的此後每個季度入賬，在每種情況下均基於授予日期的估值，而不考慮標的股票的市場價值隨後發生的變化。因此，即使在沒有股權授予的季度，公司也需要根據其初始估值顯示現有先前授予的費用。

The quarterly stock-based compensation expense is not compensation of an award holder divided by the then current share price. Further, such quarterly expense does not mean there is any new or additional compensation to existing grant holders nor any additional dilution related to the quarterly expense. The last time our executive officers received any grants was in April 2022, and quarterly expense for the life of those grants will be based on the valuation as of April 2022.

基於股票的季度薪酬費用不是獎勵持有人的薪酬除以當時的股價。此外，此類季度費用並不意味著對現有贈款持有人有任何新的或額外的補償，也不意味著與季度費用相關的任何額外稀釋。我們的執行官上一次獲得任何贈款是在 2022 年 4 月，這些贈款有效期內的季度支出將基於截至 2022 年 4 月的估值。

Moving forward, we will have a much simpler, less capital-intensive business with the right combination of cash flow from our licensing business, coupled with potentially significant growth in cash flow from our creator platform in Honey Birdette. We have a manageable amount of debt, a substantial amount of cash on our balance sheet and the ability to generate extra liquidity via the sale of noncore assets, including our extensive art collection.

展望未來，我們將擁有一個更簡單、資本密集度更低的業務，正確組合來自我們的許可業務的現金流，以及來自我們的創作者平台 Honey Birdette 的潛在顯著增長的現金流。我們的債務數額可控，資產負債表上有大量現金，並且有能力通過出售非核心資產（包括我們廣泛的藝術品收藏）產生額外的流動性。

In my opinion, our current valuation is very dislocated from the immense value of the sum of the parts represent. Including our lucrative brand, Playboy, are approximately $300 million of Federal net operating losses, our extensive art and archive collection, the present value of our forward booked licensing revenue and the value of Honey Birdette. We believe in our business plan, but should it not materialize in the way we believe it will, that we will explore appropriate strategic options to maximize shareholder value.

在我看來，我們目前的估值與各部分所代表的巨大價值相去甚遠。包括我們利潤豐厚的品牌花花公子在內，還有大約 3 億美元的聯邦淨運營虧損、我們廣泛的藝術和檔案收藏、我們提前預訂的許可收入的現值以及 Honey Birdette 的價值。我們相信我們的商業計劃，但如果它沒有以我們相信的方式實現，我們將探索適當的戰略選擇以最大化股東價值。

Lastly, before I turn the call over to Lance, I want to thank him for his partnership and hard work over the past 2 years. Lance will be departing the company in Q2 and will work with us to ensure a seamless transition. Lance helped us lead us through a period of growth and transformation as a newly public company, and we wish him the best in his future endeavors. Lance?

最後，在我將電話轉給 Lance 之前，我要感謝他在過去 2 年中的合作和辛勤工作。 Lance 將於第二季度離開公司，並將與我們合作以確保無縫過渡。 Lance 幫助我們帶領我們度過了作為一家新上市公司的成長和轉型期，我們祝愿他在未來的工作中一切順利。槊？

Thank you for the kind words Ben. It has been a privilege to be part of such an iconic brand, and I'm grateful to the entire organization for all that we've accomplished. I continue to believe in the potential value of this company, and I'm excited for the team to execute on this new strategy. Given our restructuring plan, I will briefly touch on certain Q4 results and then discuss what the business looks like pro forma taking into consideration all of the planned changes. In the financial slides of the presentation that we've posted to our investor site, we've provided more granularity on full year revenue by brand within each of our reporting segments. We've also provided total company annual costs on an as-reported basis, a non-GAAP adjusted basis on a pro forma basis after stripping out the costs related to the businesses that we no longer intend to operate.

謝謝本的客氣話。能成為這樣一個標誌性品牌的一員是我的榮幸，我感謝整個組織所取得的成就。我仍然相信這家公司的潛在價值，我很高興團隊能夠執行這一新戰略。鑑於我們的重組計劃，我將簡要介紹某些第四季度的結果，然後討論考慮到所有計劃的變更後業務的形式。在我們發佈到投資者網站的演示文稿的財務幻燈片中，我們在每個報告部門中按品牌提供了更詳細的全年收入。在剔除與我們不再打算經營的業務相關的成本後，我們還根據報告的基礎提供了公司年度總成本，這是一種非 GAAP 調整後的備考基礎。

Fourth quarter results were impacted by a number of factors. 1, we didn't execute as well as planned on our IT system implementations last year, which disrupted fulfillment operations and resulted in increased cost to remedy. 2, we pulled back aggressively on performance marketing due to both continued softness and efficiency and the aforementioned fulfillment challenges. 3, macro headwinds persisted impacting consumers and partners alike, along with $1.6 million of lost revenue due to foreign currency exchange rates. And 4, reduced promotional activity at Honey Birdette led to lower sales, while increased promotional activity to liquidate inventory at Playboy and Yandy led to lower product margins.

第四季度業績受到多種因素的影響。 1，我們去年的 IT 系統實施沒有按計劃執行，這擾亂了履行操作並導致補救成本增加。 2，由於持續的疲軟和效率以及上述履行挑戰，我們積極撤回績效營銷。 3，宏觀逆風持續影響著消費者和合作夥伴，同時由於外匯匯率損失了 160 萬美元的收入。 4，Honey Birdette 的促銷活動減少導致銷售額下降，而 Playboy 和 Yandy 清算庫存的促銷活動增加導致產品利潤率下降。

Total Q4 revenue was $68.5 million, a decrease of $27 million year-over-year. Of the total revenue decrease, $13.4 million came from the direct-to-consumer segment, $1.7 million from licensing primarily due to a reduction in averages received and $11.4 million from digital, reflecting no NFT revenue in the fourth quarter of 2022.

第四季度總收入為 6850 萬美元，同比減少 2700 萬美元。在總收入減少中，1340 萬美元來自直接面向消費者的部分，170 萬美元來自許可，主要是由於平均收入減少，1140 萬美元來自數字，反映出 2022 年第四季度沒有 NFT 收入。

Now turning to the restructuring. Our investor presentation shows both revenue and cost on a pro forma basis for what the business would have looked like in 2022 had the restructuring been done at the beginning of last year. Overall revenue would have been $212 million, less the $73 million cost of sales and $113 million of selling and administrative expenses would have resulted in just over $25 million of pro forma EBITDA. This pro forma assumes no revenue or cost related to Yandy or Playboy direct-to-consumer. It also assumes that the additional $15 million of cost savings we have identified are removed, along with $3.5 million of creator platform upfront launch costs that were onetime in nature. The pro forma selling and administrative costs do not remove any other incremental costs related to the creator platform, which were roughly $8 million in 2022. There is also no annualization of revenue or cost for the Honey Birdette stores we opened at various points during the year.

現在轉向重組。我們的投資者介紹顯示瞭如果在去年初完成重組，該業務在 2022 年的預估收入和成本。總收入為 2.12 億美元，減去 7300 萬美元的銷售成本和 1.13 億美元的銷售和管理費用後，預計 EBITDA 將超過 2500 萬美元。此備考假設沒有與 Yandy 或花花公子直接面向消費者相關的收入或成本。它還假設我們已經確定的額外 1500 萬美元的成本節省被移除，以及 350 萬美元的創作者平台前期啟動成本，這些成本是一次性的。預計銷售和管理成本並未扣除與創作者平台相關的任何其他增量成本，這些成本在 2022 年約為 800 萬美元。我們在這一年的不同時間點開設的 Honey Birdette 商店也沒有年化收入或成本.

For 2023, we are not giving specific guidance at this point given the restructuring is ongoing and some of the timing related to sale of assets is a moving target. The primary differences between 2022 on a pro forma basis and 2023 relate to 4 areas. First, we plan on opening 4 to 6 new Honey Birdette stores, mostly in Q4. Second, we are going to continue to protect the Honey Birdette brand and will not be discounting merchandise outside of our normal pre-COVID sale periods, which will make the first 3 quarters of 2023 a tough year-over-year comparison from a revenue perspective. Third, we are seeing signs that our creator platform is beginning to scale and believe it will be cash flow neutral to positive for the year. And lastly, is related to the timing of when certain cost reductions or exits of businesses occur as we won't get a full year benefit of some of these actions.

對於 2023 年，我們目前沒有給出具體的指導，因為重組正在進行中，一些與資產出售相關的時間是一個移動的目標。預計 2022 年與 2023 年之間的主要差異涉及 4 個領域。首先，我們計劃在第四季度開設 4 到 6 家新的 Honey Birdette 商店。其次，我們將繼續保護 Honey Birdette 品牌，不會在 COVID 之前的正常銷售期之外打折商品，這將使 2023 年前三個季度的收入與去年同期相比變得艱難.第三，我們看到有跡象表明我們的創作者平台開始擴大規模，並相信今年的現金流量將保持中性至正值。最後，與某些成本削減或業務退出的時間有關，因為我們不會從其中一些行動中獲得全年收益。

With the successful completion of the rights offering, we have reduced total leverage, eliminated our minimum cash covenants entirely and eliminated leverage covenants to the second quarter of next year. In the last 3 months, we've paid down $70 million of debt in addition to the quarterly amortization payments and currently have $157 million of total debt outstanding with approximately $35 million of cash and equivalents on the balance sheet today.

隨著配股的成功完成，我們降低了總槓桿率，完全取消了我們的最低現金契約，並取消了到明年第二季度的槓桿契約。在過去 3 個月中，除了季度攤銷付款外，我們還清償了 7000 萬美元的債務，目前資產負債表上的未償債務總額為 1.57 億美元，現金和等價物約為 3500 萬美元。

We have no exposure to Silicon Valley Bank or Signature Bank, and our cash has held between top-tier financial institutions in the U.S., U.K. and Australia. Our debt service for the year is expected to be approximately $19 million. We believe that our current balance sheet covenant waivers through the second quarter of 2024 and our focus on managing the business for cash flow gives us ample runway and liquidity to continue executing on our plans for Playboy and Honey Birdette.

我們沒有接觸矽谷銀行或 Signature 銀行，我們的現金存放在美國、英國和澳大利亞的頂級金融機構之間。我們今年的償債額預計約為 1900 萬美元。我們相信，到 2024 年第二季度，我們目前的資產負債表契約豁免以及我們對現金流業務管理的關注為我們提供了充足的跑道和流動性，以繼續執行我們的花花公子和 Honey Birdette 計劃。

With that, I'll ask the operator to please open the line for questions.

有了這個，我會請接線員打開問題熱線。

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Alex Fuhrman with Craig-Hallum. If everyone could please limit themselves to 1 question and 1 follow-up, so we may get to everyone's questions.

（操作員說明）我們的第一個問題來自 Alex Fuhrman 與 Craig-Hallum 的對話。如果每個人都可以將自己限制在 1 個問題和 1 個跟進，這樣我們就可以回答每個人的問題。

I'm trying to understand a little bit better the pieces of the business and how much they might be worth, especially now that it sounds like you're going to be focusing just on Playboy and Honey Birdette. I think Honey Birdette is, I guess, an easy enough business to understand. But the Playboy brand shows up across different categories and regions and business models. Can you give us a little bit more color to help us size up the value of those different pieces?

我試圖更好地了解業務的各個部分以及它們可能值多少錢，尤其是現在聽起來您將只關注花花公子和 Honey Birdette。我認為 Honey Birdette 是一個很容易理解的行業。但花花公子品牌出現在不同的類別、地區和商業模式中。你能給我們多一點顏色來幫助我們評估這些不同部分的價值嗎？

I think you had recently said there was a third-party valuation of $250 million put on the China licensing JV, of which you own a majority of that. But how can we think about the value of the Playboy licensing business outside of China as well as centerfold some of the legacy Playboy TV and Plus assets as well as just the option to enter new categories and regions where you're not currently in?

我想你最近說過第三方對中國許可合資企業的估值為 2.5 億美元，你擁有其中的大部分。但是，我們如何考慮花花公子在中國以外的授權業務的價值，以及將一些遺留的花花公子電視和 Plus 資產集中起來，以及進入你目前不在的新類別和地區的選擇？

Alex, it's Ben Kohn. Thanks for the question. Look, there's multiple different ways to value Playboy. Playboy is one of the largest brands in the world and basically has a 100% unneeded global awareness. When I think about the components myself and what led me to write another check into the company, I think about the present value of our licensing business. That is a business that is underexploited today in a lot of the parts of the world. So I think as we mentioned in the beginning, we have roughly $346 million of forward book cash flow. Those are only minimum guarantees. That doesn't include overages and other things and then what would be the terminal value on that.

亞歷克斯，我是本·科恩。謝謝你的問題。看，花花公子有多種不同的估值方式。花花公子是世界上最大的品牌之一，基本上擁有 100% 不需要的全球知名度。當我自己考慮這些組成部分以及是什麼促使我向公司開出另一張支票時，我會考慮我們許可業務的現值。這是當今世界許多地方未充分開發的業務。所以我認為正如我們在開頭提到的那樣，我們有大約 3.46 億美元的遠期賬面現金流量。這些只是最低限度的保證。這不包括超支和其他東西，然後是什麼是最終價值。

We've talked about our art collection historically. There are our Playboy TV, our Playboy Plus business, which are legacy businesses still generate cash flow. When you think about the value of the creator platform that we're building, and it's off to a good start, if you annualized your weekly GMV today, you would get in excess of $15 million. And if you look at that growth rate, it's growing at 9% weekly CAGR. And so when you look at the cash flow that generates, we talked about the $500,000 of monthly fixed costs and that we take 20% of what our creator makes. And so that business starts to scale very -- when that business starts to scale quickly, the amount of cash that can spin off is absolutely huge.

我們從歷史上討論過我們的藝術收藏。我們的花花公子電視、花花公子 Plus 業務，這些傳統業務仍在產生現金流。當您考慮我們正在構建的創作者平台的價值時，如果您今天對每週 GMV 進行年化，那麼您將獲得超過 1500 萬美元的收益。如果你看一下這個增長率，它會以每週 9% 的複合年增長率增長。因此，當您查看產生的現金流量時，我們談到了每月 500,000 美元的固定成本，並且我們從創造者的收入中抽取 20%。因此，該業務開始大規模擴展——當該業務開始快速擴展時，可以分拆的現金數量絕對是巨大的。

The last piece that I don't think you mentioned Ben was Honey Birdette. If you remember, we paid around $300 million for that. Obviously, it was a different time. But when you think about -- we've grown revenue since we acquired it. And if you think about EBITDA margins on that business being quite healthy, put a price on it. But I think, again, you could probably get a pretty decent value for Honey Birdette as well.

我認為你沒有提到 Ben 的最後一件作品是 Honey Birdette。如果你還記得的話，我們為此支付了大約 3 億美元。顯然，那是一個不同的時代。但是當你想到 - 自收購以來我們已經增加了收入。如果你認為該業務的 EBITDA 利潤率非常健康，那就給它定價。但我再次認為，Honey Birdette 也可能獲得相當不錯的價值。

And then Lance, if I could drill down more on the pro forma calculations that you put out in your deck and kind of sketching to that $25 million of pro forma EBITDA. Can you help us unpack that a little bit more? I mean you mentioned a few things this year that are going to be different between that kind of hypothetical pro forma number and the reality of '23, some comparisons on Honey Birdette and changes in centerfold. And it sounds like I'm hearing those correctly, I mean, it sounds like some of those differences are going to net to an improvement versus the pro forma results. I imagine the majority of those changes, specifically the fact that it's going to take some time to realize the cost reductions probably mean we're not going to see that full $25 million this year.

然後是蘭斯，如果我能深入了解你在甲板上進行的備考計算，並畫出 2500 萬美元的備考 EBITDA 草圖。你能幫我們再解壓一下嗎？我的意思是你今年提到了一些事情，這些事情在那種假設的備考數字和 23 年的現實之間會有所不同，對 Honey Birdette 的一些比較和插頁的變化。聽起來我沒聽錯，我的意思是，聽起來這些差異中的一些會比預估結果有所改善。我想這些變化中的大部分，特別是需要一些時間才能實現成本降低的事實可能意味著我們今年不會看到全部 2500 萬美元。

But can you just help to size that up a little bit? I mean if you kind of straight-line the cost savings that you outlined. I mean, do we kind of get to that $25 million at some point early next year on a run rate basis? I mean, how should we think about what you're actually going to go through this year versus that $25 million number?

但是你能幫忙把它放大一點嗎？我的意思是，如果您將概述的成本節省直線化。我的意思是，我們是否會在明年初的某個時候按運行率達到 2500 萬美元？我的意思是，與 2500 萬美元的數字相比，我們應該如何考慮您今年實際要經歷的事情？

Sure. Yes, there's a few different ways to think about it. But you're absolutely right. Part of this is a little bit timing, right? We're now sitting here mid-March. We've implemented some of these cost saving measures. We haven't fully exited Yandy yet. We haven't completed kind of what we need to do on Playboy direct-to-consumer. But the way I think about it is really when you look at it on a go-forward basis or a, call it, future 12-month or next 12-month basis, your baseline is kind of that $25 million once you've implemented all of these changes. And then the other things that aren't really contemplated in that would be you're still being burdened with that $25 million, you're still being burdened by $8 million of losses in the 2022 pro forma from the creator platform.

當然。是的，有幾種不同的思考方式。但你是絕對正確的。部分原因是時間安排，對吧？我們現在是 3 月中旬坐在這裡。我們已經實施了其中一些成本節約措施。我們還沒有完全退出 Yandy。我們還沒有完成花花公子直接面向消費者需要做的事情。但我的想法是，當你在未來的基礎上看它時，或者稱之為未來 12 個月或下一個 12 個月的基礎上，一旦你實施了，你的基線就是 2500 萬美元所有這些變化。然後其他沒有真正考慮到的事情是你仍然背負著那 2500 萬美元，你仍然背負著創作者平台在 2022 年備考中 800 萬美元的損失。

So if you're able to get that to breakeven, that puts you closer to $33 million on a go-forward basis to the extent you're able to get incremental revenue and EBITDA from opening, like we said, 4 to 5 new Honey Birdette stores. Those are north of 30% for while EBITDA margins you'd have to factor that in. The one thing you would net out a little bit on Honey Birdette would be the drag for the first 3 quarters this year as we take out promotion. But yes, I would say net, when you think about this, a very clean structure on a go-forward basis, you're looking at kind of a baseline level of EBITDA well into the 30s. And hopefully, we can optimize it even further from there.

因此，如果您能夠實現收支平衡，那麼在前進的基礎上您將接近 3300 萬美元，就像我們說的那樣，您可以從開業中獲得增量收入和 EBITDA，4 到 5 個新蜂蜜小鳥商店。這些超過 30%，因為您必須將其考慮在內的 EBITDA 利潤率。在 Honey Birdette 上您會淨賺一點的一件事是今年前 3 個季度的拖累，因為我們取消了促銷活動。但是，是的，我會說淨，當你考慮這個時，一個非常乾淨的結構在前進的基礎上，你正在尋找 EBITDA 的基線水平進入 30 年代。希望我們可以從那裡進一步優化它。

Yes. Alex, this is Ben. On the cost side, we've identified $15 million today. We believe there's more cost to actually take out. It's something I've done for 25 years in private equity when we go into businesses. And we are rebuilding this business line item by line item. But of that $15 million, $10 million was done this week. So we won't get the full annual benefit of it this year because we're already -- it's already March 15, but we've eliminated $10 million as of this week and then the other $5 million will be coming shortly hereafter as we continue to simplify the business. And then I hope there are more costs that we can continue to take out as we simplify the company, really looking less at the personnel side of things, which was done this week.

是的。亞歷克斯，這是本。在成本方面，我們今天確定了 1500 萬美元。我們認為實際取出的成本更高。當我們進入企業時，這是我在私募股權領域 25 年來所做的事情。我們正在逐個項目地重建這個業務項目。但在這 1500 萬美元中，本週完成了 1000 萬美元。所以我們今年不會得到它的全部年度收益，因為我們已經 - 已經是 3 月 15 日了，但截至本週我們已經取消了 1000 萬美元，然後另外 500 萬美元將在不久之後到來，因為我們繼續簡化業務。然後我希望隨著我們簡化公司，我們可以繼續減少更多的成本，真正減少對人事方面的關注，這是本週完成的。

But more at our vendor contracts moving forward. I think there's precedence out there in the marketplace from other companies during these economic times. And I believe there are significant savings that we can have. And we're getting down to literally like the logistics at Honey Birdette. And so when you think about our warehouse operations, you think about how we ship product out, eliminate a box and going to a polybag. These are hundreds of thousands of dollars of savings. And we are literally rebuilding everything from the ground up.

但更多的是我們的供應商合同向前發展。我認為在這些經濟時期，其他公司在市場上有先例。我相信我們可以節省大量資金。我們開始真正喜歡 Honey Birdette 的物流。因此，當您考慮我們的倉庫運營時，您會考慮我們如何運送產品、去除盒子並使用塑料袋。這些都是數十萬美元的儲蓄。我們實際上是在從頭開始重建一切。

Our next question comes from the line of [Mike Hickey] with The Benchmark Company.

我們的下一個問題來自 The Benchmark Company 的 [Mike Hickey]。

I guess, first, Ben, on your creator platform. Obviously, you seem very excited here with some early success. Obviously, it's still early days, but it feels like this is like we're exceeding your expectations. Curious that's true or not? And then on the GMV, can you sort of -- maybe a little bit more granular on drilling down on what that actually means in terms of revenue generation? And I got a follow-up.

我想，首先，本，在你的創作者平台上。顯然，你在這裡似乎對一些早期的成功感到非常興奮。顯然，現在還處於早期階段，但感覺就像我們超出了您的期望。好奇這是真的還是假的？然後在 GMV 上，你能不能——也許更細化一點，深入了解這在創收方面的實際意義？我得到了跟進。

Sure. So I think we have something that is truly differentiated from any of the competition we have seen. So when you think about the Playboy brand, the one thing we have heard from creators from Day 1 is they want to be on the pages to Playboy. And so if you look at the recent changes we're making, and there's a lot of technology work being done in the background that has not rolled out or might not be visible to the consumer. But I think we have something truly differentiated with our brand. When I look at the business and how it is scaling, we -- since we relaunched in mid-September are growing at a 9% weekly CAGR, that CAGR has increased over the last 4 weeks to 18%.

當然。所以我認為我們有一些真正不同於我們所見過的任何競爭的東西。因此，當您想到花花公子品牌時，我們從第一天起就從創作者那裡聽到的一件事就是他們希望出現在花花公子的頁面上。因此，如果你看看我們最近所做的改變，就會發現有很多技術工作在後台完成，但尚未推出或消費者可能看不到。但我認為我們的品牌真正與眾不同。當我審視業務及其擴展方式時，我們——自 9 月中旬重新啟動以來，每周復合年增長率為 9%，過去 4 周復合年增長率已增至 18%。

If you annualized your weekly GMV today with no growth. So you just took the weekly GMV and annualized it, you would be in excess of $15 million. If you actually applied the 9% weekly growth, and we're not assuming that continues, but if it did continue, you would get to roughly $135 million plus for the year of GMV. And then we take 20% of that. And so as we said, our direct fixed costs associated with the business are roughly $500,000 a month, depending on what that GMV turns out to be for the year, we believe the business will be cash flow neutral to positive and then continue to scale from there.

如果您今天對每週的 GMV 進行年度化，但沒有增長。所以你只需要每週的 GMV 並將其年化，你就會超過 1500 萬美元。如果你實際應用了 9% 的每週增長，我們並沒有假設這種情況會持續下去，但如果它確實繼續下去，那麼今年的 GMV 將達到大約 1.35 億美元以上。然後我們拿走其中的 20%。正如我們所說，我們與該業務相關的直接固定成本約為每月 500,000 美元，具體取決於當年的 GMV，我們相信該業務的現金流量將保持中性至正值，然後繼續擴大規模那裡。

And so there's a lot of stuff that we have planned from a product perspective. But when we started this and we decided to re-platform the business last year. The benchmark or the baseline that we thought we had to be at was to have a product from a technology perspective that was as good as the competitors. And I believe that over time, we will have a technology platform that will be better than the competitors based on the team we have, the way it is built and what we can do with it moving forward.

因此，我們從產品的角度規劃了很多東西。但是當我們開始這項工作時，我們決定在去年重新搭建業務平台。我們認為我們必須達到的基准或基線是從技術角度擁有與競爭對手一樣好的產品。而且我相信，隨著時間的推移，我們將擁有一個比競爭對手更好的技術平台，基於我們擁有的團隊、它的構建方式以及我們可以用它做些什麼。

And then when you add that secret sauce of bringing back that digital magazine that can be a huge traffic driver to the platform, just like it was historically for the company because you are working with mainstream celebrities to be on the pages of Playboy. And when you start to think about the traffic that generates, we've already brought in and signed up 1.4 million people have registered on the creator platform. And we've spent no money marketing versus when you look at the consumer products business, what you're spending to acquire customers. Over time this year, our creators will become affiliates for the consumer product business on both Playboy and Honey Birdette.

然後，當你添加將數字雜誌帶回該平台的秘訣時，它可以成為該平台的巨大流量驅動力，就像公司歷史上一樣，因為你正在與主流名人合作，登上花花公子的頁面。當你開始考慮產生的流量時，我們已經吸引並註冊了 140 萬人，他們已經在創作者平台上註冊了。我們沒有花錢營銷，而當你看消費品業務時，你花錢來獲取客戶。隨著時間的推移，今年，我們的創作者將成為花花公子和 Honey Birdette 消費品業務的附屬機構。

Congratulations so far on the growth there. I guess second question, Lance, I realize you're exiting -- sorry to hear that. Just mention, now you had now, but good luck to you. But curious on '23, I realize there's -- you're not guiding. There's a bunch of moving pieces. We can sort of compute the $25 million and 12% margin there. But I guess as you sort of see the momentum in your business and you sort of baseline that across the segments that you're going to keep and you sort of think more medium to longer term. Do you have a sense of a target EBITDA margin that you sort of want to track to?

到目前為止，祝賀那裡的增長。我想第二個問題，蘭斯，我知道你要退出了——很遺憾聽到這個消息。只是提一下，現在你已經有了，但祝你好運。但對 23 年感到好奇，我意識到 - 你沒有指導。有一堆動人的作品。我們可以計算那裡的 2500 萬美元和 12% 的利潤率。但我想當你看到你的業務勢頭時，你會在你將要保留的各個細分市場中設定基線，你會考慮更多的中長期。您是否了解想要跟踪的目標 EBITDA 利潤率？

And then last question, I guess, on Lance leaving. What sort of process are you guys going to go through to sort of bring someone else if you're thinking on internal or external? Or how you're going to approach replacing, Lance?

最後一個問題，我猜是關於蘭斯離開的。如果您正在考慮內部或外部，你們將經歷什麼樣的過程來帶其他人？或者你打算如何更換，蘭斯？

Sure. I'll touch on the EBITDA piece. The way I'd look at it is probably on a segment-by-segment basis, right? If you look at direct-to-consumer, it's really been weighed down through the Annie business and as we've tried to start up the Playboy business. So if you're eliminating that and you really just left with Lovers and Honey Birdette, that's a segment that could be doing around 20% margin. If you got rid of Lovers and just focused on Honey Birdette, that EBITDA margin would actually be higher.

當然。我將談談 EBITDA 部分。我看待它的方式可能是逐個細分的，對吧？如果你看看直接面向消費者的業務，它確實受到了安妮業務的拖累，因為我們試圖啟動花花公子業務。因此，如果你要消除它，而你真的只剩下 Lovers 和 Honey Birdette，那麼這個部分的利潤率可能約為 20%。如果你擺脫了 Lovers 而只專注於 Honey Birdette，那麼 EBITDA 利潤率實際上會更高。

If you look at the licensing segment, those EBITDA margins are incredibly high, I think well north of 70%, 75%. And then the digital segment, as Ben mentioned right now, you think of the creator platform is getting to breakeven this year. We actually have 2 other businesses within the digital segment. That's TV and Plus. They did $18 million, $17.9 million of revenue last year. Now they're in decline, but those businesses from an EBITDA margin perspective are north of 40%, 40%, 50%. They're really high-margin businesses as well.

如果你看一下許可部分，那些 EBITDA 利潤率非常高，我認為遠高於 70%、75%。然後是數字部分，正如本現在提到的，你認為創作者平台今年將達到收支平衡。實際上，我們在數字領域還有另外 2 項業務。那是電視和加號。他們去年的收入為 1800 萬美元，即 1790 萬美元。現在它們在下降，但從 EBITDA 利潤率的角度來看，這些業務在 40%、40%、50% 以上。他們也是真正的高利潤企業。

So I think the question on digital longer term is what would the creator platform margins look like we've seen historically when we launched the NFT project. That was incredibly high EBITDA margin when we generated $11 million of revenue in the fourth quarter of 2021. So look, we think that could be an incredibly high margin business going forward. But in terms of like the next 12 months, I think of it as more breakeven for the creator platform plus the benefit you're getting from TV and Plsu.

所以我認為數字長期的問題是，當我們啟動 NFT 項目時，創作者平台的利潤率會像我們歷史上看到的那樣。當我們在 2021 年第四季度產生 1100 萬美元的收入時，這是非常高的 EBITDA 利潤率。所以看，我們認為這可能是一個非常高的利潤率業務。但就接下來的 12 個月而言，我認為這對創作者平台來說更能達到收支平衡，加上你從電視和 Plsu 中獲得的好處。

Yes. I think when there's the largest competitor in the space, the numbers are out there publicly. And I think you can look to those margins for what the platform could generate. And so what we talked about on the creator platform is the $500,000 of fixed costs. There are some variable costs with credit card fees, et cetera. But if the business were to continue its growth at 9% and do $135 million in GMV or roughly $27 million to us, I can tell you flat out, it's very profitable, right? And the margins are extremely high because your fixed costs don't really scale.

是的。我認為當這個領域有最大的競爭對手時，數字就會公開。而且我認為您可以從這些利潤中尋找平台可以產生的收益。所以我們在創作者平台上談論的是 500,000 美元的固定成本。信用卡費用等有一些可變成本。但如果該業務繼續以 9% 的速度增長，並為我們帶來 1.35 億美元的 GMV 或大約 2700 萬美元，我可以告訴你，這是非常有利可圖的，對吧？而且利潤非常高，因為您的固定成本並沒有真正擴展。

And then as far as Lance, it's something the Board is working on. And we're obviously looking moving forward for the best CFO we can hire at the business.

然後就 Lance 而言，這是董事會正在處理的事情。顯然，我們期待著在公司聘請到最好的首席財務官。

Our next question comes from the line of Jason Tilchen with Canaccord.

我們的下一個問題來自 Jason Tilchen 與 Canaccord 的對話。

And I guess the first thing I was curious about is if you could shed a little more light on the financial impact of moving the China licensing business to the JV over the next 2 quarters? Is there any change there? And then sort of longer term, what are some of the other -- I think you mentioned there's some additional markets that you think that have sort of been underpenetrated by you guys in the licensing area over time. I'm just curious if there's any more color you can share there on which countries you're referring to and how near term those opportunities are?

我想我首先好奇的是，您是否可以更清楚地說明在接下來的兩個季度將中國許可業務轉移到合資企業的財務影響？那裡有什麼變化嗎？然後從長遠來看，其他一些是什麼——我想你提到了一些額外的市場，你認為隨著時間的推移，你們在許可領域的滲透率有所下降。我只是想知道您是否可以分享更多有關您所指的國家以及這些機會的近期情況的顏色？

Sure. So I think for China, as I think about China for the year, I don't see any financial impact from moving from what we were to where we are going. In fact, when you think about how the deal was structured, and we talked about this a little bit. On the call, moving from what was a cash licensing fee to allowing our partner to earn equity based on performance in the business at a $250 million valuation. And then we think about the growth that they are bringing to the table through that business pipeline, I would hope over time, that business will grow. There's a ton of categories within China, where we're largely a men's fashion brand and have been. And some of the business pipeline we've seen, especially around women's and then accessories, there's a lot of opportunities for growth within that market.

當然。因此，我認為對於中國，正如我對今年中國的看法一樣，我認為從我們過去的狀態轉移到我們要去的地方不會產生任何財務影響。事實上，當你考慮交易的結構時，我們就此進行了一些討論。在電話會議上，從現金許可費轉變為允許我們的合作夥伴以 2.5 億美元的估值獲得基於業務績效的股權。然後我們考慮他們通過業務管道帶來的增長，我希望隨著時間的推移，業務將會增長。中國有很多品類，我們主要是男裝品牌，而且一直都是。我們看到的一些業務渠道，尤其是圍繞女裝和配飾的業務渠道，在該市場內有很多增長機會。

When we think about other places in the world, the JV approach that we've done, we believe that running the business the way that we did because of some legacy issues with the global agent is not the most ideal or optimized way to run it. And so we think about other parts of Southeast Asia, when you get into Vietnam and Thailand, you get into Japan and Korea where the brand is extremely strong. India would be another area that now that we're post pandemic, we're very focused on. And then Europe, we are still relatively small in Europe, and we think there's opportunities there as well.

當我們考慮到世界上其他地方，我們已經採用的合資方式時，我們認為，由於全球代理的一些遺留問題，以我們的方式經營業務並不是最理想或優化的經營方式.所以我們考慮東南亞的其他地區，當你進入越南和泰國，你就會進入品牌極其強大的日本和韓國。印度將是另一個領域，現在我們已經過大流行，我們非常關注。然後是歐洲，我們在歐洲仍然相對較小，我們認為那裡也有機會。

And just a follow-up or actually 2 quick follow-ups on the creator platform. I believe you mentioned called the digital first, but not digital only in terms of relaunching the magazine. I'm just curious if there's anything to read into there about potentially doing some sort of limited opportunities in a paper format? And then secondly, the user growth is really impressive with your marketing spend. Are there any plans to get more aggressive on the marketing side now that you're rebranding it under the Playboy umbrella?

在創作者平台上只是跟進或實際上是 2 個快速跟進。我相信您首先提到了所謂的數字化，但不僅僅是就重新發行雜誌而言的數字化。我很好奇是否有任何關於可能以紙質形式做某種有限機會的內容？其次，您的營銷支出帶來的用戶增長確實令人印象深刻。既然你們在花花公子的保護傘下重塑品牌，是否有任何計劃在營銷方面變得更加積極？

So the -- as far as the marketing, I don't really want to speak at this point to our marketing. I think that we're seeing great success with creators bringing their audiences to Playboy. Obviously, there was some press this week on the magazine and we -- the inbound phone calls from creators wanting to be part of that magazine has significantly accelerated. And I'll say this on the Digital First magazine, I choose my words carefully, and we choose our words carefully. And so I'm not interested in selling magazine copies. That's not a business that we want to go into. But if getting a magazine was part of a larger play and being a Playboy member, then that at some point can make sense for us.

所以 - 就營銷而言，我現在真的不想談論我們的營銷。我認為我們看到創作者將他們的觀眾帶到花花公子上取得了巨大成功。顯然，本週雜誌上有一些媒體報導，我們——希望加入該雜誌的創作者打來的電話明顯加快了。我在 Digital First 雜誌上這樣說，我會謹慎選擇措辭，我們也會謹慎選擇措辭。所以我對賣雜誌不感興趣。這不是我們想要涉足的行業。但是，如果獲得一本雜誌是更大的遊戲的一部分，並且成為花花公子的會員，那麼在某些時候這對我們來說是有意義的。

Our next question comes from the line of James Duffy with Stifel.

我們的下一個問題來自 James Duffy 與 Stifel 的對話。

I wanted to start by digging in on the economics of the creator platform. Your $15 million GMV run rate, fixed cost around $6 billion, you get about 20% revenue attribution. What are the other variable costs? And how much above that $30 million GMV run rate would you need to get to breakeven on that business?

我想從深入了解創作者平台的經濟學開始。你 1500 萬美元的 GMV 運行率，大約 60 億美元的固定成本，你得到大約 20% 的收入歸因。其他可變成本是什麼？你需要比 3000 萬美元的 GMV 運行率高出多少才能在該業務上實現收支平衡？

So thanks, James, it's Ben. So when you look at the business, we take 20% of what the creator makes. We talked about our fixed costs. So the run rate right now, assuming no growth is $15 million, right? With the 9% weekly CAGR, we are growing at. The fixed cost, call it, roughly $6 million for the year. And then the variable cost for that business are based on your credit card processing fees for the most part. And the hosting, but that doesn't really increase substantially based on the deals we have. So it really comes down to credit card fees that we believe that we believe we're in the process of reducing. And so if you get to, call it, a high single digits, very low double digits business, you were breaking even to making money.

謝謝，詹姆斯，我是本。因此，當您查看業務時，我們會收取創作者所賺取的 20%。我們談到了我們的固定成本。所以現在的運行率，假設沒有增長是 1500 萬美元，對嗎？憑藉每週 9% 的複合年增長率，我們正在增長。每年的固定成本約為 600 萬美元。然後，該業務的可變成本大部分取決於您的信用卡處理費。和託管，但根據我們的交易，這並沒有真正大幅增加。所以這真的歸結為我們認為我們正在減少的信用卡費用。因此，如果你達到，稱其為高個位數，非常低的兩位數業務，那麼你正在收支平衡。

I'm sorry. I don't understand the high single digits to low double digits. That's the margin...

對不起。我不明白高個位數到低兩位數。那就是邊際...

$8 million, so if your fixed costs are $6 million, I don't want to get into all the specifics of the credit card fees. But when you start to get to high single-digit millions, right, you have $6 million of fixed costs. You put a variable cost on that. So you get into the upper end of that...

800 萬美元，所以如果你的固定成本是 600 萬美元，我不想詳細介紹信用卡費用的所有細節。但是，當您開始達到數百萬美元時，您就有 600 萬美元的固定成本。你把可變成本放在上面。所以你進入了那個的高端......

You're saying not GMV in the high single digits, you're seeing revenue contribution. So you'd be doing 5x the revenue contribution in GMV.

你說的不是高個位數的 GMV，你看到的是收入貢獻。因此，您的 GMV 收入貢獻將達到 5 倍。

Correct. So if you're doing $15 million of GMV today with no growth moving forward, that generates $3 million of revenue -- and so the business is growing at 9% weekly CAGR since September, 18% over the last 4 weeks. And so when you start to extrapolate that out from a growth perspective moving forward, if you grew at 9%, you would do $135 million of GMV or $27 million of revenue for us, right? Then the business is very, very profitable. If you were doing $50 million of GMV, that's $10 million of revenue to us. We are making money.

正確的。因此，如果你今天的 GMV 為 1500 萬美元，而沒有任何增長，那麼就會產生 300 萬美元的收入——因此，該業務自 9 月以來每週的複合年增長率為 9%，過去 4 週的複合年增長率為 18%。因此，當你開始從未來的增長角度推斷出這一點時，如果你以 9% 的速度增長，你將為我們帶來 1.35 億美元的 GMV 或 2700 萬美元的收入，對吧？那麼這項業務非常非常有利可圖。如果你做 5000 萬美元的 GMV，那對我們來說就是 1000 萬美元的收入。我們在賺錢。

What are the incremental areas for investment in that business this year? For instance, what's the cost to relaunch the magazine? Are there any other platform expenses we should think about as components of the cost base?

今年該業務的投資增量領域是什麼？例如，重新發行雜誌的成本是多少？我們是否應該考慮將任何其他平台費用作為成本基礎的組成部分？

No. Our costs are pretty much fixed at this point. It's really the internal team that we have built and the engineers that we have hired. And so outside of that, I don't see any other costs. What we -- and I don't want to talk about the product road map because one technology product road maps always move. And if I put something out there, I will disappoint someone and then competitors.

不，我們的成本在這一點上幾乎是固定的。這實際上是我們建立的內部團隊和我們聘用的工程師。因此，除此之外，我看不到任何其他成本。我們——我不想談論產品路線圖，因為一種技術產品路線圖總是在移動。如果我把東西放在那裡，我會讓一些人失望，然後是競爭對手。

But what I will say is we have a very detailed product road map moving forward to continue to enhance the experience for the creators and for the users. And we launched a new profile that has been very well received with creators last week. We relaunched an enhanced discovery as what I would say is really Step 1 in discovery with a lot more coming. And then there's a number of other product features as we look to consolidate what I would say is one-off or stand-alone other legacy products that we have into one ecosystem moving forward. But our fixed costs will not increase with that.

但我要說的是，我們有一個非常詳細的產品路線圖，可以繼續提升創作者和用戶的體驗。我們推出了一個新的個人資料，上週受到了創作者的好評。我們重新啟動了一個增強的發現，因為我想說的是真正的發現的第一步，還有更多。然後還有許多其他產品功能，因為我們希望將我所說的一次性或獨立的其他遺留產品整合到一個向前發展的生態系統中。但我們的固定成本不會隨之增加。

And then my next question, I want to ask about the business model change for Playboy D2C. What's the time frame in which you'd expect to execute on that? Understand (inaudible) number of different options.

然後我的下一個問題，我想問一下花花公子 D2C 的商業模式變化。您希望在什麼時間範圍內執行？了解（聽不清）不同選項的數量。

Yes, we're executing on the cost side of it right now. And so we talked about the $10 million of cost that we've taken out this week. And so we have to focus on what we can control. And the -- as far as making a final decision on whether or not we operate it with a reduced revenue and SKU count or a JV, that is something that is ongoing in real time right now, and we'll make that decision here in the short term moving forward. But what we are committed to doing is I'm committed to generating as much EBITDA out of the company as we can generate. We think we have a good baseline now as Lance talked about it, and we want to make sure that all of our business units are profitable.

是的，我們現在正在執行它的成本方面。所以我們談到了本週我們已經拿出的 1000 萬美元的成本。因此，我們必須專注於我們可以控制的事情。而且 - 至於我們是否以減少收入和 SKU 數量或合資企業來運營它的最終決定，這是現在實時進行的事情，我們將在這裡做出決定短期向前發展。但我們致力於做的是，我致力於從公司中產生盡可能多的 EBITDA。正如 Lance 所說，我們認為我們現在有一個很好的基線，我們希望確保我們所有的業務部門都盈利。

So we know we have a high cash flow and high-margin licensing business. We have a fast-growing digital business in the creator platform that should be high cash flow and high cash flow margin. And then Honey Birdette we talked about the growth in the United States, especially generating 38% 4-wall EBITDA margins in the United States on average. And so when you add that all up and as we've reduced the corporate overhead and simplified the business, and we'll continue to do that. We are focused on making sure that on a net cash basis after debt service, after cash taxes, even though we have $300 million of NOLs in some foreign jurisdictions and after CapEx that we are running this business to be cash flow positive after everything. And that is our goal is to continue to pay to build cash and continue to de-lever the company.

所以我們知道我們擁有高現金流和高利潤的許可業務。我們在創作者平台有一個快速增長的數字業務，應該是高現金流和高現金流利潤率。然後我們談到了 Honey Birdette 在美國的增長，特別是在美國平均產生 38% 的 4-wall EBITDA 利潤率。因此，當您將所有這些加起來並且我們已經減少了公司管理費用並簡化了業務時，我們將繼續這樣做。我們專注於確保在償債後的淨現金基礎上，現金稅後，即使我們在一些外國司法管轄區有 3 億美元的 NOL，並且在資本支出之後，我們經營這項業務的現金流量在一切之後都是正的。那就是我們的目標是繼續支付以建立現金並繼續降低公司的槓桿率。

And this is Ashley. I'll just jump in really quickly on what Ben noted. So as he mentioned today, we made some really hard decisions internally, which right sized our personnel structure for playboy.com. We started earlier this -- it started really in Q4 aggressively, but most aggressively in the last month or 2, significantly reducing our paid media spend in Playboy. So we've already started that massive reduction, which will obviously have big top line impact, but that will help us get to a position of a much significantly less losses than what we incurred last year, and that work has been ongoing and will continue as we identify the future operating model.

這是艾希禮。我只是很快地跳入 Ben 注意到的內容。所以正如他今天提到的，我們在內部做出了一些非常艱難的決定，這些決定正確地調整了花花公子網站的人員結構。我們開始得更早——它確實在第四季度積極開始，但最積極的是在上個月或 2 個月，顯著減少了我們在花花公子上的付費媒體支出。所以我們已經開始大規模削減，這顯然會對收入產生重大影響，但這將幫助我們實現比去年損失少得多的損失，這項工作一直在進行，並將繼續進行當我們確定未來的運營模式時。

We have time for one last question. The last question comes from George Kelly with Roth Capital Partners.

我們有時間問最後一個問題。最後一個問題來自 Roth Capital Partners 的 George Kelly。

So first one is just another question on the creator platform. I just want to make sure I understand all the math and everything around it. So I thought I heard you say in your prepared remarks that you expect it to be sort of a neutral impact to cash flow this year breakeven. And so am I doing the math, right? If I take that to mean that you expect an average run rate GMV during the year of around $50 million.

所以第一個只是創作者平台上的另一個問題。我只是想確保我理解所有的數學和它周圍的一切。所以我想我聽到你在準備好的發言中說，你希望它對今年收支平衡的現金流量產生中性影響。所以我在做數學，對吧？如果我認為這意味著你預計這一年的平均運行率 GMV 約為 5000 萬美元。

That would be -- it's slightly less than that, but that would be a fair assessment that when you look at sort of what we are -- where we are today at 15 with no growth and where we expect to be, that would be -- that's what we think.

那將是 - 它略低於那個，但這是一個公平的評估，當你看看我們現在的樣子時 - 我們今天處於 15 歲，沒有增長，我們預計會是 - - 這就是我們的想法。

And then second question for me on Honey Birdette. You mentioned about the sort of changing pricing strategy there in 4Q. I was just hoping you could give a little more disclosure about what the revenue was in 4Q? And what kind of growth -- year-over-year growth rate that was?

然後是關於 Honey Birdette 的第二個問題。你提到了第四季度那裡的那種不斷變化的定價策略。我只是希望你能多透露一下第四季度的收入是多少？什麼樣的增長——同比增長率是多少？

Yes. And George, the one thing I'll say, just when you go back to the pro forma, and I'll let Lance answer the HB. But when you go back to the pro forma, remember that $25 million of pro forma EBITDA is still being burden with $8 million of cost for the creator platform. So if the business is cash flow breakeven, it's the $25 million plus to $8 million, that gets you to $33 million that Lance was talking about.

是的。喬治，我要說的一件事是，當你回到備考時，我會讓蘭斯回答 HB。但是當你回到備考時，請記住，2500 萬美元的備考 EBITDA 仍然是創作者平台 800 萬美元成本的負擔。因此，如果企業現金流盈虧平衡，那就是 2500 萬美元加到 800 萬美元，這會讓你達到 Lance 所說的 3300 萬美元。

So it was around $18 million revenue in the fourth quarter and yes, I mean the -- for the full year, the U.S. was up, Australia was slightly down, but U.S. was up by on a full year basis, 22% for the year.

因此，第四季度的收入約為 1800 萬美元，是的，我的意思是——就全年而言，美國在增長，澳大利亞略有下降，但美國在全年基礎上增長了 22% .

Yes. And I'll jump in quickly. This is Ashley again. I'll just jump in on the promotion shifts that were made and the actions that started taking place in Q4. As Ben spoke to the first 3 quarters of the year, we added 2 incremental promotions. Those promotions happened in March and September. With the September promo that was leading into Q4, whereas as we hit in the Q4 period, we had 60% less breadth of product on promotion and we reduced the depth of discount. So there was a timing shift in September that ended up pulling forward some sales.

是的。我會迅速加入。這又是艾希禮。我將簡單介紹一下在第 4 季度進行的促銷轉變和開始採取的行動。正如 Ben 在談到今年前 3 個季度時，我們增加了 2 個增量促銷活動。這些促銷活動發生在三月和九月。隨著 9 月的促銷活動進入第四季度，而當我們進入第四季度時，我們的促銷產品範圍減少了 60%，並且我們降低了折扣深度。因此，9 月份出現了時間上的轉變，最終拉動了一些銷售。

The way I'm looking at this and how I've normalized it is I've combined Q3 and Q4 because we essentially reduced promo starting in Q4, which is going to continue into this year through the Q3 period. But when you combine those periods, if you look at it on a constant currency basis, we're up roughly 2% when you add in that kind of Q3, Q4, which accounts for the timing shift. We are going to pull out for this year the March promotion. So we are, obviously, in March right now, we are in the process it's happening. Now we've pulled it out. And we will also reduce the September promotion, we will not do it. And so we will only offer the June and the November sale, which is consistent with our kind of pre-COVID period and then the Boxing Day. And so we're anticipating the revenue impact of that, but that's going to bring us to a much healthier business and position us for longer brand term health.

我看待這個的方式以及我如何規範化它是我結合了第三季度和第四季度，因為我們從第四季度開始基本上減少了促銷，這將持續到今年到第三季度。但是當你把這些時期結合起來，如果你在固定貨幣的基礎上看它，當你加入那種第三季度，第四季度時，我們上漲了大約 2%，這說明了時間的變化。今年我們將取消三月份的促銷活動。所以，很明顯，我們現在在三月份，我們正在它發生的過程中。現在我們已經把它拉出來了。而且我們也會減少9月份的促銷，我們不會做。因此，我們將只提供 6 月和 11 月的促銷活動，這與我們在 COVID 之前和之後的節禮日的銷售情況是一致的。因此，我們預計這會對收入產生影響，但這將使我們的業務更加健康，並使我們處於更長期的品牌健康狀態。

Yes. George, we cut back our inventory by substantially. And so therefore, the inventory that had been bought prior to our purchase that we had to work through last year, especially with the macro climate and Australia specifically. Because we've been started managing our inventory early last year, and we have about a 9-month lead time on inventory. We don't have that. And what we want to put forward more than anything is the brand health of HP, which is extremely strong as a luxury brand. And making sure that, that customer does not get conditioned to buying things on sale, especially given the high margins we have at full price.

是的。喬治，我們大幅削減了庫存。因此，去年我們必須處理在我們購買之前購買的庫存，尤其是在宏觀氣候和澳大利亞的情況下。因為我們去年初開始管理我們的庫存，我們有大約 9 個月的庫存準備時間。我們沒有那個。而我們最想提出的是惠普的品牌健康，作為一個奢侈品牌，它是非常強大的。並確保該客戶不會習慣於購買打折商品，尤其是考慮到我們以全價獲得的高利潤。

That does conclude our question-and-answer session. This does conclude our call. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day.

這確實結束了我們的問答環節。這確實結束了我們的電話。感謝您的參與。此時您可以斷開線路，度過美好的一天。