Playboy Inc (PLBY) 2025 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Greetings, and welcome to the PLBY Group's first-quarter 2025 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Matt Chesler.

您好，歡迎參加 PLBY 集團 2025 年第一季財報電話會議。（操作員指示）現在我很高興介紹您的主持人 Matt Chesler。

Thank you. You may begin.

謝謝。你可以開始了。

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to remind you that the information discussed today is qualified in its entirety by the Form 8-K and Form 10-Q filed today by PLBY Group, which may be accessed on the SEC's website and on PLBY's group's website.

謝謝接線員，大家下午好。我想提醒您，今天討論的資訊完全符合 PLBY 集團今天提交的 8-K 表和 10-Q 表的規定，您可以在美國證券交易委員會 (SEC) 網站和 PLBY 集團網站上查閱。

Today's call is also being webcast, and a replay will be posted to the company's investor relations website. 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 groups' 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.

今天的電話會議也將進行網路直播，重播將發佈在公司的投資者關係網站上。請注意，本次電話會議中所作的陳述，包括財務預測或其他非歷史性質的陳述，可能構成前瞻性陳述。此類聲明是基於 PLBY 集團在做出聲明時對未來事件和業務表現的看法和假設而做出的，我們不承擔更新這些聲明的任何義務。

Forward-looking statements are subject to risk and could cause the company's actual results to differ from its historical results and forecasts, including those set forth in the company's filings with the SEC, and you should refer to and carefully consider those for more information.

前瞻性陳述具有風險，可能導致本公司的實際結果與其歷史結果和預測（包括本公司向美國證券交易委員會提交的文件中所述的結果和預測）不同，您應參考並仔細考慮這些結果以獲取更多資訊。

This cautionary statement applies to all forward-looking statements made during this call. Do not place undue reliance on any forward-looking statement.

此警告聲明適用於本次電話會議期間所做的所有前瞻性陳述。請勿過度依賴任何前瞻性陳述。

During (technical difficulty) the company may refer to non-GAAP financial measures. Such non-GAAP measures are now prepared in accordance with (technical difficulty)

在（技術困難）期間，本公司可能會參考非公認會計準則財務指標。此類非公認會計準則衡量指標目前依（技術難度）

Ladies and gentlemen, please stand by. We're having some technical difficulties. And Matt, you may proceed.

女士們、先生們，請稍候。我們遇到了一些技術困難。馬特，你可以繼續了。

With that, I will hand the call back over to the operator to begin the Q&A session. Operator.

說完，我將把電話交還給接線員，開始問答環節。操作員。

(Operator Instructions) George Kelly, Roth Capital Partners.

（操作員指示）喬治凱利（George Kelly），羅斯資本合夥公司。

Hey everyone, thanks for taking my questions. First, if we could start with Honey Birdette , I was wondering if you could give us your expectations just as you look at for the next couple quarters with respect to growth, and like when does the compare for the discounting quarters last year, when does that compare ease? And then also with gross margin, should we expect much sort of change in gross margin in the near term?

大家好，感謝你們回答我的問題。首先，如果我們可以從 Honey Birdette 開始，我想知道您是否可以給我們您的預期，就像您對未來幾季的成長情況一樣，以及與去年折扣季度相比何時比較輕鬆？那麼對於毛利率，我們是否應該預期短期內毛利率會發生很大的變化？

Hey George, it's Marc. In terms of comps, we're lapping after the first quarter. So in the second quarter, we're going to be up against a an easy comparable from a sales standpoint, and we're already seeing that we're ahead of plan right now in the in the second quarter, so things look good 100% for that.

嘿，喬治，我是馬克。就比較而言，我們已經超越了第一季。因此，在第二季度，從銷售角度來看，我們將面臨一個簡單的可比性，而且我們已經看到，我們在第二季度已經提前完成了計劃，因此情況看起來 100％ 良好。

Do you have a second part to that question?

您對這個問題還有第二部分嗎？

Yeah, just on the near-term gross margin expectations there too, and I guess the second part of that would be any kind of impact from Chinese tariffs?

是的，也只是關於近期的毛利率預期，我想第二部分會是中國關稅產生什麼影響？

Yes, so the near term right now, all the product that we're selling pretty much in the second quarter is a product that was brought in prior to the tariffs. When we look at the tariff impact going into 3Q and 4Q, it's tough to quantify right now if you were to assume the tariffs that they have right now. It's about $1 million impact, which is not that big of a number.

是的，所以就目前而言，我們在第二季銷售的所有產品基本上都是關稅之前進口的產品。當我們觀察第三季和第四季的關稅影響時，如果假設他們現在徵收的關稅，現在很難量化。影響約為 100 萬美元，這並不是一個很大的數字。

Now to help combat that we put 10% price increases in already. And in addition to that, we're changing some of our shipping thresholds for free shipping. So there are a number of levers that we can pull, and the good thing about the price increases is that should the tariffs stay where they are and not go back up, the price increases stay in regardless, and we'd get a pickup from them.

為了解決這個問題，我們已經將價格提高了 10%。除此之外，我們還將改變部分免運的送貨門檻。因此，我們可以採取多種措施，價格上漲的好處是，如果關稅保持不變，不再上漲，那麼價格上漲仍然會持續，我們就能從中獲益。

Yeah. So George, it's been -- remember the US is roughly $35 million of the business, and so we've put a 10% price increase in on that. And should tariffs go back up, we have additional levers that we can pull as other companies have. But the goal was to keep the price increases as permanent, and so if tariffs stays the same, there should actually be a pick up assuming there's no degradation in volume moving forward.

是的。喬治，請記住，美國的業務大約佔 3500 萬美元，因此我們對此提高了 10% 的價格。如果關稅再次上漲，我們可以像其他公司一樣採取額外的措施。但目標是保持價格上漲的永久性，因此，如果關稅保持不變，假設未來交易量沒有下降，價格實際上應該會回升。

And that the $1 million that you mentioned, that's for the back-two quarters.

您提到的 100 萬美元是用於後兩個季度的。

Yeah, it's for the back-two quarters.

是的，這是針對後兩個季度的。

Okay. And then, Second topic, I was hoping you could chat on is the Byborg. What are their plans as far as new product development, timeline, anything you're comfortable sharing on the call, just sort of that's in the works with Byborg?

好的。然後，我希望您能聊的第二個主題是 Byborg。就新產品開發、時間表而言，他們的計劃是什麼，您願意在電話中分享什麼，只是與 Byborg 合作的計劃嗎？

Yeah, so we've been working actively with them. We've seen the new designs they have for the existing products as well as live cams business. We're excited by it, but if you remember we have a great deal with them.

是的，我們一直在積極與他們合作。我們已經看到了他們針對現有產品以及即時攝影機業務的新設計。我們對此感到非常興奮，但如果您還記得的話，我們與他們達成了一項很棒的協議。

It's a $20 million a year minimum guarantee, and then we get a significant percentage of the ops of 25% above that. And I think as I stated previously, I think that over the life of the deal, we should hopefully see profits well in excess of EMGs, but in the beginning years, they're developing and spending money building out those products. And so for our purposes, we're assuming it's $20 million a year right now as EMG moving forward, we will receive a further $20 million payment from them this year. It's scheduled for July 1. That is $5 million for the last two quarters of the year plus what is effectively a $10 million security deposit, which is a pre-payment of the last six months of year 15 licensing term.

這是每年 2000 萬美元的最低擔保額，然後我們會獲得高於該金額 25% 的營運收益。我認為，正如我之前所說，我認為在交易期間，我們應該希望看到利潤遠遠超過 EMG，但在最初幾年，他們正在開發並投入資金打造這些產品。因此，就我們的目的而言，我們假設現在每年的付款額為 2000 萬美元，隨著 EMG 的發展，我們今年將從他們那裡再收到 2000 萬美元的付款。預計 7 月 1 日舉行。這是今年最後兩個季度的 500 萬美元加上實際上是 1000 萬美元的保證金，這是第 15 年許可期限最後六個月的預付款。

Okay. And there -- that second equity investment, remind me on the -- that the vote date got moved to the annual meeting, is that correct? Is that later in May?

好的。還有——第二筆股權投資，提醒我——投票日期被移到了年度會議上，對嗎？那是五月下旬嗎？

Yeah, so the dates were sort of coming together, and so we decided just based on participation typically in the annual meeting to put that to the shareholders as part of the Annual Meeting that's scheduled for June 16.

是的，日期差不多了，所以我們決定僅根據年度會議的參與情況，將其作為定於 6 月 16 日舉行的年度會議的一部分提交給股東。

Okay, and then last question for me is about the other licensing business. You made comments in the press release about enthusiasm, or what you think is potential around certain other categories. I think you mentioned the club, and something maybe hospitality, or something else.

好的，我的最後一個問題是關於其他許可業務。您在新聞稿中評論了熱情，或您認為其他某些類別的潛力。我想您提到了俱樂部，也許是招待費，或是其他東西。

Yeah.

是的。

What stage are Is that something we can start to see in the back half of this year? Do you feel like you're getting close? Just any more context around those comments would be helpful.

我們可以在今年下半年開始看到什麼階段嗎？你覺得自己快接近目標了嗎？有關這些評論的任何更多背景資訊都會有所幫助。

Yeah. So I think it's important to level set sort of where we are and what we've done, right? And then I'll talk about that. So almost two years ago, we embarked on this asset-lite model, and you know Q1 was our first positive EBITDA quarter since ‘23. So I feel really good where we are now as a company, and what the future looks like for the balance of this year and moving forward, especially with our adjusted EBITDA, $2.4 million. There was actually $1 million of cost in the first quarter related to personnel that we've already eliminated at the end of the quarter, so that would have actually been positive $3.4 million.

是的。所以我認為，明確我們所處的位置和我們所做的事情是很重要的，對嗎？然後我會談論這個。因此，大約兩年前，我們開始採用這種輕資產模式，你知道第一季是我們自 23 年以來第一個 EBITDA 為正的季度。因此，我對我們公司目前的狀況以及今年餘下時間以及未來的發展前景感到非常滿意，尤其是我們的調整後 EBITDA 達到 240 萬美元。第一季與人員相關的成本實際上為 100 萬美元，而我們在本季末已經將這些成本消除，因此這筆費用實際上是正 340 萬美元。

But what we have is a portfolio of really stable high-margin licensing deals, and now what we're actually able -- because we have a plan to continue to reduce overhead. But we're in a position now where we should start to produce cash as a company, we can now sort of focus on growth. And I think that comes from two areas. As we mentioned in the press release, we're seeing a lot of traction in what I would say is gaming. And then in the hospitality or LBE side of things, we have actually been approached by two what I would say is some of the best operators we know of in the United States to develop some form of, for lack of a better term, Playboy Club, the physical build out of that and the development of that would actually take a while, that's a one to two year project. But the licensing deals themselves for gaming and some of the other stuff we have in our strong pipeline, that is something that we should see in the back half of this year starting.

但我們擁有的是一系列真正穩定的高利潤許可交易，現在我們實際上能夠做到——因為我們有一個繼續降低管理費用的計劃。但我們現在應該開始作為一家公司創造現金，我們現在可以專注於成長。我認為這源自於兩個面向。正如我們在新聞稿中提到的那樣，我們看到遊戲領域正在發生很大的發展。然後在酒店或 LBE 方面，我們實際上已經與美國兩家我認為是最好的運營商接洽，希望開發某種形式的（找不到更好的術語來稱呼）花花公子俱樂部，其實際建設和開發實際上需要一段時間，這是一個一到兩年的項目。但是，對於遊戲和我們強大管道中的其他一些產品的授權交易本身，我們應該會在今年下半年看到。

Obviously, revenue recognition when you do a multi-year deal, that's subject to sort of straight lining in the accountants, and then in addition to that, what's really interesting is what happened with the magazine. And so we sold out of the magazine, I'll be a small print run online.

顯然，當你簽訂多年期合約時，收入確認要經過會計師的直線核算，除此之外，真正有趣的是雜誌上發生的事情。當我們的雜誌銷售一空後，我會在網上進行少量印刷。

And then the sell-through of Barnes & Noble's was unbelievable. They were our exclusive brick and mortar or newsstand sale.

而 Barnes & Noble 的銷售則令人難以置信。它們是我們在實體店或報攤獨家銷售的。

And what we've seen come out of that actually, and we're going to do one additional issue this year as we ramp up to hopefully four issues next year, is the ancillary revenue streams that come off of that.

實際上，我們已經看到了由此產生的附加收入流，我們今年將再發行一期，明年預計將增加到四期。

Think about these as quasi-licensing streams actually from a margin profile perspective, but when we start to get into opportunities around mainstream content. So TV shows both linear and digital as well as paid voting, we actually have a history of doing paid voting before.

從利潤率的角度來看，實際上可以將其視為準許可流，但當我們開始獲得主流內容的機會時。因此，無論是線性還是數位電視節目，以及付費投票，我們實際上以前就有進行付費投票的歷史。

Now,back when we weren't asset light, we had launched Playboy Lingerie, and we had actually done a paid voting campaign to find the next phase of Playboy. And that generated a significant amount of revenue EBITDA for us. This deal that we're doing is slightly different, and we'll talk about that on the next call. But it's something that we think is always on ongoing competition, really embracing our community and allowing them to help pick or dominate who might become the next Playmate as we as we gear up for 12 Playmates a year, and then the ancillary products around that.

現在，當我們還沒有輕資產的時候，我們就推出了花花公子內衣，而且我們實際上已經進行了付費投票活動來尋找花花公子的下一階段。這為我們創造了大量的收入 EBITDA。我們正在進行的這筆交易略有不同，我們將在下次通話中討論這個問題。但我們認為這始終是一個持續的競爭，真正擁抱我們的社區，並允許他們幫助挑選或決定誰可能成為下一個花花公子，因為我們每年都會推出 12 個花花公子，然後是周圍的輔助產品。

Not only the magazine, but the calendars. We had a we had a long history of producing a Playmate calendar that used to produce multiple millions of dollars a year in sales. And so there's a lot of other revenue streams that can come on the back of what we're doing from a content perspective. And then in addition to that, we get the benefit of what I would say is really the strong brand awareness and rebuilding the brand. And so I feel really good with where we are from our plan to continue to reduce overhead moving forward, continuing to increase EBITDA, and then really what is the growth opportunities which I would say, if I look over the last three to five years are probably the strongest growth opportunities we've seen doesn't mean it will hit in ‘25.

不只雜誌，還有日曆。我們生產花花公子日曆的歷史很長，每年的銷售額可達數百萬美元。因此，從內容角度來看，我們的工作還可以帶來許多其他收入來源。除此之外，我們還獲得了我認為真正強大的品牌意識和品牌重建的好處。因此，我對我們的計劃感到非常滿意，我們將繼續降低管理費用，並繼續提高 EBITDA，那麼真正的成長機會是什麼？我想說，如果回顧過去三到五年，這可能是我們所見過的最強勁的成長機會，但這並不意味著它會在 2025 年實現。

We're really focused on sort of ‘26 and beyond, but you could see paid voting in the second half of this year. You could start to see a calendar that we're planning for the magazine, which will come out in November, and then you also saw in the first quarter some sponsorship revenue, and we can -- we think that will continue and grow moving forward as we continue to refine what I would say is our media and content strategy moving forward, George.

我們真正關注的是 26 年及以後的事情，但你可能會在今年下半年看到付費投票。您可以開始看到我們為雜誌規劃的日期，該日曆將於 11 月推出，然後您還會看到第一季度的一些贊助收入，我們可以 - 我們認為，隨著我們繼續完善我們未來的媒體和內容策略，這種收入將繼續增長，喬治。

Okay, gotcha. Thank you very much.

好的，明白了。非常感謝。

Thank you, and now, we’d to hand it over back to Matt Chester for further questions.

謝謝，現在，我們將把時間交還給 Matt Chester，以便回答其他問題。

Yeah, operator, we had an additional question on the drivers of the licensing business actually in the quarter from the team at Jefferies, so Leo Sanjeev and Jane Keeney. Ben, I think you answered a lot of this. If you'd like to provide any more details on the drivers of the quarter, go ahead. If not, perhaps we turn it over and have some concluding remarks.

是的，接線員，Jefferies 團隊的 Leo Sanjeev 和 Jane Keeney 就本季度許可業務的實際驅動因素提出了一個額外的問題。本，我想你已經回答了很多問題。如果您想提供有關本季度驅動因素的更多詳細信息，請繼續。如果沒有的話，也許我們可以把它翻過來並做一些總結性的評論。

Sure, yeah. I'll just reiterate. So obviously, licensing was up a huge 175% year over year with Byborg. With Byborg it was still up over 50%. The two primary reasons for that were one, the Borg deal went into effect January 1. They've already made their first two payments.

當然，是的。我再重申。顯然，Byborg 的授權許可量年增了 175%。而 Byborg 的漲幅仍超過 50%。主要有兩個原因：一是博格協議於 1 月 1 日生效。他們已經支付了前兩筆款項。

The second payment came in after the quarter ended as the contract calls for, but that's $5 million a quarter. And then in addition to that, it's a year-over-year improvement and rebuilding our China licensing business. We're encouraged by what we see. Obviously, a tough environment with the tariff war, but our partner is doing well. And we think there's continued growth there.

第二筆付款按照合約要求在季度結束後支付，但每季為 500 萬美元。除此之外，我們的中國授權業務也逐年改善重建。我們所看到的景象令我們深受鼓舞。顯然，關稅戰的環境很艱難，但我們的夥伴做得很好。我們認為那裡還會持續成長。

And then what we've been really working on is the pipeline moving forward, which we should start to see the benefit of that in the third and fourth quarter with that pipeline and getting some of these deals across the finish line, which we're very close on in gaming and other areas. And so I'm excited by that and really excited, as I mentioned, with some of the opportunities we have around content licensing, fast channels, paid Playmate voting, et cetera as we move forward.

然後，我們真正致力於推進通路建設，我們應該會在第三季和第四季開始看到通路建設帶來的好處，並讓一些交易順利完成，我們在遊戲和其他領域已經非常接近完成這些交易。因此，我對此感到非常興奮，正如我所提到的，隨著我們不斷前進，我們在內容許可、快速管道、付費 Playmate 投票等方面將擁有一些機會。

Anything else now for questions that came in online?

現在還有其他線上問題需要回答嗎？

Let me take a quick look. We do not have any more questions online.

讓我快速看一下。我們網上沒有其他問題。

Great. Well, I'll conclude it by thanking everyone for joining our Q1 2025 call. Look forward to talking to you sometime in the beginning of August when we report Q2 earnings. So thank you, everyone.

偉大的。好吧，最後我要感謝大家參加我們的 2025 年第一季電話會議。我們期待在 8 月初報告第二季收益時與您交談。謝謝大家。

Thank you, and this does conclude today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation. Have a great day.

謝謝大家，今天的會議到此結束，大家可以斷開連線了。感謝您的參與。祝你有美好的一天。