Steven Madden Ltd (SHOO) 2024 Q3 法說會逐字稿

(technical difficulty) Turn it over to Zine to review our third quarter financial results in more detail and provide our updated outlook for 2024.

Thanks, Ed and good morning, everyone in the third quarter, our consolidated revenue was $624.7 million. A 13% increase compared to the third quarter of 2023.

It was almost famous, consolidated revenue grew 5.5% compared to the same period in the prior year.

Our wholesale revenue was $495.7 million. Up 14.4% compared to the third quarter of 2023.

Excluding HOFA wholesale revenue increased 4.8% compared to the same period in the prior year.

Wholesale footwear revenue was $299.3 million. A 2.2% decrease from the comparable period in 2023. With growth in the private label business, more than offset by a decline in the branded business.

Wholesale accessories in the power of revenue was $196.4 million. Up 54.2% to the third quarter in the prior year or 21.6% excluding almost famous, driven by strong growth in our Steve Madden handbag business. Despite difficult comparisons with the same period last year in our direct to consumer segment revenue was $125.5 million.

A 7.8% increase compared to the third quarter of 2023.

As I mentioned, performance was stronger in e-commerce than the brick and mortar channel.

We ended, we ended the quarter with 282 com. 282 company operated brick and mortar retail stores including 68 outlets, five e-commerce websites and 67 company operated concessions in international markets turn into our licensing segment. Our licensing royalty income was $3.5 million in the quarter compared to $2.9 million in the third quarter of 2023.

Consolidated gross margin was 41.6% in the quarter versus 42.1% in the comparable period of 2023. Due to the impact of almost payments, excluding almost famous consolidated gross margin increased 50 basis points year over year, the freight impact from the supply chain disruption was offset by lower promotional activity.

Wholesale growth margin was 35.5% compared to 35.9% in the third quarter of 2023. Also due to the impact of almost famous, excluding almost famous wholesale growth margin increased 30 basis points year over year direct to consumer growth margin was 64%.

Up 30 basis points from the comparable period in 2023 could buy a reduction in promotional activity operating expenses as a percentage of revenue or 27.9% compared to 27% in the third quarter of 2023. Driven by increased marketing investment, higher incentive compensation and a mix shift within DPC to e-commerce which has a higher variable expense operating income for the quarter was $85.4 million or 13.7% of revenue. Up from 83.4 million or 15.1% of revenue in the comparable period in the prior year.

The effective tax rate for the quarter was 23.8% compared to 22.8% in the third quarter of 2023.

Finally net income attributable to Steve Madden. Limited for the quarter was $64.8 million or 91¢ per diluted share compared to $65.1 million or 88¢ per diluted share in the third quarter of 2023.

Moving into the balance sheet, our financial foundation remains strong as of September 30th 2024 we had $150.5 million of cash cash equivalents and short term investments and no debt inventory at the end of the quarter was $268.7 million compared to $205.7 million in the prior year. The majority of the increase in inventory was the result of increased transit times. We built an average of approximately 10 days compared to last year to transport goods from their countries of origin to our warehouses.

Our CapEx in the third quarter, $2.4 million.

During the third quarter, the company spent $20.2 million on repurchases of its common stock including shares acquired through the net settlement of employee stock awards. Bringing our year-to-date total to $95.8 million.

Company's board board of directors approved a quarterly cash dividend of 21¢ per share. The dividend will be payable on December 27th, 2024 to stockholders of record as of the close of business on December 13th, 2024 turn into our outlook. We are raising our annual guidance. We now expect revenue for 2024 to increase 13 to 14% compared to 2023 and we now expect diluted EPS to be in the range of 2,062¢ to 2,067¢.

Now, I would like to turn the call over to the operator for questions. Ripk.

Thank you. At this time. We will conduct the question and answer session as a reminder to ask a question, you will need to press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced to withdraw your question. Please press star 11 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster.

Paul Lejuez, Citi.

Hey guys, this is Kelly on for Paul. Thanks for taking our questions. Just first one, if you could just update us on your, your China sourcing exposure. And, and what your, your, you know thought is around how you address that going forward in light of the potential tariffs. And then secondly, can you talk a bit more about what played out in, in the wholesale footwear channel? I believe you were expecting an improvement in the core, the amount of wholesale footwear business in three Q versus two Q. So I guess how did that trend versus, I believe it was down to single digits in two Q. So just any color, there would be great. Thanks.

Yes, great. Thanks Kelly. So, first of all, with respect to your first question around China and potential tariff exposure. Look, we have, we have been planning for a potential scenario in which we would have to move goods out of China more quickly. We we've worked hard over a multiyear period to, to develop our factory base and our sourcing capability in alternative countries like Cambodia, Vietnam, Mexico, Brazil, et cetera. And so as of yesterday morning, we are putting that plan into motion and you should expect to see the percentage of goods that we source from China to begin to come down more rapidly going forward.

Just to give you some, you asked about the China exposure just to give you some some context to hope, hopefully help you frame the issue here. About two thirds of our overall business is done in with us imports. So us imports account for about two thirds of our overall business. And of that, we currently source a little bit more than 70% of those goods from China. So in other words, just under half of our current business would be potentially subject to tariffs on chinese imports. Our goal over the next year is to reduce that, that percentage of goods that we source from China by, by approximately 40% to 45% which means that if we're able to achieve that, and we think we have the plan to do it that a year from today, we would be looking at just over a quarter of our business that would be subject to potential tariffs on Chinese goods.

I think the second part of your question was about our, our wholesale footwear business and I think you're referring specifically to probably to the branded business. So again, that was down in, in Q3, we improved sequentially. So the decline was a little bit smaller than it was in Q2, but we did not get all the way to flat, which was our goal. And and look at the dynamics in that channel. The challenging dynamics have been a little stickier than, than we had hoped. You know, in Q3, I think we were particularly impacted by the fact that some of our key wholesale customers took in their boot deliveries about a month or so later than they did a year ago. Now, when we got those boots delivered, we've had quite a lot of success with, with our boots. I think we've outperformed the competition there. We've seen some strong sell through and we are getting reorders but those reorders are hitting Q3, excuse me, Q4 and not Q3.

And, and look overall, we just continue to see a cautious approach from some of our key wholesale customers. But what? But we're going to keep banging away at it and, and the good news is that the products that we are getting delivered are seeing sell through that that are outpacing the competition.

Got it. So, on that point, do you expect that wholesale footwear will improve in four Q versus three Q?

Thank you.

Got it. All right. Thanks Ed the book.

Thanks guy.

Aubrey Tianello, BNP Paribas.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions.

I wanted to start out with the updated revenue guidance for 2024. I think previously you're expecting low to mid single digit organic growth in wholesale and then high singles and D to c curious how you're thinking about, you know, growth between the channels in this new guide for higher revenue.

Yeah, thanks Aubrey. So we have updated our guidance or raised our revenue guidance in the wholesale channel. So we're now looking for that business to be up mid 10s overall or about 6% to 7% excluding almost famous and, and that increases really coming from the continued strength that we're seeing in our wholesale accessories and apparel business, but primarily driven by the continued strength in Steve Madden handbags for DTC. We continue to be at up high signals for the year. So right in line with where we were when we last spoke.

Okay, got it great. And then I, yeah, just to follow up on that on the handbag business and, and the really impressive growth we saw this quarter, I think this is the fifth straight quarter now, since the handbag business is really inflected and, and you're laughing a lot harder compares starting this quarter. And I, I guess just any more color you can share on what's what's been driving that, that growth and, and just how we should think about growth in that business going forward.

Yeah, we're, we're just really pleased with, with how the team has executed again. This has been a multiyear growth journey. We've seen acceleration recently, but I think this is the, you know, we're, we're seeing the fruit of a, of a lot of labor over a number of years to to, you know, develop a really strong product engine there to build a position with our customer, with our consumer in that, in this category. And, and, and that's paying off the team is, you know, to your point, we're now anniversarying some very tough comparisons and Steve still seeing strong growth. The team has done a great job of updating some of our biggest items to, to extend their, their life and also introducing you know, new silhouettes that are really catching on and, and, and also making sure to, you know, consistently, you know, each season really beyond any, any kind of new trends and in trends in you know, materials and, and color weight, et cetera. So just good product execution and we'll keep, we'll keep focusing on it.

Great. Thank you. Best of.

Luck.

Thanks.

One moment for our next question.

Our next question comes from the line of Dana Telsey of Telsey Advisory Group. Your line is now open.

Hi, good morning, everyone. As you think about the wholesale business and what you're seeing, how does it differ by type, whether it's department stores off prices or mass merchants, what you're seeing in the private label business? And then when you think of the retail business, what are you seeing in outlets and full price stores and then just one follow up. Thank you.

Sure. Look, I think in the wholesale channel, we continue to see that the value price retailers are, are are performing more more strongly. So, so, you know, our private label business is taking our branded business and again, our private label business is primarily done with mass merchants and even within the branded business, we're, we're clearly seeing strength in the in the off price channel as a, you know, relative to say the department store channel.

Although again, I want to point out our sell through performance in the department store channel, we feel good about and, and we think it's outpacing our, our closest competition in terms of our own DTC. You know, we've been talking for some time about outlets outperforming full price stores that has reversed itself over the last couple of months. And in fact, in recent months, we've seen full price stores actually outpacing outlets.

But, and then just on the wholesale footwear category, what are you seeing by styles? Any trends, whether it's sneakers, whether it's boots, any new styles or trends that you see driving demand into holiday season and beyond? Thank you.

I'm really excited about what we're seeing with our tall shaft boots. Right now, I think that's a category where again, I think we really have the right items, whether it's engineer boots, stretch boots, anything in, in Swedes, particularly Brown suedes we're doing great with. And, and I think, you know, it's, it's a category where we believe that we are outperforming the competition. So that's one thing I'm really excited about. We also introduced some new sneakers this fall, a lot in that sort of soccer inspired space. And those are performing very well. And we're now updating those by taking them up on platforms and those are also seeing good demand from the consumer. So we feel good about that. And then on the casual, you know, in some of the other categories, casuals, et cetera, you know, we, we call that Mary Jane as being as being very good. We've also got some loafers that are performing. So the team has done a really good job with the product on the on the footwear side and feel good about how our position there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Laura Champine, Loop.

Thanks for taking my question and thanks for being so specific about the plans. You've got to move production out of China. Obviously, you know, you were there for a reason. What's the likely gross margin impact of that move or do you think you can just pass on any change in cost to your customers?

I think it's really, it's really difficult to quantify the potential impact here, you know, and especially if we are contemplating, you know, a new policy where there are significant tariffs on China that's going to have all sorts of wide ranging implications, not only the supply chain, but the overall economy, supply and demand impacts, you know, in, in all these countries where we would be sourcing from. So I think it's a little too early to speculate about what the impact will be.

Understood. Thank you.

Janine Stichter, BTIG.

Hey, good morning. I just was hoping you could elaborate a bit on what you saw with the marketing campaign in September. Any learnings there. And then I think you've been making some investments in your stores. Where are we on that? And just any initial reads from, from those tests? Thank you.

Sure. Yeah, we were really excited with the, with the marketing campaign and, and the results that we saw there. I think it was, I think it was our best campaign in, in some time and really resonated with the consumer. And, and again, you know, drove drove results. We talked about the lift that we saw in in folks, you know, searching for us, searching for our brand. We saw a big lift across the United States and we, we focused a lot of our offline activations in the New York area and we saw a much more significant lift in New York. So we saw that, that those marketing activities really worked, but also of course, drove revenue that's, that's critically important. And we've got some really, we got some really great data from, from some of our wholesale, excuse me, some of our media partners, youtube, for example, on, on the, on the list that we saw in awareness consideration, et cetera from, from folks that saw the ads. So we, we, we, it really, it really worked. We were, we felt very good about it. And the nice thing about doing this top of funnel marketing is we saw that it also made our performance marketing dollars work harder and we got one and we saw better returns there. So overall a successful campaign and, and, and we'll look to do more of that going forward in terms of the investments in stores. Was that the second part of the question? Right? Yeah, we're those are, those are ongoing. We, I know we've talked about Times Square on this call before that, that one's going to open right before Black Friday. So we're, we're under construction there right now and we're super excited to, to get that flagship store open and we'll you know, we'll continue to, to refresh the fleet going forward.

Awesome. Thank you.

At this time. I'm showing no further questions. I would now like to turn the call back over to Ed Rosenfeld for closing remarks.

Great. Well, thanks everybody for joining us today. Enjoy the rest of your day, have a great holiday season and we will speak to you soon.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect.