Wolverine World Wide Inc (WWW) 2023 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Greetings. Welcome to the Wolverine Worldwide, Inc. Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2023 earnings call.(Operator Instructions) Please note this conference is being recorded. I'll now turn the conference over to your host, Alex Leyden may begin.

問候。歡迎參加 Wolverine Worldwide, Inc. 第四季和 2023 財年財報電話會議。（操作說明）請注意，本次會議正在錄製中。我現在將會議交給主持人，亞歷克斯·萊登（Alex Leyden）可以開始。

Good morning, and welcome to our fourth quarter 2023 conference call. On the call today are Chris Hufnagel, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Mike Stornant, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

早上好，歡迎參加我們的 2023 年第四季電話會議。今天參加電話會議的有總裁兼執行長 Chris Hufnagel 和執行副總裁兼財務長 Mike Stornant。

Earlier this morning, we issued our earnings press release and announced our financial results for the fourth quarter and full year 2023 and guidance for fiscal 2024 press release is available on many news sites and can be viewed on our corporate website at wolverineworldwide.com. This morning's earnings press release and comments made during today's earnings call include non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP financial measures are reconciled to most comparable GAAP financial measures in attached tables within the body of the release, references made regarding financial results for 2023 and comparable results from 2022. In each case for our ongoing business exclude the impact of cats, Wolverine leathers and reflecting adjusted for the transition of our Hush Puppies North America business to a licensing model.

今天早些時候，我們發布了收益新聞稿，並公佈了2023 年第四季度和全年的財務業績，以及2024 財年新聞稿的指導可在許多新聞網站上找到，也可以在我們的公司網站wolverineworldwide.com 上查看。今天早上的收益新聞稿和今天的收益電話會議上的評論包括非公認會計準則財務指標。這些非 GAAP 財務指標與本新聞稿正文附表中大多數可比較 GAAP 財務指標進行了協調，並引用了 2023 年財務業績和 2022 年可比業績。在每種情況下，我們正在進行的業務都排除了貓、金剛狼皮革的影響，並反映了我們對 Hush Puppies 北美業務向許可模式過渡的調整。

The outlook for 2024 and comparable results from 2023 in each case for our ongoing business now also exclude the impact of Sperry, which was sold in January 2024.

我們目前業務的 2024 年展望和 2023 年的可比較結果現在也排除了 2024 年 1 月出售的 Sperry 的影響。

I'd also like to remind you that statements describing the Company's expectations, plans, predictions and projections such as those regarding the company's outlook for fiscal year 2020 for growth opportunities and trends expected to affect the Company's future performance made during today's conference call are forward-looking statements under US security laws. As a result, we must caution you that there are a number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. These important risk factors are identified in the Company's SEC filings and in our press releases.

我還想提醒大家，在今天的電話會議上發表的描述公司預期、計劃、預測和預測的聲明，例如有關公司 2020 財年增長機會和趨勢的展望，預計將影響公司未來的業績。 - 根據美國安全法的聲明。因此，我們必須提醒您，有許多因素可能導致實際結果與前瞻性陳述中所述的結果有重大差異。這些重要的風險因素已在公司向 SEC 提交的文件和我們的新聞稿中確定。

So that being said, I'd now like to turn the call over to Chris Hufnagel.

話雖這麼說，我現在想把電話轉給克里斯·赫夫納格爾 (Chris Hufnagel)。

Thanks, Alex. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's call to close 2023, we delivered revenue and earnings in line with our guidance and our inventory and debt finished at levels better than we anticipated. More importantly, we continued to make great progress in driving Wolverine Worldwide's turnaround and transformation with a clear vision, a common sense of purpose and the collective effort of our global team. I'm proud and encouraged to say that Wolverine Worldwide is a much different company now than it was just six months ago. I'm excited to share our progress with you today. As we begin 2024, our portfolio is more focused than has been in over a decade composed of authentic leading brands playing desirable consumer categories, and we're confident this will continue into the future. The organization is more efficient and more capable of building great global brands with new talent in key brand roles and new centers of excellence create help enable our brands to build off and products and tell amazing stories. Our business is poised to be much more profitable with an outlook to meaningfully expand operating margin this year as a result of significant gross margin improvements and our restructuring efforts late last year, we have the financial capacity to reinvest back into the business with 30 million of incremental investment plan this year for key brand growth initiatives and the tools necessary to support long-term sustainable growth. Our product pipeline is stronger, with new introductions already resonating with consumers and more great collections dropping in the coming months. Our balance sheet is much healthier for the Company's lowest debt level in over 2.5 years, approximately 40% less inventory than just a year ago and a clear line of sight to drive further improvement on both metrics.

謝謝，亞歷克斯。大家早安，感謝大家參加今天結束 2023 年的電話會議，我們的收入和收益符合我們的指導方針，我們的庫存和債務水準也比我們的預期好。更重要的是，憑藉著清晰的願景、共同的目標意識和全球團隊的集體努力，我們在推動 Wolverine Worldwide 的扭虧為盈和轉型方面繼續取得了巨大進展。我很自豪也很受鼓舞地說，與六個月前相比，Wolverine Worldwide 現在已經是一家截然不同的公司。我很高興今天與您分享我們的進展。2024 年開始，我們的產品組合比十多年來更加專注，由真正的領先品牌組成，涉及理想的消費者類別，我們相信這種情況將持續到未來。該組織更加高效，更有能力打造偉大的全球品牌，擁有關鍵品牌角色的新人才和新的卓越中心，幫助我們建立品牌、產品並講述精彩的故事。由於毛利率的顯著改善和去年年底的重組努力，我們的業務預計將獲得更多利潤，預計今年的營業利潤率將大幅提高，我們有財務能力以 3000 萬美元的價格重新投資於該業務。今年針對關鍵品牌成長措施和支持長期永續成長所需工具的增量投資計畫。我們的產品線更加強大，新推出的產品已經引起了消費者的共鳴，未來幾個月將推出更多精彩系列。我們的資產負債表更加健康，債務水準處於 2.5 年來的最低水平，庫存比一年前減少了約 40%，並且有明確的目標推動這兩個指標的進一步改善。

This year.

今年。

And finally, we have a talented, aligned and motivated team driving the business every day. I'm extremely thankful for their exceptional work over the past six months and couldn't be more excited about the work we'll do together moving forward. Our bold turnaround plan, coupled with the team's urgency and effectiveness in executing that plan, has allowed us to outpace our expectations in the first chapter of our transformation. We've largely stabilized the company in just a few short months. Last November, we shared our expectations for key financial metrics with you, and I'm pleased to report we've over-delivered we reduced our year-end inventory by 30 million more than we anticipated. We said we'd further rationalize our portfolio and deliver 65 million of proceeds in Q4 we ultimately generated 91 million in the quarter and then completed the divesture of Sperry in January, generating another 130 million in proceeds. We said we reduced the Company's debt by around $170 million by year end and ultimately reduced our debt by 280 million, and that was before the Spirit transaction as a result, our bank defined debt leverage is better than expected. We've execute extraordinarily well on the key stabilization initiatives we laid out last fall, and we remain committed to continuous optimization efforts and further strengthening of our balance sheet. Today, we're in a much better position to accelerate the continued transformation of the Company.

最後，我們擁有一支才華洋溢、團結一致、積極進取的團隊，每天推動業務發展。我非常感謝他們在過去六個月中所做的出色工作，並對我們接下來將共同開展的工作感到非常興奮。我們大膽的轉型計劃，加上團隊執行該計劃的緊迫性和有效性，使我們在轉型的第一章中超越了我們的預期。我們在短短幾個月內就基本穩定了公司。去年 11 月，我們與您分享了對關鍵財務指標的預期，我很高興地報告說，我們超額交付了年終庫存，比預期多了 3000 萬件。我們表示，我們將進一步合理化我們的投資組合，並在第四季度實現6,500 萬美元的收益，我們最終在該季度產生了9,100 萬美元的收益，然後在一月份完成了Sperry 的剝離，另外產生了1.3 億美元的收益。我們表示，到年底，我們將公司的債務減少了約 1.7 億美元，最終將我們的債務減少了 2.8 億美元，這是在 Spirit 交易之前，因此，我們銀行定義的債務槓桿率好於預期。我們在去年秋天制定的關鍵穩定措施上執行得非常好，我們仍然致力於持續優化工作並進一步加強我們的資產負債表。今天，我們處於更好的位置來加速公司的持續轉型。

The second chapter of our turnaround story is focused on transforming wolverineWorldWide into a builder of great global brands. Let me take a moment to walk you through our progress and plans here to be great brand builders. Everything must start with the consumer to shift our mindset and add capabilities within our brands. We've added more consumer focused talent in many of our key brand roles over the last year, and we have several more searches underway today to bolster resources and expertise. We established the collective in November, a center of excellence creative to elevate consumer insights, market intelligence, trend monitoring innovation. I've been pleased by our quick pivot to a more consumer obsessed culture as our brands have already begun to incorporate more insights in consumer testing and in the go to market processes for product and marketing. Ultimately, the Wolverine Worldwide portfolio brands should make all our consumers' lives better, thanks to recent portfolio management efforts, our brands are tightly aligned around enabling our consumers to have healthier and more productive lives. As a result, we have a great opportunity to increase collaboration across our brands and teams to recognize unmet consumer needs. Our innovation, identify trends and better lever the collective talent of the organization. We believe the consolidation of our office footprint will continue that help. We've already relocated Sweaty Betty to our King's Cross office in London and later this year, Merrell and Saucony will be co-located here in our global headquarters. We're also working to better equip the organization with modernized tools and processes to execute faster more accurately. And with distinction, we piloted new best-in-class digital product line management tools with narrow and are rolling these tools out across the portfolio. We're implementing new integrated business planning processes this year to improve forecasting inventory management and margin efficiency.

我們轉型故事的第二章重點關注將 wolverineWorldWide 轉變為偉大的全球品牌的建立者。讓我花點時間向您介紹我們的進展以及成為偉大品牌建立者的計劃。一切都必須從消費者開始，改變我們的思維方式並增加我們品牌的功能。去年，我們在許多關鍵品牌角色中增加了更多以消費者為中心的人才，今天我們正在進行更多的搜索，以增強資源和專業知識。我們於 11 月成立了這個集體，這是一個卓越創意中心，旨在提升消費者洞察、市場情報、趨勢監測創新。我對我們迅速轉向更加關註消費者的文化感到高興，因為我們的品牌已經開始在消費者測試以及產品和行銷的上市流程中融入更多的見解。最終，Wolverine Worldwide 的投資組合品牌應該會讓我們所有消費者的生活變得更好，這要歸功於最近的投資組合管理努力，我們的品牌緊密結合在一起，讓我們的消費者擁有更健康、更富有成效的生活。因此，我們有一個很好的機會來加強我們的品牌和團隊之間的合作，以認識到未滿足的消費者需求。我們的創新、識別趨勢並更好地利用組織的集體人才。我們相信，我們辦公室佈局的整合將繼續提供這種幫助。我們已經將 Sweaty Betty 遷至倫敦國王十字辦事處，今年晚些時候，Merrell 和 Saucony 將在我們的全球總部共同工作。我們也致力於為組織更好地配備現代化的工具和流程，以便更快、更準確地執行。值得一提的是，我們試行了新的一流數位產品線管理工具，並將這些工具推廣到整個產品組合中。今年我們將實施新的整合業務規劃流程，以改善預測庫存管理和利潤效率。

We've also just launched an initiative with our new digital and technology experienced team to revolutionize our digital tools and improve the direct experiences, our consumers and with our brand. In addition to redesigning the organization and reallocating resources to directly align with our vision, we're also taking bold steps to better manage our brands in the marketplace. In the fourth quarter, we created a new centralized brand protection team help us monitor and address nefarious activity in the marketplace in a short time across our portfolio. We've already identified and set down nearly 20 customers and partners that are participating, gray market activity and approximately 400 accounts that do not align with our go-forward distribution strategies with more to come of brands are also focused on achieving healthier sales mix with a stronger emphasis on full-price business this year. We're already less promotional in the marketplace today and on our own direct-to-consumer channels. A more disciplined approach to brand management is critical to enhancing and protecting the equity of our brands. We must begin to establish more of a pull model and must continue to strengthen relationships with valued wholesale and distributor partners, actually monthly critical as we continue to aggressively advance our transformation, and I'm confident we are positioned to continue delivering on the plan we laid out and we're committed to delivering better results for our shareholders with firmer footing and a clear vision. Our brands are accelerating their efforts to reinvigorate growth focus squarely on designing, often products and telling amazing stories. While we expect our inflection to growth will fall the meaningful margin improvement we've outlined our brands are moving with great pace to drive improved top line performance. Saucony has a proven formula for driving industry leading innovation, branded Dorfman, Elite collection design and team performance lab in partnership with elite runners is among the most innovative shoes on the market today and was recognized by Runner's World Gear of the Year awards as the best racing shoe of 2023 Saucony's consistently one of the most trusted brand by elite runners in the world's most important marathons. And we now have the opportunity to capitalize on this tip of spear success by democratizing the brand's innovations for the larger casual running market and elevating the style to encourage adoption for the significantly larger lifestyle wearing occasions. The brand intend to do so through a focus on its core four franchises, the right guide, Triumph and hurricane. As a first step, Saucony launched a new ride 17 several weeks ago, engineered with the power run plus phone to deliver a more comfortable fit and better ride in the brand's neutral runner. It's been well received and sell-through was up strong double digits in the important run specialty channel brand followed this launch with a new reduction of its maximum comfort franchise. The guide 17, with even more cushioning and support the guide 70 has only been in the market a couple of weeks and SLT was already off to a very strong start talking expect to launch 22 next quarter, followed by the hurricane 24 in Q3 and the brand plans into some of the best lifestyle distribution. The marketplace starting this spring with authentic trend-right MetroTech resigned from his archives like the program, Omni and zero as a result of these important launches in the brand's improved storytelling, which is just getting started. The brand has started to see an inflection in brand heat with consumers moving to Merrell, the outdoor footwear industry leader with a long history of product innovation. Product pipeline is improving here as well. It's MTL Skyfire to Matrix developed within the mall test lab and Elite product innovation incubator with rigorous testing by trail running athletes is a super lightweight plated trail runner that was named Outside Magazine's Best trail running shoe of 2023 and receive recognition in Runner's World and news flow among others. Merrell intend to continue to monetize the trail through faster, more trend-right design that consumers demand as well as the durability and traction material requires brands agility. Peak five is outperforming the leading trail running shoes in the marketplace and consumer an extra year reviews on comfort, quality and fit and is up triple digits to start the year. The product is exceptional and Merrell plans to scale of storytelling to drive greater momentum. The brand's new mode speak to 2023 is for warm winter and a key story this year is also seeing strong early sell-through of Merrell's collaboration with Jeep in the fourth quarter drove 70 million earned impressions and the hero blue colorways sold out to the piece. The brand again grew US market share about hiking trail in Q4, capping a year of market share gains for our largest brand as a Saucony, the broader Life's opportunity is significant for Merrell and when we develop on-brand and on-trend styles like the new reps collection, a disruptive look on our Barefoot platform. Our consumers respond to this new collection almost sold out entirely on merrell.com in a matter of weeks. And today, we're chasing replenishment for this franchise implanter in this new silhouettes later this year and closing was Sweaty Betty, having built its branded business direct channels. The brand has always been consumer obsessed, driving product innovation, response to the feedback you received from consumers, a mindset and approach that can influence our other brands as we endeavor to become a more consumer-focused organization, what about its Power Franchises beloved by consumers for its best-in-class fit, premium materials and on-trend designs through its rapid consumer feedback and response model the brand is building on leading franchise through category extensions and new textures and patterns. The newness is trending well and with recent improvements to our supply chain, the break now replenished fast-moving styles in a matter of weeks. The brand is seeing excellent traction with extensions and new categories as well like outerwear, mid layers and accessories with very strong double-digit growth in Q4, driven by sales with Nimbus down Parker and navigate COVID Cope. I'm pleased and encouraged to say that today, our brands have a heightened understanding of their consumers and a clear vision for their product direction and our business. It always starts with product. We're seeing green shoots across the business and the brand's product pipelines will build momentum throughout the year. It's important to pause here and set the near expectations for the business. Encouragingly, this year, we expect the business to be much more profitable and again, generate strong cash flow as our model has done so effectively in the past, driven by significant gross margin expansion and our aggressive and proactive profit improvement initiatives we've executed over the past few months at the same time, our actions have created the financial wherewithal to reinvest in our brands with an incremental $30 million planned in 2024. Although this investment will moderate our operating margin expansion this year. We believe it is essential to better position our brands for long-term sustainable growth while still taking an important step in our transformation to meaningfully improve profitability for a variety of reasons, we expect the Company's return to growth to lag our profit improvement. As we've candidly shared with you on recent earnings calls, we have identified and own various past missteps, and we're taking swift action to address them, strengthen the product pipeline with design supported by heightened consumer and trend insights, reenergizing our brands with elevated marketing and better manage the marketplace with greater distribution and pricing discipline. However, the business is starting the year from a challenging position, which will weigh on full year revenue results most meaningfully for Saucony, followed by Merrell and Wolverine. While we anticipate a sequential improvement in top line performance as the year progresses, we expect the positive impact of our corrective actions will accelerate and be bolstered further in the second half by reduced road selling cleaner inventories, better aligned with global partners and lapping easier year-over-year comparisons, all contributing to an inflection in growth in the second half of the year and acceleration into 2025.

我們也剛剛與新的數位和技術經驗豐富的團隊發起了一項計劃，以徹底改變我們的數位工具並改善直接體驗、我們的消費者和我們的品牌。除了重新設計組織和重新分配資源以直接符合我們的願景之外，我們還採取大膽的步驟來更好地管理我們在市場上的品牌。在第四季度，我們創建了一個新的集中品牌保護團隊，幫助我們在短時間內監控和解決整個產品組合中市場上的惡意活動。我們已經確定並確定了近 20 個參與灰色市場活動的客戶和合作夥伴，以及大約 400 個與我們的前進分銷策略不符的帳戶，未來更多品牌也致力於實現更健康的銷售組合今年更加重視全價業務。如今，我們在市場和我們自己的直接面向消費者的管道上的促銷活動已經減少了。更嚴格的品牌管理方法對於增強和保護我們品牌的資產至關重要。我們必須開始建立更多的拉動模型，並且必須繼續加強與有價值的批發和分銷合作夥伴的關係，實際上每月都至關重要，因為我們繼續積極推進轉型，我相信我們有能力繼續實現我們的計劃我們致力於以更堅實的基礎和清晰的願景為股東提供更好的業績。我們的品牌正在加緊努力重振成長，重點關注設計，通常是產品和講述精彩的故事。雖然我們預計成長的轉折點將下降，但我們已經概述了我們的品牌正在快速發展，以推動營收業績的改善。索康尼(Saucony) 擁有推動行業領先創新的行之有效的公式，Dorfman 品牌、精英系列設計和團隊表現實驗室與精英跑步者合作，是當今市場上最具創新性的鞋子之一，並被《跑者世界年度裝備》獎項認可為最佳鞋款。2023 Saucony 賽車鞋一直是世界上最重要的馬拉鬆比賽中精英跑者最信賴的品牌之一。現在，我們有機會利用這一成功秘訣，使品牌的創新在更大的休閒跑步市場上大眾化，並提升風格以鼓勵在更大型的生活方式穿著場合中採用。該品牌打算透過專注於其四大核心系列——《正確的嚮導》、《凱旋》和《颶風》來實現這一目標。作為第一步，索康尼幾週前推出了一款新騎行產品17，採用Power Run Plus Phone 設計，為該品牌的中性跑步鞋提供更舒適的貼合性和更好的騎行體驗。它受到了好評，在這個重要的專業經營通路品牌中，銷量增長了兩位數，緊隨其推出後，其最大舒適度系列又重新減少了。Guide 17 比 Guide 70 具有更多的緩衝和支撐，僅上市幾週，SLT 就已經有了一個非常強勁的開端，預計下季度推出 22，隨後是第三季度的颶風 24 和品牌計劃進入一些最好的生活方式分銷。今年春天開始的市場，正宗的趨勢正確的MetroTech從他的檔案中退出，如程序、Omni和零，因為該品牌改進的故事講述中的這些重要發布，這才剛剛開始。隨著消費者轉向擁有悠久產品創新歷史的戶外鞋產業領導者邁樂 (Merrell)，該品牌的品牌熱度開始出現變化。產品管道也在不斷改善。它的MTL Skyfire to Matrix 在商場測試實驗室和精英產品創新孵化器內開發，經過越野跑運動員的嚴格測試，是一款超輕鍍層越野跑鞋，被《Outside》雜誌評為2023 年最佳越野跑鞋，並在《跑步者世界》和新聞流中獲得認可除其他外。Merrell 打算繼續透過更快、更符合消費者需求的潮流設計以及品牌靈活性所需的耐用性和牽引力材料來實現盈利。Peak 5 的表現優於市場上領先的越野跑鞋，消費者對舒適度、品質和合腳性的評價又增加了一年，並且在年初增長了三位數。該產品非常出色，梅雷爾計劃擴大講故事的規模，以推動更大的勢頭。該品牌面向 2023 年的新模式是針對溫暖的冬季，今年的一個關鍵故事還在於，第四季度 Merrell 與 Jeep 合作的早期銷售強勁，贏得了 7000 萬次印象，英雄藍色配色也已售罄。該品牌在第四季度再次增加了有關遠足路線的美國市場份額，為我們最大的品牌索康尼(Saucony) 一年的市場份額增長畫上句號，更廣泛的生活機會對Merrell 來說意義重大，當我們開髮品牌和流行風格時，例如新的代表系列，我們的 Barefoot 平台上的顛覆性外觀。我們的消費者對這個新系列的反應在幾週之內就在 merrell.com 上幾乎全部售空。今天，我們正在尋求在今年稍後為這款新款式的特許經營植入者進行補貨，而關閉的是 Sweaty Betty，已經建立了其品牌業務直接管道。該品牌一直以消費者為中心，推動產品創新，對消費者的回饋做出回應，當我們努力成為一個更加以消費者為中心的組織時，這種心態和方法可以影響我們其他品牌，那麼其深受消費者喜愛的特許經營權又如何呢？透過其快速的消費者反饋和響應模型，該品牌正在通過品類擴展和新的紋理和圖案建立領先的特許經營權，以其一流的合身性、優質的材料和流行的設計贏得了消費者的青睞。新品趨勢良好，隨著我們供應鏈最近的改進，這種突破現在在幾週內就補充了快速流通的款式。該品牌在擴展和新類別以及外套、中間層和配件等方面取得了出色的吸引力，在 Nimbus 下降 Parker 和導航 COVID Cope 的銷售推動下，第四季度實現了非常強勁的兩位數增長。我很高興也很受鼓舞地說，今天，我們的品牌對消費者有了更深的了解，對他們的產品方向和我們的業務有了清晰的願景。它總是從產品開始。我們看到整個業務的萌芽，該品牌的產品線將在全年保持強勁勢頭。在此暫停並設定對業務的近期期望非常重要。令人鼓舞的是，今年，我們預計業務將獲得更高的利潤，並再次產生強勁的現金流，正如我們的模型過去所取得的那樣，在顯著的毛利率擴張和我們執行的積極主動的在利潤改善計畫的推動下同時，在過去幾個月裡，我們的行動創造了資金來對我們的品牌進行再投資，並計劃在 2024 年增加 3,000 萬美元。儘管這項投資將減緩我們今年營業利潤率的擴張。我們認為，有必要更好地定位我們的品牌以實現長期可持續增長，同時在我們的轉型中邁出重要一步，以有意義地提高盈利能力，出於多種原因，我們預計公司的增長恢復將落後於我們的利潤改善。正如我們在最近的財報電話會議上與您坦誠分享的那樣，我們已經發現並承認了過去的各種失誤，我們正在迅速採取行動解決這些問題，透過深入的消費者和趨勢洞察支持的設計來加強產品線，為我們的品牌注入新的活力加強行銷，並透過更嚴格的分銷和定價紀律來更好地管理市場。然而，該業務在今年開始就處於一個充滿挑戰的境地，這將對索康尼全年營收業績產生最重大的影響，其次是邁樂和金鋼狼。雖然我們預計隨著今年的進展，營收業績將連續改善，但我們預計我們的糾正措施的積極影響將在下半年加速並通過減少道路銷售清潔庫存、與全球合作夥伴更好地協調以及度過更輕鬆的一年而進一步加強- 同比比較，所有這些都導致​​下半年增長出現拐點，並在 2025 年加速增長。

Finally, before handing the call to Mike, I want to summarize where we are today and where we're headed. Our fast and bold actions to better manage our portfolio, has simplified the business and strengthened the alignment of the organization going forward. We will continue to critically evaluate our organization as part of our commitment to create greater shareholder value. Today, we have a focused portfolio of great authentic brands that have a rich history of developing innovative product products, all designed to help consumers live better lives our improved structure enables our brands to focus on our consumers, product and marketing by providing platforms that efficiently drive operations and back-office activities. We'll remodel also aggregates an extensive global distribution network composed of wholesale distributor relationships for the brands to leverage. And we are further amplifying our models valued by creating competitive advantages for the brands and capabilities we deem strategically important consumer insights, trends, innovation, marketing and licensing. Given the powerful combination of our brands and our platforms, all enabled by a talented, aligned and dedicated team moving with pace. I'm optimistic about what we can achieve collectively as one Wolverine, we're confident we are taking the right steps to unlock value and deliver on Wolverine Worldwide full potential for the benefit of our shareholders with that, I'll turn the call over to Mike Stornant, Executive Vice President and our Chief Financial Officer, who will provide more details on our fourth quarter results and our guidance for the year ahead.

最後，在打電話給麥克之前，我想總結一下我們今天的處境以及我們的前進方向。我們採取快速而大膽的行動來更好地管理我們的產品組合，簡化了業務並加強了組織未來的協調性。我們將繼續嚴格評估我們的組織，作為我們創造更大股東價值的承諾的一部分。如今，我們擁有一系列優秀的正宗品牌，這些品牌在開發創新產品方面擁有豐富的歷史，所有這些都是為了幫助消費者過上更好的生活。我們改進的結構使我們的品牌能夠透過提供高效的平台來專注於我們的消費者、產品和行銷。推動營運和後台活動。我們也將重塑一個廣泛的全球分銷網絡，由批發分銷商關係組成，供品牌利用。我們正在進一步擴大我們的模型，透過為我們認為具有戰略意義的品牌和能力創造競爭優勢，消費者洞察、趨勢、創新、行銷和授權。鑑於我們的品牌和平台的強大結合，這一切都是由一支才華橫溢、團結一致、敬業的團隊與步伐共同實現的。我對我們作為一個 Wolverine 共同取得的成就感到樂觀，我們相信我們正在採取正確的步驟來釋放價值並充分發揮 Wolverine Worldwide 的潛力，從而為我們的股東帶來利益，我將轉交電話致執行副總裁兼財務長Mike Stornant，他將提供有關我們第四季度業績和未來一年指導的更多詳細資訊。

Mike.

麥克風。

Thanks, Chris, and good morning to everyone on the call this morning, I will start with a review of fourth quarter results, followed by our expectations for fiscal 2024. Fourth quarter revenue for our ongoing business of 521.2 million was in line with our outlook. Adjusted gross margin of 36.9% was better than our outlook of approximately 36% with better gross margin in our e-commerce channel, helping to drive this results.

謝謝克里斯，今天早上參加電話會議的大家早上好，我將首先回顧第四季度的業績，然後是我們對 2024 財年的預期。我們正在進行的業務第四季的營收為 5.212 億美元，符合我們的預期。調整後毛利率為 36.9%，優於我們約 36% 的預期，我們的電子商務通路毛利率更高，有助於推動這一業績。

Adjusted SG&A expense of $211 million or 40.4% of revenue includes 5 million of incremental performance. Marketing investments tested during key moments of the holiday season, which helped us deliver more full-price sales in the e-commerce channel and acquired nearly 200,000 new consumers. We also implemented a 4 million supplemental incentive program in the quarter for nonexecutive team members tied to important inventory and net debt metrics. This program helped us deliver better than expected results for inventory, cash flow and net debt in the quarter, our team is motivated, aligned and focused and improving the Company's financial performance. Adjusted diluted earnings per share for the quarter was a loss of $0.3 and in line with our outlook.

調整後的 SG&A 費用為 2.11 億美元，佔營收的 40.4%，其中包括 500 萬美元的增量績效。在假期關鍵時刻檢驗行銷投入，幫助我們在電商通路實現更多正價銷售，並獲得了近20萬新消費者。我們還在本季針對與重要庫存和淨債務指標相關的非執行團隊成員實施了 400 萬美元的補充激勵計劃。該計劃幫助我們在本季度的庫存、現金流量和淨債務方面取得了好於預期的結果，我們的團隊充滿動力、團結一致、專注，並改善了公司的財務表現。本季調整後攤薄每股收益虧損 0.3 美元，符合我們的預期。

Shifting to the balance sheet, we made meaningful progress to further improve inventory, net debt and liquidity during the fourth quarter, inventory for Sperry and our China joint venture, which were both sold in January of 2024 is treated as held for sale inventory as of year end. Excluding these businesses, inventory was 374 million, down nearly 40% compared to last year and approximately 30 million better than we expected. We delivered this improvement by leveraging a rigorous inventory management process while operating in a more normal and predictable supply chain environment. While pleased with the meaningful improvements in 2023. We believe we can further optimize inventory levels over the coming quarters. Shorter supply chain, lead times, implementation of our integrated planning processes and hot heightened focus on SKU productivity should allow us to drive inventory levels down by at least 70 million during 2024.

轉向資產負債表，第四季度我們在進一步改善庫存、淨債務和流動性方面取得了有意義的進展，Sperry 和我們中國合資企業的庫存均於2024 年1 月出售，截至2024 年1 月被視為持有待售庫存年底。剔除這些業務，庫存為 3.74 億美元，比去年下降近 40%，比我們預期好約 3,000 萬美元。我們透過利用嚴格的庫存管理流程，同時在更正常和可預測的供應鏈環境中運營，實現了這項改進。同時對 2023 年有意義的改進感到高興。我們相信我們可以在未來幾季進一步優化庫存水準。更短的供應鏈、交貨時間、綜合規劃流程的實施以及對 SKU 生產力的高度關注將使我們能夠在 2024 年期間將庫存水準降低至少 7000 萬件。

Active portfolio management has also been a key focus helping to unlock value and narrow our focus on businesses with the highest return opportunities. Strong working capital management and the sale of certain non-core assets generated approximately 200 million of cash in the quarter exceeding our expectations. As a result, we ended the quarter with net debt of 740 million in a bank defined leverage ratio of 2.9 times Let me now provide details on our outlook for 2020 for the critical stabilization work executed over the last three quarters puts the Company on solid footing. As a result, our teams can more fully focus on efforts for transforming the company while driving an inflection to growth in the back half of 2024. Our guidance reflects the expected performance of our ongoing business, which now excludes Sperry. Fiscal 2024 revenue is expected in the range of 1.7 billion to 1.75 billion. This compares to 2023, revenue from our ongoing business of 1.99 billion and represents a decline of 13.4% at the midpoint of the range discrete items in 2023 totaling 165 million in revenue will not recur in 2024. These include approximately 70 million of extraordinary end of life inventory liquidations, heavily weighted to the first half of 2023, approximately 55 million in business model changes, including the transition of our China JV to a distributor model for both Merrell and Saucony and approximately $40 million in a timing shift of international distributor shipments that benefited Q1 2023. Excluding these discrete items, the midpoint decline would be approximately 5.5%. For 2024, we expect active group revenue to decline mid 10s. Merrell is expected to decline in the low double digit range with inflection to growth expected in the second half of the year, Saucony is expected to decline to decline in the low 20% range, with sequential improvement each quarter for the body is expected to be flat. We expect the Workgroup revenue to decline high single digits with Wolverine brand expected to be down mid-single digits. Adjusted gross margin is expected to be approximately 44.5% at the midpoint of the outlook range, a record for the Company and up approximately 460 basis points compared to 2023. Key contributors to the gross margin expansion include approximately $50 million of supply chain transitory costs expensed in 2023 that will not recur in 2024 and approximately 45 million from profit improvement initiatives related to product and logistics costs. In addition, we expect that healthier inventory levels and increased brand protection actions will lead to a lower promotional cadence during 2024, especially in the back half of the year. This gross margin benefit is expected to be offset by foreign currency headwinds that impact inventory costs.

積極的投資組合管理也是一個關鍵焦點，有助於釋放價值並縮小我們對回報機會最高的業務的關注範圍。強大的營運資金管理和出售某些非核心資產在本季產生了約 2 億現金，超出了我們的預期。結果，本季結束時，我們的淨債務為7.4 億美元，銀行定義的槓桿率為2.9 倍。現在讓我詳細介紹一下我們對2020 年的展望，因為過去三個季度執行的關鍵穩定工作使公司站穩了腳步。因此，我們的團隊可以更充分地專注於公司轉型，同時推動 2024 年下半年的成長。我們的指導反映了我們正在進行的業務的預期業績，其中現在不包括斯佩里。2024財年營收預計在17億至17.5億之間。與 2023 年相比，我們持續業務的收入為 19.9 億美元，相當於 2023 年離散項目範圍中位數下降 13.4%，總計 1.65 億美元的收入將不會在 2024 年重現。其中包括約 7,000 萬件特別的報廢庫存清算（重點關注到 2023 年上半年）、約 5,500 萬件業務模式變更（包括我們的中國合資企業向 Merrell 和 Saucony 的分銷商模式轉型）以及約 4000 萬美元國際分銷商出貨時間的轉變使2023 年第一季受益。排除這些離散項目，中點下降約為 5.5%。到 2024 年，我們預計活躍集團收入將下降 10 多歲。Merrell 預計將在兩位數的低點範圍內下降，預計下半年將出現增長拐點；Saucony 預計將在 20% 的低位範圍內下降，預計每個季度都會出現環比改善平坦的。我們預計 Workgroup 收入將下降高個位數，而 Wolverine 品牌預計將下降中個位數。調整後的毛利率預計約為 44.5%，處於展望範圍的中點，創公司歷史新高，較 2023 年上升約 460 個基點。毛利率擴張的主要貢獻者包括2023 年支出的約5,000 萬美元供應鏈臨時成本（該成本在2024 年不會再發生），以及與產品和物流成本相關的利潤改善計劃帶來的約4,500 萬美元。此外，我們預計更健康的庫存水準和增加的品牌保護行動將導致 2024 年促銷節奏降低，特別是在今年下半年。這一毛利率收益預計將被影響庫存成本的外幣逆風所抵消。

Adjusted selling, general and administrative expenses are expected to be approximately 650 million at the midpoint of the outlook range for 37.5% of sales compared to $716 million 2023 or 36% of sales. The lower operating cost structure includes 95 million of savings from the 2023 restructuring and other profit improvement initiatives, partially offset by 30 million of incremental investments for demand creation, modernization of systems and building important organizational capabilities, 25 million of normalized incentive compensation expense and 15 million for normal inflationary increases. Adjusted operating margin is expected to be approximately 7% at the midpoint of the outlook range compared to 3.9% in 2023. Interest and other expenses are projected to be approximately 40 million, down from 63 million in 2023 and benefiting from the significant debt reduction achieved last year. The effective tax rate is projected to be approximately 18%. As a result of these assumptions, adjusted diluted earnings per share as expected to be in the range of $0.65 to $0.85, including a $0.1 negative impact from foreign currency exchange fluctuations. This compares to $0.15 in 2023 for our ongoing business for working capital and cash flow optimization remains a priority in 2024. We expect inventory to decline by at least $70 million during the year as we continue to work through specific areas of excess inventory, operating free cash flow expected in the range of 110 million to $130 million with approximately 40 million of capital expenditures. We expect net debt to improve by nearly $165 million to $575 million at year end.

調整後的銷售、一般和管理費用預計約為 6.5 億美元，佔銷售額的 37.5%，而 2023 年為 7.16 億美元，佔銷售額的 36%。較低的營運成本結構包括2023 年重組和其他利潤改善措施帶來的9,500 萬美元的節省，部分被用於需求創造、系統現代化和重要組織能力建設的3,000 萬美元的增量投資、2,500 萬美元的標準化激勵補償費用和15百萬用於正常的通貨膨脹成長。調整後營業利潤率預計約為 7%，處於展望範圍的中點，而 2023 年為 3.9%。利息和其他支出預計約為 4,000 萬美元，低於 2023 年的 6,300 萬美元，受益於去年實現的債務大幅削減。有效稅率預計約為18%。根據這些假設，調整後的稀釋每股盈餘預計在 0.65 美元至 0.85 美元之間，其中包括外匯波動帶來的 0.1 美元負面影響。相較之下，我們正在進行的業務在 2023 年為 0.15 美元，營運資金和現金流優化仍然是 2024 年的首要任務。我們預計，隨著我們繼續解決特定領域的庫存過剩問題，年內庫存將減少至少 7,000 萬美元，營運自由現金流預計在 1.1 億至 1.3 億美元之間，資本支出約為 4,000 萬美元。我們預計年底淨債務將減少近 1.65 億美元，達到 5.75 億美元。

Shifting to our outlook for the first quarter, we expect first quarter revenue of approximately 360 million, a decline of approximately 30%. Many of the discrete items occurring in 2023 and noted in our annual revenue outlook are especially impactful to the first quarter. This includes 23 million of extraordinary end of life inventory liquidation in Q1 2023, a 40 million shift in international distributor shipments that benefited Q1 2023 and $13 million in business model changes. Excluding these discrete items, the projected first quarter revenue decline would be approximately 18.5%, similar to the fourth quarter of 2023. First quarter gross margin is expected to be approximately 46%, up 480 basis points from last year. Significantly lower supply chain costs lower sale of end-of-life inventory and a better better distribution channel mix are all contributing to the dramatic gross margin improvement. We expect first quarter operating margin to be approximately 3.5% and adjusted diluted earnings per share to be approximately breakeven.

轉向我們對第一季的展望，我們預計第一季營收約3.6億美元，下降約30%。我們在年度收入展望中指出的 2023 年發生的許多離散項目對第一季的影響尤其大。這包括 2023 年第一季 2,300 萬件特別的報廢庫存清算、國際分銷商出貨量的 4,000 萬件轉移（使 2023 年第一季受益）以及 1,300 萬美元的商業模式變化。排除這些離散項目，預計第一季營收下降約 18.5%，與 2023 年第四季類似。第一季毛利率預計約46%，較去年上升480個基點。顯著降低的供應鏈成本、較低的報廢庫存銷售以及更好的分銷管道組合都有助於毛利率的大幅提高。我們預計第一季營業利潤率約 3.5%，調整後稀釋每股收益約為損益平衡。

Before turning the call back to Chris, let me summarize the key points. I hope you will take away this morning, we are in the late innings of the stabilization phase of the Company's turnaround and are ahead of schedule in many key areas, including portfolio optimization, gross margin expansion, operating cost improvements, healthier inventory and much lower net debt. Importantly, we expect to deliver at least 140 million of incremental profit improvement in 2024 as promised in November of 2023. 2024 is a year of transition for the Company has significant gross margin expansion proceeds, an inflection to growth in the back half of the year and we set our brands up to accelerate into 2025. We recognize an improved and sustainable gross margin is necessary to create capacity for consistent brand investment into the future we are balancing the need for meaningful earnings and cash flow improvement with critical reinvestments required to modernize our systems, accelerate demand creation and build our important capabilities. And finally, we've instituted a new cadence and rigor in the business to improve accountability and ensure future execution of our strategy. I would like to thank our global team for their tremendous effort over the last year. Thanks to their work, the Company is now ready to pivot to growth. Now I'll turn the call back to Chris.

在將電話轉回給克里斯之前，讓我總結一下要點。我希望您今天早上能明白，我們正處於公司扭虧為盈的穩定階段的後期，並且在許多關鍵領域都領先於計劃，包括投資組合優化、毛利率擴張、運營成本改善、更健康的庫存和更低的成本。淨債務。重要的是，我們預計將按照2023年11月的承諾，在2024年實現至少1.4億的增量利潤改善。2024年是公司的轉型年，毛利率擴張收益顯著，是下半年增長的拐點我們將品牌設定為加速進入2025 年。我們認識到，提高和可持續的毛利率對於為未來持續的品牌投資創造能力是必要的，我們正在平衡有意義的收入和現金流改善的需求與現代化我們的系統、加速需求創造和建立我們的重要能力所需的關鍵再投資。最後，我們在業務中建立了新的節奏和嚴格性，以提高問責制並確保我們策略的未來執行。我要感謝我們的全球團隊在過去一年所付出的巨大努力。由於他們的努力，公司現在已準備好轉向成長。現在我將把電話轉回給克里斯。

Thanks, Mike. To close our prepared remarks in a few short months, we've largely stabilized the company due to our fast, bold and decisive actions on firmer footing. Now our team is focused on transforming Wolverine Worldwide into a consumer obsessed builder of global brands, delivering improved profitability and driving long-term sustainable growth. The right way, 2024 will be a pivotal year, and our teams are energized by our new vision and the many opportunities ahead, they are proving their ability to move quickly and drive change. And importantly, we're passionate about winning. I personally want to thank our global teams for their work over the past few months. You've been simply great and I couldn't be more excited to start writing our next chapter together. We're committed to building great brands through awesome products amazing storytelling and driving the business each and every day, and we're equally committed to delivering greater value for our shareholders.

謝謝，麥克。在短短幾個月內結束我們準備好的講話，由於我們採取了快速、大膽和果斷的行動，基礎更加穩固，我們已經基本穩定了公司。現在，我們的團隊致力於將 Wolverine Worldwide 轉變為以消費者為中心的全球品牌建立者，提高獲利能力並推動長期永續成長。正確地說，2024 年將是關鍵的一年，我們的團隊因我們的新願景和未來的眾多機會而充滿活力，他們正在證明自己快速行動和推動變革的能力。重要的是，我們對勝利充滿熱情。我個人要感謝我們的全球團隊在過去幾個月所做的工作。你真是太棒了，我非常興奮能夠開始一起書寫我們的下一個篇章。我們致力於透過出色的產品、令人驚嘆的故事講述和每天推動業務來打造偉大的品牌，我們同樣致力於為股東提供更大的價值。

Thank you for taking the time to be with us this morning.

感謝您今天早上抽出時間與我們在一起。

(Operator Instructios) Jonathan Komp, Baird.

（操作員指示）喬納森·康普（Jonathan Komp），貝爾德（Baird）。

Yes, hi. Thank you. Good morning. Mike, I wanted to just first ask Mike, you did a good job of highlighting year over year in the first quarter. The factors impacting comparability. Could I ask just a little more detail that underlying 18.5% decline for the first quarter? How are the factors you outlined impact the next several quarters and can you talk about on the rate of change in the year-over-year sort of underlying improvement that you're baking in?

是的，嗨。謝謝。早安.麥克，我想先問麥克，你在第一季的同比表現上做得很好。影響可比性的因素。我能否更詳細地詢問第一季 18.5% 的下降幅度？您概述的因素如何影響接下來的幾個季度？您能談談您正在實施的潛在改善的同比變化率嗎？

Sure. Thanks, John. Those are important discrete items that we that we called out in the remarks on 23 was on a year where we certainly dealt with a number of headwinds that are behind us. Now just I'll just reiterate a few of those things. So the end of life inventory that we do with that, we cited about 70 million of headwinds, mostly in the first half of the year, about 23 million of that in the first quarter really related to the elevated inventories that we entered the year with. And the company did a good job of working through those in a rational way, but that certainly was an excessive amount of inventory to put into the market, had a negative impact during the year on our on channel inventories and promotional cadence But thankfully, we feel like we've worked through most of that and those headwinds will abate in 2024, but a difficult comparison in that respect. And we would expect most of that or we incurred most of that in the first half of the year. So we'd expect the back half of the year to be a much simpler or easier comparison as it relates to end of life from the business model changes that we made in the year. That's $55 million for the full year, about 13 million in the first quarter. Those relate to the Hush Puppy licensing change that we made in 2023 and the shift in distributor to a distributor model for our joint venture that we started at the beginning of 2024. So and those are those are important revenue headwinds, so to speak, but cleaner, better, simpler business models for us that we think are going to also generate more profitability in the future.

當然。謝謝，約翰。這些都是重要的離散項目，我們在 23 日的演講中指出，這一年我們確實應對了許多在身後的阻力。現在我將重申其中的一些內容。因此，我們對此進行的壽命終止庫存，我們引用了大約 7000 萬個不利因素，主要是在今年上半年，其中第一季度的大約 2300 萬個確實與我們進入今年的庫存增加有關。 。公司以合理的方式很好地解決了這些問題，但這無疑是投入市場的庫存過多，對我們的渠道庫存和促銷節奏產生了負面影響，但值得慶幸的是，我們感覺我們已經解決了大部分問題，這些阻力將在2024 年減弱，但在這方面很難進行比較。我們預計其中大部分或我們在今年上半年發生了大部分。因此，我們預計今年下半年的比較會更簡單或更容易，因為它與我們今年所做的業務模式改變有關。全年營收為 5,500 萬美元，第一季約為 1,300 萬美元。這些與我們在 2023 年做出的 Hush Puppy 許可變更以及我們於 2024 年初開始的合資企業的分銷商向分銷商模式的轉變有關。可以說，這些都是重要的收入阻力，但對我們來說更乾淨、更好、更簡單的商業模式，我們認為這些模式在未來也將產生更多的獲利能力。

And then the last one relates to the third party, a shift in shipments that we noted for Q1 last year. Supply chain delays and some others for some other reasons in terms of how we prioritize new product, we have we shipped a lot more product into our distributor on network in the first quarter of 2023 versus what we would normally would do. So that comparison or that reality kind of creates a tough comp for us in the first quarter come in and again, I think as we go into 24, we're in a more normalized state for all of these components. But the comparison really was important to call out to clarify some of the noise there. So when we think about the impact of these discrete items in the first half of the year, about $125 million of the one 65 will impact the first half of the year. So putting more pressure on growth rates. And in each one, we already talked about the impact for Q1, but John? Yes, I think hopefully that answers your question, but important to clarify what those what those impacts are.

最後一個與第三方有關，即我們去年第一季注意到的出貨量變化。供應鏈延遲以及其他一些原因導致我們如何優先考慮新產品，我們在 2023 年第一季向我們的網路經銷商運送了比通常情況下更多的產品。因此，這種比較或現實在第一季為我們創造了一個艱難的競爭，我認為當我們進入 24 季時，我們所有這些組件都處於更正常化的狀態。但這種比較對於澄清其中的一些噪音確實很重要。因此，當我們考慮這些離散項目對今年上半年的影響時，1 65 中的約 1.25 億美元將影響今年上半年。因此對增長率施加了更大的壓力。在每一個中，我們已經討論了對第一季的影響，但是約翰？是的，我希望這能回答你的問題，但重要的是要澄清這些影響是什麼。

Yes, that's really helpful, Mike. Maybe just just one follow up, Mike or Chris said is, I think about the shape to the year for the revenue guidance. It looks like and you're implying about a $100 million revenue pickup per quarter going forward that looks pretty unusual compared to the historical quarterly cadence. So can you just talk a little bit more about the visibility that you that you may have internally? And I think more importantly, maybe just reassurances that you're not going to be stretching to reach a revenue goal. And given this stage, you're out really invested in the brands to drive longer-term profitable growth.

是的，這真的很有幫助，麥克。麥克或克里斯說，也許只是一個後續行動，我考慮了今年收入指導的形狀。看起來，您暗示未來每季的收入將增加 1 億美元，與歷史季度節奏相比，這看起來相當不尋常。那麼您能多談談您在內部的知名度嗎？我認為更重要的是，也許只是讓您放心，您不會為了實現收入目標而竭盡全力。在這個階段，你已經不再真正投資品牌來推動長期獲利成長。

And I think that's super important. I'll start. I'll let I'll let Chris kind of finish off as first quarter is typically a lower a lower revenue quarter for the business. So that's not necessarily unusual. But I we are we're continuing to work through and improve on some of the macro factors and self-imposed factors that have impacted the business in the last half of of 2023 on the first and second quarter, we're still dealing with some of the excess inventory, although it's improved dramatically. We're still working through that and some of the headwinds around brand on brand health and brand protection in the marketplace are going to be more acute in the first half of the year, John, so the actions and improvements and corrections that have been made in the business over the last six months are starting to take hold, but we're seeing those continue to linger a little bit in the first half of the year. And then with the product pipelines really kicking in with new product introductions starting in Q2 and beyond and the health of that and the magnitude of that new product in the marketplace as a reason to kind of believe in the improvement or the increase in revenue by quarter. But those are some of the highlights I think Chris probably can add to that.

我認為這非常重要。我開始吧。我會讓克里斯結束，因為第一季通常是業務收入較低的季度。所以這不一定不尋常。但我們正在繼續努力解決和改進一些影響2023年下半年第一季度和第二季度業務的宏觀因素和自身因素，我們仍在處理一些問題過剩庫存的情況雖然得到了顯著改善。我們仍在努力解決這個問題，約翰，今年上半年，市場上品牌健康和品牌保護方面的一些逆風將變得更加嚴重，因此已經採取的行動、改進和糾正過去六個月的業務開始紮根，但我們看到這些在今年上半年繼續徘徊。然後，隨著產品管道真正啟動，從第二季度及以後開始推出新產品，以及該產品的健康狀況以及該新產品在市場上的規模，可以作為相信季度收入改善或增加的理由。但我認為克里斯可能可以補充這些亮點。

Thanks, John. I think that's a great question. Talking about the shape of the business and how we're thinking about it. And importantly, how we're trying to manage the portfolio going forward. And we had talked a couple of couple of weeks ago about sort of tempered expectations on the first half and we sort of provided some clarity on both the internal and external factors that are sort of suppressing growth in the first half. But I do think that there are a number of reasons to believe in the second half?

謝謝，約翰。我認為這是一個很好的問題。談論業務的形態以及我們如何看待它。重要的是，我們將如何管理未來的投資組合。幾週前，我們曾討論過對上半年的預期有所緩和，並且我們對抑制上半年成長的內部和外部因素進行了一些澄清。但我確實認為有很多理由相信下半年？

I think certainly the corrective actions we've taken internally as it relates to product. I think we're encouraged by the product pipeline and we talked about and what Saucony has delivering the right guide 17, the drivetrain to the hurricane 24. And all of those things are really good product introductions. And I think the Saucony pipeline is much stronger this year than it was last year, meaning Merrell, Merrell is similar, the Moab speed to just dropped off, and we're seeing really good pickup on that, really good reception the Agility peak five. And then some of the lifestyle collections are around wrapped went when Merrell can develop on-trend on-brand product that looks different. Consumers respond to. So same time, we're also need to invest back in our brands. We talked about constraining some of the operating margin expansion this year in the spirit of investing back into our brands and back into our tools. I think we will begin to see the fruits of those investments in the back half of this year.

我認為我們內部採取的與產品相關的糾正措施肯定是正確的。我認為我們對產品線感到鼓舞，我們討論了索康尼提供的正確指南 17、颶風 24 的動力傳動系統。所有這些都是非常好的產品介紹。我認為索康尼今年的產品線比去年強大得多，這意味著梅雷爾，梅雷爾是相似的，摩押速度剛剛下降，我們看到了非常好的回升，非常好的接收敏捷峰值五。然後，當 Merrell 可以開發出看起來不同的流行品牌產品時，一些生活方式系列就被包裝起來了。消費者回應。所以同時，我們也需要對我們的品牌進行投資。我們討論了本著重新投資我們的品牌和工具的精神，限制今年的一些營業利潤率擴張。我認為我們將在今年下半年開始看到這些投資的成果。

And then just in the marketplace, I think certainly continuing to have cleaner inventories, which is encouraging. We're seeing inventories come down. We're seeing our ASPs go up and we are attacking rogue selling. I think from a brand protection standpoint, we got LAX, and we didn't do a good enough job protecting our brands, and we're not we're beginning to see the benefit of that. And then just frankly, we're going to lap some easier comparisons in the back half of the year for some of the reasons that Mike called out. So I'm optimistic looking into the back half of the year. I understand the question around the shape of the business. At the same time, I think there are a number of reasons to believe our ability to go go execute against that.

然後就在市場上，我認為庫存肯定會繼續保持清潔，這是令人鼓舞的。我們看到庫存下降。我們看到我們的平均售價上升，並且我們正在打擊流氓銷售。我認為從品牌保護的角度來看，我們有洛杉磯國際機場，但我們在保護我們的品牌方面做得不夠好，而且我們還沒有開始看到這樣做的好處。坦白說，出於麥克指出的一些原因，我們將在今年下半年進行一些更簡單的比較。所以我對今年下半年持樂觀態度。我理解有關業務形態的問題。同時，我認為有很多理由相信我們有能力去執行這一點。

Really helpful color Thanks. Thanks again.

真的很有幫助的顏色謝謝。再次感謝。

Thanks, John.

謝謝，約翰。

Jim Duffy, Stifel.

吉姆·達菲，斯蒂菲爾。

Thank you. Good morning, guys. A lot of evidence of Harvey, as you can see, a lot of evidence of hard work and the support. With that, I'm going to start on a positive the guided gross margin for 44.5% in fiscal 24. That's an all-time high that might be seen as a new normal? Or do you think that's still subdued relative to potential given some of the impediments to margin the first half of the year as you continue to work through inventory.

謝謝。早上好傢伙。正如你所看到的，哈維的許多證據，很多努力工作和支持的證據。有了這個，我將從 24 財年的指導毛利率開始，達到 44.5%。這是歷史新高，可能被視為新常態？或者，考慮到今年上半年在繼續處理庫存時利潤率面臨一些障礙，您是否認為相對於潛力而言，這仍然受到抑制。

And thank God and thanks for recognizing that, Jim, it has been a lot of work, a lot of focus of the team across across the organization and functions. We think there's upside in the future, given the fact that we are still dealing with some lingering inventory issues, certainly smaller than we had to deal with coming in 23. But and we're going to continue to drive those inventory levels down. We said another 70 million in 2024. So we feel there is upside potential yet in the gross margin, it's a healthier mix of business. We have a bigger direct to consumer, our mix in that profile for the gross margin, including the inclusion of our Sweaty Betty business. And so that's one reason for that for the higher margin. But I just think in every in every area, stronger full-price selling, supply chain costs being addressed and obviously lingering and hangover transitory costs that we had to contend with in 2023. Those are all behind us and so we feel like this is a really good baseline for the future and feel like we can build on that as we move into 2025.

感謝上帝，感謝你認識到這一點，吉姆，整個組織和職能團隊都付出了大量的努力和關注。鑑於我們仍在處理一些揮之不去的庫存問題，而且數量肯定比 23 年要處理的要小，我們認為未來還有上行空間。但是我們將繼續降低庫存水準。我們說到 2024 年再增加 7,000 萬。因此，我們認為毛利率仍有上升潛力，這是更健康的業務組合。我們有更大的直接面向消費者的業務，我們的毛利率組合，包括我們的汗水貝蒂業務。這就是利潤率較高的原因之一。但我認為，在每個領域，全價銷售更加強勁，供應鏈成本得到解決，以及我們在 2023 年必須應對的明顯揮之不去的暫時性成本。這些都已成為過去，所以我們覺得這是未來的一個非常好的基準，並且我們可以在此基礎上繼續邁入 2025 年。

And then Jim, just let me just let me just add on to their Jimmy, you followed our story for a long period of time and sort of know where we've been as a company and the work we had to do coming out of the fall. I think importantly, we really put our heads down, and I appreciate you recognizing the hard work to really stabilize the organization, attack the inventory, pay down the debt, restructure the business, the biggest restructuring in history of the Company we did last fall. And then we've said that margin improvement will lead inflection to growth because we want to grow the business the right way. And we did the hard work around the margin and we certainly are encouraged by what we have line of sight to, and we can deliver this year. And then we're everyone is pivoting towards the inflection to growth. So that's where the story that we've laid out for the last six months and we're going to keep keep working against that plan.

然後吉姆，讓我補充一下他們的吉米，你關注了我們的故事很長一段時間，並且知道我們作為一家公司的發展狀況以及我們必須做的工作落下。我認為重要的是，我們真的低下了頭，我感謝你們認識到真正穩定組織、消除庫存、償還債務、重組業務所付出的努力，這是我們去年秋天進行的公司歷史上最大的重組。然後我們說過，利潤率的提高將導致成長的轉折點，因為我們希望以正確的方式發展業務。我們在利潤方面做了艱苦的工作，我們當然對我們的願景感到鼓舞，我們今年可以實現這一目標。然後我們每個人都在轉向成長的轉折點。這就是我們在過去六個月中所闡述的故事，我們將繼續按照該計劃努力。

Thanks, guys. Just follow up on the top line and Jonathan dug in on this some but a little bit more just view on the top line, what are the sight lines that you have to inflection for the growth brands in the portfolio? Merrell and Saucony specifically, we have also orders in hand to support the second half inflection assumptions.

多謝你們。只是跟進頂線，喬納森深入研究了頂線的一些但更多的觀點，對於投資組合中的成長品牌，您必須關注哪些視線？特別是 Merrell 和 Saucony，我們手頭上還有訂單來支持下半年的轉折點假設。

We don't disclose backlog. We have and have not done that. I do think and we are getting continue to see encouraging signs on the new products and obviously a lot of the growth that we have planned for the back half of the year and the inflection to growth and the improvement in the business is really driven by the new product introductions. I mean, it sort of coming out of the pandemic and the supply chain issue we were having in core, I mean, I think we all know that newness and innovation is winning with the consumer. And I do think our product pipelines weren't as innovative as they need to begin in 2023. So that focus and softening on the core for us are early indications. And the right guide, 17 are positive, and we'll launch the trial 22 and the hurricane 24 in quarters two and three sequentially, and then we'll come back in Merrell Moab speed two is already out. We're really encouraged by initial sell throughs and the feedback and then agility, pick five and a handful of other collections. And the more I have three and I will talk about the MOF three, but that continues to check and we're more encouraged by that. So I think from a wholesale landscape perspective, we're staying very close. We all know that wholesalers are continuing to act differently. I think we all sort of know that for some brands with a challenged macro landscape in wholesale. But I think it's part of our turnaround effort too, is just reengaging those wholesale partners in a more meaningful way. The number of top to tops we've done over the past six months has, I think, has been critically important. I've done I've listened a lot to add to what the wholesalers and their partners are looking for Wolverine from what they're getting from other brands on how we can ultimately better. I think it has been very well time spent. So I think in general, I think the back half of the year largely driven on the innovation that we're bringing. And that is also why I'm encouraged about what we have line of sight to in 25.

我們不揭露積壓情況。我們已經這樣做了，也還沒有這樣做。我確實認為，我們正在繼續看到新產品的令人鼓舞的跡象，顯然我們計劃在今年下半年實現許多增長，增長的拐點和業務的改善確實是由新產品介紹。我的意思是，這有點源自於我們所面臨的流行病和供應鏈問題，我的意思是，我認為我們都知道新穎和創新正在贏得消費者的青睞。我確實認為我們的產品管道並沒有像 2023 年開始所需的那樣具有創新性。因此，對我們來說，對核心的關注和軟化是早期跡象。正確的指導是，17 是積極的，我們將在第二季度和第三季度依次啟動試驗 22 和颶風 24，然後我們將在 Merrell Moab 速度二號已經推出的情況下回來。我們對最初的銷售量和回饋感到非常鼓舞，然後敏捷地挑選了五個和一些其他系列。我擁有的三個越多，我將談論 MOF 三個，但這仍在繼續檢查，我們對此更加感到鼓舞。所以我認為從整體格局的角度來看，我們保持著非常接近的關係。我們都知道批發商繼續採取不同的行動。我想我們都知道，對於一些在批發領域面臨挑戰的品牌來說。但我認為這也是我們扭虧為盈努力的一部分，只是以更有意義的方式重新吸引那些批發合作夥伴。我認為，過去六個月我們完成的從上到下的次數至關重要。我已經聽了很多，以補充批發商及其合作夥伴從其他品牌那裡得到的信息，以了解我們如何最終做得更好。我認為這段時間度過得很愉快。所以我認為總的來說，今年下半年主要是由我們帶來的創新所推動的。這也是為什麼我對 25 年後的願景感到鼓舞。

Excellent. Thank you, guys.

出色的。感謝你們。

Thanks, Jim.

謝謝，吉姆。

Abbie Zvejnieks, Piper Sandler.

艾比·茲維涅克斯，派珀·桑德勒。

And then a follow-up on just on Merrell specifically. I mean, just on the comments on taking share and taking trail. I mean, I guess you you wouldn't think that with the business down low doubles this year and projected load doubles next year, can you just talk about kind of what's happening in that hiking trails space and where you think that that market will evolve and how can Merrill you grow that market, but also served by other new adjacencies to that?

然後是專門針對梅雷爾的後續行動。我的意思是，只是關於分享和追蹤的評論。我的意思是，我猜你不會認為今年的業務量會下降一倍，明年的預計負荷會翻一番，你能談談遠足步道領域正在發生的事情以及你認為該市場將在哪裡發展嗎？美林如何發展這個市場，同時也為該市場提供其他新的服務？

Yes. Great question. Having I'll hit it straight on, you know, I think the at the highest level, the outdoor category has been pressured and probably one of the worst performing categories in the market for the past 12 months. I think as and we're not going to sit behind that and say it's just a category issue as the category leader, which Merrell is Merrell has to innovate and help to help lead lead that category, which is why I'm encouraged by some of the new product introductions, the Moab speed to which I've already referenced a lighter, faster, more athletic version of the world's number one hiking boot, which is the MyLab, think agility, peak five is the evolution of the trial. The trial is certainly evolving, specifically market share gains. I mean, on the last quarter, Merrill gained 30 basis points and 60 basis points and hiking trail run, respectively. And for the full year of over 100 basis points and 70 basis points respectively in both of those categories. So that is share gains, albeit in a contracting category. I think the future of the outdoor category is lighter and faster and more athletic and more versatile. And I think certainly predicated on not just function but also style. And it gets worse in Merrell, we can work harder is really hitting that style piece and designing great looking shoes that are versatile that not only not only be one of the trail, but also can be worn for everyday wear. So I think the onus is on a category leader to help reinvent. I think the reinvention is lighter and faster. And I think the work we've done on the pipeline is important.

是的。很好的問題。我會直截了當地說，你知道，我認為在最高水平上，戶外類別受到了壓力，並且可能是過去 12 個月市場上表現最差的類別之一。我認為，我們不會袖手旁觀，說這只是作為類別領導者的一個類別問題，梅雷爾必須創新並幫助領導該類別，這就是為什麼我受到一些人的鼓勵在新產品介紹中，Moab speed我已經提到了世界排名第一的登山靴的更輕、更快、更運動的版本，這就是MyLab，think agility，peak 5是試用版的進化版。試驗無疑正在不斷發展，特別是市場份額的成長。我的意思是，上個季度，美林股票分別上漲了 30 個基點和 60 個基點，並進行了徒步旅行。全年這兩個類別分別成長超過 100 個基點和 70 個基點。這就是份額收益，儘管屬於承包類別。我認為戶外運動的未來會更輕、更快、更運動、更多功能。我認為當然不僅取決於功能，還取決於風格。Merrell 的情況變得更糟，我們可以更加努力地真正擊中風格，設計出美觀的多功能鞋子，不僅可以作為越野鞋之一，而且可以日常穿著。因此，我認為品類領導者有責任幫助重塑。我認為重塑更輕、更快。我認為我們在管道上所做的工作很重要。

Another reason why the mail test lab is so important to us in this elite trail running incubator for great product design awards. We won in mail for the past handful of years around that run the MTL products. His is critical and important And honestly, some of the best, some of the best products in the market. So tough category leader has to lead gaining share, and we have to be on front of evolving trends.

郵件測試實驗室對於我們這個精英越野跑孵化器來說如此重要，以獲得偉大的產品設計獎項的另一個原因。在過去的幾年裡，我們贏得了圍繞運行 MTL 產品的郵件。他的產品至關重要而且很重要，老實說，這是市場上最好的產品。因此，強硬的品類領導者必須引領市場份額的成長，我們必須走在不斷變化的趨勢的前面。

Got it. That's helpful. And then, Mike, maybe on the you said that the profitability improvements will precede an inflection in growth, but kind of help. How can we think about, you know, if there are more challenges you on your consumer macro environment gets worse in your top line trends are lower than projected. Your ability to still make those profit improvements.

知道了。這很有幫助。然後，麥克，也許你說獲利能力的改善將先於成長的拐點，但有點幫助。您知道，如果您的消費者宏觀環境面臨更多挑戰，您的收入趨勢會低於預期，那麼我們該如何思考？您仍然有能力提高利潤。

And I think that's indicated in the strong first quarter gross margin guide, which is 46%, some higher than that than the then the full year guidance for gross margin. I think that's an area where we feel we've got a really strong base and we have a lot of those some sort of relative headwinds behind us high confidence that we can maintain that or even improve that as we move forward.

我認為這一點在第一季強勁的毛利率指引中得到了體現，該指引為 46%，略高於當時的全年毛利率指引。我認為，在這個領域，我們覺得我們擁有非常強大的基礎，而且我們背後有很多相對的阻力，我們非常有信心在前進的過程中能夠保持這一點，甚至改進這一點。

So on the on the downside, we feel like we've taken a really prudent approach to this guidance. And to the extent we are, we always have levers to pull in terms of discretionary spend and contingencies in our operating plan to make sure that we protect that flow through and that profitability and also the cash flow performance of the business this year. So we'll continue to manage that as we have in the past, the biggest pressure on the business over the last couple of years has been gross margin and driven by that high inventory level and the fact that we've got the inventory in a much healthier place today, we have much more predictable gross margin performance coming into 2020 for mix and thinking.

因此，從不利的一面來看，我們覺得我們對這項指導採取了非常謹慎的態度。就我們而言，我們始終有槓桿來拉動我們營運計劃中的可自由支配支出和意外事件，以確保我們保護今年的流量、盈利能力以及現金流表現。因此，我們將繼續像過去一樣進行管理，過去幾年業務面臨的最大壓力是毛利率，這是由高庫存水平以及我們的庫存水平所驅動的。今天的情況更加健康，我們在2020 年的組合和思考方面的​​毛利率表現更加可預測。

Makes sense. Thank you.

說得通。謝謝。

Thanks, Abbie.

謝謝，艾比。

Ashley Owens, KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Ashley Owens，KeyBanc 資本市場。

Great. Thanks so much. So I just wanted to focus on 40 by you really quickly. Can you talk about any specific contract facing there in 1Q driving the high single digit decline. What's factored in in the outlook there for 24? And then just how you're sizing the opportunity for that brand over the coming years, given increasing competition in athletic wear in general?

偉大的。非常感謝。所以我只想盡快關注你的《40》。您能否談談第一季面臨的任何具體合約導致了高個位數的下降。24 的前景受哪些因素影響？那麼，考慮到運動服飾領域的競爭日益激烈，您如何評估該品牌在未來幾年的機會？

Yes, I'll hit it and then Mike can add on. We have new leadership in sweaty, Betty, which we're very encouraged by. I think we've worked hard in the integration for the past year and I think certainly feel much closer to that business. And I've spent a lot of time with Sweaty Betty over the past handful of months. I'm trying to understand that business. I think the decline in the first quarter is really driven by just becoming less promotional business and that business was very promotional last year. And I think that that rings true for a lot of our brands, and I'll come back to sweaty, Betty, but in the latter part of last year, we pulled back on promotions at our own dot-com businesses, and we saw meaningful improvements in gross margin running a healthier business. Our actually the same strategy in the first half of this year to be less promotional as well. That's also why you're seeing some of the uptick, although also contributor to our overall gross margin improvement. But ultimately, running running better brands and enhancing and protecting brand equity. So the drag drag in the first half first quarter for anybody we're really is being less promotional business was encouraged by the way that team performed in the back half of last year over the holiday season, really some really strong product reception that that brand has a very fanatical strong following of female consumers who love their brands. They stay very close to that. The power franchise, you know, best in class fit, premium materials, on-trend designs and then their ability to extend beyond just that core bottoms business, I'm really encouraged by the outerwear business. The Nimbus and the navigate were really good styles force up strong double digits year over year. And then the ability to grow in adjacent categories, middle layers, accessories and socks are all are all very encouraging. So I'm excited by the potential of that brand. It is a very competitive market no doubt that as well noted, we understand that at the same time, I think Sweaty Betty has a very unique positioning, a premium brand, largely direct to consumer predicated on great design, great materials, great research and development and then great fit. And then just cultivating a very loyal fan base. There's a lot of things we can learn across delivering portfolio from sweaty, Betty. And I think the Wolverine Worldwide organizations bring a lot of benefit to Sweaty Betty as well and they plug into our supply chain. We've done some gross margin improvement initiatives within that have really helped and we're speeding up the supply chain. We now have the ability and Sweaty Betty to react to fast moving styles in a matter of weeks to replenish those things and which I love coming from retail apparel backgrounds, just that fast reaction time, I think it's competitive advantage. So there's still work to go do for sure and that brand. Hopefully, that explains a little bit of the first quarter first quarter drag, but certainly optimism moving from there.

是的，我會點擊它，然後麥克可以添加。我們有了新的領導班子貝蒂，我們對此感到非常鼓舞。我認為我們在過去的一年裡在整合方面付出了很大的努力，我想我們肯定感覺與該業務更加接近了。在過去的幾個月裡，我花了很多時間和汗流浹背的貝蒂在一起。我正在嘗試了解這項業務。我認為第一季的下滑實際上是由於促銷業務減少所致，而去年的促銷業務非常活躍。我認為這對我們的許多品牌來說都是如此，我會回到汗流浹背的貝蒂，但在去年下半年，我們取消了我們自己的網絡業務的促銷活動，我們看到毛利率的顯著改善，經營更健康的業務。我們今年上半年實際上採取了同樣的策略，即減少促銷活動。這也是為什麼你會看到一些成長，儘管這也有助於我們整體毛利率的提高。但最終，經營更好的品牌並增強和保護品牌資產。因此，對於任何人來說，第一季上半年的拖累確實是促銷業務減少，這是受到去年下半年假期期間團隊表現的鼓勵，該品牌確實有一些非常強大的產品接受度擁有一群非常狂熱的、熱愛其品牌的女性消費者。他們非常接近這一點。你知道，強大的特許經營權、一流的合身性、優質的材料、流行的設計，以及他們超越核心下裝業務的能力，我對外套業務感到非常鼓舞。Nimbus 和導航確實是很好的風格，年復一年增長強勁的兩位數。然後，相鄰類別、中間層、配件和襪子的成長能力都非常令人鼓舞。所以我對該品牌的潛力感到興奮。毫無疑問，這是一個競爭非常激烈的市場，正如我們所指出的，我們明白，同時，我認為Sweaty Betty 擁有非常獨特的定位，一個優質品牌，很大程度上直接面向消費者，基於出色的設計、出色的材料、出色的研究和發展然後偉大的適應。然後培養非常忠實的粉絲群。在交付作品集的過程中，我們可以從汗流浹背的貝蒂學到很多東西。我認為 Wolverine Worldwide 組織也為汗水貝蒂帶來了很多好處，他們融入了我們的供應鏈。我們已經採取了一些毛利率改善舉措，這確實很有幫助，而且我們正在加快供應鏈的速度。我們現在有能力和汗水貝蒂在幾週內對快速變化的款式做出反應，以補充這些東西，我喜歡來自零售服裝背景的東西，只是快速的反應時間，我認為這是競爭優勢。因此，對於這個品牌來說，還有很多工作要做。希望這可以解釋第一季第一季的拖累，但肯定會從那裡開始樂觀。

Great. That's super helpful color. Thank you.

偉大的。這是超級有用的顏色。謝謝。

Thanks, Ashley.

謝謝，阿什利。

Sam Poser, William’s Trading.

Sam Poser，威廉貿易公司。

Thank you very much for taking my questions. I have a question about what about the Wolverine brand and the work business that's been up. Can you give us some idea of why that became so tough and how you how do you intend to get it turned around. As I think as you know, the customer is very, very loyal. And so if they how hard will it be if they've gone to somebody else on the downtrend and then getting them to swing back over again the thesis.

非常感謝您回答我的問題。我有一個關於金剛狼品牌和已經興起的工作業務的問題。您能否告訴我們為什麼事情變得如此困難以及您打算如何扭轉局面。正如我所知道的，客戶非常非常忠誠。因此，如果他們轉向處於下降趨勢的其他人，然後讓他們重新審視這個論點，會有多困難。

But yes, great question, Sam, and I appreciate it, and I appreciate you're talking about our work group and no doubt, our work group is struggling a bit right now. We've talked about that on the Wolverine brand specifically has had has been an industry leader on, but we still we had a tough year there for sure. And we have lost share working really closely with that team to understand where that where those share losses are happening. And we're seeing more at the premium price points than I've been at that 90 to $100,000 price point. There are new introductions coming this year to bolster that more premium positioning, DuraSite and the surge, the Colorado equip, and we feel good about those and our ability to gain back that one, 40 to 60 price point, we think inventories are much better now in the channel. And in some places, I think our sell throughs are outpacing sort of the restocking and our ability to get close to that market and replenish that business. We do think the category is going to grow. But I think Sam's or to your point, that has been sort of a very sort of steady on business for us, very consistent and we've we've struggled there a little bit over the past year, and there's an intense focus to get that work group back that back to its more historical range. I think the team has diagnose the issues, what we did, what was self-inflicted and then our ability to both understand both channel and price point category and then capitalize on those trends. There's a strong Western trend right now, the brand is pushing pushing that Western trend as well. But we certainly think that premium price point is where we have the brand has felt some pressure.

但是，是的，山姆，這是一個很好的問題，我很感激，也很感激你談論我們的工作小組，毫無疑問，我們的工作小組現在有點掙扎。我們已經討論過金剛狼品牌一直是行業領導者，但我們仍然度過了艱難的一年。我們已經失去了份額，與該團隊密切合作，以了解這些份額損失發生在哪裡。我們看到的溢價價位比我在 90 至 100,000 美元價位上看到的要多。今年有新的推出來支持更高端的定位，DuraSite 和激增，科羅拉多裝備，我們對這些以及我們重新獲得 40 至 60 價格點的能力感覺良好，我們認為庫存要好得多現在在頻道中。在某些地方，我認為我們的銷售量超過了補貨速度，也超過了我們接近市場和補充業務的能力。我們確實認為該類別將會成長。但我認為山姆或就你的觀點而言，這對我們來說是一種非常穩定的業務，非常穩定，過去一年我們在這方面遇到了一些困難，並且需要高度關注該工作組將其恢復到更歷史的範圍。我認為團隊已經診斷了問題，我們做了什麼，我們自己造成了什麼，然後我們有能力了解管道和價格點類別，然後利用這些趨勢。現在有一股強大的西方潮流，該品牌也在推動這種西方潮流。但我們當然認為溢價點是我們品牌感受到一些壓力的地方。

Thanks, Tom. And then I mean, I'm I'm just trying to wrap my arms around the expectation. It sounds like you're expecting parts of the business to turn positive in the back half of the year. Could you just can you give us a little more of dissecting of that? And then and then and then just sorry, delve into sort of how it gets there?

謝謝，湯姆。然後我的意思是，我只是想擁抱期望。聽起來您預計部分業務將在今年下半年轉好。您能給我們更多的剖析嗎？然後，然後，然後，抱歉，深入研究它是如何到達那裡的？

Well, again, in the guide we provided, Sam, this is Mike from Merrill's into expected to inflect to growth in the back half of the years. We saw As Chris mentioned on sweaty, Betty, a contraction in Q1. And so that again, we'll see that sequentially improve and inflect to growth in the back half of the year as well.

好吧，再次，在我們提供的指南中，薩姆，這是美林公司的邁克，預計下半年會出現增長。正如克里斯在《出汗的貝蒂》中提到的，我們在第一季看到了宮縮。因此，我們將再次看到今年下半年的情況將持續改善並影響成長。

Our Saucony business will improve each quarter, but for the full year will be down. So we're not expecting an inflection to growth there. But just sequential improvement as it's important and important to underscore to many of the certainly the business model change that we called out and some of the other changes that phone we mentioned in our previous discussion, heavily impact of Saucony, but that joint venture changes has about a $30 million impact to the Saucony revenue specifically. But overall, for the year, seeing sequential improvement in Saucony but not an inflection to growth in the back half. So for the growth brands, that's sort of the trajectory of the business. And I think Chris touched on some of those reasons to believe as it relates to the product pipeline and some of the easier comparisons, but also just the abatement of some of the headwinds that we've been contending with for the last couple of quarters.

我們的索康尼業務每季都會有所改善，但全年都會下降。因此，我們預計那裡的成長不會出現拐點。但只是連續的改進，因為強調我們所呼籲的商業模式變化以及我們在之前的討論中提到的電話的其他一些變化，索康尼的嚴重影響是非常重要的，但合資企業的變化已經具體來說，這對索康尼(Saucony) 的收入影響約為3,000 萬美元。但整體而言，今年索康尼的業績連續改善，但下半年的成長並未出現轉折點。對於成長型品牌來說，這就是業務軌跡。我認為克里斯談到了其中一些值得相信的理由，因為它與產品管道和一些更容易的比較有關，但也只是我們過去幾個季度一直在應對的一些不利因素的減輕。

And I think also just to build that, we've also made some tough decisions as it relates to how we're going to manage our brands. And I think you know how we want our this our ability to reset the business and just manage the portfolio differently.

我認為，為了實現這一目標，我們也做出了一些艱難的決定，因為這關係到我們如何管理我們的品牌。我想你知道我們如何希望我們有能力重置業務並以不同的方式管理投資組合。

Another thing working against Saucony's, they had a they had a very low margin sort of value channel product that we're moving away from that wasn't helping build brand equity that was not accretive to do brand's margin in total, and we're making the tough decisions to move past those businesses. So there's a lot there's a lot of different reasons why the business is where it is. But in total, as we think about how to best manage portfolio how to best be great brand stewards. I think we're making a lot of very tough decisions right now and then working to really improve the product pipeline investments back into marketing to ultimately come a really good brand builder. So on that asset and just another reason why I'm trying to explain some of the color behind the numbers at one.

另一件對索康尼不利的事情是，他們有一種利潤率非常低的價值管道產品，我們正在放棄這種產品，這無助於建立品牌資產，而這並不能增加品牌的總利潤，我們正在做出艱難的決定以擺脫這些業務。因此，造成業務發展如此的原因有許多不同。但總的來說，當我們思考如何最好地管理產品組合時，如何最好地成為偉大的品牌管理者。我認為我們現在正在做出很多非常艱難的決定，然後努力真正改善產品管道投資，重新投入行銷中，最終成為一個真正優秀的品牌建立者。因此，關於該資產，這也是我試圖一次性解釋數字背後的一些顏色的另一個原因。

Thank you. And then one last thing on the gross margin, I understand like so the non-repeating there are pieces with freight and so on and so forth. But but with promotional activity and I understand inventories are much cleaner and so on. And I understand what's going on today, but you're you're anticipating it looks like for gross margin really, too. So to look at yes. Well, I mean, the guidance is gross margin could look a lot better for a total year and specifically in the back half when it did get very promotional, I doubt it will be as promotional as it was a year ago. But but how confident are you even with clean inventory that the new product you put out there is going to be good enough not to get caught up or should you be being even more conservative with sales to sort of guaranteeing that? That doesn't happen and I'll take it.

謝謝。關於毛利率的最後一件事，我的理解是，不重複的部分包含運費等等。但是，隨著促銷活動的開展，我了解到庫存變得更加乾淨等等。我了解今天發生的情況，但您也確實預期毛利率也會如此。所以看看是的。嗯，我的意思是，指導意見是全年的毛利率可能會好得多，特別是在下半年，當它確實得到了很大的促銷時，我懷疑它是否會像一年前那樣促銷。但是，即使庫存乾淨，您對您推出的新產品是否足夠好而不會被追趕又有多大信心，或者您是否應該在銷售方面更加保守以保證這一點？那不會發生，我會接受它。

And Mike, it. And I think it's certainly to your point, Sam, I think we are viewing the marketplace differently and how we manage the brands. I do think the product we have is really good. And I would say the product managers in 23, I think our innovation fell flat in 23. And I think the consumer responded to newness and we were heavy in core styles. I didn't check which put a lot of pressure on 23 and certainly pressure continued pressure on us in the first quarter of this year. But when I look across the portfolio and the work that we've done around the product pipeline, I am encouraged by what we have, both what we have in the marketplace today. The Ryan guide 17. Saucony's are good example. The trial quickly follow with the Moab speed. Two out of the gate is very good. The new wrap question, which I keep referencing, not really selling out with almost no marketing because it is just visually disruptive and just looks different and it is very on-brand. So I think the product pipeline is much, much stronger than where we have been historically. And I'm excited sort of continue to work through those those those older core styles and get to the newness. That's where the is responding. That's what the retailers are telling us is working what they want. And in fact, we have a new, a new protocol every Tuesday, just a full deep dive into the business. And we had our session yesterday and we're having different conversations. We're talking about chasing new products. We're talking about chasing a perception that we have seen feedback that we're getting and we're actually talking about chasing Crocs in our supply chain today where we haven't had those conversations for a while. I get on a plane next week with the presidents of Merrell and Saucony to go to Vietnam to go to our biggest factories, both to accelerate products that are in development and talk about how we can, how we can can you chase chase other items. So the fact that we're talking about chasing new new good styles and chasing products that we want to accelerate into the pipeline, I think is a very encouraging place for us to be right now.

還有麥克，它。我認為這肯定符合你的觀點，山姆，我認為我們對市場以及品牌管理方式的看法不同。我確實認為我們的產品非常好。我想說的是 23 的產品經理，我認為我們的創新在 23 中表現平平。我認為消費者對新鮮事物有反應，而我們則注重核心款式。我沒有檢查這給23帶來了很大的壓力，當然壓力在今年第一季繼續給我們帶來壓力。但是，當我審視我們的產品組合以及我們圍繞產品管道所做的工作時，我對我們所擁有的東西（包括我們今天在市場上所擁有的東西）感到鼓舞。瑞安指南 17.索康尼就是一個很好的例子。審判很快就以摩押的速度跟進。兩個人出門就好了。我一直提到的新的包裝問題，在幾乎沒有行銷的情況下並沒有真正售出，因為它只是在視覺上具有破壞性，只是看起來不同，而且非常符合品牌。所以我認為產品線比我們歷史上的狀態強大得多。我很興奮能夠繼續研究那些舊的核心風格並獲得新的東西。這就是 the 正在響應的地方。這就是零售商告訴我們的，他們正在按照他們的意願行事。事實上，我們每個星期二都有一個新的協議，只是對業務的全面深入研究。我們昨天舉行了會議，進行了不同的對話。我們正在談論追逐新產品。我們談論的是追逐一種觀念，即我們已經看到了我們收到的反饋，我們實際上談論的是今天在我們的供應鏈中追逐 Crocs，但我們已經有一段時間沒有進行過這些對話了。下週我將與 Merrell 和 Saucony 的總裁一起乘飛機前往越南，參觀我們最大的工廠，既加快正在開發的產品，又討論我們如何才能，我們如何才能追趕其他產品。因此，事實上，我們正​​在談論追逐新的好款式和追逐我們想要加速進入管道的產品，我認為現在對我們來說是一個非常令人鼓舞的地方。

And the only thing I'd add to that, Sam, is a really important part of the margin expansion is the the hard work that the profit improvement team has done over the last year to get product costs and freight rates and things down that, just the transitory costs that go away. But just on the go forward business and this and the new styles that Chris is talking about coming in at a much higher gross margin. So really of secured that and see that in the in the gross margin bridge and we're being we're being cautious on the promotional cadence. To your point, we don't control or have complete visibility to the back half of the year. We expect it to improve because of healthier inventories. But we're still being cautious in this guide as it relates to promotions. So I think overall, we're laying out a very achievable gross margin outlook for the business.

山姆，我唯一要補充的是，利潤擴張的一個非常重要的部分是利潤改善團隊在過去一年中為降低產品成本和運費等方面所做的努力，只是暫時的成本消失了。但就目前的業務而言，克里斯所說的新款式的毛利率要高得多。因此，我們確實確保了這一點，並在毛利率橋樑中看到這一點，我們對促銷節奏持謹慎態度。就您而言，我們無法控製或完全了解下半年的情況。我們預計，由於庫存狀況更加健康，情況將會改善。但我們仍然對本指南持謹慎態度，因為它與促銷有關。因此，我認為總體而言，我們正在為該業務制定一個非常可實現的毛利率前景。

Mitch Kummetz, Seaport Global Securities.

米奇‧庫梅茲 (Mitch Kummetz)，海港環球證券公司。

Yes, thanks for taking my questions on. I guess a couple of things on the Merrell inflection to growth. I just wanted to better understand that I know you don't give backlog, but does the order book support that growth or is this more on your assumptions around DTC. are at once based on product pipeline and on are retailers? Or are you starting to see kind of a bottoming around the outdoor space in terms of in terms of retail orders? No follow-up.

是的，感謝您回答我的問題。我猜想有幾件事與梅雷爾的成長趨勢有關。我只是想更好地了解，我知道您沒有提供積壓訂單，但訂單是否支持這種增長，或者這更多地取決於您對 DTC 的假設。是否同時基於產品通路和零售商？還是開始看到戶外空間的零售訂單出現觸底？沒有後續。

Yes. I think I'll hit and I'll let Mike add some color. I think I think part of part of the turnaround. And one of the things that I talked about on the last quarterly call was just our how close we were to the wholesale market, how close we were to the partners. I do think the conversations are different today than they were just a handful of months ago. As we think about the output or outdoor CapEx specifically and frankly how they view Merrell within their assortment. I think we all know that the pressures are well document outdoor category mail continues to be the leader continues to gain share and we keep seeing retail, keeping keeping protecting Merrill. I think the important thing for the Merrell brand is to have all behind that sort of the classic MORAb three silhouette and become lighter and fashion North Atlantic and which is why we're so excited about the how the Moab speed has been received and then our on-trade into trail run and the fact that we're gaining share and trail run is very encouraging. I think we're paying very close attention to our own direct to consumer business, doing what's happening in our 46 Merrill outlet stores, whereas traffic, what are they buying? What are they responding to?

是的。我想我會擊球，然後讓麥克添加一些色彩。我想我認為這是轉變的一部分。我在上一次季度電話會議上談到的一件事就是我們與批發市場的距離有多近，我們與合作夥伴的距離有多近。我確實認為今天的對話與幾個月前有所不同。當我們具體而坦率地考慮輸出或戶外資本支出時，他們如何看待 Merrell 在其產品系列中的表現。我想我們都知道，壓力是有據可查的，戶外類別郵件繼續成為領導者，繼續獲得份額，我們不斷看到零售，繼續保護美林。我認為對於 Merrell 品牌來說，最重要的是全力支持這種經典的 MORAb 三輪廓，並變得更輕、更時尚，這就是為什麼我們對 Moab speed 的反響如此興奮，然後我們的貿易進入越野跑，事實上我們正在獲得份額和越野跑，這是非常令人鼓舞的。我認為我們正在非常密切地關注我們自己的直接面向消費者的業務，關注我們 46 家美林直銷店的情況，而流量，他們在買什麼？他們在回應什麼？

We're working to be less promotional, merrell.com, and we're seeing sort of great, great increases in profit margin to be less promotional and certainly to create less less disruption in the marketplace. And I think Merrill has new introductions coming for the balance of the year and then continued healthy and we've got continued health of the most loyal franchise. We talked about the Jeep launch last year, 70 million impressions on the hero colorways sold out to the piece, and we saw a 12% lift across the rest of the Moet franchise just by bridge by bringing that new heat into that category.

我們正在努力減少促銷，merrell.com，我們看到利潤率有了很大的提高，減少了促銷，當然也減少了對市場的干擾。我認為美林在今年剩餘的時間裡將推出新產品，然後繼續健康發展，我們擁有最忠誠的特許經營商的持續健康發展。我們談到了去年 Jeep 的推出，這款英雄配色的 7000 萬次展示量已售罄，我們看到酩悅其他系列產品通過將新的熱度引入該類別，僅通過橋樑就實現了 12% 的提升。

So I think, like I said, I think the pressure in outdoor is it remains. Hopefully that will bottom out and begin to resuscitate. At the same time. We just can't sit back and say that is what it is. The lead leader has to innovate, and I think we're bringing product to market that is that it's very good.

所以我認為，就像我說的，我認為戶外的壓力仍然存在。希望這會觸底並開始復甦。同時。我們不能袖手旁觀，說事情就是這樣。領先者必須創新，我認為我們正在將非常好的產品推向市場。

And then, Chris, on Saucony, you seem particularly encouraged, not just from a product standpoint, but also in terms of the brand heat, I'm just trying to reconcile that with the guidance, but the brand doesn't inflect to growth in the back half of what it if you adjust for those business model changes and if not, is really the issue that you need to get, is that right? The order book is the order book. The hope is that with better product, stronger brand heat, the sell through will dramatically improve, and that will eventually drive better selling?

然後，克里斯，在索康尼，你似乎特別受到鼓舞，不僅從產品的角度來看，而且從品牌熱度的角度來看，我只是試圖將其與指導相協調，但該品牌並沒有轉向增長在後半部分，如果您針對這些業務模式變化進行調整，如果沒有，那麼這確實是您需要解決的問題，對嗎？訂單簿就是訂單簿。希望透過更好的產品、更強的品牌熱度，銷售量將大幅提高，最終將推動更好的銷售？

Yes, great question, Saucony's near and dear to my heart right now. I think Saucony has probably some of the greatest potential entire portfolio to have to break out some. I think there's a lot of things working against Saucony from a top line standpoint, we talked about some of them, the end-of-life transactions, the low margin business, and we talked about the model changes. I'm encouraged by Saucony because I think the product pipeline is very good. And I think the brand has a very, very long period of time been sort of myopically focused on sort of the both the Elite, the elite runner the lead and the lead channels and lead products. And I think the democratization of innovation and it's where there's a tremendous opportunity. And so I think the new products we've launched are resonating well there with the feedback we're getting and we're providing new styles is very positive and there's frankly just a broader lifestyle opportunity beyond beyond beyond that core runner, we've worked hard and colors and materials to make our shoes more approachable. And we're opening the aperture as we think about distribution as we think about some of our new product launches that they've placed in sort of top 10 list in run specialty. We're Saucony hasn't been for years. And so we're encouraged by those.

是的，問得好，索康尼現在對我來說是最親近的人。我認為索康尼可能擁有整個產品組合中最具潛力的產品，需要突破一些。我認為從營收的角度來看，有很多事情對索康尼不利，我們討論了其中的一些，報廢交易、低利潤業務，我們也討論了模式變化。我受到索康尼的鼓勵，因為我認為產品線非常好。我認為該品牌在很長一段時間內一直短視地關注精英、精英跑步者、領先渠道和領先產品。我認為創新的民主化蘊藏著巨大的機會。因此，我認為我們推出的新產品與我們收到的反饋產生了很好的共鳴，我們提供的新款式非常積極，坦率地說，除了核心跑步者之外，還有更廣泛的生活方式機會，我們已經在顏色和材質上下了很大的功夫，讓我們的鞋子更加平易近人。當我們考慮分銷時，當我們考慮我們發布的一些新產品時，我們正在打開光圈，這些新產品已被列入跑步專業的前十名清單中。我們是索康尼，已經很多年沒有了。因此，我們對此感到鼓舞。

And then if you just go back to the elite runner. The when you look at Saucony counts at the prominent marathons, Saucony is one of the top brands you day in and day out. I mean, in those leading marathons and then just the broader lifestyle opportunity as well. I mean, I think that as we think about lifestyle, it's not just that originals or retro tech. It's also just everyday Saucony run, which I think has tremendous opportunity. So I'm very bullish on Saucony. That category has the most momentum there. There are some brands that have done phenomenally well there. We know that we have underperformed at the same time. I think we've attacked the product piece first, and that is encouraging and we will be turning around the marketing. And I think as we think about $30 million of incremental investment, I think a significant portion of that will be directed to Saucony. So I'm bullish on Saucony and bullish on that team and I think the opportunity opportunities there.

然後如果你回到精英跑者。當您看到 Saucony 在著名的馬拉鬆比賽中的表現時，您會發現 Saucony 是您日復一日的頂級品牌之一。我的意思是，在那些領先的馬拉鬆比賽中，還有更廣泛的生活方式機會。我的意思是，我認為當我們思考生活方式時，它不僅僅是原創或復古技術。這也是索康尼的日常跑步活動，我認為這有巨大的機會。所以我非常看好索康尼。該類別在那裡最具動力。有些品牌在那裡做得非常好。我們知道我們同時表現不佳。我認為我們首先攻擊了產品部分，這是令人鼓舞的，我們將扭轉行銷局面。我認為，當我們考慮 3000 萬美元的增量投資時，我認為其中很大一部分將流向 Saucony。所以我看好索康尼，也看好那個團隊，我認為那裡有機會。

Mauricio Serna, UBS.

毛里西奧·塞爾納，瑞銀。

Greg, and good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. Just a clarification on the margin guidance for first quarter 24, I think I heard 3.5 operating margin. How much would that imply in terms of like an expansion versus, you know, the ongoing business in 2023? And then if I think about your revenue guide, when you talk about an inflection in the second half. Does that imply like are you not our sales growth already is happening as a total, a total company level by Q3?

格雷格，早安，感謝您回答我的問題。只是對 24 日第一季的利潤率指導進行澄清，我想我聽到的是 3.5 的營業利潤率。這對 2023 年的擴張和持續業務意味著什麼？然後，如果我考慮您的收入指南，當您談到下半年的轉折點時。這是否意味著我們的銷售成長不是已經在第三季實現了整體公司層面的成長？

And then just lastly on the adjustments that you provided in the presentation. I just want to make sure like, you know, the 35 million in the active group is that mainly because of some because of the X-STOP JV sale that you announced late last year? Thank you.

最後是您在演示中提供的調整。我只是想確定一下，你知道，活躍群體中的 3500 萬主要是因為你去年年底宣布的 X-STOP 合資公司出售嗎？謝謝。

Yes, let me take the last question first. That's correct. So $35 million referenced is on related predominantly for for the step change at the district. We've moved to a distributor model there with that partner effective January first.

是的，讓我先回答最後一個問題。這是正確的。因此，所提及的 3500 萬美元主要用於該地區的階躍變革。我們已與該合作夥伴一起轉向經銷商模式，自一月一日起生效。

And the operating margin I think was your first question, the operating margin relative to the ongoing business going going forward is down in the first quarter versus last year from gross margins up dramatically. And but as we cycle through the year, obviously, we expect the operating margin to go up from that 3.5% rate, which we're seeing in Q1. On the lower revenue base, Q1 will be our lowest revenue quarter of the year to 7% for the full year. So we'll see, obviously, sequential improvement there. But importantly, Mauricio, on the focus for us has been to drive that gross margin expansion and have that be a sustainable improvement for the business that gives us the confidence and capacity to reinvest behind our brands.

我認為營業利潤率是你的第一個問題，相對於未來正在進行的業務，第一季的營業利潤率與去年相比有所下降，毛利率大幅上升。但隨著我們全年的周期，顯然，我們預計營業利潤率將從第一季的 3.5% 上升。在較低的收入基礎上，第一季將是我們全年收入最低的季度，全年營收成長 7%。因此，我們顯然會看到那裡的連續改進。但重要的是，毛里西奧，我們的重點是推動毛利率的擴張，並使其成為業務的可持續改進，使我們有信心和能力對我們的品牌進行再投資。

46%, obviously for the first quarter is well above the full year guidance of 44.5%. So a really strong outcome for the first quarter, even on that lower lower revenue base, but importantly, much cleaner base of revenue in the first half, which is helping to drive that margin expansion.

46%，顯然第一季遠高於全年指引值 44.5%。因此，即使在收入基礎較低的情況下，第一季的業績也非常強勁，但重要的是，上半年的收入基礎更加乾淨，這有助於推動利潤率擴張。

Thank you very much.

非常感謝。

Thank you, Mauricio.

謝謝你，毛里西奧。

Thank you. We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session and this also concludes today's call. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

謝謝。我們的問答環節已經結束，今天的電話會議也結束了。此時您可以斷開線路。感謝您的參與。