Columbia Sportswear Company (NASDAQ:COLM) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Columbia Sportswear Company (NASDAQ:COLM) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript April 25, 2024

Columbia Sportswear Company beats earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $0.71, expectations were $0.35. Columbia Sportswear Company isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).

Operator: Greetings. Welcome to the Columbia Sportswear First Quarter 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Andrew Burns. You may begin.

Andrew Burns: Good afternoon and thanks for joining us to discuss Columbia Sportswear Company’s first quarter results. In addition to the earnings release, we furnished an 8-K containing a detailed CFO commentary and financial review presentation explaining our results. This document is also available on our Investor Relations’ website, investor.columbia.com. With me today on the call are Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Tim Boyle; Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Jim Swanson; and Executive Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel, Peter Bragdon. This conference call will contain forward-looking statements regarding Columbia’s expectations, anticipations, or beliefs about the future.

These statements are expressed in good faith and are believed to have a reasonable basis. However, each forward-looking statement is subject to many risks and uncertainties and actual results may differ materially from what is projected. Many of these risks and uncertainties are described in Columbia’s SEC filings. We caution that forward-looking statements are inherently less reliable than historical information. We do not undertake any duty to update any of the forward-looking statements after the date of this conference call to conform the forward-looking statements to actual results or to changes in our expectations. I’d also like to point out that during the call, we may reference certain non-GAAP financial measures, including constant currency net sales.

For further information about non-GAAP financial measures and results, including a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP measures and an explanation of management’s rationale for referencing these non-GAAP measures, please refer to the supplemental financial information section and financial tables included in our earnings release and the appendix of our CFO commentary and financial review. Following our prepared remarks, we will host a Q&A period, during which, we will limit each caller to two questions, so we can get to everyone by the end of the hour. Now, I’ll turn the call over to Tim.

Tim Boyle: Thanks Andrew and good afternoon. I’m pleased to report that 2024 has started out broadly in line with our expectations. We are reiterating our full year net sales outlook, while modestly raising our diluted earnings per share range. In this challenging environment, we continue to take a disciplined approach to expense management and our commercial teams are working to maximize sales across all channels. Our fortress balance sheet enables us to take a thoughtful approach to unlocking the long-term growth and profit improvement opportunities we see across the business. During the quarter, we made meaningful progress on our top priorities. Our inventory reduction plan has yielded substantial benefits. Inventory was down 37% year-over-year exiting the quarter.

I’m proud of our team’s efforts to navigate the supply chain challenges over the last several years, while generating healthy gross margins. We are now shifting our focus towards longer term supply chain goals, including improving inventory turns and enhancing the speed and efficiency of our operations. Growth is vital for our success. We are implementing strategies across the portfolio to accelerate the business. For Colombia, we’re focused on bringing younger active consumers into the brand through a reinvigorated product line that further emphasizes innovation, performance, and style. On the marketing front, we’re targeting a more balanced, full funnel approach to drive consideration from new customers. We are also focused on elevating our product assortment and enhancing our in-store retail presentations across all channels.

We have several proof points across the globe that this strategy is successful. We’ve driven meaningful growth in recent years in China and several markets across our Europe direct and distributor businesses. We know that when we target the right consumers with our innovative products, we win in the marketplace. In our emerging brands, we have new leaders at SOREL and prAna formulating the brand and product strategies that fuel our next phase of growth. Mountain Hardwear has strong momentum from its recent brand refresh and the team is thinking bigger as they map up as to meaningfully scale the business. Turning to our profit improvement program. We’re on track to deliver between $125 million and $150 million in savings by 2026, including $75 million to $90 million in cost savings this year.

We are eliminating expenses associated with carrying excess inventory and driving cost efficiencies throughout our supply chain. We’ve also begun realizing indirect spend savings. During the quarter, we completed a reduction in force. This never need to lose valued members of our team, who have contributed to our company during their tenure. Our teams handled this process with respect in thoughtfulness, consistent with our core values. We remain confident that our fortress balance sheet, differentiated brand portfolio and strategies position us to reaccelerate growth and capture market share over time. I will now review first quarter financial results. Net sales decreased 6% year-over-year to $770 million. This exceeded the high end of our guidance range, primarily driven by earlier timing of spring wholesale shipments.

Direct-to-consumer net sales increased 3%, led by brick-and-mortar growth. E-commerce sales declined as we anniversaried last year’s promotional activity. Our wholesale business declined 14% year-over-year, primarily reflecting lower spring 2024 orders. Gross margin expanded 190 basis points as lower inbound freight costs and favorable channel mix more than offset promotional activity. SG&A expenses were essentially flat as higher DTC expenses were offset by lower supply chain and variable demand creation spending. Diluted earnings per share decreased 4% to $0.71. And I’ll now review first quarter year-over-year net sales growth by region. With this review, I’ll reference constant currency growth rates. Overall, North America remains our most challenging market.

We are facing several headwinds in this market, including consumers continue to grapple with inflationary pressures, which is impacting soft goods demand. Traditional outdoor category trends are weak, particularly in footwear and retailers are taking a cautious approach in placing future season orders. Outside of North America, we have stronger trends in several markets, including China, Japan and our Europe direct businesses. In the US, net sales decreased 8%, driven by mid-teens percent decrease in wholesale sales resulting from lower spring 2024 orders. US DTC net sales were down slightly. Across all channels, we experienced strength in January, fueled by favorable winter weather, followed by softer trends in February and March. US DTC e-commerce net sales were down mid-teens percent.

sorel.com was particularly hard hit in the first quarter, and the overall e-commerce environment remains challenging. Since late last year, we have been proactively managing promotional activity on columbia.com to help establish the site as the best expression of the brand. We know that our site is already an important destination for our younger, active consumers. We want to ensure that when they visit columbia.com, they see our latest products and innovations with enriched brand storytelling. US DTC brick-and-mortar sales increased high single-digit percent driven by the contribution from temporary clearance locations, new stores opened over the last year, and to a lesser extent, improved store productivity. In 2023, we used our fleet of outlet stores and temporary clearance locations to profitably liquidate excess inventory.

This year, we will continue to leverage these stores to manage inventory levels including PFAS inventory and to drive sales as consumers seek out value in the marketplace. Latin America, Asia Pacific region or LAAP, net sales increased 7%. China net sales increased high 20%, led by exceptional e-commerce performance across our platform partners. In fact, the team was proud to receive special recognition from TikTok this quarter as one of the fastest growing outdoor brands on the platform. The spring 2024 transit line, our premium China specific collection is outpacing last year’s sell-through and clearly resonating with younger Chinese consumers. We expect China to continue being one of the fastest growing parts of our business in 2024. Japan net sales increased low double-digit percent sales benefit from increasing foreign tourist activity, which is helping to offset softer domestic consumer lending.

Korea net sales declined mid-single digit percent. LAAP distributor markets decreased high 20s percent, reflecting a greater portion of spring 2024 orders, driven in the fourth quarter of last year compared to the first quarter. Excluding the impact of shipment timing, LAAP distributors were historically relatively flat. Europe, Middle East and Africa region, or EMEA, net sales decreased 6%. The Europe direct net sales were essentially flat as healthy DTC growth offset the impact of lower spring 2024 wholesale orders. The Columbia brand continues to perform well in the marketplace measured by healthy DTC and wholesale sell-through despite economic and geopolitical pressures. This quarter, we extended our popular Hike Society program into France, following its successful launch in the UK last year.

As a reminder, we have Columbia Hike society programs across several European and Asian direct markets. This series of events allows young hikers to meet like-minded people to explore the outdoors and learn about the Columbia brand’s technologies. To further strengthen Columbia’s presence in the important high category, we’re continuing our exclusive partnership with Megamarsch. This year, it includes a series of 23 hiking events that take place across Germany, Austria and Switzerland with each of them typically fielding over 1,000 participants. Our EMEA distributor business declined low 40% and reflecting a greater portion of spring ’24 orders shipping in the fourth quarter of last year compared to the first quarter. Excluding the impact of shipment timing, E&A distributor sales were down only slightly despite several markets being impacted by geopolitical conflicts.

Canada net sales declined 11% as lower spring 2024 wholesale orders were partially offset by modest DTC growth. Similar to the U.S., Canadian consumers are seeking out value in the marketplace, which is driving healthy performance at our outlook store. Looking at performance by brand. Columbia brand net sales decreased 6%, reflecting lower spring orders, partially offset by DTC brick-and-mortar growth. The delivery of our spring shipments is well underway and we’re excited for consumers to gain access to our newest product innovations. Our industry-leading cooling and sun protection innovations like Omni-Freeze and Omni-Shade sun deflector, differentiate Columbia from the competition. This spring, we launched Omni-Shade broad spectrum airflow, offering exceptionally breathable sun protection with omni evaporation for fast-growing next to skin comfort.

We’re also focused on reenergizing PFG with new products like the PFG unchartered collection. This new assortment features a younger, more active fit, tech pack performance and new fabric agents. In footwear, we launched the Omni-MAX system which combines versatile cushioning, enhanced stability and increased traction. Omni-MAX is available in a variety of hiking, trailing and fishing steels. In our DTC stores, we supported the launch with in-store and window displays, helping to drive encouraging sell-throughs of higher price point Omni-MAX styles like the currents. I’m encouraged by the consumer response to several of the new footwear offerings that I referenced. These are early indications that the Columbia brand strategies to attract new consumers and drive long-term growth are on the right path.

We look to build on these successes in the coming seasons and years as we expand our consumer base. In February, Columbia’s innovative spirit was on full display as our Omni-Heat Infinity technology help protect intuitive machines, lunar lander on the Cisco mission for the Moon. Columbia Sportswear is a proud scientific partner of intuitive machines. Our thermal reflective technology helped protect the Nova-C lander from the extreme temperatures of outer space. This partnership brings Columbia’s technology full circle. We’re sending a product on the moon that was inspired by NASA’s space blankets. The mission was featured in hundreds of media outlets creating billions of impressions worldwide. We are proud to share that we’ve signed on to Intuitive Machines next mission scheduled for later this year.

In April, we partnered with Academy Sports and Outdoor to host a special Bubble Wallace, meet and greet in Dallas ahead of the NASCAR race at Texas Border Speedway. Both Columbia PFG and Academy have a long history with NASCAR, and this event created a unique opportunity to further connect others energetic and based with our brand. The week was capped off with Bubba driving in Academy and PFG Rap Card on his way to a seventh place finish. As we have mentioned before, the wholesale channel remains a top priority for the Columbia brand and we’re excited to leverage our ambassadors to create brand heat with our key strategic partners. This spring, we launched our latest collaboration with New York-based boutique care featuring apparel, accessories and footwear designed for outdoor camping.

The collection blends functionality as style while appealing to a younger audience. Shifting to our emerging brands. As a reminder, our emerging brand portfolio sales mix is predominantly in North America, which is our most challenged market. The headwinds we outlined earlier on the call are evident in our emerging brands performance. SOREL brand net sales decreased 24% with challenging trends across DTC and wholesale. With leadership now in place, the SOREL team is focused on revitalizing the brand, building a compelling product and driving long-term sustainable growth. I remain confident in the future of the SOREL brand. Mountain Hardwear building a momentum from its recent brand refresh. In the quarter, net sales increased 17%, reflecting earlier timing of spring shipments and DTC growth.

The product line and brand positioning are on track, and the team is focused on accelerating growth. prAna’s net sales decreased 4% with a decline in wholesale, partially offset by modest DTC growth. The prAna team remains focused on building brand awareness, refining the product assortment and unlocking the brand’s growth potential. We’re encouraged by fall 2024 orders and the potential to return to growth in the second half of the year. I’ll now review our 2024 financial outlook. This outlook and commentary include forward-looking statements, please see our CFO commentary and financial review presentation for additional details and disclosures related to these statements. Looking to fall 2024, our teams are continuously working to minimize any shipment delay resulting from disruptions we will see.

At this time, delays appear manageable. The vast majority of our product line is expected to be delivered on time and in full. We are reiterating our net sales outlook of a 2% to 4% decline. While there are modest changes across our portfolio, our overall net sales expectations has not meaningfully changed. Gross margin is now expected to expand approximately 80 to 120 basis points to 50.4% to 50.8%. We were expecting modestly higher clearance and liquidation activity as consumers seek value. We will continue to opportunistically work down inventory levels and maximize sales. The SG&A is expected to be 43% to 43.4% of net sales, leading to an operating margin of 7.7% to 8.5%. Our diluted earnings per share outlook has increased modestly to $3.65 to $4.05, driven by higher interest income, licensing income and a lower share.

We expect strong operating cash flows of at least $350 million in the year. Overall, I’m confident in our team, our strategies and our ability to achieve the significant long-term growth opportunities we see across the business. We are investing in our strategic priorities to accelerate profit and growth, create iconic products that are differentiated, functional, and innovative; drive brand engagement with increased focused demand creation investments; enhance consumer experiences by investing in capabilities to delight and retain consumers; amplified marketplace excellence that is digitally led omni-channel, and global; and empowered talent that’s driven by our core values. That concludes my prepared remarks. We welcome your questions for the remainder of the hour.

Operator, could you help us with that?

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Q&A Session

Operator: Absolutely. Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Bob Drbul with Guggenheim. Please proceed.

Bob Drbul: Hi, good afternoon. I guess, Tim — on my two questions, the first one is inventories down, was it 37%, is this the leanest that you’ve run inventories and heading into a fall season? Can you just talk about sort of your comfort level with the composition and sort of how you’re positioned for the rest of the year? And I guess the second piece is, can you talk a little bit more around the European business, the order book, the trends, just the health of the business in Europe and what you’re seeing and expect in that region specifically? Thanks.

Tim Boyle: Yes. I think the 37% reduction, we’re very proud of that, especially in relation to the gross margin, we were able to achieve that function of really utilizing our outlet store fleet to help us to get the inventories down in the right area. We think, frankly, there’s still more room for us to improve our inventory utilizations. We updated our inventory turns up to about 3 and we see great opportunities with friendly automation we have in place now around estimating our demand and actualize the demand according to the plant. So, more to come. And again, we think there’s way more opportunity for us to be better in inventory management. This is close to the best we’ve done but there’s still more room to improve. European business has been good.

I attended over there — this — at the end of June to celebrate the company’s 30th anniversary of doing business in Europe. We occasionally hear from our partners and from our team members in Europe that the brand is not well known in Europe. But rightly, I’m just thrilled with the exposure we’re getting as it relates to some of these global marketing efforts, including high seasonality, [indiscernible] and I think there’s great opportunity for us in Europe, and we’ll continue to grow there, I think, rapidly.

Bob Drbul: Great. Thank you very much Tim.

Operator: Okay. The next question comes from Laurent Vasilescu with BNP. Please proceed.

Laurent Vasilescu: Good afternoon. Thank you very much for taking my question. I wanted to ask about the 1Q, the top line beat January, I think on the last call, you commented right, January, you had good favorable weather, but I think then the weather got very challenging for the outdoor category in February and March. So I’m just curious to know was there maybe — what was the upside surprise versus your guide when you guided February? Was there something like on the international side that we should consider? Was there a pull forward from 2Q into 1Q? Anything that you can share on that front, that would be very helpful. Thank you.

Tim Boyle: Yes. The improvement in front of you, a bit of a surprise was the January winter weather in North America. We would believe just come off a very warm winter in the third and fourth quarter of last year. And the fact that the weather was nicely appropriate in the fourth quarter — excuse me, in the first quarter in January, was — I don’t want to say a surprise, but we were very glad to see it. Our business is much more weather-dependent than this economically dependent. So when the weather is appropriate, our business is exceptional, and it’s vastly impacting. So that’s where the numbers really were a bit of a surprise in Jan.

Jim Swanson: Laurent, I might add when we had our earnings call in February, we indicated that the upside that we were seeing from a weather standpoint through the month of January, that was reflected in our Q1 outlook. So when you look at the quarter, the — we’re about $17 million better, I think, on the top line relative to the high end of our outlook. And you can attribute most of that to slightly earlier shipments in the US business. We don’t want to be an upside. Most of the quarter, I think, was right in line with where we thought it would be in either shift. So just day is not anything of any meaningful nature at least at this stage.

Laurent Vasilescu: Okay. Jim, that’s super helpful. And then because as you mentioned, Tim, it is weather-dependent because there was better weather, it came late, but it did derive. How do we think about that in the context of the US business guided down mid single digits? I don’t know if you have any — you comment about what your order book on the US wholesale side, how it’s shaping up in terms of maybe reorders, cancellations? I mean it looks like they’re calling for the US business to be kind of flattish on the back half. Any comment there would be super helpful.

Tim Boyle: Yes. Well, remember, we take our order book primarily in November, December to a certain extent in January. So it reflects the move of our retail partners in that period. It will have some additional inventory in the event that the weather is much older than a normal early winter. But for all intents and purposes, we’re we’ve based this on an average winter weather year.

Jim Swanson: Yes, Laurent, maybe just to add in a couple of extra points. Our US business, we’d contemplate that being down mid single-digit percent year-over-year for the full year. That’s not different than where we thought we would be 90 days ago. And when you look at the wholesale business, the wholesale business will still be down in the second half of the year, that’s more than by and large or partially offset, I should say, by the direct-to-consumer business through a combination and really led by our brick-and-mortar business, so we continue to annualize new stores that have opened coupled with these temporary clearance stores that have been operating.

Laurent Vasilescu: Excellent. That’s very clear. And then maybe my last question is kind of a two-part question, sorry. But Jim, can you comment about — I know you kind of tweaked down the gross margins for the year, but can you kind of give us a kind of a range of where the 2Q gross margin should shake out? And then on the $75 million to $90 million of savings, how do we think about that over the course of the quarters? I don’t know if you recognize anything in the first quarter, but could it be equal tranches across the next three quarters on that savings?

Jim Swanson: Yeah, Laurent, in the CFO commentary that we published, we did provide some detail on our Q2 outlook. So we do contemplate our Q2 gross margin being down 190 to 230 basis points that’s, by and large, a reflection of a year-over-year compare to different size in sales and inventory-related provisions that were onetime in nature and favorable last year that we’re anniversarying against. If you set those aside, our gross margins in the second quarter really – are going to be essentially even to where we were last year. And then as it pertains to our profit improvement program, from an overarching standpoint, we’re making great progress on that. And first and foremost, I’d say, with the great work that our operations and supply chain team is collectively across the business that we’ve had in terms of getting our inventories back down into a more normalized level.

That’s certainly going to benefit the elevated carrying costs we incurred a year ago. In fact, our US distribution, third-party logistics costs next quarter, Q1 were down $10 million. We took some actions that Tim had referred to in the prepared remarks with regard to a reduction in force. That was executed late in the quarter, late March. So we wouldn’t anticipate beginning to see the benefits of that until Q2. But we’re very much on track in terms of being able to achieve that $75 million to $90 million that’s built into our outlook.

Laurent Vasilescu: Very clear. Thank you very much Jim for all the color.

Jim Swanson: Thanks, Laurent.

Operator: The next question comes from Jim Duffy with Stifel. Please proceed.

Jim Duffy: you for taking my questions. I wanted to start on the US market. Your comments on the US remain quite silver. Can you speak to what you’re seeing from the US consumer activity early in the spring season as you see spring begin in earnest and certain US regions are there any signs of life to be hopeful? And then I’m curious how all this relates to the outdoor category as a whole in the US. Are we getting any indications that the COVID hangover is lessening?

Tim Boyle: Yeah. I think there’s a number of brands in the marketplace today, and we’re competing with many of those. I think — exuberant and expansion of the business, and frankly with our balance sheet as strong as it is, we’re obviously going to be here when the dust sells. I think that the consumers today are used to get backed out of doors. And again, as I said, the weather is impactful on how our business is functional. We do a significant amount of our business in Mother’s Day, Father’s Day gift, and so there’s all the expectational work that those kinds of activities will continue and be more robust as well.

Jim Duffy: And then, Tim, I’m interested in your efforts to bring new and younger consumers of the brand, the Hike Society Initiative in Europe seems like you’re something you’re really pleased with getting good traction with. Can you comment on evidence of progress with bringing the younger consumer to the brand in the United States?

Tim Boyle: Certainly. Well, it’s interesting, our PFG styles, which remind one the youngest part of our business has traditionally been quite generous in their sizing. And as we add some of these new components to our PFG line, which are much more active fits, the uptake there has been quite frankly surprising. And so it looks like the other people certainly are approaching the PFG styles in a better way and in a more robust way. And then our footwear, as we begin to have styles, which are trailing and really designed for a more active person that we’re getting a very good lift on that stuff. So I think the opportunity is there and the expectations are that we’ll continue to define and design styles in those — in that area.

Jim Duffy: And should we expect Hike Society to come to the US?

Tim Boyle: Definitely, likely. I mean, it’s been a really sort of a PAM — a global uptick. We have Hike Society across Asia and the European uptake was — was super and it’s certainly a alternative for inclusion in our marketing efforts.

Jim Duffy: Great. Thank you, guys for your perspective.

Tim Boyle: Thanks, Jim.

Operator: The next question comes from Jonathan Komp with Baird. Please proceed.

Jonathan Komp: Yes, good afternoon. Thank you. Can I just follow-up on the gross margin. I want to ask about the competitive environment. And I may have missed the reasons to take down the gross margin guide slightly for the year, just given the progress you’ve made on inventory. Could you share a little more perspective there? And just related to that, can you comment on the temporary stores. I think you’re up to 44% in the US. Any way to size up how much volume that’s driving this year or last year, just to give more perspective there?

Jim Swanson: Yes. I can start and then let Tim jump in and add some color. As it relates to our full year outlook and the revision we’ve made to the gross margin, there’s some puts and takes in terms of our revenue, and it was held the revenue constant with our prior outlook. But when you get into the underlying composition, there’s been some shifts in parts of the business. We took down our SOREL outlook slightly. We took down our e-commerce business down slightly. The area of our business that we took up was in the case of our brick-and-mortar with our outlet and clearance stores, and we continue to operate those through the balance of the year. And so as a result of that change in the mix of our business and with an increased dependence on the outlet clearance locations, that’s effectively what’s driving a portion of the margin coming down.

And then as it relates to the temps stores, you saw in the quarter, we’re operating about 44 stores. We’re operating at just under 2% of sales, I think, in the quarter. And then for the year, it will be a like amount, it will be slightly above that 2% of sales and from an overall profitability standpoint, these stores are contributing very little to the overall operating margins. But they’re obviously a great vehicle for us to liquidate inventory to a much more profitable vehicle and less disruptive than going through the wholesale closeout or value channel.

Tim Boyle: Our typical method of selling on price merchandise would be to sell to T.J.Maxx or Marshalls and those channels were frankly flooded with inventory. So the best approach for us was to take the — take it and sell it ourselves in these temporary stores. So as that inventory has come down at decent margins, certainly by comparison to what the other liquidation method work. We will begin to close those temporary stores up and go back to our standard operating stores. So I think it really gives us an opportunity to flush the inventory, and it didn’t have the kind of broad impact on the marketplace that something a big discount in our e-com business would have done.