Kontoor Brands, Inc. (NYSE:KTB) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Jim Duffy: Okay. Thanks Rustin. And then I wanted to ask about investments in retail. How does retail fit with capital allocation priorities? As I think back to your recent history, you’ve made a number of investments in infrastructure. With those presumably behind you, will retail represent a greater portion of CapEx budget going forward?

Rustin Welton: Yes. So we talked a little bit, Jim, in sort of the assumptions for CapEx of $35 million to $40 million for 2023 and our full year guide. And I think you’re hitting upon some really important elements there. Chris talked a little bit in his prepared remarks about the three Lee Wrangler dual branded stores that we opened up in Europe and the fact that we intend to continue to thoughtfully roll out additional retail stores moving forward, along with additional CapEx as we think about investing in areas like digital, like IT to continue that evolution of our data-driven company. So, I think that’s where the CapEx certainly is coming out. But if you draw it back to a broader more capital allocation, and Jim, you’ve heard us talk about this many times, I think the optionality we have is really important and really kind of critical in this uncertain environment.

Scott talked a little bit about the dividend increase that we approved. The 4% increase we approved last quarter. And certainly, in 2022, you saw us activate the share repurchase program in a meaningful way with $62 million in shares repurchased last year and returning $166 million to shareholders in 2022 again. And a couple of other data points there. We returned $337 million over the last two years and $455 million since the spin. So I think it really talks to the cash generation aspects of this model, which we’ve talked about many times and really the options that it gives us for the capital allocation to continue to invest in the brands via capital again, whether that’s stores, or digital or IT, but also continue to look at the optionalities we’ve got around capital allocation with the dividend and share repurchase.

Scott Baxter: Thanks, Jim.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question is from Will Gardner with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your questions.

Will Gardner: Hey guys. Just one follow-up and this is kind of piggybacking off of Jim’s question. Can you just discuss or give us some more color around the CapEx jump from last year to 23%. It just looks like it’s a big jump in relative to history as well. Thanks.

Scott Baxter: Yeah. A couple of things, Will, when you mentioned relative to history, let me kind of go back on that because, certainly, this business pre-spend we were about 1% of rise in CapEx and largely around kind of the manufacturing side of the business with our plants and our distribution. You heard us talk from the spin-on about, how we’re going to continue to invest in the brands and the capabilities. Certainly, early days with Kontoor significant capital investments as we implemented the new global ERP system. But as we start to shift into Horizon 2, the CapEx number, again, moving from 35% to 40% expected in 2023. It is really driven by those items and the investments we talked about, as Chris said, starting to build out more of those retail capabilities.

So think about the growth of new stores opening globally as well as building out some of the omnichannel capabilities with those stores on the digital and the IT side of the business. And again, we’re just going to — we’re going to continue to make those CapEx investments that are right for the long-term health of the business. So hopefully, that gives you a little bit of a sense of some of the drivers as our Horizon 2 continues to unfold here as we move into 2023. Thanks Will.