Olaplex Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:OLPX) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Eric Tiziani: Jon, it’s Eric here. So that’s exactly the right math when you back out the factors that we’ve disclosed related to inventory rebalancing and pipeline lapping. Of course, there are other factors, but doing the math that way is accurate. And I think you get to that range of that minus 23% to minus 25% in the first quarter. If you apply that same math to the balance of the year, you see how we get to the midpoint of our range with some modest sequential improvement leading up to this return to growth as we exit the year and go into 2024. And fundamentally, that outlook is driven by the recent trends we’ve seen in consumer demand. Just keep in mind, we also believe we’re lapping particularly tough comps in that prior year 2022 period, and we seek to build the momentum as we go.

Jonathan Keypour: Right. Right. Okay. And then you’ve called this a reset year. I agree. That’s probably the right tack to take. I’m just wondering — and there was a previous question about this, but is this a rebase year as well? Should we fundamentally kind of change maybe how we were thinking about what long-term growth and margins could look like? I mean it’s just like I understand that things are going to have to come down based on the inventory rebalancing, but right, there seems to be also some degradation in consumption and then kind of an acknowledgment of a need to spend more behind the business to properly communicate and compete. I guess should we think about this as being a rebase where 3 to 5 years from now sales won’t be able to be reaccelerated to where we thought they might have been able to go a year ago, and where margins are going to sit at a level comfortably lower than where we thought a year ago.

Is that a fair thing — a fair assessment to make?

JuE Wong: So Jonathan, let me take this question first, and then I’ll have Eric build on it. I just want to kind of clarify and really double click on this. The fundamentals of both the brand and the category is very strong. If you look at where Olaplex is, we are at our early innings, right? We are not fully penetrated in so many of our distribution and yet we are ranked #1. So there’s a lot of opportunity for us. That’s why we want to double-click on the sales and marketing, on the education as well as really looking at our Pro stylists. And then if you look at all of the international where we have room to play, we are not in the Middle East in a material way. We are not in Latin America in the material. We are not in Asia Pacific or Asia in a material way.

Those are all runways for the brand. So I would not look at it as a rebase here. It’s a reset year because what we want to do is continue to invest behind what we have already invested, which is technology, infrastructure, our capabilities in innovation and then double-click on the sales and marketing, the PRP, the education piece and our community building piece. All this would just get us to a stronger and better Olaplex. I want to turn it over to Eric because you also have some numbers questions that you want to clarify.

Eric Tiziani: Absolutely. Thank you, JuE, and thank you for the question, Jonathan. The short term is important, but the long term is even more important, and that’s what we’re focused on. And I think you can appreciate the focus here has been on the reset for 2023 and repositioning ourselves to that return to growth. We’re not in a position to give new numbers or reframing our medium-term outlook here. We will do so at the appropriate time. I will just say, we believe in the long-term outlook and potential for this business. And that we expect to be growing this business ahead of the global prestige category and returning to profit growth as well, and we’ll bring more details when we can.