Petco Health and Wellness Company, Inc. (NASDAQ:WOOF) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Brian LaRose: Yes. Thanks for the question, Michael. I’m not going to get into any kind of quarterly guide. I will tell you, yes, I’ll reiterate some of the points we made in the guidance we expect consumables to remain strong, services to remain strong. We’ve talked about a five to six quarter cycle in the discretionary categories. We’re somewhat in the middle of that, so we’d expect that to normalize as we get into the back-half, with that certainly would come enhanced revenue and enhanced margin.

Michael Lasser: And my follow-up question is on the long-term margin outlook. So your operating margin for this year is going to be slightly above where it was in 2019. What’s the path to getting to the long-term goals that you had outlined at your Analyst Meeting a year ago. Is it simply seeing an improvement in the supplies business is a way to improve the overall profitability of the enterprise from you?

Brian LaRose: Yes, a couple of points, Michael. Number one, you hit on it. The impact of the business from mix shift is cyclical. This is something that we would expect to normalize over time. I would remind you too that in the fourth quarter, we deleveraged on an SG&A rate by 170 basis points in the fourth quarter, 70 basis points for the full-year. So we have cost actions in place to make sure that we are deleveraging. What that does for us is it protects us in any kind of a downside scenario in €˜23 and then an upside scenario provides us significant leverage to enhance that EBITDA rate. I will also tell you when you look at the long-term, we’re excited about our positioning in the market. We continue to invest in vets.

As that vet model matures, we would expect improvements in versus gross margin. We talked last year at Analyst Day about having about 500 basis points of room to go in our digital margin. We continue to make progress against that, so there’s a lot of room for us underneath the businesses and as that mix shift normalizes, we’d expect that to improve.

Operator: Our next question comes from Chris Bottiglieri from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Chris Bottiglieri: Hi, guys. Thanks for taking the question. I’m going to ask a similar question as Michael, I’m just going to cut it differently. The — if I look at the guide, it seems to imply about 2.9% year-on-year growth on revenue. If you back out, kind of, the extra week, you’re at 1.5%, you’re going to take base effects from Q4 versus Q1 and Q 2, that’s added about another point to revenue. So I guess my question is it doesn’t sound like there’s a lot of comp embedded in for €˜23. Is there any like store closures or anything like that, that actually revenue next year? I think if you think about that could be weighing on the revenue guide for €˜23 that we should be mindful of or?

Brian LaRose: Yes. No, no, Chris. I think the way you think about revenue versus comp is relatively similar. There’s not a whole lot of difference between comp and revenue. So I think the numbers you were quoting are probably at the midpoint of our guide, 1.5% and 3%, but that should roughly translate to comp, so there is comp growth implied in the guide.

Chris Bottiglieri: Got it. It’s okay, that’s really helpful. And then just like overall question, it sounds like you’re betting that the consumables hard goods, kind of, starts growing again back half like consumer — is consumer like healthy? Like are you seeing people trade down from the in the stores? Is it similar across demographics? Like kind of what gives you that confidence that as you get easier compares on hard good supplies if things get better in the back-half?