PLBY Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:PLBY) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Jason Tilchen: Yeah. Thanks everyone, and for taking the call. I guess, the first thing I was curious about is if you could shed a little more light on the financial impact of moving the China licensing business to the JV over the next two quarters? Is there any change there? And then sort of longer term, what are some of the other — I think you mentioned there’s some additional markets that you think that have sort of been underpenetrated by you guys in the licensing area over time. I’m just curious if there’s any more color you can share there on which countries you’re referring to and how near term those opportunities are. Thanks.

Ben Kohn: Sure. So, I think for China — as I think about China for the year, I don’t see any financial impact from moving from what we were to where we are going. In fact, when you think about how the deal is structured, and we talked about this a little bit on the call, moving from what was a cash licensing fee to allowing our partner to earn equity based on performance in the business at a $250 million valuation. And then we think about the growth that they are bringing to the table through that business pipeline, I would hope over time, that business will grow. There’s a ton of categories within China, where we’re largely a men’s fashion brand and have been. And some of the business pipeline we’ve seen, especially around women’s and then accessories, there’s a lot of opportunities for growth within that market.

When we think about other places in the world, the JV approach that we’ve done, we believe that running the business the way that we did because of some legacy issues with the global agent is not the most ideal or optimized way to run it. And so, we think about other parts of Southeast Asia, when you get into Vietnam and Thailand, you get into Japan and Korea where the brand is extremely strong. India would be another area that now that we’re post pandemic, we’re very focused on. And then Europe, we are still relatively small in Europe, and we think there’s opportunities there as well.

Jason Tilchen: That’s very helpful. And just a follow-up or actually two quick follow-ups on the creator platform. I believe you mentioned — called the digital first, but not digital only in terms of relaunching the magazine. I’m just curious if there’s anything to read into there about potentially doing some sort of limited opportunities in a paper format? And then secondly, the user growth is really impressive with your marketing spend. Are there any plans to get more aggressive on the marketing side now that you’re rebranding it under the Playboy umbrella?

Ben Kohn: So, the — as far as the marketing, I don’t really want to speak at this point to our marketing. I think that we’re seeing great success with creators bringing their audiences to Playboy. Obviously, there was some press this week on the magazine and we — the inbound phone calls from creators wanting to be part of that magazine has significantly accelerated. And I’ll say this on the Digital First magazine, I choose my words carefully, and we choose our words carefully. And so, I’m not interested in selling magazine copies. That’s not a business that we want to go into. But if getting a magazine was part of a larger play and being a Playboy member, then that at some point can make sense for us.

Jason Tilchen: Great. That’s very helpful. Thanks a lot.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Jim Duffy with Stifel. Please proceed with your question.

Jim Duffy: Thank you. Good afternoon. Much appreciated details in the presentation. Thank you for that. Great additional disclosure. I wanted to start by digging in on the economics of the creator platform. Your $15 million GMV run rate, fixed cost around $6 billion, you get about 20% revenue attribution. What are the other variable costs? And how much above that $30 million GMV run rate would you need to get to breakeven on that business?