Columbia Sportswear Company - Earnings Call - Q4 2024

Executive Summary

• Q4 delivered a return to top-line growth with net sales $1.10B (+3% YoY), gross margin 51.1% (+50 bps), operating margin 12.5% (+180 bps), and diluted EPS $1.80 (+16% YoY); results were within management’s Q4 guidance range and net sales finished near the high end ($1.04–$1.11B).
• International strength offset U.S. softness: EMEA +24% (constant currency +21%), LAAP +7%; U.S. -1% and Canada flat; Columbia brand +6% while SOREL declined 16% and footwear -4%.
• FY25 outlook introduced: net sales $3.40–$3.47B (+1–3%), gross margin ~51% (+80 bps), operating margin 7.7–8.3%, EPS $3.80–$4.15, operating cash flow ≥$250M; FX and closure of temporary clearance stores create ~3pt headwind to reported sales and ~$0.30 EPS drag.
• Balance sheet remains a support: $815.5M cash and short-term investments, inventories down 7% to $690.5M, no borrowings; Board declared a $0.30 quarterly dividend.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Return to growth and margin expansion: Net sales +3% to $1.10B; gross margin +50 bps to 51.1% driven by lower clearance activity; operating income +21% to $137.3M.
• International momentum: EMEA +24% (cc +21%) and LAAP +7%; China grew mid-teens with strong wholesale/DTC and is expected to be fastest-growing in 2025.
• Strategic brand activation and innovation: Omni‑Heat Infinity and Omni‑Heat Arctic highlighted globally; collaborations (e.g., Supreme Caribou) and membership program engagement; “We are investing in our strategic priorities to accelerate profitable growth…” — Tim Boyle.

What Went Wrong

• U.S. softness and DTC mix: U.S. net sales -1%; U.S. e‑commerce down mid-single digits amid reduced promotional activity and marketing shift; SG&A deleverage (39.3% of sales, +110 bps) pressured operating leverage.
• Brand pressure at SOREL and category mix: SOREL -16% YoY in Q4; footwear -4%; management expects SOREL stabilization with modest H2’25 growth.
• Tax headwind: a $6.4M discrete tax valuation allowance reduced Q4 diluted EPS by $0.11; effective tax rate rose to 26.7% (vs. 22.2% LY).

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Greetings. Welcome to the Columbia Sportswear Q4 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. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Andrew Burns. You may begin.

Andrew Burns (VP of Investor Relations and Strategic Planning)

Good afternoon, and thanks for joining us to discuss Columbia Sportswear Company's Q4 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 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'll 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 (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Thanks, Andrew, and good afternoon. As we begin 2025, I'm encouraged by the continued momentum we see in our international business and the fact that we are returning to growth in North America. I'd like to thank our global workforce, whose hard work and dedication allowed us to overcome challenges throughout the year. I'm proud of the many accomplishments our teams were able to achieve, including exiting the year. Our inventories were down 7%, and we are rapidly closing our temporary clearance locations. Inventories are healthy, supporting our outlook for gross margin expansion. Our profit improvement program delivered $90 million in cost savings, and we're actively pursuing additional ways to lower our cost structure. We also returned meaningful cash to shareholders with $318 million in share repurchases and around $70 million in dividends paid.

We also maintained our fortress balance sheet, exiting the year with $815 million in cash and equivalents and no debt. While we made progress in many areas, our 2024 financial performance was short of my personal growth and profitability goals. Overall, 2024 net sales decreased 3%, $3.4 billion, reflecting challenging marketplace conditions in North America. The net sales decline and ongoing cost pressures resulted in operating margin contraction and a decline in earnings. On the last call, we introduced the Columbia brand's Accelerate Growth strategy. This strategy is intended to elevate the brand and attract younger and more active consumers while continuing to serve existing customers with accessible outdoor essentials. During 2024, we laid the foundation for the Accelerate Growth strategy, including a refreshed marketing direction, enhanced consumer segmentation, and a new product construct. I'd like to provide some updates on the progress we're making.

Our product teams are focused on creating products and driving growth with our targeted consumers who value innovation and style. For Fall 2025, we're expanding our innovation-led offerings like our premium Titanium product line. We are also bringing new collections to market with elevated style like the Maze Puff, Insulated Jacket, and ROC Pant. We are expanding our Omni-MAX footwear collection, which delivers consumers lightweight, ultra-comfortable performance. The Columbia brand is fun, irreverent, and authentic, and our refreshed marketing strategy will bring this to life. You will begin to see the new brand voice in our fall marketing campaigns. To amplify our refreshed marketing, we are increasing our targeted demand creation spend to 6.5% of sales compared to 5.9% of sales in 2024. To activate the brand and product strategies, we will be elevating the brand storytelling and consumer experience across the marketplace.

We are investing alongside our strategic retail partners to enhance in-store presentations. In our direct-to-consumer business, we've already begun to evolve Columbia.com to be the best expression of the brand. In brick and mortar, we're opening a small number of branded stores in high-traffic centers in North America. These new branded stores feature elevated product assortments that showcase Columbia's apparel and footwear innovations. These North American stores will join the hundreds of Columbia branded stores that raise the image of the brand in important international markets. Taken together, we're thoughtfully evolving how the Columbia brand is perceived by consumers and how we show up in the marketplace. We're being thoughtful about how, when, and where we utilize promotions across all channels and consumer segments. Overall, it's great to see the energy and alignment around the Accelerate Growth strategy across the organization.

I'm excited to bring it to life in the seasons ahead. Our initial 2025 net sales outlook contemplates modest growth. In addition to Columbia brand growth, our outlook contemplates a return to growth for prAna and continued momentum at Mountain Hardwear. While we expect the SOREL business to remain down in the spring, efforts to reinvigorate the brand will be more evident in the fall. Our initial 2025 operating margin outlook contemplates similar performance compared to 2024, with healthy inventories entering the year. We anticipate less clearance activity that will contribute to gross margin expansion. This is expected to be offset by SG&A leverage resulting from demand creation investments and ongoing cost pressures. When we announced the profit improvement program last year, we targeted $125 million to $150 million in annual cost savings by 2026.

This program has meaningfully slowed SG&A spending growth, but it has not been enough to align our cost structure with current sales levels. With this in mind, we're expanding the review of our cost structure as we pursue additional savings and enhanced profitability. It is too early to quantify the financial impact of this review, and our outlook does not include additional cost savings or potential charges that may occur. We will update you on our efforts as our plans are formalized. Turning to Q financial performance, we were able to overcome a slow start to the winter season with strong December performance resulting in Q4 results within our guidance range. Net sales increased 3% year-over-year to $1.1 billion, driven by a 7% increase in wholesale net sales and 1% direct-to-consumer growth.

Gross margin expanded 50 basis points to 51.1%, driven primarily by lower closeout sales and improved margins compared to elevated clearance activity in the prior year. SG&A expenses increased 6%, primarily reflecting higher incentive compensation and DTC expenses. This performance resulted in operating income and diluted earnings per share within our guidance range. Looking at net sales by geography, US net sales decreased 1%. The US wholesale business declined low single-digit %, reflecting our lower Fall 2024 order book and challenging outdoor category trends. Even though sell-through was down year-over-year, as well as lower planned promotional activity and a shift in digital marketing strategies on Columbia.com. December trends significantly improved as colder weather arrived, and we invested in marketing to spur demand. Brick and mortar net sales were up low single-digit percent, driven by the contribution from new stores and temporary clearance locations.

With improved inventory health, we will be closing most of our clearance locations in the first half of the year. A small number will remain open as we assess their potential as permanent stores. For my review of Q4 year-over-year net sales growth in international geographies, I will reference constant currency growth rates to illustrate underlying performance in each market. Latin America/Asia-Pacific region, or LAAP, net sales increased 7%. China net sales increased mid-teens%, with healthy growth across wholesale and DTC. For the year, China grew over 20% in constant currency. The outdoor industry is experiencing a powerful growth trend in China, fueled by growing consumer interest in outdoor activities and outdoor brands. We are capitalizing on this trend by connecting with consumers through meaningful brand activations, localized product collections, and a robust digital strategy. e-commerce was China's fastest-growing channel in 2024.

During the year, we expanded Columbia's TikTok platform, adding new stores for women and footwear. We had amazing brand activations during peak sales periods like Double 11 and participated in successful Super Brand Day events with both Tmall and TikTok. Columbia's premium transit product line, designed specifically for Chinese consumers, continues to perform incredibly well. To build on this momentum, we will further expand our localized product assortments in China this year. Across our product offerings, marketing activations, and marketplace strategies, we are working to create a more premium Columbia brand experience for Chinese consumers. We expect China to once again be our fastest-growing market in 2025. Japan net sales increased mid-single digit percent, with continued strength in international tourism. Despite high inflation and sluggish domestic spending, our team in Japan continues to deliver growth through compelling localized product offers, unique marketing activations, and strong digital and in-store execution.

Korea net sales decreased mid-single digit percent in the quarter. 2024 was a challenging year in Korea, including macroeconomic headwinds and political unrest. Despite these challenges, the team made meaningful progress, resetting the marketplace and laying the foundation for future growth. In 2025, our team in Korea is focused on accelerating digital sales, revitalizing the DTC store fleet, and optimizing marketing investments. LAAP distributor markets were up low double-digit %, primarily reflecting Spring 2025 quarter growth. Europe, Middle East, and Africa region, or EMEA, net sales increased 21%. Europe Direct net sales increased high teens %, led by robust DTC growth. Europe Direct was a top-performing market in 2024. The European team is doing an exceptional job expanding our DTC businesses and growing wholesale sales with key strategic retail partners. Our EMEA distributor business increased over 30%, primarily reflecting Spring 2025 order growth.

Canada net sales were up modestly in the quarter. The Columbia brand remains well-positioned in Canada, and we forecast constant currency growth for this geography in 2025. Looking at Q4 performance by brand, Columbia net sales increased 6%. This fall, our top innovation stories were Omni-Heat Infinity, our newest cold weather innovation, Omni-Heat Arctic. These differentiated innovations and technologies were prominently featured by numerous media outlets. Columbia products were named in over 20 best-of lists from top media outlets, including Esquire, Men's Journal, Travel + Leisure, and Ski Magazine. Product awards and reviews from trusted editors validate and bring awareness to the innovation and value we deliver to consumers. Omni-Heat Infinity remained one of the fastest-growing parts of our business and our top marketing story globally. Omni-Heat Infinity will once again be featured on Intuitive Machines' next lunar lander named Athena.

In addition to Infinity, the lander will utilize a second Columbia technology, Omni-Shade Sun Deflector. This patented material, which is part of our sun protection apparel line, uses titanium dioxide reflective dots to deflect sunlight and mitigate heat generation. The launch window for Athena begins later this month, so stay tuned for more details. On the collaboration front, we turned to the dark side with our largest Star Wars collab to date, the Vader Collection. This was the first Star Wars launch where a Columbia Greater Rewards member got early access to the product. The consumer response was incredible, resulting in the highest demand hour we have ever had on Columbia.com. Early access is just one of the unique benefits of our new enhanced membership program. Since the relaunch of Columbia Greater Rewards this past June, our active membership continues to grow.

I'm especially encouraged by the engagement of our Titanium members, who spend more than $300 annually. We will continue to expand our membership benefits and deepen our connections to this key customer base in 2025. I'd like to congratulate two of Columbia's athlete ambassadors on their recent halfpipe skiing wins. This past Sunday, Alex Ferreira won gold in the Freeski World Cup in Aspen, continuing the success of his unprecedented perfect season last year. Cassie Sharpe won the X Games gold medal in the SuperPipe event, in a triumphant return from a two-year break from competing following the birth of her daughter. Congratulations to Alex and Cassie. Shifting to our emerging brands, Mountain Hardwear net sales increased 5% in the Q4, led by e-commerce growth. Consumers responded well to Mountain Hardwear's fall assortment, including new snow sports offerings and an expanded Ghost Whisperer collection.

In November, Mountain Hardwear released another highly sought-after collab with iconic streetwear brand Stüssy. The collection featured expedition-quality gear, including jackets, beanies, bibs, and shells. I'm confident in Mountain Hardwear's product line and refreshed brand positioning. To further elevate Mountain Hardwear in the marketplace and attract new consumers, we're investing in the brand. This includes demand creation investments to supercharge its e-commerce business, as well as partnering with outdoor retailers to elevate in-store presentations. I believe these investments will lay the foundation for growth acceleration in the years ahead. We expect Mountain Hardwear to continue to grow in 2025, including strong Fall '25 wholesale orders. prAna net sales decreased 2% in the quarter. In 2024, the prAna leadership team made amazing progress, reinvigorating the brand. This will come to life in 2025 with exciting new product collections and creative brand activations.

prAna is also expanding its wholesale account base with new brand-wide specialty retail partners. We're very excited to get prAna's new product and marketing direction in front of consumers in the seasons ahead. prAna is expected to return to growth in 2025, including robust Fall '25 wholesale order growth. SOREL net sales decreased 16%, driven by lower wholesale and DTC sales. During the quarter, SOREL created brand heat with its first collab with streetwear brand Supreme. The limited-edition Caribou boot came in two colorways, introducing SOREL's iconic style to Supreme's fashion-conscious consumer base. 2024 was a challenging year for SOREL, but the team made meaningful progress refining future season product assortments and building strategies to re-energize brand marketing. 2025 is expected to be a year of stabilization with modest growth in the second half of the year. I remain confident SOREL has meaningful long-term growth potential.

I will now discuss our 2025 financial outlook. This outlook and commentary include forward-looking statements. Please see our CFO commentary and financial review presentations for additional details and disclosures related to these statements. This outlook and commentary does not include any potential impact on the company as a result of the recent US administration change, other than the direct cost of tariff actions announced on February 1, 2025. It also does not include any potential impact from actions we may undertake as we review our cost structure and look to expand the profit improvement plan. For the full year, we expect net sales growth in the range of 1%-3%. Based on current exchange rates, foreign currency is expected to be an approximate 140 basis point headwind. This outlook also assumes most of our temporary clearance locations are closed in the first half of the year.

Combined, the FX headwinds and temp store closures result in nearly a three-point headwind to reported sales growth. Gross margin is expected to expand 80 basis points to approximately 51%. The improvement in gross margin is primarily driven by a healthier underlying inventory position and favorable input costs. SG&A is expected to grow in 2025, driven by investments in demand creation, higher incentive compensation, and DTC store growth. Based on these assumptions, we expect an operating margin of 7.7%-8.3%, leading to diluted earnings per share in the range of 380-415. I'd note that this range includes a $0.30 negative impact to diluted earnings per share due to changes in foreign currency exchange rates. In summary, I'm confident we have the right strategies in place to unlock the significant growth opportunities we see across the business.

We are investing in our strategic priorities to accelerate profitable growth, create iconic products that are differentiated, functional, and innovative, drive brand engagement with increased focus demand creation investments, enhance consumer experiences by investing in capabilities to delight and retain consumers, amplify marketplace excellence that is digitally led, omnichannel, and global, and empower talent that is driven by our core values. That concludes my prepared remarks. We welcome your questions for the remainder of the hour. Operator, can you help us with that?

Operator (participant)

Absolutely. At this time, we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you'd like to remove your question from the queue.

Tim Boyle (Chairman, President, and CEO)

For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the Star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Once again, please press star one if you have a question or a comment. The first question comes from Bob Drbul with Guggenheim. Please proceed.

Bob Drbul (Senior Managing Director)

Thank you. Good afternoon, Tim.

Tim Boyle (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Hey, Bob.

Bob Drbul (Senior Managing Director)

I was just wondering if you could expand some more. I think you said in your comments that your order book for Spring and Fall was both positive. I was just wondering if there's any difference between the two seasons. I wonder if there's any geography, geographic commentary you can add. And then just if you could spend some more time on China, what you're seeing in China, those numbers are pretty impressive. That would be helpful. Thank you. Certainly.

Tim Boyle (Chairman, President, and CEO)

As we said earlier, our order book for Spring and for Fall will be up, very excited about that, the return to growth. I think the geographic component, we're going to be led by China and Europe. Those two markets will be our fastest-growing markets, and we're very excited about that. We're also excited about the return to growth in the US, but specifically China, and really this applies to Europe as well. We've been quite clear that in those markets historically, we've underperformed, and again, this is a people business. We have great leadership running both businesses there, and so we've seen terrific results. China specifically, once we encouraged our teams in China to be more focused from a product standpoint on items that can be important in their markets, we've seen much better results.

Additionally, from a business standpoint, we have a leader there that's very focused on highly productive stores. In the past, we had relied more on a sort of dual-season approach, and the leadership there really is focused on monthly performance per store. And that's been a real improvement and allowed us to have real great success there.

Jim Swanson (EVP and CFO)

Hey, Bob, this is Jim. I just add a couple of comments. One, as it relates to Spring 2025, and we shared in October that our order book for the Spring 2025 season for our wholesale business globally supported mid-single digit rate of growth. Nothing's meaningfully changed in that order book since that time. And then for Fall 2025, it is a bit lower of a rate of growth that we're anticipating. It's in the low single-digit % terms.

And we're well into our order-taking season or order-taking for the season with about 90% of those orders in. So good visibility to the order book at this stage. Great. And then just one other question, just on the demand creation commitment for 2025. I think you said a lot of the newness is going to kick in in the fall. Will the spend be down in the first half and then magnified in the second half of the year? Just wondering if you can just talk about the plans there a little bit more. Thanks.

Tim Boyle (Chairman, President, and CEO)

I guess I would describe the first half spend to be more moderated. We'll still be a function of the percent of sales, but it'll be more moderated in fall.

Fall, we intend to be quite aggressive, and that's where the bulk of the new material will be seen, and the budgets will be bigger.

Jim Swanson (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, I think that's fair, Bob. We wouldn't expect it to be down in the first half, but certainly more amplified when we get into the back half of the year. We're able to get certain of those accelerate marketing investments in front of the consumer.

Bob Drbul (Senior Managing Director)

Great. Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

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

Jim Duffy (Managing Director)

Well, thank you. A couple of questions. First, on the DTC business, I wanted to ask, is there a change in tactic on a year-to-year basis despite the increased number of stores? The DTC business in the Q4 up just a modest amount.

You're also expecting growth next year despite closing some of the temporary stores. If you could reconcile that, that'd be great.

Tim Boyle (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Sure. There's a bunch of things going on at DTC. I would say the primary delta would be the closure of these temporary locations that we established in order to help liquidate inventory more profitably than we otherwise would have been able to, reducing the value channel and etc. So we'll be closing a bunch of stores during this year. Additionally, we've really focused on Columbia.com as being the really showcase of the brand and less promotionally driven than we had been in the past to give ourselves a more premium positioning in the marketplace.

And then lastly, we are experimenting with and opening a number of stores in full-price, high-traffic malls, which will allow us to showcase the brand fully blown-out accelerate strategies, and especially footwear where we can have a real opportunity to show consumers the products that we're putting together.

Jim Duffy (Managing Director)

Thanks, Tim. And then, Tim, I wanted to ask on the marketing. Are you seeing evidence of traction with the new marketing direction, bringing younger and active consumers to the brand?

Tim Boyle (Chairman, President, and CEO)

I would say we're right on the cusp and the beginning of it. We've got digital presentations, which will begin appearing this spring, which I think will set a different tone. And we'll be excited to see how that works. But everything we've tested so far as it relates to Fall is right on. And so we're excited that we're in the right position.

Jim Duffy (Managing Director)

Thank you, Tim.

Operator (participant)

Okay.

The next question comes from Laurent Vasilescu with BNP Paribas. Please proceed.

Laurent Vasilescu (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Good afternoon. Thank you very much for taking my question. Jim and Tim, I wanted to ask about revenues with regards to the Q1, why revenues would be down 1% to 3%. Is there a dynamic in place with regards to shift? Is there something that we should consider by channel? And then when it comes to, I think, to Jim's question about DTC, I think you mentioned in the prepared remarks that the closures will be about 300 basis points headwind for this year. And I think you're guiding for DTC to grow low single digits. So I think underlying it means DTC should grow about mid-single digits. Can you maybe parse that out a little bit? What's the anticipation? Is it e-commerce? Is it new stores?

Love to get your take on the revenue front. Thank you very much.

Jim Swanson (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, Laurent. Thanks for the question. And to start off with the Q1, why you're seeing the projection in terms of the revenue being down in Q1, a few contributing factors to that. One, keep in mind we're lapping very cold winter in the January-February timeframe of last year in which we had amplified demand, and we're not anticipating a repeat of that here in Q1. We've updated our outlook for what we've seen through the month of January. That's an element of it. There's also a component of which we had earlier shipments of Spring 2024 wholesale orders a year ago in anticipation of our transition to PFAS-free chemistry. We're seeking to get those orders out to our wholesale customers sooner than they would ordinarily ship.

You're seeing some of that come into Q1 last year and this year, being a more normalized trend. And then finally, and Tim's touched on, with Columbia.com being the best representation of the brand and reducing some of the promotions, there's some continued pressure that we're anticipating, at least through the beginning part of this year from that vantage point. And then with regard to your second part of your question, didn't get it all, but as it relates to the 3% headwind, if you will, that comment was specific to a combination of the temp store closures. About half of that is related to the ramp down of those temp stores. And then the other half relates to the continued strength of the dollar and the impact on the rate of growth from a local currency standpoint.

So we are anticipating, as Tim touched on, continued strength internationally, particularly in China and Europe, but a bit dampened just given the strength of the dollar relative to foreign currencies.

Laurent Vasilescu (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Super helpful. I wanted to ask then on the second question here, could you see that gross margins are expected to be up 80 basis points for the year? Can you give us some color on how you're thinking gross margins should shake out between 1Q and 1H? And then on the SG&A front, I saw that you're stepping up demand creation to 6.5% of sales with the new marketing director, the new agency, Adam and Eve. But can you maybe unpack that pressure point on SG&A? Are there any other factors that we should consider on the SG&A front, whether it's incentive comp or any other factors to consider for FY25? Thank you.

Jim Swanson (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. Sure.

As it relates to the gross margin in the front half of the year, I think as it relates to the Q2, it's going to be a stronger quarter in terms of gross margin from an expansion standpoint. Otherwise, when you look at the full year, we've provided full-year gross margin expansion of 80 basis points. The Q2 is going to be naturally a bit higher because the proportion of full-price revenue going into that quarter with the shifts in the wholesale business are naturally going to have a bit of an impact on that, and then conversely, Q1 won't be quite as strong as that full-year guide.

As it relates to the SG&A, so aside from the marketing in terms of what's contributing to the deleverage, when you look at SG&A year on year, you pointed out incentive comp that continues to be among the pressure points that are in there. There are other strategic investments that we're making in the DTC business. Tim touched on part of it as it relates to the brand of stores. What I would convey and what Tim touched on is we're not satisfied with seeing our SG&A continue to deleverage and being in the upper 43%-low 44% range. And that's why we're in the process of initiating a continued review and assessment of our SG&A and seeking ways in which we can streamline the business to drive greater cost efficiency.

So that's not in our outlook currently, but something that we'll be looking at over the coming weeks here and provide an update as we get deeper into the year.

Tim Boyle (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Yeah. And actually, we'll make. Yep. Yep. Sorry, Tim. This is the new marketing efforts. We're being very focused on measuring and testing these messages to make sure we've got the right approach to these consumers that we want to track. And so looking forward to launching that stuff in fall.

Laurent Vasilescu (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay. Very helpful. Thank you very much and best of luck.

Operator (participant)

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

Jonathan Komp (Senior Research Analyst)

Yeah. Hi. Good afternoon. Thank you.

If I could just follow up on that last point, as you think about the ramp and the incremental marketing that you're planning, could you just maybe go a little bit further on what you're hoping to accomplish and some of the key metrics that you'll be looking to show from those efforts?

Tim Boyle (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Certainly. Well, as a company, we've been highly democratic in terms of how we've approached our customer base, our product orientation, etc. Even though we have among the most sophisticated products for keeping people warm, cool, dry, and protected, we're often thought of as a highly valued line. And that value allows us to be producing large quantities of merchandise, which we can use then that leverage to build more expensive, more targeted products for younger and consumers that are more professionally oriented.

So the approach will be to combine those new products and a marketing message which is going to be compelling to that consumer to give us an additional boost of sales and consideration. So where we believe we have the strongest opportunity to do that is in the Fall, and that's where we're going to be focusing our time and effort.

Jim Swanson (EVP and CFO)

And the job as it relates to KPIs, we don't get down into a lot of specifics around our DTC business, but where we'd certainly look for improvement is thinking about the conversion rate that we're achieving with our own online business. And with the full-funnel marketing approach that we've taken and shifting more of that marketing out of performance marketing and into mid-funnel and upper funnel, we are seeing improvement in the traffic, but over time, we need to see that improvement in the conversion.

And then the other piece, we launched a new membership loyalty program last year, which has had success. Tim touched on the Titanium level member, but it's really about member retention, acquisition, and retention as well.

Jonathan Komp (Senior Research Analyst)

Yeah. That's really helpful. Thank you. And then just one separate follow-up on the profit recovery that you're projecting. As we sort of step back and think, you're well underway for your first profit improvement plan, you're talking about a normalized inventory environment, and yet the margin profile of the business is well below historical. So just how are you thinking about the long-term view of the opportunity to get back to much higher profitability levels? Thank you.

Jim Swanson (EVP and CFO)

Well, it's certainly why we're undertaking the work that we've described because our expectation is to get our operating margins back to more appropriate levels.

And certainly, the first milestone will be getting back to double digits. But then longer term, our expectation is to be in the upper quartile relative to our peer group, which would put you into the teens%. Now, we've not defined the timeframe that that would take place, but certainly, there's some work that we collectively need to do in managing the cost base. I think to Tim's point, we need to grow. Part of the reason why you see some of that deleverage is we've had a few years here running now where that top line hasn't kept pace with inflationary pressure and other costs. And collectively, we need to shore that up. So that's what this year's about, is building that plant to ensure that we've got a scalable business that can drive margin leverage going forward.

Tim Boyle (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Yeah.

This is the reason we really are making this very measured investment in marketing to get our products in front of consumers. We believe we have the right stuff, and we just need to be very conscious and specific about how we market, and then we have to be very disciplined about our SG&A spend, which is something we know how to do and we will undertake.

Jonathan Komp (Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. Great. Thanks again. Thanks, Tim.

Operator (participant)

Up next is Mitch Kummetz with Seaport Research. Please proceed.

Yes. Thanks for taking my questions. I want to start with the Q4. Your sales were near the high end of your range, but the op margin, I think, fell a little bit below the midpoint. I'm just trying to understand that disconnect.

Mitch Kummetz (Senior Analyst)

Did you guys, given the slow start to the quarter, Tim, did you guys end up maybe being a little bit more promotional than you were expecting, or did you ramp up the demand creation a little bit more than you were expecting once the weather turned and the sell-throughs improved? Is there a reason for why the margins weren't better on such a strong sales quarter?

Jim Swanson (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. Mitch, a couple of things related to that. From a gross margin standpoint and the way we would characterize promotions, we weren't any more promotional than we would have been a year ago. Having said that, and as we touched on, October and November, they were softer months from an overall demand standpoint. Those are typically months in which you're doing more full-priced sales in advance of the promotional marketplace coming into the holiday season.

And so, if business was soft during that timeframe and it really picked up and we had healthy demand from Black Friday, Cyber Monday through the holiday sales period, you see a higher concentration of revenue done during that period where we're a bit more promotional. So that did have some effects as you think about gross margin. And then, on the SG&A side of things, we haven't touched specifically on it, but you'll see some notes, I think, in the CFO commentary that we've provided with regard to some SG&A severance costs that we incurred in the quarter. I think it was a mid-single digit millions of dollars. So if you take those two things, those are going to be the meaningful drivers impacting that operating margin. And from a holistic standpoint, we're more or less in the range of the guidance that we provided.

Of course, there was income tax valuation impact in there that also impacted earnings per share.

Mitch Kummetz (Senior Analyst)

Thank you. And then on the guide, I know Laurent asked about 1Q sales being a little bit light, and Jim, you kind of went through the factors there. I guess my follow-up to that is on 2Q, the implied sales growth rate, I think, if my math is correct, sales up 6%-8%. And I know you talked about a more normal delivery schedule on the order book this year versus last year, and I'm wondering how much that's contributing to the strong 2Q sales growth or if there are other factors to consider there.

Jim Swanson (EVP and CFO)

Yeah.

To give you a look at the shift between Q1 and Q2, I think it's in the $20 million-$30 million range on the wholesale business that's going to make up that difference where you get to that slightly higher rate of growth relative to the slight decline that we're anticipating in Q1. Setting that piece aside, Mitch, I don't think there's anything meaningfully different in how we're planning the business.

Mitch Kummetz (Senior Analyst)

Okay. Thanks a lot.

Jim Swanson (EVP and CFO)

Yep. Thanks, Mitch.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Paul Lejuez with Citi. Please proceed.

Tracy Kogan (VP)

Thanks. It's Tracy Kogan filling in for Paul. I had two questions. I was wondering if you were seeing any difference in your order trends from your partners in the US, depending on whether it's a department store, specialty store, etc.

And then secondly, I was hoping you could break your CapEx down into stores, IT, DCs, whatever else might be in there. And then is $60 million-$80 million a good run rate to use beyond 2025? Thanks.

Tim Boyle (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Yeah. I can talk a little bit about our customer base for our fall business, which we're still in a strong position with virtually all of our customers. Again, just as a reminder, we have a very established, mature business in North America. Basically, we're selling to every customer we want to sell to. We have great relationships with all of them. But we are finding that we're selling, we have a much stronger order book with those customers that reflect this new customer type that we're approaching with our product line and with our marketing. So the growth in those customers has been quite dramatic and quite exciting.

Jim Swanson (EVP and CFO)

Then Tracy, as it relates to your question on capital expenditures and the range that we provided, if you look back over the last few years, we've been at around the $60 million CapEx range. So looking at this year at $60-$80 million, I think that's a pretty fair estimate, barring us providing any other updates as we look forward. Breaking that down into a lot more detail, I'd be hesitant to do that. Having said that, I'd say that roughly a quarter of our CapEx is your traditional maintenance-based capital. Some of the reason why our CapEx has come down over the years is because if you look back over a longer horizon, you'd see it in the $80-$100 million range. We don't have any major enterprise-level ERP projects going on at the moment.

As we've shifted more and more to the cloud, there's less absolute hard capital expenditures that are made. The most significant element that's in there relates to stores and expansion of stores. We've got a modest plan this year. I think we've got about a dozen stores that are planned in North America that are a combination of the branded stores Tim touched on, as well as a few outlets.

Tracy Kogan (VP)

Great. Thanks very much.

Operator (participant)

Up next is Alex Perry with Bank of America. Please proceed.

Lucas Hudson (Equity Research Analyst)

Hi. This is Lucas Hudson on for Alex Perry. The guidance assumes a stabilization in the apparel business. Could you guys just give a little bit more color on what's driving that? I know you guys mentioned the Supreme collaboration, but any more color would be helpful. Yeah.

Tim Boyle (Chairman, President, and CEO)

I just actually am fresh off the review of the upcoming seasons for Sorel, so I'm excited about what our opportunities are there. We've got a number of collaborations planned, some of which I can't really talk about, but those should drive meaningful progress, and we have an opportunity to go beyond winter footwear, specifically in the Sorel business, with an improved women's offering and a relatively brand new men's offering, which is going to give us a lot of opportunity to show what we can do to typical customers who have been buying Sorel over the years, so I'm excited about the opportunities, frankly.

Jim Swanson (EVP and CFO)

Yeah.

Lucas, when you look at the two-season business that we operate for the spring season SOREL, we've got an order book that contemplated a decline as we brought the new leadership team on, and then they've worked on some updates to the strategy and to the product line. We do anticipate, based on the order book that we have today, that we should return to growth in the latter part of the year through that wholesale business, as well as our plans in the direct-to-consumer area. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Once again, if there are any remaining questions, please indicate so by pressing star one. The next question comes from Mauricio Serna with UBS. Please proceed.

Mauricio Serna (Executive Director)

Great. Good afternoon, and thanks for taking my questions. First, I would like to hear more about the rationale of why the full quarter book is lighter than the spring for 2025.

And then I just wanted to clarify, was there any pull forward of demand in your Q4 results? And lastly, on free cash flow, I see the guidance is operating cash flow of at least $250 million, and that seems well below fiscal year 2024 of a little bit of around $490 million. I just wanted to understand what's the rationale behind that, if EBIT will likely be up this year. Thank you.

Jim Swanson (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. So let me touch on those. And Tim, if you want to jump in with color. So as it relates to the fall 2025 order book being lower than the spring season, these are two very distinct and different seasons, right? And we just came through fall 2024. And from a US standpoint, sell-through was lighter. Tim touched on that.

We're encouraged, despite that lower level of sell-through, the work that we've done from an accelerate perspective, that retailers are responding favorably to that, and we still anticipate modest growth in the fall season, so we look at that as a positive, despite the fact that it is a lower rate of growth in comparison to what you're seeing for the spring 2025 season. From a Q4 perspective, you were asking a question about pull forwards. There's no pull forward of revenue out of the first half of 2025 into Q4 at all. It's all just the natural flow of our orders for the fall 2024 season.

There was, however, I should mention, as a result of supply chain disruptions impacting the Red Sea and Bangladesh, there were some sales that shipped out of Q3 and into Q4, and that was to the tune of $60 million, I think I touched on in an earlier question, and then finally, as it relates to operating cash flow and the lower projection that's there, it's essentially looking at operating income, which is more or less flat, slightly up year-over-year, and then when you think about the working capital equation, over the course of the last two years, of course, we've been encouraged and pleased with the work we've done in reducing our inventory levels that have had an amplified effect on how you think about operating cash flow as we get into this year.

While we believe there's still continued opportunity to continue to drive inventory efficiency and working capital, it's certainly not at the level of magnitude that we would have achieved in each of the last couple of years. So that's the underlying rationale for what you see in that cash flow projection.

Tim Boyle (Chairman, President, and CEO)

I was going to talk a little bit about our fall order book, and it's reflecting, as I said, adoption by our customers of the new category of consumers that we're approaching, and I guess I would emphasize that we've got products, including the Amaze Puff, which is a very popular, at least based on our customers' adoption, down jacket for women, as well as a product we call the ROC Pant, which is a men's and women's bottoms collection. It's just been incredibly well received.

So those are the areas where retailers are going to be trying our products and making sure that we've got the right connection to consumers. And then as it relates to inventory, I think we all agree here at the company that we can operate the business with less inventory. So you'll be seeing a key focus on efforts to run the business with less inventory. So you should expect that over time, our cash flows will significantly improve.

Mauricio Serna (Executive Director)

Understood. And then just very lastly, as a follow-up, in the guidance for gross margin, you talk about lower product costs. Just wanted to understand what is behind that. And you kind of mentioned also, looking at the year, you're going to see the highest gross margin expansion in Q2.

Should we think about the other three quarters being relatively expanding at a similar rate, excluding Q2, or how should we think about that? Thank you.

Jim Swanson (EVP and CFO)

On the lower product cost side of things, so we've gone out to our factories and worked with them in placing allocation, and that's nothing more than what we're seeing in terms of just input costs generally being a little bit lighter or lower this year relative to last month, particularly in the case of the spring season. That's more, I think, in the effect of material, raw material, that sort of thing, Mauricio, as opposed to any form of labor or duty aside from what we've touched on as it relates to China specifically.

And then as it relates to the gross margin, so as I was touching on Q2, the margin's a little bit healthier just in light of the full price sales proportion relative to total. If you look at the balance of the quarters during the year, I think they're at or around the 80 basis points of expansion that's included in our outlook. Keep in mind, Q2 is an exceptionally, it's our smallest quarter from a revenue standpoint. So even though the gross margin might be greater than, it just doesn't have the same effect on the full year.

Mauricio Serna (Executive Director)

Understood. Thank you so much.

Jim Swanson (EVP and CFO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Okay. We have no further questions in the queue. I would like to turn the floor back to management for any closing remarks.

Tim Boyle (Chairman, President, and CEO)

Thank you, Albert. I just want to thank everyone for listening in.

We're very excited to be returning to growth in 2025, and we're looking forward to the Accelerate Growth strategy coming to life in the seasons ahead. Look forward to talking to you next quarter.

Operator (participant)

This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.