Escalade - Q3 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning, and welcome to the Escalade Q3 2023 results conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touchtone phone. To withdraw from the question queue, please press star, then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Patrick Griffin, VP Corporate Development. Please go ahead.

Patrick Griffin (VP of Corporate Development)

Thank you, operator. On behalf of the entire team at Escalade, I'd like to welcome you to our Q3 2023 results conference call. Leading the call with me today are President and CEO Walt Glazer, and Stephen Wawrin, our Chief Financial Officer. Today's discussion contains forward-looking statements about future business and financial expectations. Actual results may vary significantly from those projected in today's forward-looking statements due to various risks and uncertainties, including the risks described in our periodic reports filed with the SEC. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update our forward-looking statements. At the conclusion of our prepared remarks, we will open the line for questions. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Walt.

Walt Glazer (President and CEO)

Thank you, Patrick, and welcome to those joining us on the call. Our team delivered strong Q3 results, highlighted by significant year-over-year growth in gross margins, operating income and operating cash flow, resulting in nearly $12 million of debt reduction in the quarter. We achieved these results as our team continued to execute diligently on maximizing margins and reducing expenses amid eroding consumer confidence and ongoing softness in consumer discretionary spending for most goods. Sales declined versus prior year levels, but were in line with the volume trend we experienced in the Q2. As a reminder, our Q3 results benefited from eight additional days within our new reporting cycle as we moved to a traditional calendar reporting framework on January 1, 2023.

Excluding the impact of the change on our reporting calendar, sales declined 11.6% on a year-over-year basis in the Q3, compared to a 28.4% sales decline in the Q1, which was followed by a 9.5% sales decline in the Q2. In recent months, we've seen an encouraging stabilization within our mass merchant channel, which includes our big box and sporting goods retailers, as the destocking trend evidenced earlier this year lessened for some of our categories. Improved customer orders for our basketball and pickleball product categories highlighted our Q3 sales. Furthermore, we continued to see strong growth in direct-to-consumer sales, with non-licensed DTC sales up more than 50% year-to-date, driven by a combination of effective marketing campaigns, a transition to the Shopify platform, and recent new product launches.

We believe our DTC sales growth indicates that consumer demand remains reasonably healthy for our brand portfolio amid a challenging macroeconomic and retail environment. We are closely monitoring eroding consumer confidence, considering higher interest rates, political turmoil, and persistent inflation. While we have seen wholesale inventories begin to normalize in several categories, retail sales of recreation products remain generally soft. We believe our retail partners will continue to closely manage their inventory levels and be more promotional in this uncertain environment. It is incumbent upon us to continue driving innovation and consumer interest across our brand portfolio. We remain focused on strengthening our market-leading brands and positioning our company for long-term success. Operationally, we continue to see further normalization of the supply chain, which has resulted in lower freight costs and reduced inventory handling and storage expenses. Last year, these higher input costs impacted our gross margins.

As we sell through this higher cost inventory, it is replaced with lower cost inventory that generates higher margins. We expect this favorable restocking cycle to continue into next year for most of our categories. Benefit of lower input cost, when combined with a more favorable sales mix, showed more than 650 basis points in year-over-year gross margin improvement during the Q3. Looking ahead, we believe these favorable input costs, combined with lower fixed costs, will position us to expand margins in 2024. As we highlighted last quarter, our team has targeted approximately $2 million in fixed cost savings that we are on track to achieve by year-end.

The wind down expenses and estimated under absorption of our Mexico operations, which we are divesting, represented a 110 basis point negative impact to EBITDA margin in the Q3 and 140 basis points year to date. In combination, we see multiple catalysts for improved operating leverage, which leads us to believe that our gross margins may further expand in 2024. As previously mentioned, we have seen the inventory destocking trends normalize in some categories, but we still expect some destocking to continue into the next year in certain categories such as archery, water sports, and the game room, where wholesale inventories remain high. We also expect that our sales trend from the second and third quarters will continue into the Q4, excluding the impacts of the company's reporting calendar changes.

Strategically, we continue to focus on investing in innovative product development to build market-leading positions in key growth categories. We are very pleased with the launch of our American Cornhole League licensed cornhole boards and bags with our exclusive launch partner, Academy Sports and Outdoors. We are expanding our ACL sales to several other retail and e-commerce partners. Based on strong consumer demand, we are growing our ACL assortment to include two additional Pro and Comp bags in several colorways, as well as a new Elite cornhole board. We recently launched several new Bear Archery bows, including the new Bear Persist compound bow, which has innovative features that create less vibration and noise. Our new Bear Alaskan XT Ready to Hunt compound bow features an integrated arrow rest and sight, bringing tremendous combination of features and value to the market.

Our Little Bear youth recurve bow is a compelling new offering, handcrafted from maple in our Gainesville, Florida, manufacturing facility. We also successfully launched a new Bear vertical bow in our ongoing collaboration with The Hunting Public, which is a team of archery influencers with over 500,000 subscribers for their videos, showcasing tips and strategies for hunters. The team from The Hunting Public built their dream bow and included several features from some of their favorite Bear bows of the past, as well as some new innovations. The latest result of our collaboration is the Bear Adapt Plus compound bow, which features exceptional performance, comfort, and durability. Sales of this new bow have exceeded our expectations. As we navigate this uncertain demand environment, we know the importance of maintaining an appropriate cost structure and a fortified balance sheet.

We continue to focus on optimizing our cost structure and maximizing cash flow to further reduce debt. Cash conversion during the Q3 exceeded 100% during what is normally a quarter where we see working capital use. Strong cash generation in the Q3 was primarily due to a $6.4 million reduction in our inventory and improved working capital management. As we continue through the end of the year, we are targeting inventory below $100 million, which will further drive cash generation. We are focused on continuing to utilize free cash flow to reduce our debt. At the end of the Q3, our net leverage was 3.1x EBITDA. We remain committed to further reducing our leverage to our targeted range between 1.5x and 2.5x EBITDA.

While we have built our businesses over the years with a number of value-creating acquisitions, our current capital allocation priority remains long-term debt reduction. Along with our focus on lowering net leverage, we continue to tightly control discretionary spending, including capital expenditures. We're proud of the hard work and dedication of our team, focusing on disciplined cost management and operational excellence amid this period of challenging demand. We will continue to focus on creating exceptional customer experiences that build brand loyalty, all while creating long-term shareholder value. We look forward to updating you with our progress next quarter. With that, I'll turn the call over to Stephen for his prepared remarks.

Stephen Wawrin (CFO)

Thank you, Walt. For the three months ended September 30, 2023, Escalade reported net income of $4.3 million, or $0.31 per diluted share on net sales of $73.4 million. For the Q3, the company reported gross margins of 24.7%, compared to 18.2% in the prior year period. The 652 basis point improvement was primarily the result of more favorable product sales mix, lower inventory storage and handling expenses, operating expense reduction, partially offset by the impact of non-recurring expenses and under-absorbed fixed costs associated with our facility in Mexico. Selling, general, and administrative expenses increased by 26.3% compared to the prior year period to $11.1 million.

The increase in SG&A expense year-over-year was a result of adjustments to accruals for incentive compensation in both the current and prior period. In the Q3 of last year, lower incentive compensation expense resulted in an SG&A reduction below our normal level. Based on our current level of sales and profitability, we expect SG&A, excluding amortization, to remain at a normalized level similar to our year-to-date SG&A percentage of approximately 16%. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization increased by $2.1 million to $7.9 million in the Q3 of 2023, versus $5.8 million in the prior year period. Total cash provided by operations was $14.8 million for the quarter, compared to total cash used in operations of $5.5 million in the prior year period.

The increase in cash flow from operations primarily reflects cash generated from improvements to working capital as a result of a reduction of inventory through the Q3 of 2023. Additionally, capital expenditures during the quarter increased modestly year-over-year, but remained below historical average levels as we carefully manage our capital spending. As of September 30, 2023, the company had total cash and equivalence of $919,000, together with $47.5 million of availability on our senior secured revolving credit facility maturing in 2027. At the end of the Q3 of 2023, net debt outstanding, our total debt less cash, was 3.1x trailing twelve-month EBITDA. One last important thing to remember, effective on January 1, we transitioned to a conventional twelve-month reporting calendar.

As a result, the Q3 of 2023 had 92 operating days as opposed to 84 in the prior year period. This dynamic will have less of an impact on our results for the Q4. With that, operator, we will open the call for questions.

Operator (participant)

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw from the question queue, please press star, then two.

... At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question is from Rommel Dionisio with Aegis. Please go ahead.

Rommel Dionisio (Head of Research)

Good morning. Thank you. You know, a question on the gross margins. Obviously, you guys highlighted the lower input costs, freight and others. I wonder if you could talk about labor. Are you still seeing a little bit of cost pressure in that, in that front? Thanks.

Walt Glazer (President and CEO)

Good morning, Rommel. We're seeing certainly less pressure than we saw a year ago, and the environment is getting a little bit better. We're still seeing some, you know, upward movement in some areas, but overall, I would say it's much better than it was a year ago.

Rommel Dionisio (Head of Research)

Okay, good. Any update you could provide us on the Mexico divestiture?

Walt Glazer (President and CEO)

I can tell you that we're, you know, hard at work on getting it done, and we're working with a couple of potential buyers. They're doing their due diligence, and we're providing them, you know, the information that they need. So, I can't predict exactly when we will close, but I would say we're hard at work to bring this to its conclusion.

Rommel Dionisio (Head of Research)

Okay. And maybe one last one. Stephen, I think you talked about having less of an impact from the number of days in Q4. Is it possible to quantify exactly what the number is in terms of the days, business days for the Q4?

Walt Glazer (President and CEO)

90, 92 versus 91, I believe.

Patrick Griffin (VP of Corporate Development)

Q4.[crosstalk]

Walt Glazer (President and CEO)

Q4.

Rommel Dionisio (Head of Research)

Q4.

Walt Glazer (President and CEO)

One-

Rommel Dionisio (Head of Research)

For Q4, yeah, please.

Walt Glazer (President and CEO)

It's just one day difference in the Q4.

Rommel Dionisio (Head of Research)

Okay. Okay. All right, thanks very much.

Walt Glazer (President and CEO)

Yeah, we were all trying to find that page, but I believe it's a one-day difference. Last year we had, you know, 53 weeks that ended on December 31st. You know, this year we're doing the monthly calendar. So, the second and Q3 were the ones where we had the biggest impact of the change in the number of days. Q4 be more of an apples to apples.

Rommel Dionisio (Head of Research)

Okay, perfect. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Again, if you have a question, please press Star then One. There are no questions at this time. This concludes our question and answer session. Oh, I'm sorry, Rommel has rejoined the queue. Please go ahead.

Rommel Dionisio (Head of Research)

Oh, thanks. Maybe just one follow-up. You know, given the, you know, obviously, your commentary on, a slower pace of, you know, retail offtake and, and conservative inventory management on the part of the retailers, how do you guys think about the pace of new product introductions going into 2024? Do you want to maybe hold back and for, you know, until the environment gets better, or are you still kind of going forward with, the usual pace of, new product intros? Thank you.

Walt Glazer (President and CEO)

Yeah, Rommel, you know, new product development is a key part of our strategy, and we wanna keep our product line fresh and exciting for consumers. You know, I will say that there was a time when we had a lot of inventory, and we thought, why would we introduce something new that would just, you know, just cannibalize the old existing inventory? But we've moved through most of that, and so our pace of new product development is moving along apace, and we have, you know, as we described in the commentary, you know, we have a lot going on at Bear, we have a lot going on, you know, in our games areas. So, you know, I think you should expect to see more exciting new product launches in 2024.

Rommel Dionisio (Head of Research)

Great. I appreciate it. Thank you again.

Operator (participant)

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Patrick Griffin for closing remarks.

Patrick Griffin (VP of Corporate Development)

Once again, thank you for your interest in Escalade and joining our call. Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at [email protected]. This concludes our call today. You may now disconnect.