Ethan Allen Interiors - Q4 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good afternoon and welcome to the Ethan Allen Fiscal 2024 Q4 Analyst Conference Call. If you require operator assistance, please press star zero. Please note this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Matt McNulty, Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Treasurer. Thank you. You may begin.

Matt McNulty (SVP, CFO, and Treasurer)

Thank you, Operator. Good afternoon and thank you for joining us today to discuss Ethan Allen's Fiscal 2024 Q4 and full-year results. With me today is Farooq Kathwari, our Chairman, President, and CEO. Mr. Kathwari will open and close our prepared remarks while I'll speak to our financial performance midway through. After our prepared remarks, we will then open the call for your questions. Before we begin, I'd like to remind the audience that this call is being recorded and webcast live under the News and Events tab on the Investor Relations page of our website. A replay of today's call will also be made available on our Investor Relations website. There you will find a copy of our press release, which contains reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures referred to on this call and in the press release.

Budd Bugatch (Senior Research Analyst)

We believe the Non-GAAP presentation better reflects underlying operating trends and performance of the business. Our comments today may include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. The most significant risk factors that could affect our future results are described in our annual report on Form 10-K. Please refer to our SEC filing for a complete review of those risks. The company assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking matters discussed during this call. With that, I'm pleased to now turn the call over to Mr. Kathwari.

Farooq Kathwari (Chairman and CEO)

Well, thank you, Matt. Thanks for participating in our Q4 and Fiscal Year June 30, 2024 meeting. As stated in our press release, we are pleased to report strong performance in this post-pandemic period. Despite lower demand and reduction in high backlogs, we did well. We had strong gross margins of 60.9%, and despite lower sales, had an adjusted operating margin of 13.1%. We continued to generate strong cash and ended with cash and equivalents of $195.8 million, up from $172.7 million last year. Our inventories have been reduced by 12.5% since June 30, 2019, and the headcount also reduced by 28% since June 2019. Now, we know this after multiple years of high demand during the pandemic period.

Budd Bugatch (Senior Research Analyst)

Consumer is much more focused on quality, value, and service, and provides an opportunity for enterprises like us that have relevant products, strong talent, providing service, and also to have good, healthy cash positions. After Matt provides an overview of our financial results, I will review our initiatives going forward. Matt.

Matt McNulty (SVP, CFO, and Treasurer)

Thank you, Mr. Kathwari. Our financial results for the full year and Q4 ended June 30, 2024, were highlighted by double-digit operating margins, disciplined expense management, strong operating cash flow, and a robust balance sheet. As we operate in a post-pandemic period defined by challenges within the home furnishings industry, our operations produced positive financial results, which I will now discuss. Our Fiscal 2024 consolidated net sales totaled $646.2 million, which included fourth-quarter sales of $168.6 million, our highest level of quarterly delivered sales during the fiscal year. The reduction in net sales, when compared to the prior year, is reflective of lower delivered unit volumes, lower backlog, and a strong prior-year comparable. Overall demand patterns began to show signs of improvement during the just-completed Q4.

Budd Bugatch (Senior Research Analyst)

Retail segment orders for the quarter were down 1.3%, while wholesale written orders increased 0.4%, as our wholesale segment benefited from improving orders within our contract business. We ended the fiscal year with wholesale backlog of $53.5 million, nearing historical norms and pre-pandemic levels. We improved customer lead times and reduced the number of weeks of backlog. For the fiscal 2024 year, our consolidated gross margin was 60.8%, a 10 basis points improvement over last year. In the just-completed Q4, consolidated gross margin was also 60.8%, our 13th consecutive quarter that gross margin has exceeded 58%. When compared to last year, our quarterly consolidated gross margin was impacted by fewer delivered sales and higher inbound freight, partially offset by a change in sales mix, lower raw material input costs, reduced headcount, and a disciplined promotional level.

For the 2024 fiscal year, our adjusted operating margin was 12.1%, down from 16.9% last year. Improved fourth-quarter adjusted operating margin of 13.1% reflects lower headcount and strong expense management. Our SG&A expenses decreased 4.9% and equaled 47.7% of net sales, up from 45.1% last year due to lower sales volume relative to fixed costs. Compared to our pre-pandemic 2019 Q4, our adjusted operating margin improved 450 basis points due to our focus on streamlining our vertically integrated enterprise. On a full-year basis, adjusted EPS was $2.49. For the quarter, our adjusted EPS was $0.70. Our effective tax rate was 25.3% for the full year and 25.1% for the quarter, which varies from the 21% federal statutory rate primarily due to state taxes.

Now turning to our liquidity. We ended our fiscal year with a robust balance sheet, including cash and investments of $195.8 million and no outstanding debt. We generated $26.2 million of cash from operating activities during the just-completed quarter, bringing our full-year amount up to $80.2 million. We also reduced our inventory levels by $7.2 million. Capital expenditures were $9.6 million for the full fiscal year, including $2.1 million during the Q4 as we continued to invest capital in manufacturing, retail, technology, and infrastructure.

We also continued our practice of returning capital to shareholders in the form of cash dividends. This past April, our board increased the regular quarterly cash dividend by 8.3% to $0.39 per share, which was subsequently paid in May and brought our total fiscal 2024 dividends paid to $50.3 million. Also, as just announced in our earnings release, our board declared a special cash dividend of $0.40 per share in addition to our regular quarterly cash dividend, both of which will be paid in August.

This recent action marks the fourth consecutive year we have paid a special cash dividend. In summary, our vertically integrated business delivered positive fiscal 2024 operating results during a period marked by industry-wide soft demand and challenging headwinds. We achieved these results and generated strong cash flows while protecting our margin gains through disciplined investments and solid execution. We are building a fundamentally stronger company, protecting our profitability and enhancing our operational efficiencies. As we move into fiscal 2025, we will continue to carefully manage our expense structure while investing in growth initiatives that we believe will further our business. We remain cautiously optimistic as our balance sheet has us well positioned. With that, I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Kathwari.

Farooq Kathwari (Chairman and CEO)

All right. Thank you, Matt. Matt provided a good overview of our financial results for the fiscal Q4 and year ended June 30, 2024. I will now briefly discuss our strategic priorities as follows. Versus talent, continued development of strong talent is critical to our vertically integrated structure. We are pleased with strong leadership talent in all areas of our enterprise, which includes manufacturing, retail, logistics, marketing, merchandising, technology, and finance. In marketing, we continue to provide innovative marketing both in content as well as the mediums we utilize. While overall marketing expenditures equal to 2.8% of sales, much lower than the 4% of sales we had five years back, the ability to utilize technology in marketing is a game changer.

For example, we now reach over nine million households every two weeks with our 36-page digital magazine. We also continue to quarterly mail our printed magazines.

Budd Bugatch (Senior Research Analyst)

This past quarter also mailed our 2024 Style Book. The interaction on social media by our interior designers is extremely important. Utilizing technology at all levels is key to our vertical integration, which involves manufacturing, producing efficiently about 75% of our products in our North American facilities. Also, many years back, we operated over 30 manufacturing plants in the United States, and today the number is 10 in North America. Now, technology has helped us retain strong talent in all areas of our business, and especially in manufacturing, where we have reduced headcount by 28% since 2019. Our national and retail logistics is very important for our vertically integrated company. We are unique as we deliver our products, what we call a white-glove service, to our clients in North America at one delivered price.

Many years back, we operated 10 national distribution centers for our North American retail, and now one major facility with a smaller backup provides this service. Our retail logistics has also been greatly made smaller, more efficient. Today, we have 22 service centers that deliver great service to our clients throughout North America. Now, combining technology with talented associates has been critical, resulting in very professional service in all areas of our business. It has also resulted in lower headcount. For example, 10 years back, we had a total headcount of 5,000 associates, and now it is 3,400, a reduction of 32%. Now, providing superior service is key to our vertical integration.

We are an interior design-based network, and last year, we further enhanced by a number of initiatives, including the launch of what we call the Interior Design Destination concept. This initiative provides great projection throughout our enterprise, reduces the size of our interior designers, and helps provide superior service by interior designers. Having consistent offerings shown in our design centers has helped productivity and service at all levels, from retail to manufacturing to logistics. Now, since our start over 92 years back, we continue to be a socially responsible enterprise. That is in all areas of our enterprise, whether it is from manufacturing to logistics to retail and other areas as well.

Now, finally, we are very pleased that we were recently named again as America's Premier Retailer by a study conducted by Newsweek. With that good news, I'd like to open it up for any questions or comments.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now 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 would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we pull for questions. Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Taylor Zick with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Taylor Zick (Assistant VP)

Hi there. How are you?

Farooq Kathwari (Chairman and CEO)

I'm doing well. How are you, Zick?

Taylor Zick (Assistant VP)

Thanks very much.

Farooq Kathwari (Chairman and CEO)

I just wanted to start and ask about the cadence of written orders during the quarter. You obviously saw some pretty strong sequential improvement in 3Q and 4Q. So could you talk a little bit more about what led to that improvement? And then maybe if you have any comments on how July is trending so far?

All right. Well, you're talking about Q4. Q4, we had, I think, somewhat consistent business throughout the quarter and obviously somewhat stronger towards the end. And I think it also reflected to a great degree the work of our interior designers. They make a tremendous amount of contacts. And then the social media is tremendously important. So I would say that Matt is correct with our business was somewhat consistent throughout the quarter.

Matt McNulty (SVP, CFO, and Treasurer)

Yes, that is correct. It was fairly consistent with a little bit of a heightened around the Memorial Day week that in May, there was a little bit of elevated written.

Taylor Zick (Assistant VP)

Gotcha. And then maybe just one on the cost side as well. You, Farooq and Matt, you've done a great job kind of controlling the costs and structurally reducing the overhead over the past few years. But I'm curious what kind of levers you have left if demand does stay any more challenged. Obviously, you've seen an improvement, but what else can you do on the cost side to kind of maintain some of these margins?

Farooq Kathwari (Chairman and CEO)

Well, this is this question about constant reinvention that is something that you've got to get into the system in everybody's mind. So it starts with that mindset. And then technology has played an important role in all areas of our business. As we mentioned, today, we have about our headcount is at 2.5% versus 4% 4 or 5 years back. Tremendous reduction in headcount, but more qualified people. So initiatives of this technology, but technology is only good if you've got good people. So we have used technology in our retail network, less people, as I mentioned. We have technology in our manufacturing, in our logistics. So technology has been tremendously important, which has also resulted in less people. Our headcount is lower, as I mentioned. So I would say it first starts with an attitude.

Budd Bugatch (Senior Research Analyst)

It starts with the fact that people have to have. You've got to have stronger people and you've got to have technology.

Taylor Zick (Assistant VP)

Understood. If I could squeeze one last in, and I think I'll head back towards the written orders. Is there anything else you can share on the improvement in written orders? Have you seen the refocus on the home continue in the most recent Q4? Has traffic increased? Any thoughts on conversion or financing and anything like that to kind of help us handicap this pretty good improvement?

Speaker 6

Yes. I think that when you take a look at our written orders, we discussed it. Our written orders, interestingly, when you take a look at it, do we share the written orders?

Farooq Kathwari (Chairman and CEO)

Yes, we do.

Matt McNulty (SVP, CFO, and Treasurer)

We do. Okay. They were down.

Taylor Zick (Assistant VP)

Yeah, the percentage.

Matt McNulty (SVP, CFO, and Treasurer)

They were down 1.3%. That is really incredible that with all the challenges being faced by the country and problems. So we held up our retail business. And I think as we go forward, it looks like we're going to be holding it up to the previous year, even though there are a lot of challenges. Again, challenges relating to economic challenges, political challenges. But I believe that we have that opportunity.

Taylor Zick (Assistant VP)

Great. Thank you.

Farooq Kathwari (Chairman and CEO)

All right. Thanks very much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Cristina Fernandez with Telsey Advisory Group. Please proceed with your question.

Farooq Kathwari (Chairman and CEO)

Hello, Christina. How are you?

Cristina Fernandez (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Good. How are you, Farooq? Hi, Matt. Yeah, I wanted to follow up on Taylor's question about demand. I guess if you take a step back and think about the industry, and particularly furniture demand, I mean, do you think overall it's getting better? We've reached a point where demand has bottomed, or do you see it as more specific to Ethan Allen and some of the, I don't know if it's, as you said, product or marketing or your designers that allow you to do a lot better than some other players this past couple of months?

Matt McNulty (SVP, CFO, and Treasurer)

Well, it's also a factor that, I mean, there are a lot of many great companies in our industry, and I think well and most likely will do well. Our focus has been whereby we have focused on one brand, one program, one level of quality, and close to 70% made in our own workshops right here in North America. All of those things have been a factor in terms of our profitability. It's amazing we have less headcount than we have had last year or even certainly four years back. So I think this question of combining great talent, when we look at, for instance, let us say North America.

Budd Bugatch (Senior Research Analyst)

North America is where we manufacture the product. We deliver our products at one cost nationally. The other area that has been very important and critical has been our interior design network. That interior design network is very stable. It's less because of the fact that over a period of time, we have less people, but very qualified people, talented people. So those elements, that is, vertical integration from making manufacturing, delivering our product. Think of this. When I did this 20 years back, people thought I was crazy that we will deliver our product at the same price in New York and in San Francisco and Miami and Texas. It can't be done. Well, it can be done, but you have to have a vertical integration to make it happen.

I think all of those factors are important. I think that our interior designer network is less, but very talented and qualified. Combining interior designers with technology is, as I said earlier, the game changer. So those things differentiate us. We have one level of quality. We produce the programs of products, and consumers suffer. They're much more careful who they buy from. In the last two, three years back, that was not the case. So I would say those companies that have some of the ingredients I'm talking about most likely will do well.

Cristina Fernandez (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thanks. And my second question, I wanted to see if you could expand on your strategic plans for fiscal year 2025, particularly as it relates to your showroom. Do you plan to expand the number of showrooms? And also in marketing, should we think about sort of 3% of sales being a good guidepost for the upcoming fiscal year? Thanks.

Farooq Kathwari (Chairman and CEO)

In terms of our retail design centers, it has remained pretty consistent. We have today, we have 142 design centers that we operate and we own. Pre-COVID, we were 144. So we have overall, when you take a look at it, we have design centers. We have about 30 that are operated by our independent retailers with an average association of 40 years with us, families. So I think that we are very careful where we're going to bring in. So this last year, I think we only brought in two or three new design centers. I think going forward, it will be most likely three-five, but not a large number. Our focus is to make sure we improve what we have. But also in this last year, as you know, we reduced the size of our design centers.

Budd Bugatch (Senior Research Analyst)

We reduced some of our design centers to 20,000 sq ft and above. I said, "No, the max size is 12,500." The newer ones we're getting is anywhere from 6,000 to 8,000 or 9,000 sq ft. So I think that our focus really is having—and then the other thing we did was, you might say we called them the interior design concept. We redesigned all our design centers with one great look. 10 years, five years back, people in New Jersey thought they were very different than in Long Island. Forget California or Florida. All our design centers today, especially the company-operated one, have one image. Now, the other thing that we are doing is now we have been developing a lot of also new products.

Again, we have to be cautious that we only bring in products because we don't sell it to anybody else. It's all through our own network. But we have been adding new products. And as we have the ability to make the product, it is coming into our design centers. And by next April, around that time, we will have another major introduction of new products, which we are developing right now.

Cristina Fernandez (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Last question, can you talk about the State Department contract? I guess, how did that progress this quarter? Are you seeing any more demand? Do you expect it to be a little bit of a pause here with potentially a change in administration?

Farooq Kathwari (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, that's a good question. But with this conflict in the Middle East, it did have an impact where the State Department focus was on a lot of other factors, security. But we have seen in the last two or three months, they're starting to focus back on the home. So we're starting to get good orders now. So it looks like that we will have good business with the State Department this fiscal year.

Cristina Fernandez (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you and good luck.

Farooq Kathwari (Chairman and CEO)

All right, Christina. Thanks very much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Budd Bugatch with Water Tower Research. Please proceed with your question.

Farooq Kathwari (Chairman and CEO)

Hello, Budd. How are you?

Budd Bugatch (Senior Research Analyst)

I'm well, thanks. How are you? Thank you for taking my question.

Farooq Kathwari (Chairman and CEO)

Well, look at it. I've been only doing, hey, Budd, I've been only doing it for 30 years, 35 years now, your questions.

Budd Bugatch (Senior Research Analyst)

A longer time than that, Freak. Yes, that's correct. Let's talk a little bit about the dichotomy of sales between wholesale and retail. The retail sales are still down about 20%. How do they parse out between domestic and international?

Farooq Kathwari (Chairman and CEO)

Matt is here, but I would say that international was much more impacted during the COVID period last year. The good news is they're starting to get back. In fact, many of our international design centers have also been repositioned with this interior design concept, and they're having ribbon cuttings in many parts of the world. But I think that our U.S. business was down—well, if you take a look at it, this last quarter was down only 1.3% in the retail division, while our international most likely were down close to—what is it in here? I'm looking at it—30%, right? Yeah. So international is coming back. It was impacted in this COVID period to a great degree, all kinds of issues. But the good news is they're coming back about.

Matt McNulty (SVP, CFO, and Treasurer)

Yeah. Budd, just to add, this is Matt here. You are right that wholesale sales were down 20% while retail was down 7%. A lot of the driver for that or the difference is on our contract business and international business. As Mr. Kathwari alluded to, our fiscal 2nd and Q3s, the State Department was slow. Conflict in the Middle East and other factors that delayed the purchases. So the subsequent delivery of those orders didn't happen as fast as the Q4 for us. So that definitely was a lot weaker than the retail division sales side of things now. We're seeing some improvement in there, as we talked about on the State Department business. So we should see those two numbers or metrics, retail sales and wholesale sales, more aligned.

Farooq Kathwari (Chairman and CEO)

But having said all of that, really, this wholesale orders were down 9%, considering all those problems that we are talking about. So it's not too bad, but I think they'll come back.

Budd Bugatch (Senior Research Analyst)

Well, I'm concerned about the wholesale as it impacts the partner stores. You're right. I mean, the international side of it was, I think, weak over the first couple of quarters of the year. Most of that's Asia. Is that the weakness we're seeing in the international?

Farooq Kathwari (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

Budd Bugatch (Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. And you gave us the wholesale backlog of, I think, $53.5 million. Did I miss your giving us the retail backlog at the quarter end?

Matt McNulty (SVP, CFO, and Treasurer)

We do not publicly disclose the retail backlog, but typically, it's a little under 2x the customer deposits on our balance sheet.

Budd Bugatch (Senior Research Analyst)

I think that's what you told me last quarter as well. I was giving you the opportunity to see if you wanted to make a change to that or.

Farooq Kathwari (Chairman and CEO)

Well, Budd is giving you more information than we give to anybody else. But anyway, go ahead, Budd.

Budd Bugatch (Senior Research Analyst)

I'm not so sure. I'm not so sure I do agree with that, Farooq. I agree with you that you are an incredible businessman, and you run the business with a great deal of discipline. But the amount of information, that's a topic of another conversation.

Farooq Kathwari (Chairman and CEO)

All right.

Budd Bugatch (Senior Research Analyst)

The $34 million or so, I think, of investments, you included that into the cash and investments side of the business. Can you talk a little bit about what that investment is or what those investments are?

Farooq Kathwari (Chairman and CEO)

You're talking about the U.S. Treasuries or what? Yeah, all of our, Budd, we have close to $200 million in cash. Correctly, any extra cash we put into U.S. Treasuries.

Budd Bugatch (Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. All right. Well, good luck on the upcoming year, and good luck to society in the upcoming year as well.

Farooq Kathwari (Chairman and CEO)

All right. Well, always good to hear from you, Budd.

Budd Bugatch (Senior Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Kathwari for closing comments.

Farooq Kathwari (Chairman and CEO)

All right, man. Thanks very much. Well, good to have you all on this call. We've gone through a lot of challenges, but I've always felt that challenges create opportunities. We are positioned well. We have strong product programs. And in the next year, we're going to now introduce more new products because we held that back. We have retail network strengthened. We have repositioned all our design centers. We have a strong manufacturing base both in North America and a little bit. And then, as I said earlier, technology has played a tremendously important role. Combining great talent with technology is what it's all about. And I think as we move forward, continuing with these initiatives of strong product programs, strong talent, providing great service, and then finally, be a socially responsible company.

Budd Bugatch (Senior Research Analyst)

We have been recognized by many organizations, and I'm happy that, as I said, in Newsweek for the second time, named us as America's number one retailer, furniture retailer. Thanks very much. Any questions, please let us know.

Operator (participant)

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.