FGI Industries - Q4 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day, and welcome to the FGI Industries fourth quarter 2023 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 telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Paul Bartolai, Managing Director at Vallum Advisors. Please go ahead.

Paul Bartolai (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you. Welcome to FGI Industries' fourth quarter and full year 2023 results conference call. Leading the call today are President and CEO, David Bruce, and Chief Financial Officer, Perry Lin. We issued a press release after the market closed yesterday, detailing our recent operational and financial results. I would like to remind you that management's commentary and responses to questions on today's conference call may include forward-looking statements, which, by their nature, are uncertain and outside of the company's control. Although these forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs, actual results may differ materially. For a discussion of some of the factors that could cause actual results to differ, please refer to the Risk Factors section of our latest filings with the SEC.

Additionally, please note that you can find reconciliations of historical Non-GAAP financial measures in the press release issued yesterday and in the appendix of this presentation, which is available on the company's website. Today's call will begin with a performance review and strategic update from David Bruce, followed by a financial review from Perry Lin. At the conclusion of these prepared remarks, we will open the line for your questions. With that, I'll turn the call over to Dave.

David Bruce (CEO)

Thanks, Paul. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our call today. I'm extremely pleased with our solid fourth quarter results and improved momentum as we enter 2024. We have seen inventory levels normalize, and we experienced improved order trends across our key businesses during the fourth quarter, due in large part to the investments we made in our organic growth initiatives throughout the year under our Brands, Products, and Channels, or BPC strategy. The improved order momentum has carried into the early months of 2024, further bolstered by the resoundingly positive reception from customers to our groundbreaking products and engaging presentation at the recent Kitchen and Bath Show in Las Vegas, the largest event of its kind in North America. This recent success has not only reaffirmed our standing as a leader in the industry, but has also propelled us to new heights.

Our participation in the Kitchen and Bath Show was marked by the unveiling of our latest designs and technological breakthroughs, including our Flush Guard anti-overflow toilet designs, which garnered accolades by winning two prestigious awards. The enthusiastic response from attendees at KBIS has sparked considerable interest and anticipation, further cementing our reputation for innovation and excellence. These recent events give me continued confidence we are on track for significantly improved results in 2024. We experienced solid growth trends across most of our business portfolio during the fourth quarter, driven by improved order momentum, generally stable end market demand, and normalization of inventory levels. Each of our business segments showed year-over-year growth during the fourth quarter, other than our bath furniture segment, which continues to be impacted by demand weakness and a trade down to lower-priced offerings. Total revenue ended down 2.6% in the fourth quarter.

Our ongoing focus on higher-margin products drove another quarter of strong gross margin improvement, with fourth quarter gross margin increasing roughly 550 basis points to 29.2%, our highest quarterly gross margin result as a public company. This drove a 20.1% increase in gross profit during the fourth quarter. While the inventory destocking headwinds had been obscuring much of the progress during 2023, we continue to make progress on our growth initiatives. It is very exciting to see these efforts begin to show through in our results during the fourth quarter, and we expect to see more of this in the coming quarters.

On our first call as a public company two years ago, I introduced our long-term strategic plan to drive shareholder value that was based on driving organic growth through our BPC strategy, enhanced margin performance, and efficient capital deployment. While we faced many headwinds during 2023, I am very proud of our continued focus and execution against our strategic goals during the year. I would like to take this opportunity to walk through some of our key accomplishments during the fourth quarter and highlight some of our key strategic priorities for 2024. As it relates to our BPC program and our organic growth initiatives, we continued to make solid progress on our recently launched programs and new product offerings during the quarter.

First, as we have discussed on recent calls, we entered into a licensing agreement that provides us access to an industry-leading overflow toilet technology, which we recently announced will be marketed as Flush Guard Overflow Technology. During the fourth quarter, we were awarded product placements at several large customers, including two of the largest commercial distributors in North America. We exhibited a new line of retail and commercial sanitary ware products featuring Flush Guard at the 2024 Kitchen and Bath Show. Additionally, FGI won first place at the highly coveted DesignBites competition at KBIS 2024 as the industry innovation with the biggest bite for its Flush Guard technology. Second, we continue to focus on initiatives to expand geographically, with agreements providing entry into India, Eastern Europe, Australia, and the U.K.

In the U.K., we landed our first new customer partners in 2023, and we continue to build on these relationships with several major customer awards on the horizon in the U.K., Germany, and India, across both our retail and wholesale channels. In the last month, we have entered into agreements with three new distributor partners in India, and we are excited by the opportunity to grow our product penetration with these partners and take advantage of the vast growth potential of the Indian market. We look forward to continuing to grow our presence in these markets in the coming quarters and years.

Third, we continue to execute on our recently announced program awards, including the online shower door program for an existing large Canadian retail partner that commenced in June 2023, and the rollout of our industry-leading shower wall program into as many as 300 locations of a large U.S. retailer. Our new Jetcoat shower wall products were a hit among the KBIS show attendees. We expect these programs to continue to ramp up in 2024, driving further momentum into the new year. Fourth, during the third quarter, we announced an in-store promotion with a large U.S. retailer that did not previously carry any of our sanitary ware products to lay the groundwork for future growth. I'm excited to report that following a successful promotion, we placed several new sanitary ware SKUs with this retailer, which feature the new Flush Guard overflow technology.

We look forward to continued growth with this new partner in the coming years. Finally, our custom cabinetry business continues to grow rapidly. Our premium Covered Bridge brand added 203 new dealers during 2023, bringing our total active dealer count to 302 at the end of the year. We had a large display at the 2024 Kitchen and Bath Show that showcased our Covered Bridge custom kitchen cabinetry line, and the enormously positive feedback we received at the show gives us confidence that Covered Bridge has increasingly strong growth momentum, all while contributing to the highest average gross margins across any of our product segments. We are also pleased to announce that Isla Porter, our new digital custom kitchen cabinetry business, has recently announced its soft launch, with an official launch anticipated in the spring of 2024.

By leveraging industry-leading AI software with our existing custom kitchen operations infrastructure and an unmatched commitment to premium on-trend products, we believe Isla Porter will reach new heights in terms of cabinetry, personalization, convenience, and design. We are very excited by our progress on our strategic growth initiatives, which we expect to be a key driver of our improved results in 2024 and should help us drive above-market organic growth in the coming years. The second focus of our value creation strategy is on operating efficiency and driving margin expansion. We reported another quarter of strong year-over-year gross margin improvement, driven by our strategic decision to focus on higher-margin categories. For the full year 2023, we reported gross margin of 27.4%, up nearly 800 basis points from 2022, despite the revenue headwinds. Finally, our third focus is on efficient capital deployment.

We made meaningful progress during 2023 in reducing our working capital usage, which resulted in improved free cash flow conversion and lower net debt levels. While debt repayment and investment in organic initiatives has been our main priority, we continue to evaluate opportunities for strategic bolt-on acquisition opportunities. As we survey 2024, we are excited by the growing momentum in our growth initiatives. The demand environment for the home improvement market remains uneven, with several industry forecasters predicting modest declines in repair and remodel spending in 2024. However, as Perry will discuss when he covers our 2024 outlook in more detail, based on the progress of our recent product launches and new programs under our BPC strategy, we are confident we can generate above-market growth in 2024.

While we faced many market headwinds during 2023, I'm extremely proud of our team and our continued focus on our long-term strategic objectives. This has positioned the company for a solid year in 2024 and continued success in the coming years. With that, I will turn it over to Perry for a more detailed review of our financials.

Perry Lin (CFO)

Thank you, Dave, and good morning, everyone. I will provide some additional details on the quarter, give an update on our liquidity and balance sheet, and wrap it up with our full year 2024 guidance. Revenue total, $31 million during the fourth quarter of 2023, a decrease of 2.6% compared to the prior year, driven by continued end market demand weakness in the bath furniture market, partially offset by growth in the sanitary ware shower system and kitchen cabinetry. Looking at our business line, sanitary ware revenue was $20.6 million during the fourth quarter, up 1.8% from last year due to improved order pattern as our new program are beginning to benefit the result. Bath furniture revenue was $2.5 million during the fourth quarter, down from $6.1 million in the prior year period.

The bath furniture market continued to be impacted by macro headwinds and a trade down to lower-ticket products. As we have discussed previously, we are launching product offering in the mid-tier category to better address current demand and hope to see improved trend in the incoming quarters. Shower system revenue was $5.7 million during the first quarter, up 55% from $3.7 million last year. Demand trend in the shower category remains steady, and our recently launched program are building momentum. We continue to expect this new program to drive improved trend into 2024. Other revenue, which consists primarily of the custom kitchen cabinetry business, was $2.1 million during the first quarter, up from $1.7 million last year, due to continued demand growth and new product launches.

Gross profit was $9 million during the first quarter, an increase of 20.1% compared to last year, driven by strong growth in our higher-margin product. As a result, gross profit margin improved to 29.2%, up roughly 550 basis points from the prior year. We expect our full year 2024 gross margin to be consistent with our strong gross margin performance generated during the full year 2023. Our operating expenses increased to $7.8 million during the first quarter, up from $6.5 million last year, due to ongoing investment in our growth initiatives, including marketing spending for the recently launched FlushPower Overflow toilet product line and expenses tied to new custom kitchen cabinetry business development opportunity. GAAP operating income was $1.2 million during the first quarter, up 20% from income of $1 million last year.

Excluding certain non-recurring expenses, adjusted operating income was $1.4 million during the fourth quarter. The increase in operating income was a result of our gross profit growth, partially offset by higher operating expense tied to growth initiatives. Adjusted operating margin was 4.4% during the fourth quarter, flat to the same period last year. GAAP net income was $500,000 or $0.05 per diluted share during the fourth quarter of 2023, down modestly from the same period last year. Now, turning to balance sheet and our liquidity. As of December 31st, 2023, the company had $7.8 million of cash and cash equivalents and total debt of $7 million. At the end of the quarter, we had $16.6 million of availability under our credit facilities, net of letter of credit.

Combined with cash, total liquidity was $24.4 million at quarter end. We believe we are in a solid liquidity position that is more than sufficient to fund our growth initiatives. Finally, turning to guidance. As our growth investment continue to gain momentum and inventory level has normalized, we expect to return to organic growth in 2024, despite our expectation that end market are flat to down modestly. In addition, we expect to continue to increase our growth in investment to take advantage of attractive opportunity under our BPC strategy. Based on this factor, we are providing initial 2024 guidance for revenue in the range of $115 million-$128 million. Adjusted operating income in the range of $2.8 million-$3.8 million, and adjusted net income of between $1.2 million-$2 million.

Please note that the guidance for the net income and adjusted operating income is provided on an adjusted basis and excludes certain non-recurring items. That completes our prepared remarks. Operator, we are now ready for the question and answer portion of our call.

Operator (participant)

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. Our first question comes from Reuben Garner with The Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.

Reuben Garner (Managing Director)

Thank you. Good morning, guys.

David Bruce (CEO)

Hey, good morning, Reuben.

Perry Lin (CFO)

Good morning.

Reuben Garner (Managing Director)

So, a pretty strong outlook from a top line perspective this coming year, despite, you know, what seems to continue to be kind of a sluggish environment, at least on the retail front. Can you talk about what your end market assumptions are within this outlook? And then, you know, you've got a lot of moving pieces with new business and new geographies and new customers. Like, is there any way to quantify just how much you have kind of within your control over the next 12 months?

David Bruce (CEO)

Yeah, it's a good question. Thanks. Yeah, I mean, you know, we've been talking for some time about our ability or at least our intent to grow organically, initially, especially with a lot of newer businesses, you know, executing the BPC strategy with newer products, which we highlighted today as an example, our recent technological advance in the toilet. And in addition to that, our channel expansions, which we've talked about, with Europe and in India. And, you know, as far as how does that relate to what we see in the market? You know, as we mentioned, the market, there's a lot of market forecasting right now that is looking at the, particularly the R&R market as being flat or down low to mid-single digits.

But, you know, our expectation is based on the new programs that we're starting to execute, which you saw some of the results of that in Q4, that we should be able to outpace that down or estimated, you know, moderating market with by taking some share and instituting new programs, which will give us incremental new business opportunities. And that's, again, you know, some of that was sort of impacted as if we go back to the end of the prior 2022 into 2023 with destocking, right? And we talked about that. We don't see that having any material impact on our business in 2024. So, you know, again, it's a matter of timing and execution on these new programs, which have started to impact our business positively.

You know, that's how we sort of see the balance between our organic growth with those new programs, and also in the face of a, you know, flat to slightly down market overall.

Reuben Garner (Managing Director)

Okay, great. And then, can you talk about how pricing has, I guess, trended or, or what the full impact of pricing was in 2023, and, and sort of what expectation is embedded in your outlook for, for 2024?

David Bruce (CEO)

Yeah, we don't, we don't anticipate that pricing is gonna be a material impact either way in 2024. You know, adjustments were made in 2023. As we know, a large portion of pricing in 2023 emanated from freight costs. That being said, freight has ramped up a bit so far this year. We're gonna keep an eye on that. You know, our, our belief and our estimates are that things should even out as we go through the middle part of the year. And there's, you know, there's, there's no way to guarantee that price won't come into play, you know, should, should cost elevate. But as of, as of our, you know, our look into 2024 at this point, we don't anticipate price playing a major factor either way.

Reuben Garner (Managing Director)

Okay. And then a two-part question here on your operating expenses. Last year, I think, was kind of viewed as a year of investment, despite a tough end market. It looks like you're, if I'm doing the math correctly, kind of sustaining that level of spending this year. Am I thinking about that the right way? Was there any one-time expenditures last year that are maybe a little bit more permanent, or they're just new one-time expenditures? And the second part of the question is: how do we think about that long term in terms of, you know, your percentage of revenue? I mean, when you first came public, it was in the kind of mid-teens.

Now, it's been kind of consistently in the mid-twenties the last couple of years or last year, and sounds like going into this year. Is that something that will trend back lower at some point, or are you more focused on kind of the investments to grow and to drive that higher gross margin that you've got?

David Bruce (CEO)

Yeah. Yeah, you just finished on what I was gonna sort of lead into. So you're 100% correct, and, you know, we've cited the fact that, you know, our gross margin expansion is sort of muted when you look at the OpEx impact to our growth. But that's exactly what we're trying to do. You know, we're not necessarily on. I'm not necessarily targeting a percentage per se, right now. The key is that we're trying to prepare ourselves for the growth that we're investing in. And we know that, and I can't give you a particular number, but we know we can scale this business well beyond where we're at today with the majority of the infrastructure we have in place now, right?

So we're sort of, we're sort of prepping ourselves for that in some sense, if you wanna call it that. Some of those investments are obviously tied directly to, you know, new business opportunities, expanding into Europe, expanding into India, the new digital kitchen venture, for example, marketing for our new toilet innovation. So those are things that we're investing in, that a lot of those you won't see, you know, when it comes to expansion in geographical markets. You know, as we've already pretty much dove into that, you know, there'll be marketing expenses related to that, but that'll all be commensurate with new business, right?

The overall answer to the question is, as we scale the business with the infrastructure we have in place, the percentage of the OpEx will slowly drop, because we believe we have a lot of elasticity between the investment right now, a lot of operating leverage between what we have in place versus where we can go with that.

Perry Lin (CFO)

Yeah, I think, Reuben, you know, where, you know, we are looking at the OpEx, I think the overall goal, our goal is drive the gross margin dollar. Also, you know, maintain a reasonable OpEx spending. You know, the end game is, you know, increase our operating income percentage. That's what, you know, we are doing, currently and future.

Reuben Garner (Managing Director)

Great. Thanks, guys. Congrats on the close of the year, and good luck in 2024.

David Bruce (CEO)

Thanks.

Perry Lin (CFO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Greg Gibas with Northland Securities. Please go ahead.

Greg Gibas (Senior Research Analyst)

Hey, good morning, Dave and Perry. Thanks for taking the questions.

David Bruce (CEO)

Good morning.

Greg Gibas (Senior Research Analyst)

You know, if I could follow up on the gross margin side, you know, really nice. I mean, I think you said, you know, highest gross margin in the company's public history, 550 basis points year-over-year. You know, what were the primary drivers of that improvement? And, you know, do you view those improved margins as sustainable, or do you kind of see upside from here? Just kind of wondering, you know, how you expect those to trend and where you're seeing, you know, maybe opportunities for improved margins.

David Bruce (CEO)

... Sure. Yeah, that's a good question. So, yeah, in the short term, I think I mentioned in the release that, you know, we definitely anticipate that we'll be able to maintain our gross margin posture, like, till as far as what we averaged in 2023. We did have a great Q4. I'm not sure that the Q4 number is a realistic sustainable gross margin for 2024. However, that being said, we do expect to continue to grow our margins because a lot of our growth is coming from higher margin categories, which we've emphasized a lot. Kitchens is probably the best example. That's our highest margin business that we have. We continue to expand. I mean, the reaction to our kitchen exhibition at KBIS was phenomenal.

Our shower business continues to grow. We keep adding new product, growing the margin there. And then as we've talked about over the last couple of years, dollars, gross margin dollars are a key focus for us as well. And as a lot of the sanitary ware, you know, shake out in the industry moderates as far as inventory levels and, ordering cadence, you know, as we see that come back to life, that's gonna contribute to the dollar side as well. So as we scale the business, we really do feel we'll be able to improve gross margin going forward, in the short and the long term.

Greg Gibas (Senior Research Analyst)

Great. Makes sense. Cool. And then, you know, I wanted to follow up. I know we've talked about this for, you know, several quarters now, but,

David Bruce (CEO)

Mm-hmm.

Greg Gibas (Senior Research Analyst)

You know, where categories or, or I guess, exactly what categories are you seeing destocking maybe persist longer than you anticipated or, or, you know, even, even worsen? But then maybe where are you seeing some improvements? Just wondering if you could address those dynamics.

David Bruce (CEO)

Yeah, I mean, I think I just briefly mentioned, you know, we don't really see any material impact to our results this year from destocking. Destocking has pretty much normalized across the industry. That being said, it doesn't mean... You know, there's local, little, small pockets at certain customers with certain categories, but from a material aspect to our business, it's gonna be minimal. I think the difference this year, and I think I touched upon this on last quarter, you know, retail and wholesale, while their inventory levels have normalized, they're also looking at a more conservative base level inventory.

So, you know, that's just cautionary, based on what I mentioned earlier, is they know that the market, their, their forecasts are flat to slightly down, so their inventory levels are gonna be looked at with a little more scrutiny. So I don't think you're gonna see the big spikes, obviously, that we saw in 2021 and 2022. And everybody's, you know, frets over that when they, when they go through something like that. So but that being said, there's no abnormality to what I believe we're gonna see from an ordering perspective. It's just gonna be a little bit more conservative with a little bit lower inventory levels, but for the most part, everybody's sort of there. So I think that was the key. You know, the middle of last year, people weren't there yet, and the, the destocking was impacting order cadence.

I think, as we head into, you know, as we've headed into this year and as we go into the middle part of the year, I think, you know, that you're not gonna hear us talk about destocking as an impact to the business.

Greg Gibas (Senior Research Analyst)

Okay, sounds good. You know, I guess lastly, just to follow up on your commentary on, you know, strategic bolt-on opportunities, you know-

David Bruce (CEO)

Mm-hmm.

Greg Gibas (Senior Research Analyst)

You know, what types of opportunities are you thinking about or evaluating? You know, and do valuation multiples make sense in a way or are reasonably attractive?

David Bruce (CEO)

Yeah, I think it's a good question because I... You know, we had a year and a half ago, there was a little bit more what I would call a flurry of activity with opportunities that came across our desk. We came close on one or two. They didn't pan out and didn't meet, you know, some of the requirements that we had set for ourselves. And then it got quiet, and then I think obviously it got quiet because, you know, 2023 was sort of a rough year for people, again, with, you know, inventory destocking and just a very uneven market. But, you know, we are engaging in some more conversations today. You know, and I think when you look at the multiples, yeah, it's gonna. You have to look at some historicals.

It's been a rough couple of years to sort of gauge what the value of a company is. You know, so I think part of our strength here is that we are not looking to at bolt-on opportunities for companies that are outside of our what I would call our categorical dominance, which is bath and kitchen, right? So, you know, we—many of the companies that we might look at are related to our industry, quite tied in. If it's not the same product, it's a related product category, maybe in a different channel. So I think we have enough information based on our industry experience, and then, of course, with Perry reviewing the financials and looking at, you know, how we're gonna judge those multiples. I think we'll be able to make wise decisions as we move forward.

Hopefully, like I said, you know, we've been a little bit more involved in the last several months, so, hopefully they'll... something will come to fruition.

Greg Gibas (Senior Research Analyst)

Got it. Thanks for the color.

David Bruce (CEO)

Sure.

Operator (participant)

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

David Bruce (CEO)

Thank you for the time and interest today. We appreciate your continued support of FGI. Stay well, and if we don't connect during the quarter, we look forward to speaking with you on our next quarterly call. Thank you.

Greg Gibas (Senior Research Analyst)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.