Natuzzi - Q4 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Natuzzi's Conference Call for 2023 Fourth Quarter and Full Year Financial Results. As a reminder, interested parties can join this conference call live, also via telephone, by dialing in the following number: +1 412-717-9633, then passcode 39252103#, in addition to the link already provided to join via video. Once again, if you'd like to join via telephone, please press +1 412-717-9633, then passcode 39252103#. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Following the introduction, we'll conduct a Q&A session. Instructions will be provided at that time for you to queue up for questions.

Joining us on today's call are Mr. Antonio Achille, Natuzzi's Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Pasquale Natuzzi, Founder and Executive Chairman; Mr. Carlo Silvestri, Chief Financial Officer; then Mr. Mario De Gennaro, Chief HR Organization and Legal Officer; Mr. Diego Babbo, Global Retail Division Officer, and Piero Direnzo, Investor Relations. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. I'd now like to turn the conference over to Piero. Please go ahead.

Piero Direnzo (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Kevin, and good day to everyone. Thank you for joining the Natuzzi's conference call for the 2023 fourth quarter and full year financial results. After a brief introduction, we will give room for the Q&A session. Before proceeding, we would like to advise our listeners that our discussion today could contain certain statements that constitute forward-looking statements under the United States securities laws. Obviously, actual results might differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements because of risks and uncertainties that can affect our results of operations and financial conditions. Please refer to our last annual report on 04/20/2023 filed with the SEC for a complete review of those risks. The company assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking matters discussed during this call. And now I would like to turn the call over to the company's Chief Executive Officer. Please, Antonio.

Antonio Achille (CEO)

Thank you, Piero. Good morning, everyone, and good afternoon for people which are connecting from Europe. Let me start to briefly discuss the figures of the last quarter of 2023 and the full year of 2023. I will provide, together with my colleague, an understanding of what we are doing and our long-term objective. Starting from the last quarter of the year, we reported a decline in sales. It's important to consider this decline in perspective versus 2022, where throughout the year, and especially in the last quarter of 2022, we had a strong backlog. If we net the performance of 2023 last quarter from that effect, the decrease is still significant but is in line from what we observe in the industry in general, given a very tough market for the durable and furniture in 2023.

Despite this, let's say, clearly tough market condition, in 2023 last quarter, we work to accelerate our transition to becoming a branded retail company. In particular, in the last quarter, we have reported sales from branded goods in excess of 92%, which means that basically our entire sales is composed by branded sales, either Natuzzi Italia or Natuzzi Editions. The percentage was 85% at the beginning of 2021, so a step acceleration. Equally for retail, that if you wish, is the natural consequence of becoming a branded company. Retail on total sales has been nearly 10%. Diego, can you put on silence, please, from 52% which was reported in 2021? I will discuss later, but I believe this is a very important element because Natuzzi is completing a transformation.

As investors or other people interested in our story, now we should really, in full, look at Natuzzi as a company which has been investing for more than 20 years to establish itself as a globally recognized brand, and especially with Natuzzi Italia in the high segment of the market. This also implies that we had to invest, and we will comment later also with the help of Diego, to evolve our tools and organization really to control this retail and branded business in a manner that before was not required by the company. The other area which became evident in 2023 last quarter and more in general in the full year is that we are executing and accelerating on our restructuring plan and effort.

In 2023 last quarter, in fact, we accrued EUR 5.9 million of one-off restructuring costs for interventions that will become, from a cash perspective and from a benefits perspective, visible, fully visible in the following year. In the last quarter, our gross margin net of this one-off restructuring activity has been of 36.2%, which compares with 38.8% in the last quarter of 2022, and it compares with 34.6% in the last quarter of 2019. So we are still in trajectory of improving margin, clearly the effect of having a subutilization in factory has a partial impact on the margin. These key figures on last quarter of 2023.

Looking at the full year, I would say the key underlying elements that apply to 2023 are pretty similar in the sense that for us, as for the majority of the people we compete with the public, the result, 2023 has been a year where, after a two-year of very strong demand, given the implication of real estate and low confidence of consumers, we witness a lot of postponement in purchasing. And again, this caused a decrease that, if you compare it with 2022, net of backlog is significant but in line with what we observe from competitors. We discussed about restructuring. Let me give you a few numbers to give you the size of what we're talking about.

In 2023 only, we reduced our team, especially from factory, by 514 units, 514 units, which brings the total of reduction from the beginning of 2021 to 759 units, equivalent to 17.5% of the total workforce, which I believe is a significant achievement because, in most of the geographies where we operate, starting from Italy, there is a very rigid labor law, so every step needs to be accurately planned and accurately executed. We did so avoiding any kind of, let's say, turmoil in our environment. This restructuring will produce, on a yearly basis, a benefit of EUR 22.5 million running benefit and labor costs compared to 2021. In 2023, we also kept investing some EUR 12 million, of which 4.6% in retail. We opened new doors, and 7.2% again in the area of factory enhancement.

This is the key highlight on numbers and figures, on which then our CFO will provide some other details. In opening the Q&A, I would like to give you a more holistic and strategic perspective. It's clear and evident that the results reported in 2023 are an effect of an adverse market for furniture. It's clear that those figures are well below our mid-term target and our potential. Having said that, there are three key messages I would like to share and elaborate on. The first one is now that we really have completed the transformation to become a branded company. As I mentioned, nearly 93% is branded, which is a huge, huge achievement considering that the company has been investing 20 years to arrive to this point.

Its region was very different because, in region, Natuzzi, it was an incredible growth story but very much focused on the value segment. So it was selling at a ceiling price in the US in the range of $395. Currently, in the US, the average ticket for Natuzzi Italia is in the range of $9,000, and the best-sold configuration product is in the range of $14,000. So you can imagine how much it takes to legitimate a brand to do this kind of stretch. So first element, we are a branded company. Second element, we really invested to excel in distribution.

Distribution for us is both retail where we mean the U.S. directly operated store and franchising, but also, which is very important for us, wholesale of branded product that we distribute through a format which is called Natuzzi Gallery, which again is a control format where we express the right merchandising and the right brand experience. The last element, as I mentioned, transformation which we've been working on very hard to prepare it in the last few months and year now is getting to a pace that is what's going to be continuing and accelerating in the following year. To get some more detail, talking about the retail front, we now have 680 stores with the banner Natuzzi, being them Natuzzi Italia or Natuzzi Editions, being them the U.S. or franchising operator. But for a customer perspective, those are stores.

And then we have some 600 galleries which are store-in-store. For us, both deserve equal attention. For the first area, the stores, we have worked very much to really learn how to do retail and to really control the sales at sellout level. Doing so required quite a significant investment in IT because, historically, the stores were just an account number. We didn't really have an understanding of what's happening in the store. Now we have a very timely and punctual understanding of what's happening in the store in terms of people getting in, people buying, what they buy. And this, for our transformation to become a consumer-centric company, is really invaluable. To support this knowledge get progressively spread across our market, we created not only systems but an organization.

In particular, some 12 months ago, we created an organization that we called explicitly Global Retail Excellence Division, which really has the purpose of absorbing best practices, codifying them, and making them available, first, to our directly operated stores, but progressively also to our dealer because we want the experience, the productivity, also the dealer level to be managed. Let me invite Diego Babbo for a brief illustration of some examples of what we do under this chapter of Global Retail Division.

Diego Babbo (Global Retail Division Officer)

Thank you, Antonio. Good day to everyone. Just briefly, let me introduce myself while I'm attending this call for the first time. On top of my previous experience in the retail downstream within the old company sector, I've been working for more than 20 years now in this company, embracing many roles within our retail environment, from purchasing to construction and development. I can witness the effort that Natuzzi put in place in order to sustain the transition from manufacturer to retailer and a lifestyle brand, which had to do with cultural and mindset evolution for the majority of us, supported through the adoption of new tools and routines. It is exactly, as Antonio was saying, what the retail division established last year is about.

Our goal is to set up appropriate retail processes and guidelines in order to generate consistency within the brand experience and, ultimately, increase stores' profitability. Our willingness is to partner with each regional manager and assist him or her in achieving their retail network expected performances. But let me give a few examples of some recent achievements. We have recently launched a state-of-the-art 3D room configurator, which is allowing a more efficient interaction at store level within the local trade community. We have also revised the compensation scheme for the store manager and design assistant, which, together with the launch for the first time here of a sales contest for the Global DoS Network, is intended to boost performance and sense of belonging for our employees.

We are also cherishing our store staff by addressing their training needs through a brand-new online platform boosted with the artificial intelligence-driven multilanguage live translator, which will allow, for the first time ever, to reach all our network, on top of the classroom sessions with more than 300 attendees already set up. Leveraging our store staff has already proven to achieve very good results in some of our more representative stores with double-digit growth, for instance, in our ambassador store in New York and Madrid. Back to you, Antonio.

Antonio Achille (CEO)

Thank you, Diego. Just in synthesis, I mean, to make a long story short, the Global Retail Division has the objective to improve organic performance because we have to think that with 600 stores and then we'll discuss the role of those stores in China, it's quite terrific, the upside potential that we have by simply working on organic growth. Then I mentioned branded wholesales. So, as anticipated, 40% is still distributed within wholesale branded products. That, for us, is still a very important strategic part of the business. So for that, we developed what we call Natuzzi Commercial Excellence Program. What it is about? Basically, two things. One is standardizing the format. So we define a new brand gallery format. So basically, it's a kind of business card of the Natuzzi in a multi-brand environment.

I know most of you a lot of you come from the U.S., so you need to think about the large furniture retailer where you find different providers maybe on the same floor. Given the confidence we have in our brand, we want to have a special role in positioning on the floor, which means that the shopping environment and the brand presentation need to fully express the potential of the brand like it happened in our store. So in the wholesale, we really invested on these topics, again, with organizational people appointed. Secondly, the Commercial Excellence Program aims at daily improving the performance of our commercial team. We have 304 people, a different role in the organization, some direct employees, some other agents, which are dealing with clients, with dealers.

We are standardizing the methodology they should approach this dealer, but also we are setting very clear productivity targets and budgets by dealer that can be managed centrally, again, because Natuzzi is a very spread organization, and we realized that we needed to really reinforce the control of the center. On the retail front, I believe it's very important to show a concrete sign of our commitment to that, to remember that in 2023, which is a year where a lot of companies cut investment, we actually opened 9 stores, of which 6 in North America. A store is a name, but the store can be very different. The store Natuzzi opened 30 years ago, they're very different from what we open now. What we open now, especially in the market in North America, we really strive to have a signature location, signature retail infrastructure environment.

An example is Manhasset. Manhasset, as you might know, is a Long Island. It's called the Miracle Mile because it's really connecting Manhattan to the Hamptons and is one of the areas with the highest productivity. There, we opened an absolute flagship, which is really a very iconic new store. And this is an example of what we are now doing when we talk about new stores for Natuzzi Italia. So there are really major, major investments in the appropriate location to fully express the potential of the brand commercially and from a brand perspective. Shifting here to the restructuring. Maybe before that, let me do a couple of comments on the individual market. As you know, as we discussed, we operate in other markets. But let me provide some insight in the three most important markets, which are the U.S., China, and Europe.

On the U.S., our focus remains very high. We believe it is one of the highest priorities and opportunities we have. It's where the company is listed. It's where the company, in a sense, found its own way of doing business. We opened six directly operated stores and one franchising, an additional seven galleries. And there is quite an interesting pipeline on a new gallery as we speak. We also stabilized the organization with Ottavio Giorgio taking on the baton from Jason Camp, as announced in the press release of the 7th of March. Ottavio Giorgio is a person who has more than 20 years of experience in North America, and he was with us for more than two years, really coming from the same team of Jason Camp. And then we have Scott Kruger, who is developing the branded wholesale business.

To accelerate on this letter, we also have now 24 independent agents, which basically are covering, I would say, the state not second priority, but the one where we didn't have yet a direct agent, a direct rep. So this is under the belief and certainty that the U.S. is a large opportunity, is a continent, is made of a significant state where currently Natuzzi is no longer distributed, but where, being distributed and very successful for more than 30, 40 years, there is a clear business case for coming back. The other market where I would like to provide some background is China. In fact, out of the 680 stores, more than half, 346, are in China.

First, I want to provide some insight on how to read the number of stores, the productivity of stores, because, in fact, those stores belonging to the JV where we don't have the majority are not consolidated. So that is important because, otherwise, when you assess the productivity of the retail, you might think that in some stores, we just entertain clients, but we don't sell. So when we look at the productivity, in a sense, those stores need to be carved out because for the stores that belong to Natuzzi Italia, which are 96, we report in our P&L the selling. For the stores on Natuzzi Editions, which are the majority, we report in our P&L only the cost of production plus a markup because it's the way in which the deal with the JV has been structured.

Of course, then, as a financial shareholder, we take full benefit of the growth of the JV. In the journey of becoming a global retail company, we recognized that the JV needed to be more integrated in our way of working. This happened through our presence directly. For instance, myself, but also with Pasquale, we've been several times, personally 6 times since it was possible to travel back. Now the team is really working with the same approach when it comes to retail, merchandising, and visual. We are very excited to welcome some 24 of the top dealers on Natuzzi Italia to the upcoming Milan Design Week, which is a special opportunity not only to develop business but also for brand positioning.

This year, it will be an extraordinary event because Natuzzi celebrates 65 years of heritage, and not many companies in our environment can arrive and celebrate that milestone. China is now integrated in our IT system. We can see the performance at the dealer level. We can see the performance at the U.S. level. And this, for us, is a major achievement, and it's the base on which we will build to increase the performance of China operations through our JV team that sits in Shanghai. That's on the two largest markets. I was anticipating on the restructuring. Restructuring, for us, is very important. It comes from as a consequence of the journey we are doing, you have to imagine that Natuzzi, it was historically a huge production platform.

It produced also for third parties, just to name one, which was a client since a few years ago, IKEA. So you can imagine what it means in terms of size of production, but also in terms of capabilities to move from producing that kind of product to produce something which is really top of the market and allow us now to develop, for instance, the contract business. We are developing business with a global leading resort and five-star hotel in the world. It's been a huge stretch from a brand perspective, but also from a production perspective. One of the consequences is that we don't need that much capacity anymore. Executing a restructuring is never easy. Executing a restructuring in Italy is almost impossible. We are achieving it step by step. Now it's becoming visible in terms of numbers.

As I mentioned, we let go of 759 people, out of which 260 are in Italy, south of Italy. I can assure you that normally, when you touch this kind of topic, before you get a strike and then you get a result, we have been achieving this without any strike. We are looking at a net saving of EUR 22.5 million. And I would like Mario, which has been really a leading force in driving us to do this restructuring, to provide some more insight on what we have achieved so far, but most notably on the way forward, on what we want to achieve with the full restructuring of our operation.

Mario De Gennaro (Chief HR Organization and Legal Officer)

Thank you, Antonio. Good day to everybody. Just a few words before introducing myself because it's the first time joining this event. I have more than 30 years of experience in different contexts, like big corporations such as Unilever or other listed companies. I am quite used to manage, in particular, situations in which it is needed deep experience in heavy industrial relations contexts, like in Italy, but not only in Italy. In all my experience, I have always managed restructuring, change management, and transformation projects. Antonio, as already highlighted, the most important figure of our transformation journey, so I don't want to repeat them. What is important for me is to underline that this is not just a restructuring plan because, honestly, we are managing, in the meantime, a fair approach for the redundancy, but also an important transformation for the rest of our colleagues.

In particular, we are managing an important training program for all our people, upskilling and reskilling for the digital challenges that we will have in the next future. Just for giving you an example, in Italy, during 2023, we have done more than 100,000 hours of training for our colleagues for realigning their competencies, not only in the commercial side but also in the factories, because we have invested a lot of money for creating a future way of managing our production in terms of 4.0 transformation program. The other important point is, as already said by Antonio, that we have to deal with different legislation. In some cases, it's simpler. It's easier to manage the reduction of people. In some other cases, it's a bit more complex. Obviously, we have to approach everything with the usual ethical, cultural approach Natuzzi has.

Indeed, this is also the reason for which you can see an acceleration in 2023 for the number of people that we, let me say, supported in their exit. This is due to the fact that we spent several months to find a good agreement with the Italian government, with the local government in the other countries, and with the union for having a very, very, let me say, agreed way of managing this redundancy without any claim, without any strike.

This is also the reason for which we will continue to do that in the next couple of years. In Italy, in particular, we are using a specific measure that could be considered a sort of early retirement. And this is also the reason for which, as Carlo will better explain in the following minutes, you see that we have accrued the entire cost of redundancy of those people, but the cash out will be in the next five years.

Carlo Silvestri (CFO)

Thank you, Antonio. I think that you can, Antonio, you are mute.

Antonio Achille (CEO)

I said, "Thank you, Mario. I'm sure there might be questions later on." I suggest, Carlo, that you briefly double-click on some of the figures we mentioned, and then we open up for the question that I'm sure our audience has.

Carlo Silvestri (CFO)

Good morning, everyone. Thank you, Antonio. Mario De Gennaro, for your notes. We go very quickly through some of the numbers. As Mario was mentioning, talking about the EUR 74 million of restructuring costs, it has to be noted that the application of related accounting principle imposes us to accrue such labor-related restructuring as soon as the corresponding liability arises towards our employees. The majority of such liabilities arose in the fourth quarter. In short, it was planned, but we cannot accrue in the previous quarter. From the financial perspective, we have paid almost half of it, and the other half we will pay in the next five years. This, of course, impacted the way we need to look at our gross margin. Antonio, did you provide an homogeneous comparison deducting all the impact of these restructuring costs in the previous year for the last quarters?

I will provide it for the full year. If we then neutralize this effect, 2023 closed with a gross margin of 36.3 versus 2022 at 35.6, 2021 at 36.2, and 2019 at 31%. So confirming the improvement and cost improvement that we have been having in the gross margin in the previous year. How we did achieve that? Not only because we were able to align the level of purchase and consumption to the new sales volume, but because we did achieve a better inventory management, a continuous renegotiation of the condition with all the suppliers. And this goes also for all the industrial costs that will manage according to a better cost-controlling activity.

Briefly talking about operating expenses and in detail about the selling expenses, administrative expenses, we can see in our numbers that from the selling expenses that did include an expansion in terms of retail network and hiring to improve the quality of our personnel, we were able almost to compensate the lower volumes and the impact of the overall selling expenses passed from 26.7% in 2022 to 27.8%, also in this case through a renegotiation, especially of the transportation costs. While for the administrative expenses, we did have an increase overall of EUR 2.1 million, and this brought us in terms of impact from a 7.7% in 2022 to 11.4%.

This, of course, is where we need to work, and we are constantly working, and is one of the focuses of the manager also for 2024, but it can be partially justified because we did invest in 2023 specifically EUR 400,000, EUR 0.4 million to further digitalize our company, and EUR 0.8 million always for accrual for the reduction of our workforce. Then on top of that, in 2022, we did achieve a EUR 0.5 million euro contribution from the government on this perspective. A last word of our net finance costs that did account for EUR 9.3 million in 2023 while EUR 8.5 million in 2022. We did lower our average outstanding bank debt of 7%, but we were impacting negatively of the average increase of interest from 4.4% in 2022 to 6.2% in 2023. I will leave now the floor for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We're now conducting a Q&A session. If you'd like to ask a question and you're over the web, you may raise your hand by using the Ask a Question feature. If you're dialed in by phone, you may press star one on your telephone keypad to be placed into queue. Once again, please use the Ask a Question feature to raise your hand, or please press star one on your telephone keypad. Our first question today is coming from David Kanen from Kanen Wealth Management. Your line is now live, sir.

David Kanen (President)

Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one is in regards to China. I know the government has been working on different stimulus measures, including lowering interest rates. Have you started to see an inflection there where things have bottomed and they're starting to turn up?

Antonio Achille (CEO)

So let me comment on China because I feel equipped. Dave, I spent, I believe, three months out of six in China. Some of those actually were really visiting stores. I visited 70 stores. A fair share of those are in what we call furniture mall. You have to imagine what in the U.S. can be a department store, but floor by floor, it contains all the different categories of furniture. The traffic is still very low. China is still a market that needs to find its way to full recovery. I believe you are very deep in a global, let's say, insight. You have witnessed what happened to Evergrande. You are witnessing what's happening to other firms much larger than us carrying reported 30% loss of Gucci in China. For durable, you can imagine it's even more sensitive, the loss in spending versus fashion.

So, long story to say what, for Natuzzi Editions, which is more our affordable brand, we see a kind of initial symptom of rebound. For Natuzzi Italia, not yet. And we are working really to use at best this Milan Design Week as a way to re-engage with our key dealer. So as we are confident that the strengths of Natuzzi in China will definitely pay off because we are by far the largest distributed company. Our competitors have a few dozen of stores. We have 350 stores. So we are highly confident that China will be a strong upside. The exact timing when this will become strongly visible on our P&L is still uncertain in terms of weeks and months because really of the macroeconomic and consumer environment in China.

David Kanen (President)

Okay. And then, excuse me, in the rest of the world, especially North America, have you started to see stabilization or with written orders a little bit of an improvement to start 2024?

Antonio Achille (CEO)

So on North America, we do see definitely signs of improvement when it comes to performing area of the business. They are performing stronger in 2024. We are still dealing with a tail of overstocking of the channel. But I'd say compared to China, I think it's legitimate to expect a faster rebound of business in the US than in China. As we speak, Mario is in the US. Again, we are really having a close eye on what we can do to better support our team, basically starting from today, but with a peak in the rest of the week.

David Kanen (President)

Okay.

Antonio Achille (CEO)

That will be the High Point market for the wholesale branded business where, again, we believe we have a very strong and compelling offer that we're bringing to the market. On the retail, we are working one by one to bring quickly at regime the new opening. On the historical stores, performance has definitely improved. For instance, I didn't mention it, but if we take the first three stores in terms of productivity, but the same can be to the first 10 stores in terms of productivity in North America, and you compare it to 2019

The like-for-like improvement in the range of 50% if we take the top 10 store and 70% if we take the top three stores. So it means that in three, four years, we've done a huge step in terms of being able to manage stores in the U.S. The first three stores, now they're all pacing at $4 million and above per year. So definitely, if you look across cycle, a very, very strong trend of improvement in retail in North America.

David Kanen (President)

Okay. Yeah, I'm a big believer in you guys expanding your North American footprint and becoming vertically integrated. So to that point, I know that you have some non-core real estate up for sale, specifically in High Point and in Italy. Assuming that those assets are liquidated or that capital comes back to you, will you be redeploying that capital into expanding your North American footprint? Because it seems like you get the most bang for the buck there.

Antonio Achille (CEO)

The answer is absolutely yes. So I think it's important to share with the broader audience. We discuss the sales and non-strategic assets, which include High Point, which include tannery in north of Italy, and some other minor assets that the company has in the board for approval. And in the board, we agreed that in coherency with our long-term strategy, the priority for potential disinvestment will be reinvesting in North America retail.

The other priority will be supporting our long-term transformation. So in our mind, the way to create value for our shareholders is very clear. The board is absolutely aligned with us, and we are not deviating from that journey. The way in which to create value is retail, especially in North America, and to reduce the cost base of our factory in Italy. David, if we have additional funding, those are the only ways we're going to be redeploying those funding.

David Kanen (President)

Okay. Thank you for that clarification. And then in regards to the, excuse me, to the 514-person headcount reduction and the $22.5 million savings, does that number primarily show up in cost of goods sold going forward, or is some of it in selling expense?

Antonio Achille (CEO)

It's a combination, but I'll let Mario and Carlo comment more precisely. In particular, workers get in the cost of goods sold where account goes in service. But I will let Mario and Carlo, I believe each of you can be precise in answering.

Mario De Gennaro (Chief HR Organization and Legal Officer)

No, as you said, Antonio, obviously, we are improving our first contribution margin, being more efficient in the factory. Obviously, we are also reducing our central staff, and that will have a positive impact also in our G&A in the next few years.

Antonio Achille (CEO)

But just to tell you, the investment the company did over the last 20 years and this restructuring really changed the ability of doing EBIT and cash conversion. We just did this exercise and comparison versus different peers that have the same top line that we reported in 2021 and 2022, and the company lowered its break-even of about EUR 150 million-EUR 100 million, really because there's a better mix because of selling branded instead of unbranded, but also because of all this tough work of reducing the cost base and the fixed costs. So now we need really to focus on sales. If we reach the sales we aspire or above the sales we aspire, there will be huge, huge upside from an economic standpoint, a return standpoint from the investment.

Carlo Silvestri (CFO)

Antonio, just to be more precise, we have only EUR 1.1 million that we are impacting on administrative expenses and selling expenses, all the rest in the cost of goods sold.

Antonio Achille (CEO)

Thank you. Thank you, Carlo.

David Kanen (President)

Okay. One more question before I go back into the queue. Carlo, if I could ask, let's say over the next two years, we add 15 or 20 new direct-operated stores here in North America. In theory, that would give us about $15 to $20 million incrementally per quarter of revenue. That would give us about roughly $65 to $80 million a year at $4 million average unit volume. At $90 to $100 million in revenue with the headcount reduction, some of the investments in automation at the factories, I'm sorry, at $90 million, $100 million a quarter in revenue, would we achieve a 40% gross margin or better?

Carlo Silvestri (CFO)

May I, Antonio, or you?

Antonio Achille (CEO)

Yeah. The question was with you. I'm also interested, but David addressed directly to you in your capacity of CFO. Then I'm very happy to comment to David.

Carlo Silvestri (CFO)

Yeah, yeah. Thank you, then. Let's say that we are going in this direction in terms of improvement of margin. Of course, adding more just how to absorb better the fixed cost. So, of course, 40 is where we are going towards if we add those sales and even more if we.

Antonio Achille (CEO)

And again, Dave, we don't provide guidance, but at this point, I think it's fair to do some high-level modeling. On our integrated sales for Natuzzi Italia, we have an integrated contribution margin, which means the producer plus the retailer of 65%-68% with the current sales productivity. So if you, of course, build EUR 100 million with that productivity and that marginality, by definition, it will be north of 40% because we are really targeting 40%, let's say, in a sense, let me say organically, which means with the same structure of business.

David Kanen (President)

Okay. So it sounds like we're well-positioned during the next upturn. Hopefully, the Federal Reserve here in the U.S. cuts interest rates, and we're starting to see somewhat of a bounce in housing. There's more inventory. So we'll keep our fingers crossed that this spring, things start to improve. Thank you for your time. I'll go back in queue.

Antonio Achille (CEO)

Thank you, Dave.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to be placed into question queue over the web, please raise your hand by using the Ask a Question feature, or over the phone, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad to verbally ask a question. Once again, you may press star 1 to verbally ask a question, or over the web, please type your question into the Ask a Question feature using the raise your hand function. Thank you very much. One moment, please, while we pull for questions. Once again, that's star 1 to verbally ask a question or type your question into the raise your hand feature on your screen. One moment, please, while we pull for questions. If there are no further questions at this time, I'll let you turn the floor back over for any further closing comments.

Antonio Achille (CEO)

I do my closing comment, and then, of course, I invite Pasquale, who is the person who created the company. Who is the person who's going to be celebrating 65 years with it, for potential final remark. Listen, guys, for me, the story is very clear. Tough year, but we know what we are doing. We're very committed and very confident on the upside. This company is very different. You're investing in a brand retail company. The awareness of this company is really strong and terrific. I don't do any valuation on our, let's say, market evaluation, but I believe there is significant upside in it. And thank you for being with us as investors. Thank you for being with us today as participants in this call. I'll let Mr. Pasquale, our chairman, do any final remark if he wishes.

Pasquale Natuzzi (Founder and Executive Chairman)

Okay. Antonio, thank you very much for the way you have been explaining what we are facing. The same Diego Babbo and also Carlo, our CFO, and our human resource manager. I feel very much confident about the management today. Even in this difficult business environment, war in Ukraine, war in the Middle East, consumer confidence is very low. I mean, we believe very much in what we are doing, and we are very much confident, obviously, about the future. I thank you very much, everyone, for attending this conference call. We hope we will obviously. We are very much committed to deliver to all of you, dear shareholders, a better result, certainly. Thank you again.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference and webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.

Antonio Achille (CEO)

Thank you.

Carlo Silvestri (CFO)

Thank you.

David Kanen (President)

Thank you.