SBC Medical Group Holdings - Earnings Call - Q4 2024

Executive Summary

• Q4 2024 revenue was $44.0M, down 29% year over year (vs. $62.0M in Q4 2023) as management services declined post-termination of staffing services; EBITDA margin was a robust 47% in Q4 (vs. 43% in Q4 2023) supported by cost control and mix shift.
• Versus prior quarter, revenue fell from $53.1M in Q3 2024 to $44.0M in Q4 2024; net income rose to $7.0M from $2.8M due partly to lower cost of revenues in Q4.
• Management outlined 2025 strategic changes: franchise fees to be scaled and discounted in year one (estimated ~10% revenue headwind if applied to FY2024) and ~20% price increases in medical hair removal to rebalance supply/demand.
• Liquidity remains a focus; the company is exploring share buybacks/dividends and broader capital actions to improve stock liquidity and valuation, highlighted as potential catalysts.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• EBITDA margin expanded to 47% in Q4 2024 (from 43% in Q4 2023), demonstrating resilient profitability despite top-line pressure.
• Strong franchise expansion and customer growth in FY2024: clinics reached 251 (+21% YoY) and total customers hit 6.03M (+15% YoY), underscoring durable demand and repeat behavior (71% repeat rate).
• Management commitment: “We want to be the biggest medical group in Japan, and we are determined to accomplish this,” signaling confidence in growth trajectory and execution discipline.

What Went Wrong

• Q4 revenue declined 29% YoY, driven by a sharp drop in management services (post staffing-service termination), and weaker procurement revenues sequentially amid industry competition.
• Revenue per customer fell 13% YoY in FY2024 as 2024 strategy prioritized first-visit pricing to expand the base, which lowered per-customer revenue in the period.
• Competitive headwinds and market restructuring (hair-removal bankruptcies, heightened competition) pressured growth cadence and necessitated pricing recalibration and fee revision plans.

Transcript

Yoshiaki Fukui (VP, Head of Investor Relations)

Good morning. I'm Fukui, SBC's IR Office Head. It is time to start. We would like to start. Thank you very much for attending SBC Medical Group Holdings' financial results briefing despite your busy schedules. Today we have Mr. Aikawa, the CEO, and Fukui, the Vice President, and we'll be explaining the financial results and outlook. On the right-hand side, there is a Q&A box, so if you do have a question, please write it in that box. We would like to respond to your questions after the presentation. Without further ado, Aikawa, CEO, will make the presentations. Aikawa, please go ahead.

Yoshiyuki Aikawa (CEO)

Hello, everyone. This is Aikawa, SBC Medical Group Holdings' CEO. Thank you for joining us today on this conference call. Today, I would like to provide an overview of our 2024 financial results, the current state of our business, and our future direction. Today, because all of you have participated, I would like to first briefly introduce myself, Aikawa. I, myself, in 2000, founded a Shonan clinic, an aesthetic clinic, with myself, two more colleague counselors, and two nurses. From the time of the foundation, we aimed to become an aesthetic clinic group that is number one in Japan, that many customers visit, and we were able to achieve that target in 2017. Nowadays, we're not limited to aesthetic clinics, but we have orthopedics, dermatology, ophthalmology, gynecology, and internal medicine as well, where we have the clinics.

Right now, at this point, we have the aim of becoming the largest medical group that the most customers in Japan will visit. Once we set the target, achieving that, we have the strongest intention than anyone to do so. We have been working in that, and we would like to continue to keep this intention and work towards achieving the target. I would like to share with you my thoughts, keeping that in mind. The overview of 2024 and the current state of business for FY 2024 financial results: revenue increased by 6% year over year to $205 million. Japan currently is impacted by the depreciation of yen. From the overseas perspective, there may seem that there's a disadvantage, but we were able to achieve this number. Currently, ROE, year-on-year basis, has declined by 4%.

That is because last September, we came listed on NASDAQ, and at that time, there was the stock-based compensation and impairment loss, which are one-time listing-related expenses that have occurred. As a franchisor of clinic franchisees, we have a company that is doing that operation. How much of franchise we have include? There was a 21% increase, 43 clinics increase, total of 251 clinics. The number of customers is 6.03 million annually. This is a 15% increase year-on-year. We have entered the 25th year since we were founded, and every year we are seeing a steady growth. The reason behind we are seeing this steady growth every year is, as written here, the customers and patients that repeatedly visit us.

We have a large number of those patients and customers, and that is why we're able to have this steady increase of customers and patients. The reason why such a thing is happening, simply put, at each treatment, we conduct a customer satisfaction survey, and we look at which treatment has a high satisfaction level and low satisfaction, and we numerically make that clear. Depending on the result, the pricing of the service and the content of the treatment is changed so that we can continue to put the efforts to increase this satisfaction level. We are seeing the outcome of those efforts. By having these repeating customers visit us, we're able to have this stable management of business, and this, I think, is a strength that we have in our group. The aesthetic medicine market in Japan. During the COVID pandemic, there was an increasing number of working from home, and people were covering their faces with masks. The Japanese aesthetic medicine

For this, we will utilize various measures in a flexible manner. The market itself, as I have mentioned before, is in a severe state. However, the current situation of the Japanese aesthetic medicine still has room to grow. In South Korea, more than 20% of the total population has experienced aesthetic medicine, but in Japan, it's only 10% several percentages of the population that have experienced the aesthetic medicine treatment. We believe that at least we will reach the level of South Korea, and I believe that we can still triple this number. As a number one player in the market, we will continue to put in the efforts to enlarge the market itself. Recently, male customers are showing interest towards aesthetic medicine.

Recently, in hair removal, the business performance is better for the male customers than the female customers in terms of revenue as well. On the other hand, the aesthetic medicine itself's competitive environment is intensifying. That is for sure. Therefore, moving forward, we need to become a more flexible franchisor, and we need to revise the fee in line to become so. The fee, we had the one type of a fee for the clinics, but once the clinic is open till the operation stabilizes and has a stable number of customers that visit the clinic, it takes about a year. Therefore, receiving a lot of fee from a clinic that's just opened for the franchisee, it becomes quite a burden. Also, like 50 tsubo area-sized clinics, and also we have a 100 tsubo large-scale clinic. Therefore, there are differences in sizes.

Not having the one same amount of fee, but we'll receive a fee depending on the size and the business. With that, we will be able to create a win-win situation as well as increase the number of franchisee clinics who would like to become the member of the SBC Medical Group. In this sense, we would like to revise our fees moving forward. Towards 2027, having the aesthetic medicine at the center, how are we trying to grow the SBC Medical Group Holdings? First of all, regarding aesthetic medicine, that is at the center. Continuously, we would like to maintain the number one position in Japan and have many more people experience the aesthetic medicine in Japan. We are experiencing aging society, but a woman would like to stay beautiful throughout their lives.

Currently, a woman over 40 years, if they have targeted a customer group and those customers that visit our clinics, we would like to take a strategy that they will continue to visit until they're in their 80s. I will mention this later, but the aesthetic medicine, orthopedics, or ophthalmology, or fertility treatment clinic, and AGA treatment for hair loss, that type of treatment as well is increasing. We would like to steadily increase this area as well. We have become listed on NASDAQ. To begin with, in Ho Chi Minh in Vietnam, in order to enter the Asian market, we have a clinic in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. This clinic has steadily increased their performance as well. Therefore, moving forward, we would like to steadily continue to grow our overseas business as well.

The signage as SBC, people can feel safe and secure as they feel when they see the McDonald's and other types of well-known signage. That is how we would like to conduct our business moving forward. In the current situation, we are the number one aesthetic medical group in Japan. The number of customers as well as the clinics is steadily growing. Especially existing customers are steadily coming back to the clinic. On top of that, we acquire new customers. That has been the track record in the past 24 years. As has been said, in Japan, our share stays around only 12% who receive aesthetic medicine services. Moving forward, we want to hit minimum 20% penetration. I'm quite confident that we can hit that. Now we do acquire more and more male customers.

This is the market we're having a huge growth potential moving forward. As for SBC, we are operating in a unique style. Normally, a clinic has a single brand offering services. To meet the diversified needs of customers, I thought it would be better to offer a multi-branded approach like Louis Vuitton Group, having multiple brand offerings to better meet the needs of the customers. Not just the SBC brand, Idea Beauty Clinic, Korean Beauty Clinic, or male-only Gorilla Clinic for offering aesthetic medicine. A Neon Skin Clinic that will be open on the 2nd of April, which I have a very high hope for. It's an aesthetic laser-only clinic. Those are differentiating factors, and we do offer some price advantage because this is when we introduce to the Japanese market.

We are in a position to define prices, and it's easier for us to ensure the margin. Having said that, it also requires a high initial investment. This is the type of the market and having a high entry barrier because of the initial expenses. It's difficult for a single clinic to enter into the market. With the clear brand image, we would like to deploy our business in Japan as well as overseas moving forward. Inbound business. Because of the weak yen, we've got higher patients or customers coming from China. During COVID time, we had a drastic decrease. After that, in post-COVID time, in 2024, the level of Chinese customers returned to the pre-COVID time. Previously, Chinese customers tended to visit South Korea, but supported by weak yen, as well as high quality of Japanese medical care.

Now, increasing number of Chinese customers coming to Japan. Moving forward, we will focus on increasing or attracting a higher number of Chinese customers. Apart from aesthetic medicine, orthopedics, ophthalmology, fertility, AGA are increasing as well, especially orthopedics. Japan will enter into an aging society. We've gotten a fewer number of youth, but in exchange, we've gotten a higher number of senior people. When people get older, there will be a stronger need for orthopedics. Therefore, I believe that the orthopedics will be in a quite prospective area for the future Japanese market. We tend to put more focus on ortho. As for the Japanese aesthetic medicine market, the total market size is defined as JPY 600 billion. Year by year, the Japanese entire medical market has been expanding and currently staying at JPY 47 trillion.

We have an aspiration to become number one medical group so that we can ensure our growth. The most prospective area is orthopedics. Going forward, we will increase the franchise of clinic and insurance-based clinic. We will offer support introducing self-funded services. Such conversion is another area that we plan to expand moving forward. As for overseas business, we have a clinic in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. Last year, in order to expand our footprint, if we become number one in Asia, we're having a population growth, and we can achieve number one position in the world as well. We decided to put our Asian base in Singapore. From Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, and India, those populous countries, we are planning to expand our network.

We have a plan to open an aesthetic medicine and beauty clinic in 2025 and aesthetic in the salon. This is the group, the operator that we plan to, I mean, we already signed a partnership and Ava in the U.S., there is one clinic. Starting from that, since we are already listed in the U.S. market, we want to increase our presence and enhance our brand value. We're planning to open new clinics in the U.S. Right now, directly managing the clinic numbers are high, but moving forward, when thinking about the further deployment in the U.S. or accelerating the expansion, I think it would be good to pursue the combination of both models of expanding the number of directly managed clinics as well as franchise clinics. Finally, let me talk about share liquidity. Currently, the liquidity is quite low.

This makes it quite difficult to trade for institutional investors. During the IR and activities, we had such voices, and we identify that as an issue. Two points. Efforts to improve supply and demand dynamics, explore and discover new major shareholders, or to conduct a share buyback and make dividend payments. Through those activities, we want to attract more shareholders coming into our software. As for the low liquidity, I do have a majority share. I would like to consider selling my share or issue new shares or exchange warrants to improve liquidity. By doing so, we can create a better environment for investors to buy our shares. We are committed to execute them thoroughly. That was a brief explanation about the outline of SBC Medical Group Holdings and its prospect. Thank you very much.

Yoshiaki Fukui (VP, Head of Investor Relations)

Mr. Aikawa, thank you very much.

Now, I would like to move on to the Q&A session. Among the questions that we are receiving from you, we would like to answer to them in order. The first is, what is the growth driver moving forward?

Yoshiyuki Aikawa (CEO)

First of all, for the aesthetic medicine area, is to increase the overall market of the customers. The characteristics of aesthetic medicine is that the first step, zero to one, meaning that maybe I'll have an injection. Once the person experiences it, the patient will feel more value than what they have paid. From there, they continue to visit. That's the characteristics. If we make the entry for the first step easier, we'll be able to increase more patients or customers, meaning the easiness to visit, the easiness to receive the treatment, easiness to experience the aesthetic medicine.

Through those measures and increasing the aesthetic medicine patients and customers, we'll become a large positive factor for us in the future.

Yoshiaki Fukui (VP, Head of Investor Relations)

Moving on to the second question. Japanese beauty industry management environment, what is your assessment? What sort of a strategy would you plan to take moving forward?

Yoshiyuki Aikawa (CEO)

As I mentioned earlier, the environment itself, market has expanded. Many competitors entered into the market. The situation gets tougher. The market itself has been expanding. We will try to increase the market. Within the expanded market, how we can increase our market share. Those are the two prime focuses. The medical and the aesthetic and the medicine offers comfort with a reasonable price and attract many more people trying to experience to receive the service. Within the market, how we can win more shares using laser drug procedures.

By using them, how we can differentiate ourselves from the others. That is our focus. We do have an overseas clinic that is a very powerful strength, state of the art. The practice can be introduced to Japan or what has been boomed in Singapore brought to Japan. We are achieving those than anybody else. The state of the art aesthetic medicine to be introduced as a first party to Japan. We will enhance that even further moving forward.

Yoshiaki Fukui (VP, Head of Investor Relations)

Next is the financial-related question. The financial results up to the third quarter was quite steady. However, for the first quarter, it seems that you have a slowdown in growth. What were the reasons and factors behind this?

It is going to overlap with the competitive environment situation with the competitors increasing. For us, strategically, we want to enhance the aesthetic medicine market.

That is why strategically we implemented measures to increase the number of customers. Strategically, we lowered the price so that the first step by the customers will be easier to be taken. As a result, there was a decline of the revenue per customer. Where this was most prominent was the latter half of last fiscal year and Q4. Compared to the first half, the speed of the performance growth has slowed down.

Yoshiyuki Aikawa (CEO)

This is Aikawa speaking. If I may add, last year in Japan, I believe it was around last September. This is not us, but it was one of our peers in the industry. They had a problem or issue that they faced in terms of managing the business. They were reported through magazine articles or mass media and were criticized. They were a major player in the industry.

They were well known. Therefore, it imposed negative news for the overall industry. That was one of the major events that have happened. If I may further add, because there was this unfavorable wind against us in the industry, we have lowered the price, maintained the number of customer base, and also further increased it. Last year is what we did. This year, there was a change in the competitive environment. The service supplier side, the hair removal specializing clinics, the number of them went down. Strategically, we increased the price of a part of our hair removal treatment. We increased the number of customers. Through that, we have recovered the revenue per customer and go back on to the growth trajectory is what we have done.

The measures that we have implemented last fiscal year are starting to bear fruit this year.

Yoshiaki Fukui (VP, Head of Investor Relations)

Next question. In order to realize impactful growth, enhancement of the presence in the U.S. is going to be important. I think you've got the biggest M&A opportunity in the U.S. What is your plan to enhance your platform in the U.S.? There is one clinic in the U.S. How to horizontally deploy the clinic is one of our scopes. In order to achieve impactful growth, M&A strategy is powerful. We would like to seek M&A an opportunity to realize win-win situation.

Yoshiyuki Aikawa (CEO)

Last year, you have acquired AHH in Singapore. Are they generating profit? Both profit and number of our customers, they're experiencing a steady growth. How are we going to have the AHH group as a hub and increase the number of clinics in Asia?

We are in the midst of planning.

Yoshiaki Fukui (VP, Head of Investor Relations)

As a new initiative, what is your plan? What sort of synergy would you plan to derive with the existing business? Business diversification is a topic that I would like to better understand. Not far from medical and aesthetic medicine, we see steady growth. In those areas, we would like to become number one, the business group in Japan. That is a continued initiative. Apart from that, B2B, for example, Korean, American, laser to be imported or the laser devices or the products. We want to be a supplier of those moving forward. For example, the Botox and hyaluronic acid and rejuvenation, yarn and lasers. We want to be the supplier of those. We are aspiring to buy the supplying company if I may add.

Intensification of the competitive landscape, of course, it provides a harsh environment to us. From the perspective of the M&A reach buyer, there are some good attractive M&A items tabled on with attractive price. Growth opportunities and growth potentials are increasing. By properly capturing those opportunities, not just focusing on our core, the aesthetic and medicine, but in other medical fields, now we see better visibility of acquiring companies in medical fields moving forward.

Yoshiyuki Aikawa (CEO)

The next question. You have ample cash on hand, but the interest income is quite limited. The rate of the interest in specific terms, how much is that? The payment interest rate, we are not disclosing that. However, till now, there was a yen asset heavy. Thinking of the overseas business deployment, we are going to consider diversifying the currency used itself. Yes, we are in a cash-rich situation.

How we are going to utilize that and diverse the usage of that is also what we're considering right now. 2025 forecast.

Yoshiaki Fukui (VP, Head of Investor Relations)

How many franchise clinics to be the total number? To meet the needs of our customers, changing the business operational format or conducting M&A. We have those activities on the agenda. Last year, 43 clinics opened. There are some conversions of the operational format, but the net increase, we expect 20 clinics. That's organic net increase of the total number of clinics. In addition to that, through M&A, there may be some clinic number increase through M&A.

Yoshiyuki Aikawa (CEO)

Regarding the capital allocation, can you share your thoughts? You're talking about the capital policy? Regarding the liquidity of the stock, I believe that it was mentioned during the explanation of the liquidity being low and difficult for the investors to purchase it.

We would like to implement appropriate measures at the appropriate timing. Within that, what we are considering is already disclosed is a share buyback and payout dividends included. How we will be using the capital is something that we would like to further continue to consider. Once it is decided, we would like to share that with you. Thank you.

Yoshiaki Fukui (VP, Head of Investor Relations)

Next. Vietnamese market is quite attractive. What is your plan for business expansion in Vietnam? Vietnamese clinic. During COVID, we struggled. In post-COVID time, gradually the performance improves. Right now, we see now the situation is ready to achieve a rapid growth. Once the strong business model is established, we can horizontally deploy that model. Within this year, we want to establish the strong business model. From next year, we plan to we will be ready to expand the number of clinics in Vietnam.

Thank you very much. 2024 financial results was not that good is how I feel. A share buyback should be considered is what I think. Of course, conduct the share buybacks and return to the shareholders. We have a strong feeling that we would like to do that. The share price currently, whether that's truly reflecting our performance or not, we believe that it could go higher. Therefore, we would like to consider all this in a positive manner. Thank you. We have covered all questions. Lastly, we would like to have a closing remark by Mr. Aikawa.

Yoshiyuki Aikawa (CEO)

Thank you very much for joining the call despite your busy schedules. The foundation of the clinic was in the sense in the year 2000. We have been operating for 25 years. Nasdaq and the market, we just listed in September last year.

We are a relatively new company. First, we want to be the biggest medical group in Japan. We are determined to accomplish this. I thank you for your continued support. Thank you very much for your kind attendance. Thank you very much. With this, we would like to conclude the earnings call. Once again, thank you very much indeed for your kind participation despite your busy schedule. Thank you very much indeed.