Dave Powers
Analyst · BTIG. Please go ahead
Thanks, Erinn. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Before diving into the business, I’d like to express my gratitude for the progress towards ending the pandemic’s toll in the United States. However, countries around the world are still struggling with dangerous outbreaks. Many of our employees have friends and family members that are currently being impacted by the devastating COVID-19 surge within India, Nepal and other South Asian countries. Our hearts go out to everyone who has been affected by this pandemic over the past year and a half, and on behalf of Deckers, I wish for everyone’s health and safety moving forward. As I reflect on this past year, I am continually impressed by the tenacity and resiliency of the Deckers organization, and the dedication demonstrated by our teams as they continued to deliver exceptional results. FY 2021 results were driven by the exceptional brand and marketplace management of our leaders, but also by the global operations, retail and supply chain teams, who allowed us to fulfill the demand for our brands. By continuing to be aggressive with HOKA globally and capturing the opportunity in UGG, we were able to exceed expectations in a challenging environment and have accelerated the pace of growth for our brands. Today, I am excited to share the results of a record breaking year for Deckers. We saw a strong finish to fiscal 2021, with full year revenue increasing 19% versus last year to over $2.5 billion and earnings per share increasing 40% to $13.47. FY 2021 performance was driven by expanded awareness and adoption of HOKA around the world, as more consumers experienced the benefits of the brand’s innovative products, consumer actively seeking UGG for its unique combination of fashion appeal and the unmistakable feeling of the brand, best-in-class e-commerce capabilities that enabled consumer acquisition in a disrupted physical retail environment, strategic prioritization of brand strength and demand creation through disciplined marketplace management and the grit of our employees who overcame significant macro challenges and operational pressures to deliver exceptional results. Many of these items that drove performance during the year were the results of our long-term strategies that remain top of mind as we transition into fiscal 2022 and beyond. As a reminder, these include accelerating consumer adoption of the HOKA brand globally, building UGG as a year-round global lifestyle brand through a diverse product offering, executing our digital first approach by growing direct-to-consumer acquisition and retention online with a specific focus on gaining closet space with 18 year-old to 34 year-old consumers, tailoring distribution strategies unique to each of our brands in order to properly balance brand health in conjunction with sustainable growth, which includes the recent reset activities for the UGG brand internationally and focusing spend behind these key initiatives to drive optimal returns on investment, while maintaining top tier levels of profitability. While we believe that remaining committed to our long-term strategies was the primary enabler of our success this year, Deckers also uniquely benefited from certain circumstances resulting from the pandemic. Fiscal 2021 revenue exceeded our pre-pandemic expectations as we saw an acceleration of certain growth opportunities. With brands scaling faster than previously anticipated, we now need to accelerate critical investments to scale our supply chain and logistics infrastructure, as well as bolster our teams with additional talent to prepare for emerging opportunities. Fiscal 2022 will be another positive step in the evolution of Deckers Brands, as we strategically invest behind core infrastructure needs and seed opportunities that will enable sustainable long-term revenue and earnings growth. Over the long-term, we’re investing in major drivers of our business, including building HOKA to $1 billion plus global performance brand that represents a significant portion of total company revenue, driving our direct-to-consumer business towards 50% of our global revenues, scaling international markets across brands and seeding opportunities beyond footwear. Steve will provide more details on these investments, as well as our forward looking revenue and margin expectations later in the call. In the meantime, I will share some details around fiscal 2021 performance at the brand and channel levels, as well as provide some context around fiscal 2022 building blocks. Starting with the brand highlights, global UGG fiscal 2021 revenue increased 13% versus last year to $1.717 billion. The brand’s success in FY 2021 was primarily due to U.S. consumers actively seeking UGG products all year long with search interest increasing 27% over fiscal 2020 according to Google Trends, which led to accelerated consumer acquisition online as the brand added over 2.5 million new consumers to its global e-commerce database and captured the critical 18-year to 34-year aged consumer in the U.S., which increased 83% to the elevated fashion appeal to brand. And lastly, more consumers purchased multiple UGG products than ever before, as the brand saw an 85% increase in consumers purchasing two of our products during the year. We believe much of the brand heat that created momentum for UGG in the U.S. resulted from the brand’s strategically managed distribution network, authentic PR activations, fashion collaborations, targeted digital marketing and a compelling product offering that has expanded the fashion relevance of UGG brand DNA across new categories. As evidence of the UGG brand’s success with a diversified assortment, fiscal 2021 product performance was driven by the expansion of the Fluff franchise, as the brand drove demand to both the original Fluff Yeah, as well as complementary styles with similar slipper-sandal hybrid attributes, increased adoption of the New Male franchise among men, women and kids, the introduction of the Ultra Mini and Classic Clear boots, which were particularly popular with younger consumers, development of the Tasman into a fashion slipper sneaker, as UGG featured the style in a number of recent collaborations, helping to raise the hybrid style’s profile, the brand’s first ever ready-to-wear apparel collection, which featured fashionable sportswear and outerwear pieces and Heritage slippers having greater year round relevancy as many people were working from home and seeking the comfort of what we refer to as the feeling of UGG. These styles that drove UGG growth this year made up the majority of both the brand’s top 10 styles purchased by acquired consumers, as well as the top 10 styles purchased by consumers 18 years old to 34 years old. While women remain the primary purchasers of UGG products, the brand’s mix of gender continues to shift towards men’s and kid’s products. Part of this shift is due to many consumers purchasing UGG for the whole family. In the U.S., as compared to last year, UGG experienced an 88% increase in DTC revenue from orders containing both men’s and women’s products, and 117% increase in orders containing both kid’s and women’s products. With more purchasing for the whole family, both men’s and kid’s footwear increased as a percentage of total UGG brand business. While the U.S. has been driving UGG category diversification over the past few years, we have been encouraged by the adoption of new categories within international regions over the last year as well. Such is the Ultra Mini which was a top five style in its introductory season, the Classic Clear which was ranked second new style in terms of dollar volume, Fluff franchise volume was 2.5 times larger than last year, and sneakers were standout in our Asia-Pacific region. Improvements in new category adoption are largely attributable to localized marketing activations meant to build UGG brand heat internationally and attracting younger consumers to the brand. Our targeted digital marketing efforts are paying off, as UGG experienced a significant increase in e-commerce traffic from visitors aged 18 to 34 in both the U.K. and China during FY 2021. These early indicators of success and our plan to further invest behind localized marketing tactics give us confidence that UGG will rebound and return to growth in the brand’s international markets during fiscal 2022. UGG has a difficult task ahead in lapping a record year, where we benefited from the pandemic driving greater attention to the brand. However, with our planned investments and demand creation, we have confidence the brand can drive topline revenue growth in fiscal 2022 by fulfilling wholesale demand as we reset the marketplace with filling product and satisfy some of the missed opportunities in fiscal 2021 during inventory shortages, maintaining momentum with the younger consumers around the world and driving repeat purchases from consumers new to the brand in FY 2021, recovering lost volume in EMEA with the goal of lapping fiscal 2020 revenues and maximizing demand captured through DTC, increasing local investments in China to elevate the brand and accelerate revenue growth, all while working to lap growth on heritage slipper products that benefited from the pandemic. Shifting your attention to HOKA, global revenue in fiscal 2021 increased 62% versus last year to $571 million. The growth of HOKA over the past year was a testament to the brand’s methodical approach to managing a consistent brand message and introducing innovative products that resonate across the global distribution landscape. HOKA continues to exhibit balanced growth across its ecosystem of access points with every region and channel distribution increasing volume above last year. The increasing scale of HOKA is undeniably impressive. But even more importantly, the brand is growing in the right way and making meaningful progress towards strategic initiates. In a year of uncertainty, HOKA initially doubled down on key franchises, with the goal of amplifying hero styles to bring new consumers to the brand. As these styles drove consumer acquisition, HOKA was successful in driving more repeat purchases in alternate products. This is the result of the HOKA team’s development of innovative products, built for speed such as the Carbon X2 and Mach 4, the outdoors with the Speedgoat and Challenger for trail running and the Kaha for hiking and recovery featuring the Ora Flip Flops and Slides. In addition to providing great product for all athletes, HOKA has also created meaningful partnerships to build the lifestyle relevance of its performance products. One such partnership includes the brand’s recent launch with Free People, which helps expose HOKA products to consumers who may not otherwise discover their brand. This is not meant to signal a shift towards fashion for the HOKA brand, but rather the brand embracing the fashionable attributes of its performance products and gaining an audience of younger consumers. In addition to targeting youth wholesale distribution, the HOKA DTC team prioritize digital spend on platforms where younger consumers are spending time and discovering brands online. The brand has also been working to create a seamless replenishment experience for consumers who may have discovered HOKA elsewhere. Through these efforts, HOKA was able to increase 18 to 34-year-old consumer acquisition online by 156% as compared to last year. We believe the HOKA brand’s commitment to building a more diverse outdoor community by including underrepresented groups in 60% of marketing content is resonating well with younger consumers. HOKA is winning with the combination of disrupted product innovation, emotionally connected inclusive marketing and a consistent consumer experience based on the quality of the brand’s products and ecosystem of access points. From a regional standpoint, both domestic and international posted impressive gains in fiscal 2021, but the international revenue growth rate was able to outpace domestic up a lower base. As we’ve spoken about in prior earnings calls, the mix of international unit to the global total continues to move towards the 50-50 split, but revenue is more favored towards domestic because of the use of distributors internationally. In FY 2021, distributors drove the largest proportion of international HOKA revenue growth, greater than both wholesale and direct-to-consumer channels. We see this as both a positive reflection of HOKA distributor’s ability to scale the brand as well as an opportunity for global growth as we continue to strategically evolve our distribution of the brand around the world. Looking ahead to fiscal 2022, we anticipate HOKA growth will continue at a rapid pace driven by acquiring new consumers by building brand awareness, retaining existing consumers with product and category innovation, gaining market share with wholesale partners, building global brand presence through a return of in-person event sponsorship, focusing on key markets in Europe such as Germany and the U.K., and increasing the frequency of product drops to maintain excitement with consumers. In addition, as we invest to the longer term, we are earmarking investment in China for the HOKA brand to build a meaningful presence in that region. This includes building a team local to the market and creating a retail presence to the HOKA brand. Turning to Teva, despite relatively flat revenue of $139 million, Teva made productive strides towards the future as the brand invested behind the universal franchise, which experienced strong growth versus last year, increased the penetration of DTC to the total brand by 10 percentage points, nearly doubled direct-to-consumer acquisition year-over-year, strengthened partnerships with strategic wholesale accounts, contributed incremental profitability to Deckers bottomline and made further enhancement towards sustainability goals. Looking ahead, Teva is focused on being a leader in sustainability, building year-round innovative product for the modern outdoor consumer, taking market share in the closed-toe space with the brand’s Ember franchise, building on DTC consumer acquisition and maintaining a high proportion of 18-year-old to 34-year-old consumers. Moving to Koolaburra, global revenue in fiscal 2021 increased 9% versus last year to $76 million. Performance this year was influenced by conservative ordering at the onset of the pandemic, as we chose to reduce inventory purchases in strategic areas of the brand portfolio. Based on high levels of consumer demand, Koolaburra experienced both topline revenue growth and record profitability, despite scarce product availability and disruptions in the wholesale family value channel. For the year ahead, we expect Koolaburra to continue building market share with existing wholesale partners through door count expansion, build on the direct-to-consumer momentum experienced in fiscal 2021 as the brand more than doubled consumer acquisition compared to the prior year, further diversified the assortment through the growth of men’s product and women’s non-boot categories which experienced outsized growth this year and expand the brand’s lifestyle appeal through license opportunities with new product adjacencies. And finally, Sanuk revenue in fiscal 2021 declined to $42 million. Over the last year, the Sanuk team made great progress to right-size the brand’s distribution, focusing on wholesale channel leaders and owned direct-to-consumer. Through this process, the brand implemented a product segmentation and exclusive strategy, tailoring the consumer experience for each unique access point. With an optimized marketplace, we believe Sanuk has the opportunity to build on its loyal consumer base through innovation and comfort, and sustainability and continue as a positive contributor to our total company bottom line. With respect to channel performance in fiscal 2021, the strength of e-commerce drove DTC to increase 45% over the prior year, helping improve our mix of DTC revenue to 42%, up from 35% last year. Every brand in our portfolio experienced growth through the direct-to-consumer channel across both domestic and international regions. Global consumer acquisition online, which increased 88% over last year, was the primary driver of DTC performance in fiscal 2021. This was partially offset by a decline in retail traffic that resulted from macro pandemic pressures. Despite the reduction in consumer traffic to stores, people were shopping with the intent to purchase as we saw a 30% increase in conversion. We believe this higher rated purchase conversion can be attributed to improved omnichannel capabilities, including buy online pickup in store, mobile POS systems and curbside pickup, which helped provide a more seamless experience at our stores. A huge thank you to our store employees who made consumers safety and a positive experience, a top priority amidst difficult circumstances. Global wholesale revenue in fiscal year 2021 increased 6% as compared to last year. Wholesale growth was driven by the global expansion of HOKA, with offsets from international UGG, as well as global reductions in Teva and Sanuk. UGG experienced strength in domestic wholesale that was more than offset by an international decline, which was due to a combination of marketplace reset initiatives and macro pressures from the pandemic. We see a path for international UGG wholesale to return to growth in fiscal 2022, helping to drive strength in global wholesale moving forward. Before I hand off the call to Steve, I wanted to take a moment to highlight some of our brand’s recent activities on the sustainability front, which we believe is having a positive impact on consumers’ passion for our brands. Here at Deckers, we believe doing good is core to doing well and we intend to continue leading in this space. Over the past few months, UGG announced Earth Day commitments which highlighted the brand’s commitment to regenerative farming. UGG introduced its first ever plant power collection, which features carbon neutral plant based materials. Teva launched its TevaForever program where consumers are now able to recycle old sandals that will be reborn into new things such as playgrounds or running tracks. Sanuk introduced limited edition collaboration with the Surfrider Foundation using environmentally friendly materials with proceeds benefiting Surfrider’s mission to protect clean water and maintain healthy beaches. And we held our second Art of Kindness event, which is a week-long global giving initiative that encourages our employees across the globe to volunteer time towards causers helping others. This second Art of Kindness event included over 3,800 volunteer hours. We were able to double the employee participation from last year’s event, a huge thank you to all employees who participated and helped to make a positive impact around the world. Our brands and our company are committed to giving back and doing business in the right way, and we look forward to pushing further progress in sustainability and service over the next year and beyond. With that, I’ll hand the call over to Steve to provide further details on our fiscal 2021 financial results, as well as our initial outlook on fiscal 2022. Steve?