Earnings Labs

Fossil Group, Inc. (FOSL)

Q4 2023 Earnings Call· Wed, Mar 13, 2024

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Fossil Group Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Earnings Call. At this time, all parties are in a listen-only mode. This conference call is being recorded and may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the Company. Now, I'll turn the call over to Christine Greany of The Blueshirt Group to begin.

Christine Greany

Management

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us. With us today on the call are Jeff Boyer, Interim CEO; and Sunil Doshi, Chief Financial Officer. I would like to remind you that information made available during this conference call contains forward-looking information, and actual results could differ materially from those that will be discussed during this call. Fossil Group's policy on forward-looking statements and additional information concerning a number of factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such statements is readily available in the Company's Form 8-K, 10-Q and 10-K reports filed with the SEC. In addition, Fossil assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. During today's call, we will refer to constant currency results. Please note that you can find a reconciliation of actual results to constant currency results. And other information regarding non-GAAP financial measures discussed on this call in Fossil's earnings release, which was filed today on Form 8-K and is available in the Investors section of fossilgroup.com. With that, I will now turn the call over to Jeff Boyer to begin.

Jeff Boyer

Management

Thanks, Christine. I'm pleased to be taking on the role of interim CEO, having spent nearly 17 years with Fossil on both the Board of Directors and the executive leadership team, I have a deep working knowledge of the operating model, the organization and our underlying profitability potential. As Chief Operating Officer, I was one of the key architects of our Transform and Grow Plan and have played a critical role in driving execution of those initiatives, which remain on track. Importantly, I've worked side-by-side with Kosta for nearly two decades, which will make for a seamless transition in the coming months. Together with our experienced leadership team, we're going to ensure continuity as we continue to advance our tag plan in order to lay the foundation for a profitable business model. In connection with the earnings release today, we also announced that the Company is conducting a strategic review of its business model, considering additional debt and equity financing options and pursuing actions to strengthen the balance sheet. What we want to make clear today is that we're taking steps to maximize shareholder value, and we have sufficient liquidity to operate the business for the foreseeable future. This past year has been more challenging than we anticipated, reflecting three key factors: one, macro-driven economic conditions globally; two, wholesale channel dynamics; and three, persistent pressure on consumer spending in China, one of our most important markets. Against this difficult backdrop, we took aggressive actions to rationalize unprofitable segments of our business. This included exiting our smartwatch business and closing underperforming stores. Excluding these actions, we ended 2023 with core top line trends contracting approximately 10%. The most important thing we want you to hear from us today is we're committed to improving performance and we're all hands-on deck to further…

Sunil Doshi

Management

Thanks, Jeff. Fourth quarter net sales totaled $421 million, down 16% versus last year or down 17% in constant currency. Adjusted operating margin was negative 2% for the quarter and negative 6.5% for the fiscal year. Fourth quarter cash flow from operations was $49 million, and we ended the year with $117 million in cash and $181 million in liquidity. For the full year, cash flow used in operations was $59 million and improved versus the prior year as we manage working capital levels down during the year. Diving deeper into our Q4 sales trends. In the fourth quarter, approximately 7 points of the overall 17-point constant currency sales decline came from store closures and lower smartwatch sales. As Jeff noted, in the fourth quarter, we exited the smartwatch category and began to more aggressively move through our inventory. We also completed the rationalization of our smartwatch infrastructure costs in Q4. With the decision to exit the category, we have pivoted our future inventory purchases to drive better ROI and faster turn categories like traditional watch and jewelry. Heading into 2024, we will lap approximately $60 million in smartwatch sales from 2023 with minimal expected liquidation sales in 2024. While this will be a top line headwind to our fiscal year 2024 sales, we believe the reduced infrastructure costs and placing more inventory and higher-margin sales in traditional watch and jewelry will drive better longer-term financial outcomes for the Company. Excluding the 7-point impact that primarily came from store closures and smartwatches, fourth quarter net sales declined about 10 points versus last year. The majority of that 10-point sales headwind came from our largest license brands, where sales in traditional watch and jewelry were down versus the year ago period in both our wholesale and direct channels. In the wholesale…

Jeff Boyer

Management

Thanks, Sunil. As Sunil and I shared with you, we're working diligently and taking prudent actions to stabilize the business and maximize shareholder value, all of which is underpinned by our commitment to returning Fossil Group to profitable growth as quickly as possible. Thank you to everyone for listening in today.

Operator

Operator