Rhodri Harries
Analyst · Stephen MacLeod with BMO. Your line is now open
Thank you, Glenn, and good morning, everyone. And thank you for joining us today to discuss our third quarter results. I'll start by going over the specifics of the quarter and then I will comment on our outlook and guidance for 2024. So let's begin with the quarter's results. As Glenn mentioned in his remarks, we reported third quarter sales of $891 million, up $21 million or 2.4%, at the high end of our guidance range for the quarter of flat-to-low, single-digits growth. If we exclude the impact of the phase out of Under Armour, net sales for the quarter were up high single-digits on a year-over-year basis. This was driven by a strong performance in Activewear, up $44 million or 6%, driven by higher sales volumes reflecting positive POS across channels in North America. We observed continued momentum with national account customers in several of our retail end markets, namely craft, online retailers and in certain other mass markets. Moreover, our strong competitive positioning has enabled us to capitalize on recent changes in the industry landscape. The overall growth in Activewear sales would have been higher, but was partially offset by unfavorable product mix in the quarter. This was partly because of lower fleece sales compared to last year's strong performance, which was largely due to timing differences and which we had anticipated. Overall though, we were pleased with our mid-single-digits sales growth in Activewear, as we continue to see market share gains in key growth categories, as well as a positive market response to our newly-introduced products featuring our new soft cotton technology. Looking at international markets, sales increased by 20%. Growth stemmed from positive POS in Europe, our largest market as well as inventory replenishment by distributors from sub-optimal levels. We are now clearly increasingly better positioned to service this market as we ramp up our Bangladesh facility. Turning to Hosiery and Underwear. As expected, this category was down 18% versus the prior year, mainly due to the phase out of the Under Armour business, and to a lesser extent due to unfavorable mix. Excluding this phase out, our Hosiery and Underwear sales would have been up low double-digits year-over-year, highlighting strong underlying growth as we gain further traction with other national account customers and despite the prevailing broader market weakness in underwear. Finally, a quick note regarding our year-to-date net sales. If we exclude the impact of the Under Armour phase out, sales for the Hosiery and Underwear category as well as consolidated sales would have increased by mid-single-digits year-over-year. Turning our focus to margins for the quarter. Our gross margin was 31.2% versus 27.5% in the prior year, a 370 basis point improvement, primarily due to lower raw material and manufacturing input costs, in line with our expectations. As for SG&A, expenses were $84 million in the quarter, including $6 million in carryover charges related to the proxy contest and related matters. Excluding these charges, adjusted SG&A expenses were $78 million or 8.8% of net sales, a 70 basis point improvement versus last year. The year-over-year reduction in SG&A mainly reflected the ongoing positive benefit of the jobs credit introduced by Barbados during the second quarter as part of their economic policies. As we bring all these elements together and adjusting for proxy contest and related matters, we generated adjusted operating income of $200 million or 22.4% of net sales in line with our guidance, and up 430 basis points compared to the prior year. As expected, the company's adjusted effective income tax rate for the quarter was 18.7% compared to 5.1% last year, reflecting the enactment of global minimum tax in Canada and Barbados earlier this year. After reflecting higher net financial and income tax expenses and our lower outstanding share base, we reported GAAP EPS of $0.82. Adjusting for the charges related to the proxy contest and related matters, our adjusted diluted earnings per share were at a record level for the third quarter at $0.85 versus $0.74 in the prior year, which represents a 15% increase. Now let's shift to cash flow and balance sheet items. With cash flow from operating activities of $178 million and CapEx of $30 million the company generated free cash flow of $149 million in the third quarter. This together with our strong balance sheet allowed us to continue to execute on our capital allocation priorities and reflecting our strong commitment to returning capital to shareholders, we repurchased close to 9 million shares under our NCIB and returned a quarterly record of $404 million in capital, including dividends to shareholders in the third quarter. We ended the quarter with net debt of $1.5 billion and a net debt to EBITDA leverage ratio of 1.9 times, well within our targeted debt levels. Let's now focus on our strategy and outlook. As Glenn mentioned earlier, we continue to progress in the three pillars of our GSG strategy: capacity driven growth, innovation and ESG. The ramp up of our new manufacturing complex in Bangladesh is on track and set to be at an exit capacity rate of 75% by year end. On the innovation front, our new products are receiving positive feedback. And lastly, with regards to ESG, we're proud to have received yet another recognition, this time as one of Canada's most responsible companies by Newsweek, ranking 14th overall and securing the top spot in the retail and consumer goods industry, a testament to our fundamental commitment to ESG. So overall, we're very pleased with our performance despite a somewhat mixed macroeconomic backdrop. More specifically, considering where we are today in our final quarter, we feel we are on track to deliver our full year 2024 guidance and as such we have further narrowed our 2024 outlook range as follows. We're moving our revenue growth guidance to the upper end of our previous range. So we now anticipate growth of low single-digits compared to our previous guidance of flat to up low single-digits, noting that if we were to exclude the impact of the Under Armour license agreement, 2024 full year revenue growth would be in the mid-single-digit range. And remember this phase out has had minimal impact on our profitability. We now also expect adjusted operating margin to slightly exceed 21%, compared to our previous guidance of slightly above the high end of our 18% to 20% target range for 2024. This factors in the benefit of the refundable jobs credit introduced by Barbados as described earlier. We now expect adjusted diluted EPS to be in the range of $2.97 to $3.02 up significantly between 15.5% 17.5% year-over-year, which compares to our previous guidance range of $2.92 to $3.07 for 2024. This takes into account an expected adjusted effective income tax rate of approximately 18% for the full year compared to 4.4% last year. We also continue to expect CapEx to come in at approximately 5% of net sales and free cash flow is still expected to be above 2023 levels, driven by increased profitability, lower working capital investments and lower CapEx than in 2023. Finally, we plan to continue share repurchases in the final quarter, given the strength of our balance sheet, our expected strong free cash flow, and our leverage framework target of 1.5x to 2.5x net debt-to-adjusted EBITDA. So this wraps up our financial overview for the quarter. Before we take your questions, I would just like to reemphasize that the strength of our vertical integration model, our steadfast focus on our cost structure, the successful execution of our GSG strategy combined with strength of our balance sheet and free cash flow generation ability, all position company favourably for the coming years, especially considering the current competitive landscape. So bottom-line, and as Glenn mentioned earlier, we feel like we are fully on-track to deliver on the targets we have provided for the next three years of mid-single-digits revenue growth, improved annual adjusted operating margin as compared to 2024 and mid teen adjusted EPS growth. Thank you all for joining us today. I will now turn it back over to Jessy.