Jonathan Sinclair
Analyst · Wells Fargo. Your line is now open
Thank you, Dani, and good morning, everyone. With fiscal '22 wrapped up, we're pleased with our momentum and optimistic about the year ahead. Despite new waves of disruption in certain markets, we believe current trends in our business are strong. Consumer behavior and retail traffic are normalizing in many markets and our unique supply chain has become an even greater advantage. Carrying this momentum into the year ahead, we have many powerful levers to grow and to increase profitability. First, I will start by looking back at the fourth quarter. The current quarter ended on April 3, 2022, and that's one week later than the comparative period. The seasonality of our business makes the impact of this significant. For that reason, we have also provided figures that use the same set of trading weeks in both periods. We believe that this better reflects our trajectory going into fiscal 2023. On a reported basis, total revenue in Q4 increased by 7%. At a channel level, DTC growth was 8% and wholesale growth was 4%. Using the same trading weeks in both periods, total revenue would have increased by 24%, with DTC growth of 28%, and wholesale growth of 8%. Looking at gross margin, it's great to see the power of our algorithm working so well in these times. Both DTC and wholesale gross margins expanded, compared to the prior year, coming in at 76.1% and 33.6% respectively. Going further down the P&L, adjusted EBIT margin expanded to 5.6% and adjusted EPS was $0.04. For the full-year, both metrics landed at the top end of our outlook ranges with adjusted EBIT margin of 15.9% and adjusted earnings per share of $1.09. Moving to our outlook for fiscal 2023, the two things that stand out are the breadth of our opportunities and the resilience of our operating level. We have many powerful levers for growth and for margin expansion with a high degree of supply certainty and limited supply pressures. Starting with the top line, we expect total revenue of between $1.3 billion and $1.4 billion. The DTC, this assumes low to high-teens comparable sales growth alongside continued expansion of our retail network and our omni-channel capabilities. At this stage of our journey in DTC, like-for-like growth becomes the biggest driver, and we will be providing this to you as we progress through the year. The total channel is projected to reach 70% to 73% of our total revenue this year. In wholesale, we expect revenue to increase by approximately 6%, continuing our strategy of controlled complementary growth. From a geographic perspective, a major new catalyst is our recently formed joint venture Canada Goose Japan with our former distributor Sazaby League. We expect the JV to contribute $60 million to $65 million in total revenue in fiscal 2023. The timing of this revenue is somewhat later in the year, as wholesale shipments to the JV will no longer be recognized as revenue upon shipment. As Dani mentioned, this unlocks a more significant and profitable Japanese business with a longer runway. We expect to realize an immediate uplift in revenue per unit from our existing volume in this market. We also have a stronger economic model to fund DTC expansion and bring the full breadth of Canada Goose to the consumer, alongside the local expertise of a trusted world-class partner. Another key contributor to our outlook is product expansion. Non-parka revenue grew by 70% in fiscal 2022. Alongside continued growth in our core, consumers are embracing our earlier stage categories. We expect these products to continue outpacing the overall growth of the business. Certainty of supply in a dynamic external environment is another important piece of confidence behind our outlook. While others are now starting to bring back production, we've always been there. In our most recent calendar year, 84% of the units made or purchased were from Canada, followed by Europe with 14%. This geographic mix is very unique. We are not experiencing any significant supply disruptions and we're going into the coming year with a high degree of flexibility in our inventory position. Moving past revenue, fiscal 2023 represents a major step up in profitability with an adjusted EBIT margin of between 19.2% and 20.7%. This is underpinned by three key drivers, gross margin expansion; lower SG&A growth; and improved retail productivity. We expect consolidated gross margins to be in the high-60s as a percentage of total revenue with expansion driven by the DTC mix shift. At an individual channel level, we feel good about preserving our typical levels, while funding investment in earlier stage categories. We have a long history of taking price in excess of cost inflation, which is grounded in the quality and functional value that our products provide. As a vertically integrated manufacturer with high AUR products, we have fewer inflationary pressures. As restrictions in our manufacturing facilities have subsided, output is ramping up and overhead absorption is improving, providing an additional tailwind. To finish on gross margin in wholesale specifically, we have a one-time step-up from the conversion of our Japanese business shifting from our largest distributor market to a joint venture. As we've noted in the past, international distributor sales come in at a significantly lower gross margin, compared to a direct sales to a wholesale partner. This change eliminates that. The second driver is lower SG&A growth. Fiscal 2022 is a year of significant upfront investment including our footwear launch. We also resumed a much more offensive stance with demand creation and operational spend coming out of the first wave -- front-weighted to the earlier parts of the year. For fiscal 2023, we expect a lower level of growth in SG&A. The last piece is retail productivity. We expect improved traffic alongside lower levels of closures and restrictions to drive greater profitability in our stores. In markets, which are currently unrestricted, we have seen a strong rebound from local consumers, as well as the green shoots in international traffic from North American and European consumers. Our margin outlook is not dependent on a full recovery of international traffic, nor on the return of traveling Chinese consumers. Bringing all of this together, we expect adjusted EPS in the range of $1.60 to $1.90, representing growth of 47% to 74%. This is purely organic as the underlying share count does not assume any incremental share buyback activity. Before we wrap up, I'd like to touch briefly on our embedded view for quarter one. We expect total revenue of $60 million to $65 million. In our seasonally smallest quarter, this represents a lower rate of growth than our annual expectation for two reasons. The first is ongoing closures and restrictions in Mainland China. Four stores are currently closed with traffic significantly impacted at those that are open. E-commerce logistics have also been disrupted. Well, generally consumers in this market are understandably not immediately focused on discretionary consumption. We believe that this is a transitory headwind in a very low impact trading period. Underlying brand demand remains robust. Our experience in the first wave also shows how quickly and significantly Mainland China has rebounded from disruption. Our outlook assumes a return to regular trading levels in this market during the peak selling season. The second dimension is the conversion of our Japanese business to a joint venture, which shifts revenue recognition later from shipment to the distributor to shipment to the wholesale partner. Q1 was previously a significant shipment window to this partner each year. For this reason, and only this reason, we expect wholesale revenue growth to be slightly negative. For adjusted EBIT, we expect a loss between $80 million and $75 million. And that flows down to an adjusted loss per share of $0.64 to $0.60. In closing, we navigated through a disrupted year and came out stronger. We are eagerly looking at the year ahead with accelerating growth markets and rising consumer demand for emerging product categories. In addition, improved retail productivity, gross margin expansion and reduced SG&A growth will drive our bottom line. Underpinning all of this is our unique supply chain, which enables us to always have products available and to effectively navigate a more inflationary environment. We are very optimistic for the year ahead and confident our strong momentum will make fiscal '23 a standout year. With that, I will pass it over to the operator to begin Q&A.