Greetings, and welcome to the Inter Parfums, Inc. 2024 Fourth Quarter and Year End Conference Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Karin Daly, Vice President at The Equity Group and Inter Parfums, Inc. investor relations representative. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, Tomali. Joining us on the call today will be Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Jean Madar, and Chief Financial Officer, Michel Atwood. On behalf of the company, I would like to note that this conference call may contain forward-looking statements, which involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from projected results. These factors may be found in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, under the headings Forward-Looking Statements and Risk Factors. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made, and Inter Parfums, Inc. undertakes no obligation to update the information discussed. As a reminder, Inter Parfums, Inc.'s consolidated results include two business segments: European-based operations through Inter Parfums SA, the company is 72% of the French subsidiary, and United States-based operations. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Jean Madar.

Thank you, Karin. And good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's call. 2024 was a great year for us. We closed it on a high note with record fourth-quarter sales and earnings. Our sales culminated to $1.452 billion, and the adjusted earnings before an impairment was $5.18 per diluted share, beating our guidance of $5.15. It was also the year we initiated distribution and sales for the two new brands, Lacoste and Roberto Cavalli. We also renewed our license agreement with Bank of America, extending our 18-year partnership into the next decade. And we also signed an agreement that will bring the off-price fragrance business under our direction starting 2026. We have also been recognized for a number of awards and achievements this year. But the one that we are the most proud of was our inclusion in Time Magazine's World Best Companies Sustainable Growth Ranking, which rewards the 500 most exemplary companies in terms of economic growth and environmental commitment over the period 2021-2022. Specifically, our 72% owned subsidiary, Inter Parfums SA, ranked number 44 out of 500 among all the companies in the world. Talking about business, for the second year in a row, Jimmy Choo, the largest brand in our portfolio, increased sales by 7% for the year, largely driven by the ongoing success of the I Want Choo franchise. Guess also had a stellar year, growing 13% as a result of a continued robust performance of its legacy fragrance, plus the initial success of our new pillar, Guess Iconic. The brand entered 2025 with very strong programs and momentum from the fashion house. Donna Karan, DKNY, fragrances, which joined our portfolio mid-2022, generated already sales in excess of $100 million. I would like now to take an opportunity to provide an update…

Thank you, Jean, and good morning, everyone. I will begin by discussing the consolidated results before breaking them down into our two operating units, European and US-based operations. Overall, as you have seen from our earnings release, we delivered significant top-line growth while expanding margins. We also beat our sales and earnings guidance. As we reported, consolidated net sales grew 10% in both the final quarter and the full year to $362 million and $1.452 billion, respectively, for the year. Gross margin was broadly in line with the prior year periods at 64.5% and 63.9% for the fourth quarter and full year. SG&A as a percentage of net sales was largely consistent with 2024 at 44.7%, which is up only 10 basis points from one year earlier. We maintained significant investments in A&P to strengthen brand awareness, stay competitive, and support ongoing growth, especially with two new brands in our portfolio. In total, we devoted $281 million in A&P, 7% higher than last year. However, as a percentage of net sales, A&P was 19.3%, which is below our target of 21%, as we phase some of our A&P investments into the first half of 2025, where we believe we will get a higher ROI. Royalty expenses, which are included in SG&A, averaged approximately 8% in 2024, generally in line with our five-year run rates. That brings our 2024 consolidated operating income before impairment loss to $279 million, a year-over-year increase of 11%, an operating margin that is best in class at 19.2%, and slightly ahead of the prior year. Our effective tax rate for the year was 24.2%, which is a blended rate between our US, French, and Italian entities. This rate improved by 60 basis points from 24.8% in 2023 when we had a $3 million tax assessment. Now…

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. You may press star two to remove yourself from the queue.

Yes.

Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Linda Bolton-Weiser with D.A. Davidson. Please proceed with your question.

Yes. Hello. So I was wondering if you could talk about, I think in the press release, there was a mention of destocking in the industry. And I was curious if you could give us a sense of what's going on there because I know you had that issue last year in 2024, but I thought it was completed and that you felt things were in good shape. Can you just kind of tell us where you think the channel inventory stands at this point? Thanks.

Hello, Linda. Thank you for your question. I will say that we did a good selling in November and December, anticipating a good Christmas sell-through, which happened, by the way. And I will say that in the last two, three months, the gap between sell-in and sell-out reduced. So it's not going to be as severe as it was in the whole year of 2024. Michel, you want to add something?

Yeah. I would say, as you know, Linda, we saw about two to three points of destocking effect, the gap. Most of that happened in the first nine months of the year. There was still a small difference in the fourth quarter, but it was really moderate. And I think at this point in time, we're feeling comfortable that the worst is behind us in this area.

Okay. Sounds good. And then I was kind of curious about when you talked about the competition just now at the end of your remarks, I mean, the category has always been competitive, big players and yourself, gaining market share over time. What do you mean by competition kind of changing? And do you expect that you can gain market share in 2025?

Okay. So Linda, I mean, if you look at the data, we like to look at the outside and understand what's really happening out there. So we are looking at our competitive peers, obviously, the ones that are publicly traded. What we can see really is, across the board, the growth of our peer group has been below the overall market. So while the market has been very, very good and very, very strong, the sell-in, which is obviously reflected in our peer group sales, has been lower. And I think this whole destocking thing has probably impacted the broader industry, not just us. On the margins, if you look at our trailing twelve months margins where we've actually been able to hold our operating margins flat, what we see very clearly is most of our competitors have had eroding operating margins. Again, it's always difficult to go into the details when you're looking at this based on what's been disclosed, but we are seeing a pretty strong trend of eroding margins across our competitors. And I think if you look at what's been happening in the past, I think the whole industry was surprised by the market and probably was investing less. And I think as the market slows down and people start to anticipate that growth, I think the category is definitely getting more competitive.

Yeah. I tend to agree. Are we going to gain market share in 2025? We think that the level of innovation that we have for most of the brands is quite impressive. I mean, we have blockbusters for Ferragamo, Rochas, Cavalli, MCM. It's an important year of blockbusters. We have very important extensions on important brands like Jimmy Choo, Montblanc, and Coach. So yes, I think it will continue at a more moderate pace, but I think we have the tools to gain market share.

Thanks. And then just my last question is the Ferragamo blockbuster that sounds exciting. What month or what part of the year do you think it launches in? And will it be a gradual rollout or more of a global launch?

It's going to start in the second quarter. We're going to start seeing some selling in the second quarter, accelerating in the third quarter. Important markets will be, as I said, USA, but I'm going to China next week to see a horizon market there. As you know, it has been quite challenging for a while, but we think that with the right level of promotion, we can promote the new fragrance in China also. Even though China, as you know, has been not in terms of percentage of sales, we are below our competitors. I think it represented only 4% for us. We think that we have some possibilities, some interesting opportunities with Ferragamo. But the largest markets will be Italy, US, and also Mexico. As the market share of Ferragamo in Mexico is quite high.

Okay. That's it for me. Thanks a lot.

Thank you, Linda, for your questions. Thank you, Linda.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ashley Helgans with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

Hi. Thanks for taking our questions. So just first, you said that you'd expect for this year the market is going to remain robust but moderate off of the strong years we've seen in the last few years. Just curious if you can maybe talk about specific markets, if you're seeing any more moderation in certain markets versus others. And then as the market normalizes, what should we expect for promotional levels? Thanks so much.

Okay. So I'll maybe take the first question. I mean, if you look at the market overall, I mean, in 2024, things started off really, really strong. You know, and I'm going to give you a couple of data points. The US was up 20% in the first quarter, and it was up also 20% in the third quarter. What we saw is really the fourth quarter was more moderate and still very strong, but 11% growth. Okay? That's just to give you an illustration of the US numbers. We saw that pretty much at a global level. The first quarter was 15%, the second quarter was 10%, quarter three was still very strong, and then quarter four was slower. So we finished the year at about 11% at the global level for the top markets that we track, and 9% in the fourth quarter. So we did see a pretty significant slowdown in that growth versus what we had in the first half of the year. You know, going forward, I think the industry is seeing mid-single-digit growth, which is still kind of what we have historically been able to grow by. On promotionality, Jean, you want to maybe take that? And I can then chime in.

Yes. I don't think we'll see promotional levels in 2025 and 2024. I think it's going to be almost at the same level. I would like to say that, like Michel mentioned in his remarks, the money that we are investing in advertising and promotion is really very strong. We have invested on our side almost $300 million in advertisement and promotion. And this is without counting what our partners, distributors, are spending, which are estimated over $100 million. This money that's spent in the market is really what's going to ensure sales in the future for us.

Yeah. I would also just maybe build on Jean's as we talk about promotionality. As you know, this is not a category where people typically discount on price. I think when you talk about promotionality, it's generally more about offers. And we did see an uptick in the number of gift sets in the fourth quarter because I think a lot of the consumers, there has been a lot of pricing. As you know, we did not take a lot of pricing. We took no pricing in 2024, and we're not planning to take pricing in 2025. But there has been a lot more pricing taken by our competitors. And I think for some of those brands that maybe priced themselves up a lot, they have had to offer more value in the form of more gift sets, and I think we saw that pretty clearly in the fourth quarter.

Thanks so much. That's super helpful. I'll pass it on.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Korinne Wolfmeyer with Piper Sandler. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the question. I'd like to touch a little bit on kind of the building blocks of the performance by brands in 2024. So our understanding is, you know, the addition of Lacoste and Cavalli added about nine points. There was maybe a headwind from Dunhill. And then there was some commentary in the press release that the top 70% grew about 4%, if I'm correct. So that means the rest of the business was, you know, struggling a little bit or didn't grow as much or maybe was negative. Can you touch a little bit on what's going on with some of those softer brand performances and what gives you confidence in maybe those recovering a bit here in 2025? Thanks.

Michel?

Yeah. So, Korinne, I mean, inevitably, you know, when you add a lot of brands, some new brands and large brands, you want to focus on the biggest parts of the portfolio. Some of the declines can be driven by a number of things. If you take a brand like Lanvin, for example, which has declined this year, this is entirely driven by the footprint. A lot of the Lanvin business is in Russia and Eastern Europe, where we know there have been issues, as well as in China, where the market has been softer. So, you know, inevitably, what we want to do is really focus on our largest brands, make sure we're growing those disproportionately. And then on the little ones, we continue to focus and give them the right level of attention and investments. Sometimes this all could be driven by, you know, phasing of innovation and things like that. So the smaller brands typically are always going to be a little bit more volatile because of their size, inevitably, and more sensitive to innovation and geographic footprint. Jean?

Yeah. Totally. I will say that we work hard on the brands that are smaller. They are not less important, but they are smaller in size. A very important brand for us is Oscar de la Renta. We have a great footprint in the US, but internationally, it is more challenging. But we are able to maintain the sales. We are also able to maintain the sales on Van Cleef & Arpels, which is a smaller brand for us. But, of course, in this super competitive environment, it's already not bad to maintain the level of sales for these brands. Also, innovation is key for these smaller brands and depends on the timing. With no points in that, a brand like MCM is going to grow in 2025 because we have a great collection that will be launched that is launching now. We have already some indication that we'll have a nice growth.

Very helpful. Thank you so much for all the color. And then maybe, Michel, if you could just give us a little bit more context on what you're baking in as far as gross margin and operating margin performance over the course of the year. And the puts and takes we should be thinking about from a quarterly cadence perspective. Thanks.

Okay. So on the top line, as you know, we don't generally like to provide quarterly guidance because we like to run our business for the next ten years, not necessarily the next quarter. Overall, what I would say is on the top line, we have two factors that are going to impact us in the first quarter. The first one is obviously the loss of Dunhill, which is going to impact the first three quarters because we phased it out at the end of September. We know that that's about a point across the year and across the portfolio. The other thing is FX. And as you indicated in my prepared remarks, FX last year was close to 1.09. The first quarter, right now, we don't really know where we're going to land, but it oscillates between 1.04, 1.05. So we believe that, just rule of thumb, FX hits us by about half of that impact. So if you look at a 1.09 versus a 1.05, that's about two points. Okay? So we are expecting right now the first quarter to be about flat, but it's mostly driven by the FX of the Dunhill impacts. On gross margins, at this point in time, we're not really expecting any significant changes, obviously, there's the normal seasonality of when we sell in gift sets and things like that. But generally speaking, and channel footprint, but generally speaking, we're not expecting any significant changes in our gross margin for the year, nor on a by-quarter basis. On the SG&A side, I think as you clearly probably read through my prepared remarks, we did phase some A&P into the first quarter. I think, you know, behind a lot of the blockbuster launches that we have, we felt that we would get a much better ROI for our money. We also believe that we need to balance our spending more. Historically, we have spent a significant amount only in the fourth quarter, and our strategy has not been necessarily to reduce the fourth quarter, but to, when we're adding dollars, we're adding them where we think that we will get a better ROI. And we did that successfully this year in the first quarter, and we will most probably continue to do that again next year. So you can expect that A&P will be higher and more than likely the operating margins will erode as a result of that in the first quarter.

Great. Thanks so much.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Susan Anderson with Canaccord Genuity. Please proceed with your question.

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Guess maybe just following up on that building block question, maybe looking at 2025, if you could give some color just on how you think the performance of your top brands will trend. I guess, should we expect, you know, the larger top brands to be more like a low single-digit growth whereas maybe a little bit of upside from there then is coming from the newer launches such as Ferragamo or continued, you know, growth from the Lacoste business or maybe if you could just give some color there? Thanks.

I'll chime in and then maybe, Jean, you can build on this. I mean, if you look at our innovation, I think what that innovation clearly points to is where we're going to have significant growth. We're going to have significant growth on Guess, we're going to have significant growth on Ferragamo, on Cavalli, on Lacoste, on MCM, and on Donna Karan and DKNY. Those brands, because of that's where we have significant innovation, will grow disproportionately, and you will see more growth from those brands next year. In terms of the larger brands like Montblanc, Jimmy Choo, and Coach, where the pace of innovation is going to be more like the flankers like we've seen this year, the growth will be more moderate, but we believe that that is the right strategy for those brands. And we are ramping up our innovation program for 2026 for all three of those brands, and we are looking to build those brands and accelerate the growth when that happens in 2026. And then on some of the smaller brands in our portfolio, we'll probably continue to see some decay, including what we basically said before with Dunhill, which is leaving our portfolio, and Boucheron, which will eventually phase out by the end of 2025.

I'd just add that brands like Jimmy Choo, Montblanc, and Coach will have instant extensions. Where the brands are smaller, now, this is what we have for 2025. We are also working on 2026 and 2027. You know, we have to have our important plans. That's why I'm looking at the growth of 4% for 2025. And I think it will be interesting to see that this growth will also come with profitability. We are not anticipating, for instance, more gift sets or more promotion next year. It's going to be a balanced approach.

Okay. Great. That's really helpful. And then maybe I don't know if you could talk about just kind of what you're seeing to start 2025 and throughout the first quarter so far. Just I guess, in general trends around fragrance, if you're still seeing the same dynamic between sell-in and sell-out. And then, you know, as everyone knows, beauty in general had a rough start, I guess, to the year trend, and if anything has changed as maybe if you could talk about you're seeing a similar weather may be improved in some regions. Thanks.

Yeah. Okay. So maybe I'm going to address your point around sell-in versus sell-out. I think we're seeing, as we said, in the first three first nine months of the year, we did see a pretty significant difference between our sell-in and our sell-out. It was between two to three points. In the fourth quarter, it was significantly smaller. And I think at this point in time, we're feeling pretty comfortable. As I said, when I got the question from Linda, you know, we certainly believe that this is a broad base across the industry, particularly when we look at our competitive set and we look at their sell-in versus their sell-out in the overall market. So I think this is an industry trend that probably was a carryover effect of 2023. And at this point in time, I think we're feeling pretty good that we're there. In terms of trends, I think a lot of the trends have remained the same in, you know, in the US, and we're seeing them everywhere else, which is more men. You know, historically, fragrance has been underpenetrated in men versus female. We are seeing more men, younger men entering the category. We are seeing people looking for more long-lasting fragrances. And I think we will continue to see that trend, I think, going forward as people become more sophisticated. I like to use the analogy of you start with a beer, you know, and then you move on to craft beer. And as you become more knowledgeable of the category, I think you see this pretty much everywhere, whether it's with beers, whether it's with wine, whether it's with cognac. And we see this also with fragrances, which is as people become more knowledgeable about the category, they start to invest more. They start to use more. And typically, they become more sophisticated.

Yes. To answer your question on the go by quarter, we don't like to give guidance by quarter, but as I said, we are looking at 4% for the year. When is it going to happen? How is it going to happen? I will say the first and second quarters will be lower than the third and fourth because of the flow of blockbusters, rolling out of blockbusters coming. So I'm not going to put some numbers, but I will say I will not be surprised if it's a little flat in the first quarter, increasing in the second, and much better in the third and fourth in order to get to this 4% growth that we should achieve in 2025.

Okay. Great. Thanks so much. That's very helpful. Good luck in 2025.

Thank you, Susan. Thank you.

Thank you. We have reached the end of the question and answer session. I would like to turn the floor back to Michel Atwood for closing remarks.

Alright. Thank you very much. And thank you all for joining our call today. Before I end the call, I'd like to again thank our teams for all their hard work in 2024. Our success is a direct reflection of our people and the unique contribution they make each day. And I think you see the extent of the work that we do across the board, whether it's the brands, the geographies, and the functions that get us to where we are and behind a lot of these results. I'd like to also mention a couple of upcoming events. So tomorrow, I will be hosting meetings at the TD Cohen Growing Ahead Beauty Summit here in New York City. And then on March 7th, Jean and I will be joining the D.A. Davidson Best of the Breed Conference, which is going to be held virtually. And, Linda, thanks for inviting us. If you have any additional questions, please contact Karin Daly from the Equity Group. Our investor relations representative's telephone number and email address can be found in our most recent earnings release. And we really look forward to the next conference call, and thank you, and have a good day.

Thank you. And this concludes the conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.