Gianluca Tagliabue
Analyst · UBS
Thank you, Gildo. Good afternoon, everybody. Let's move to Page 9 of the presentation, where you find our consolidated revenues for the quarter and the by segment information. First of all, let me make a general comment. As you know, Q1 consolidated revenues include Tom Ford fashion business, which was integrated in the group since April 29 of '23 and includes also the consolidation and acquisition of the South Korean business for Thom Browne on July 1 of last year and for Zegna, the Korean business on January 1 of this year. Pursuant to which the group started to directly operate the business for Thom Browne and for Zegna in that market. Therefore, when we refer to organic revenue growth, we neutralize from the group perimeter, the effect from Tom Ford fashion edition and the Korean related changes in scope, and we apply also the constant currency approach. In line with Q1 outlook provided during the last conference call on April 5, in the first quarter of this year, group revenues reached EUR 463 million, up 8% year-over-year, 11% when we exclude 3 percentage points of negative currency headwind. On an organic basis, revenues were down 5%. Zegna segment recorded positive growth, plus 2% on a reported basis and plus 4% on an organic basis, notwithstanding the textile product line, which recorded a flattish performance. Currencies have been a headwind in the quarter for the group and also for the Zegna segment, mainly related to renminbi and to a lesser extent to the yen and to the U.S. dollar depreciation compared to one year ago. As anticipated in the quarter, Thom Browne segment revenues declined 30% reported and 35% on an organic basis. I will comment in detail later on this performance. Let me only anticipate that the decline has been driven not only by a demanding base of comparison looking at Q1 of last year, namely in wholesale, but also by the decision to streamline the Thom Browne wholesale channel and by some sectors challenges in the Chinese market. Tom Ford fashion segment recorded $65 million of revenue. Given that Q1 of last year, Tom Ford fashion was not part of the group. We do not have a base of comparison. I will provide some more colors on Tom Ford fashion later in the presentation here. I can just add that the performance has been in line with our expectations. The brand CEO and his team are working to set the basis for the future development of the brand. Moving now to Page 10 of the presentation, we can look at the revenues by brand and product line. In Q1 of this year, Zegna brand recorded a solid plus 7% organic growth. The product categories that contributed the most to this performance are, of course, our Triple Stitch shoe family, which continued to deliver sound double-digit growth, also thanks to the success of the SECONDSKIN drop. But also, there was a positive trend on luxury leisure wear and our proprietary made-to-measure business. As we already commented Thom Browne brand performance as much as for the segment declined for our decision to reduce the wholesale business and also as a consequence of lower-than-expected B2C results, in particular, in Greater China region. In this performance, there is centrally the decision to protect the Thom Browne key branded products and their desirability by limiting their exposure in particularly online. Looking at Tom Ford fashion, let me make a quick comment on the new collections designed by Peter Hawkings, which has been introduced in stores from February with good sales performance. Of course, it is still early, but I would say that the initial signs are positive. A quick word on Textile, the flattish which is -1 organic performance of this product line reflects the cautious outlook that we are observing in this B2B sector with many companies being cautious on their raw material orders. Under the other revenue line, we now include mainly the revenues that we generate with third-party brands. This line of business can now be considered marginal since with the acquisition of 100% of Tom Ford International, we integrated the Tom Ford fashion business within the group, while before it was accounted within the third-party brand revenues. This explains the substantial decline reported given the change in scope. Moving now to revenues by distribution channel at Page 11. I would limit the comments here because we will then analyze this performance by channel, specifically for each brand, which I believe will provide you more insight. Still a couple of quick comments. DTC channel grew 20% year-over-year or 3% organic, driving the group performance, thanks to Zegna brand positive contribution and thanks to the integration of Tom Ford DTC channel. In the quarter, DTC accounted for 71% of group revenues or 77% of the three brands that is excluding textile and other revenue lines that are by definition, B2B and wholesale. The wholesale performance for the three brands, Zegna, Thom Browne and Tom Ford Fashion was negative 12% year-over-year and 26% organic, reflecting the negative performance at Thom Browne Wholesale. And we already mentioned the acquisitions of the Korean businesses, which were converted from wholesale to retail. Of course, these two effects have been partially offset by the positive contribution of Tom Ford Fashion addition. Moving to Page 12 with the split by geography. Before commenting the performance by region, let me underline that we have partially revised and I believe simplified the way we report revenues by geographical area, in line with sectors best practice. We, therefore, now report EMEA, the Americas. We continue to report revenues from the Greater China region and the rest of Asia, rest of APAC altogether. Looking at EMEA. EMEA recorded a negative 6.5% growth organic, exclusively related to Thom Browne performance, in particular, for the wholesale channel, while Zegna was double-digit positive in both channels in the region and Middle East continued to drive the growth of the region with outstanding double-digit growth. Moving to Americas. This region recorded a strong plus 10% growth on an organic basis and plus 58%, including the Tom Ford Fashion integration. Zegna DTC revenues significantly outperformed the organic growth of the region, U.S., Mexico, and Brazil have been the best performer markets. U.S. in particular, the most important market, of course, of the area, reported organic growth higher than the average of the region, thanks to Zegna brand outstanding double-digit performance in U.S. Greater-China region revenues declined by 13% organic with Thom Browne significantly below this mark, and Zegna down single digit. As Gildo mentioned in his introductory speech, the sector is seeing a normalization phase in GCR after the immediate post COVID bounce back, and we are seeing a more cautious consumer outlook, especially on the side of the aspirational clients. With Zegna brand, we can confirm that the high-end market is overperforming. For instance, our SECONDSKIN drop performed extremely well in China, and the Uber Luxury Trunk Shows we are organizing are delivering above expectations result and also make to measure orders are growing nicely. So, Thom Browne also is working on its top of the pyramid clientele. And more importantly, we have reinforced the management team, and I expect that some initial results should be visible towards the end of the year. In the rest of APAC, let me underline the strong performance in Japan for all our three brands. In terms of cluster of nationality, I will anticipate a question that I know you might ask. For Zegna DTC, the U.S. cluster keeps on growing on a solid double-digit pattern compared to last year, while the cluster of Zegna clients from Greater China is slightly negative versus Q1 of last year, even if Chinese are buying more outside China, both in Europe and even more in Japan. But you know that for Zegna brand, in particular, the largest part of Chinese buys domestically. Therefore, the trend of revenues in GCR as a region is not that different from the trend of the cluster of Chinese residents itself. Let's now move to the brand breakdown by channel, starting at Page 15 by Zegna brand. In Q1, Zegna DTC revenues grew by 6.3% organic accounting at this point for 85% of the brand revenues, the DTC channel recorded sound double-digit organic sales growth in EMEA, in Americas and rest of Asia Pacific, while GCR was, as I said before, mid-single-digit negative. In the quarter, the brand opened 24 net new stores from 253 at the end of last year to 277 at the end of March of this year. Within this, 24 net openings, 16 are the store converted in Korea from wholesale to retail for our shopping shop converted into concession in North America, and the remaining net four are two in [indiscernible] retail, Zurich and Shanghai and the last two are openings in China and [ Anxin ] and one in Paris, La Samaritaine. Wholesale for Zegna brand recorded a plus 9% organic, again deducting the effect of Korea with good growth in all markets. I remember that since spring '24, we are moving the merchandising calendar of our collections towards a by-drop approach, which will influence the time of deliveries in the quarter. As anticipated, Q1 has benefited of some shift of deliveries from Q4 of last year to Q1. In any event, we anticipate that for Zegna brand, the wholesale business in the year is expected to be flattish versus 2023 in organic terms, which means, again, taking aside the Korean takeover effects. Moving to Page 17, the breakdown by channel for Thom Browne. In Q1, DTC grew by 4.4% and which is a minus 14%, excluding the effect of the conversion from wholesale to retail of the Korean business. The rest of the APAC for Thom Browne outperformed, especially in Japan. Americas performed better than the average, GCR underperformed versus [indiscernible]. Commenting the wholesale performance, let me underline that it has been impacted by three main effects. Demanding base of comparison, Q1 of last year was a very important quarter of shipments. Spring '24 deliveries that have been accounted in Q4 of '23 and more importantly, by the decision to rebalance the channel. The first two factors should be less relevant in the coming quarters, in particular in Q2 and Q3, while with regard to the wholesale selection, we expect it will continue also in the next quarters. However, the magnitude of this selection should be significantly lower. Let's now move to Page 19 for a few comments on Tom Ford Fashion, which reached EUR 65 million with a DTC contribution close to 70% for the brand. You know that quarterly performance cannot be considered as a proxy for a year. And the results, this is true for most of the business, and it is even true in this case for many reasons. First of all, Tom Ford Fashion delivered some spring wholesale orders in April. The new collection designed by Peter Hawkings, hit the stores only March, contributing for revenues for only a few weeks. And last but not least, some important new openings are expected in the second part of the year. Therefore, to help you understand the trend of this brand, I would just add that Q1 contribution to Tom Ford Fashion yearly revenues should be assumed closer to 20% rather than 25%. Before moving to Q&A, let me just comment on Page 21 that at the end of the group. At the quarter, the group has 417 thus an increase of 27 net versus December, which we already commented 20 are coming from the wholesale to retail conversions of Zegna, while Tom Ford in the quarter opened three small stores. And now I hand it over to the operator for the Q&A session.