Q1 2023 Delta Apparel Inc Earnings Call
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our Bob Humphreys, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Justin Groh, Executive Vice President, and Chief Administrative Officer, and Nancy Poubonnich, Chief Accounting Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that during the course of this conference call, projections or other forward-looking statements may be made.
by Delta Apparel's executives. Such projections and statements suggest prediction and involve risk and uncertainty.
and actual results may differ materially. Please refer to periodic reports filed with Securities and Exchange Commission, including the company's most recent annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q . These documents identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the form.
will not be realized. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Ms. Humphries. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon and thank you for your interest in Delta Apparel. Before we begin, I'd like to briefly introduce Justin Grove and Nancy Bubinich to those of you on the call. This is what a 24-hour age call is for. It's for kids.
Just and recently rejoined Delta apparel as our Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer and has been with us for almost a decade in various roles including General Counsel and Vice President of Administration.
Among the multiple hats Justin wears for the company, he is heading up our investor relations efforts.
Nancy has been with the company since 2006 and has held a variety of accounting and financial leadership roles during that time.
Since 2021, Nancy has served as our chief accounting officer and was recently appointed to serve as our principal financial officer.
Nancy has a deep understanding of our financial affairs, including our manufacturing, manufacturing, and inventory valuation systems.
Additionally, Nancy has arranged and managed our offshore financing for years, and recently she added an additional lender to support our investments in El Salvador.
This past year she arranged capital lease financing for assault live retail store buildouts.
She also manages our relationship with Wells Fargo and the other lenders in our US revolving debt facility. As you can see, Nancy has been quite busy. So, you can also enjoy our relationship with city council and gr modularie. And also?? working at the same time. So, you can also enjoy our relationship with city council and gr modularie.
I'm very excited to have Justin and Nancy with us on the call today.
Now turning over to our results for the first quarter of our 2023 fiscal year, we are extremely pleased to report double-digit sales growth across four of our five go-to-market channels, including DTT To Go, Salt Life, Global Brands, and Retail Direct.
These strong top-line results were led by record quarter in our own-demand digital print business, DTG2GO, including nearly 20% sales growth year-over-year.
Our salt life business also brought in record sales for the quarter with 17% growth over the prior year.
Our top line performance for the quarter provides a great example of the resiliency that we've been able to build into our business over the years with a strength and the majority of our go-to-market channels allowing us to overcome some of the demand headwinds in the Mass Retail Channel impacting our Delta Direct Channel and the overall industry for several quarters now.
As expected, our profitability this quarter was impacted by the reduced demand in the mass retail supply chain, as well as the elevated costs we continue to see in our business, particularly in our Delta Group segment with respect to cotton and other raw materials, as well as energy and labor.
Although cotton prices have somewhat normalized from the unusual highs of last year,
That high-cost cotton is now flowing through our cost of sales and pressured our bottom-line results this quarter. In addition, the manufacturing shutdowns that we and many across the industry initiated during the quarter to calibrate output with a lower demand also impacted profitability.
We expect to continue to work through last year's higher price cotton in our second quarter and begin to see the benefits of lower input cost in our financial results as we progress through the back half of our fiscal year.
Let me now turn the discussion over to Justin, who will go through our business highlights in more detail, and then to Nancy, who will follow up with a review of our financial results.
I'll then join with me on to open the call up for questions.
Justin?
Thanks Bob. As Bob mentioned, we were pleased to deliver solid top line performance this quarter with net sale of the $107.3 million that were down only slightly to our record first quarter sale last year, $110 million.
in what was a markedly different demand environment for basic teas compared to last year, when the industry generally couldn't make enough product quickly enough to satisfy market demand.
In our Delta group segment, the DTG-2-G to-Go team executed well during the holiday season.
and posted record first quarter sales, including strong double digit growth of the last year, an increased average selling prices.
Customers continue to appreciate the lower inventory investment in better inventory risk management, quicker time from order to porch, more efficient replenishment, small order and quick activation programs, and unlimited color and design options that DTG2 goes digital print strategies offer.
In addition, DTT2GO continues to leverage the competitive advantages provided by its multi-facility fulfillment network and internal source for blank garments.
Its ability to reach 99% of US consumers in two days or less in access Delta Direct's low cost blank T and P supply are true market differentiators. And DTTG to go margins and profitability should benefit from increases in customer adoption of Delta Direct garments going forward.
The man for DTG to go digital first strategy continues to exceed current capacity and we are steadily improving our output on new technology that we were the first to implement in a full production environment only 15 months ago.
We expect the learning and expertise gained during this early operational phase to solidify DTG2Go's position as not only the largest, but also the highest quality digital first printer in our market.
In addition, DTG2Go's business with traditional e-retailer and other customers utilizing previously implemented technology continues to grow significantly.
We remain extraordinarily bullish on the long-range penetration of digital strategies across the printware industry.
which some experts predict this year to reach 3% of an overall market estimated at well over 20 billion dollars and to increase to 6% of a much larger overall market by 2028.
DTG2 goes first mover advantages and industry leading physicians set the stage for what we believe should be many years of strong double digit top one growth while targeting consistent operating margins in the low teams.
Although DTG2GO provided record output and much improved service to our customers in the important holiday season, we still have challenges ahead of us to further improve machine efficiencies, reduce maintenance expense, and reduce labor and supply costs.
We have an experienced team driving these improvement initiatives and expect to start achieving our targeted costs during our fourth fiscal quarter.
Our global brands channel also delivered double digit sales growth for the quarter and continues to serve as a valuable supply chain partner to large multinational and regional brands, major branded sportswear companies, and all branches of the United States Armed Forces.
The growth in that channel was accelerated by the expansion of business with new customers.
We saw the same dynamics during the first quarter in our retail direct channel, where we provide retail-ready products directly to sporting goods and outdoor retailers, farm and fleet stores, department stores, and mid-tier and mass retailers.
This channel also posted double digits at first quarter growth and continues to expand its customer base across both brick and mortar and e-commerce retailers.
Many of whom are benefiting from a recent shift in consumer focus toward products with price points in the range of those we offer.
Our team has worked extremely hard over the years to build a world-class platform that meets the high service level and compliance sophistication required to do business with the world leading brands and retailers.
It is rewarding to see these big players in our industry put more emphasis on near-shore sourcing strategies like those we offer in Central America and validate the investments we've made in the region.
With these global sourcing strategy tailwinds, our vertical manufacturing including DTG2Go's digital print offerings and what we estimate to be an addressable active wear market in the United States ranging from $8 billion to $10 billion and growing.
We believe our global brands and retail direct channels are positioned to generate further growth opportunities across our Delta group segment.
In our Delta Direct channel, we saw the lower demand we expected within our retail licensing customer base that fell through the mass market retailers, which drove lower revenue in the channel.
We continue to see indications of an over-inventory environment in this channel and expect demand to improve at these higher inventory levels gradually work down throughout the year.
In the meantime, we remain proactive in managing our manufacturing output to align inventories with market condition.
We idled our manufacturing facilities in Central America for an additional three weeks during the quarter, and also operated several of them at less than full capacity and initiated related workforce reductions.
Although these production curtailments come with associated expenses and margin impacts, which Nancy will touch on more in a moment, we plan to continue to leverage the flexibility we have in our vertical platform until we see better equilibrium between inventories and demand.
We'll also focus on opportunities in higher margin areas such as our ad specialty and promotional channel where we offer customers a one-stop shop for our Delta and SoFi products, along with a selection of golf apparel, outerwear, work wear, hats, bags, and accessories from other select brands.
Shifting gears to our salt life root segment.
The Salt Life team delivered record sales along with excellent bottom line performance for the quarter.
The strong top-line performance included over 25% growth across Salt Life's direct-to-consumer retail and ecommerce channels, as well as strong double-digit growth within its wholesale customer base.
Salt Live continues to add significant new wholesale customers and its products are now sold in a approximately 1800 retail doors across 48 states and internationally.
As Bob indicated in our press release, the Salt Life business truly hit on all cylinders this quarter. It is up to a strong start as a move into its spring-selling season.
The momentum in Salt Life's direct-to-consumer channels is particularly notable, and the team deserves kudos for not only building out brick-and-mortar retail and digital footprints to keep pace with its growing consumer base across the country.
by doing so in a profitable manner.
Salt Live currently operates 21 branded retail doors standing Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Texas, California, Alabama, and Delaware, and is targeting six to eight new opening this fiscal year, including first locations in New Jersey and Virginia.
as well as three new full-price stores and one outlet store in the Florida market.
These retail locations are highly productive boxes, typically averaging around $500 in sales per square foot and generating four-wall profit in their first year of operation.
On the e-commerce side of Salt Life's direct-to-consumer business, the SaltLife.com website now ships to all 50 states, including steady order flows to Midwest and Western states outside of the brand's traditional Southeastern stronghold.
Moreover, sales on the site during the quarter were up almost 24% over the prior year, with site traffic, order counts, and average order value all up significantly over the prior year.
We expect our Salt Life ecommerce business to continue to grow and importantly, to grow profitably.
From a macro viewpoint, the Salt Life brand is clearly resonating with consumers and benefiting from the myriad of marketing initiatives Salt Life Team is advancing.
including steadily growing the following across YouTube and social channels like Instagram.
as well as the brand's proprietary online content portal DailySalt and podcast above and below.
We continue to see a tremendous runway for growth for Salt White across the US and internationally.
accompanied by operating margins in the mid-teens.
Let me now pass it over to Nancy for an overview of our financial results.
Thank you, Justin.
For our fiscal year 2023, first quarter, net sales were $107.3 million, representing a 3.1% decline compared to the record net sales in our fiscal 2022 to summer quarter.
However, as Bob and Justin mentioned, we did achieve double digit sales growth across all but one of our five to go to market channels.
Net sales in our Delta Group segment were $97 million compared to $101.9 million in last year's December quarter and were driven by record sales of $24 million in our DTG and DTG channel and double digit sales growth in our global brands and retail direct channel.
that was upset by the Faulkner and the Adelter Direct's retail license channel.
Net sales in our Salt Life Group segment were 10.3 million, which represents 17% risk over the prior year.
The double digit increase was driven by continued organic growth and direct to consumer sales through the Salt Life Brands retail stores and ecommerce sites, as well as growth in the wholesale channel.
Risk margins were 12.7% overall for the quarter compared to 20.8% and the prior year for quarter.
The decline was driven by higher input cost space in our active wear and DTG to go business.
as well as 250 basis point decline from the additional protection contaminants initiated during the quarter that were partially offset by gross margin improvement and assault life groups estimates.
Gross margins in the Delta group segment were 8% for the quarter, a decline from the prior year first quarter gross margins of 18%, primarily driven by the additional production curtailments, as well as higher cost inventory flowing through the cost of sales.
including elevated cotton, energy, dyes and chemicals, grapes, and labor costs.
The Salt Life Group segments GRIS margins improved 370 basis points.
to 57%, compared to 53.3% and the prior year for a quarter.
Improvement resulted from a favorable mix of sales, including increased direct-to-consumer retail store and ecommerce sales.
Selling, General, and administrative expenses were 18.9 million in the quarter.
increasing 180 basis points year-over-year to 17.6% of sales.
The increase was primarily driven by the Salt Life retail store expansion, including seven new locations opening since the prior quarter, as well as increased distribution, labor, and supply costs in our activewear and Salt Life businesses.
We currently expect SG&A for the full year to generally be in line with our SG&A for fiscal year 2022.
Our equity investment in Green Valley Industrial Park in Honduras, where our SEPA textiles facility is located, provided dividends during the quarter of almost $1 million and continues to generate profits recorded in other income provide an excellent return on our investment in that entity.
Other income for the corridor also included a one-time, two and a half million gain related to the settlement of a litigation claim.
We experienced an operating loss of $2.6 million for the first fiscal quarter compared to operating income of $5.9 million in the prior year quarter, while our EBITDA for the quarter was $1.3 million compared to $9.5 million last year.
Interest expense was $2.9 million in the quarter, up from the prior year for fiscal quarter expense of $1.6 million and due primarily to higher debt levels and interest rates.
Overall, we incur the net loss for our first fiscal quarter of 2023, a $3.6 million or $0.51 per gluted share compared to net income of $3.6 million or $0.51 per gluted share in the prior year.
Turning to our balance sheet in liquidity, total inventory at quarter-end was $258.9 million compared to $183.1 million a year ago when the market was generally in a low inventory position and transportation delays impacted the timing of deliveries in our salt lake business.
The year-over-year inventory expansion reflects higher raw material, transportation, and labor cost inputs.
as well as an increase in units on hand.
As previously mentioned, we continue to take proactive measures in our OctaWare business.
to balance our manor's actualing output with demand and appropriately managed on-hand inventory.
We expect our inventory to decrease sequentially by quarter as we progress through the year.
Net debt, including capital financing and cash on hand, was $185.2 million at quarter end, up $14.6 million from September . We also expect our debt to decrease as we progress through the back half of the year.
During the quarter, we invested approximately $2 million in capital expenditures, relating to thought-life retail store openings and information technology initiatives.
Now I'll turn the call back over to Bob.
Thanks, Nancy. Following two consecutive years of record company performance, we are pleased to start our 2023 fiscal year with a solid top-line quarter nearing last year's record first quarter results, despite much softer demand in our Delta Direct channel.
Moving forward, we will continue to leverage the versatility of our multiple go-to-market strategies and believe we can drive organic growth through both new customer acquisition and expansion of existing customer relationships.
We see tremendous potential and opportunities ahead for our investments in DTG to go leading edge digital technology platform as well as all lies authentic lifestyle brand positioning and believe we are only at the beginning of the exciting growth trajectories in both of those businesses.
On the call side, we are now seeing some welcome moderation in freight and distribution labor, and expect these trends and lower-cost cotton in our inventory to positively impact profitability as we move through the back half of the year.
As always, we will be keenly focused on managing our working capital and expenses, investing in our businesses opportunistically, and keeping the best interest of our stakeholders front of mind. And now operator, you can open up the call for any questions we may have.
Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to be placed into question queue, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you'd like to move your question from the queue. One moment please while we poll for questions.
Our first question today is coming from Dan and Telsey from Telsey Advisory Group. Republicans456.
today is coming from Dan and Telsi from Telsi advisory group. Your line is now live. Good afternoon everyone.
Wanted to go through the puts and takes as we go through the balance of the year in terms of what you're seeing. You mentioned the Delta Direct Business being over inventories and demand to improve gradually. As you think of that inventory number, which was up significantly this quarter, I think around $258 million.
How do you square the two as you go through the year? And if you think about the second quarter where you mentioned that cotton costs should come down, how do you see the gross margin evolving as we go through the year? Thank you.
Okay.
You know, several questions in there. We see our gross margins improving sequentially by quarter throughout the fiscal year.
And, you know, based on our current outlook, we'd be back to a normalized or more normalized gross margin by the time we got to our fourth quarter.
We see inventories going down sequentially, both from a unit standpoint and from a valuation standpoint as we go through the quarters. So right now we're shipping product with our highest cost cotton in it and of course we're replacing that product.
with more current price cotton. So there's a significant difference in the per pound valuation in those cotton that are going out of our inventory versus what's coming in. So those will be the big drivers of that and we'll continue to manage our manufacturing output as we said in our call.
to balance these inventories. As you think about the customer base and the different customers, what's happening with order trends and how do you see them changing?
Well, it varies by type of customer. If you look at a product that's being sold in the mass markets, it's still very slow and very choppy, and we're not seeing a lot of people that feel like they have visibility into a Ford.
order look and you know it's kind of hand-to-mouth buying when necessary. If you look at our global brands customers that business is strong from a shipment standpoint right now and ahead of last year, but we're also seeing hesitation, I'd say caution about forward commitments.
as they work through their inventories. And if you just look at the apparel marketplace while our inventories are high and we don't like that, there's a lot of major brands out there whose inventories are much higher yet. And so obviously that has to be worked all over the course of the next year or so. So we are...
And our outlook, you know, have built in a more cautionary look on our global brands business as our customers there work through their future inventories.
Can you give us any update on how the Fanatics Partnership productivity is progressing?
Well, it's progressing well. We always want to make more and we want to make more faster, but obviously we had very strong growth in DTG2Go in the very important holiday season and shipped more product than we've ever shipped.
obviously in units and in dollar amount, and obviously had our best quarter ever with fanatics. If we had been able to produce more of fanatics and non-fanatics, then we could have shipped more. So we still had more orders or more capacity.
to sell product than we were making. And so our customers manage their order intake to make sure the service level is maintained. But in any event, there was robust demand from consumers for fanatics and other people's e-commerce business.
retailer business during the holiday season that we can fulfill through DTG2Go. So we continue to make productivity gains and where we are today is we have capacity now that holiday is behind us to meet really full demand that is out there. And that full demand is considerably higher than it was.
this time last year.
Any adjustments to the balance sheet or how you're thinking on the puts and takes of the balance sheet side?
Well, a couple of things. One is we have dramatically reduced our capital expenditure budget for this year compared to the prior several years. So that keeps obviously more cash in the house. And we're committed to reducing our inventories over time. So those are the two drivers that affect this century.
will allow us to have a lower debt level by the time we get to fiscal year-end.
Thank you. I'll pass it on.
Thank you. Next question is coming from Jamie Willen from Willen Management. Your line is now live. Hi, fellas. Did you happen to mention the sales for DTG to go for the quarter, the specific number? No.
We did. Twenty-four million.
24 million. Okay. Obviously, or a record sales quarter. You talked about expecting to achieve your target expense ratios by the fourth quarter in that business. What are you doing to achieve it? What has to happen to get there?
Well, I would say we've got to continue to make productivity gains to run this equipment.
to the levels that we were expecting when we purchased it. And so while we've made tremendous strides over the last 15 months, you got to remember 15 months ago, we started up with a beta test site equipment in our facility and started Managing.
how we would develop this and then ultimately, you know, the Fanatics business came in and wanted to work with us to develop that. And what we have found since then is this equipment is really was not ready to run in our type of production environment of seven days a week, you know, 18 hours a day.
and run at the productivity levels that we need to process it. A good strides have been made. The equipment manufacturers have had people in all of our facilities learning and debugging and helping us build those productivity gains, but we're not yet where we need to be. So that's one of the things that will continue to work through and believe we have.
line of sight to be not completely where we'd like to be but where we start to achieve the financial performance that we expect in our fourth quarter.
We'll be transitioning to more Delta apparel made blanks over the course of the next several quarters. So, Fanatics had a base of inventory that they needed us to process, and we've taken more time to do that than we did in the past.
any of us expected so obviously that hurts the profitability when we're processing that inventory that they've purchased from someone else and then shipping cost to us and you know those types of inefficiencies that we work hard to avoid in our business You know training our operators to be more efficient quality and quality defects need to come back down but
you know, we're seeing good progress on that. So we've made some key hires over the last, you know, 120 days that have extensive experience in operating multiple facilities of digital printing, not necessarily on a peril, but digital printing, and we're seeing encouraging progress on that.
So the internalization rate I assume in the first quarter was lower than it's going to be moving forward as Fanatics was using their old inventory there. What was your internalization rate and how much will as that increases.
have an impact on reducing your inventory to a greater extent. So we used about 50% delta-produced garments during our first quarter. I think at our peak use we've been in the mid-70%.
There will be some products that fanatics want to market that we either can't or don't want to make. We will never produce 100% of that. But both sides, for a lot of different reasons, won't delta to make all the garments that they can. It's just a better economic model and a simpler transaction there. We will never produce 100% of that.
Should that start to flow through in this quarter or when will that actually start to happen? You know, a little bit, but it's not going to move the needle this quarter, but by our third quarter and fourth quarter, it will start to move the needle.
Okay, then how do you get to where next year you can actually not have demand exceed capacity in the business?
But I don't think you can. And we're not seeing that happen so far in digital print over holiday. I mean, you think about it, you're trying to basically quadruple your output for about four weeks.
So you just think how daunting it is to have trained operators to come in and do that and make first quality product.
It just doesn't work particularly in today's labor market. Now the good news is our business is getting less seasonal for our digital print operations, being driven by a lot of different factors and one of them being by the type of customers that we were going after that have a more year-round business. So obviously the more that we can get, the easier it is for us to have a better business.
expand on that a little bit.
Well, I think it's more probably doors than necessarily customers. I mean, we continue to open up more, you know, local two or three chain or two or three store operations, but we are still seeing our major accounts add more doors to their portfolio that carries salt life.
Okay, your sales per store are very impressive. How many of your stores are doing more than a million dollars a year right now? And could you talk about your top stores, what type of numbers they're doing, and what type of operating margins they might have at those peak numbers?
Well, you know, I'd love to tell you our best store is Ostero.
But Deaths in Florida is right up there with it. We probably have about seven stores that are over a million dollars in annual revenue. And just about all of our stores are still growing. You know, the first quarter was choppy on St. St. Stor sales growth and some of the weather patterns that we've seen.
recently, but then we see weeks with outstanding same store sales growth as well. And so if you look at it, at about $900,000 in revenue, it's about a 10% operating margin. But then once you get up to about a million three or a million four, it's about a 30% operating margin.
And so obviously those things are, you know,
powerful producers of cash flow and recordable earnings when they get to that level.
Great. On inventory and production, you took three weeks of downturn. How much does it cost you per week to take things down? A little over a million dollars. It depends on what locations and where the fabric is coming from and if we're taking production out of our...
Our textile facility as well, but in a round number is about $1.1 million per week of unscheduled downtime.
And do you have any scheduled downtime for this first quarter?
Yes, we do. Okay. Okay, as much as you took last quarter or not ready to comment on that? It will be less than that. But we continue to look at a lot of ways.
to manage our inventory. We'll continue to do that and look at the least disruptive way to get our inventories balanced with unit demand. Okay, and inventories excluding salt waste because you obviously have a bunch more stores. You need a bunch more in the stores.
How were units excluding salt life on inventory? Compared to prior year or compared to September ? Yes.
Oh, compared to September , it would be better. Okay, compared to September , primarily the Delta Direct units were up.
Obviously, like you said, the Salt Life Retail Store units were up, but also, as I mentioned, we had more imports come in for the busy Salt Life season. And as well, we have more DTG units because that obviously this sales have increased and we're expecting them to increase.
But Nancy, correct me if I'm wrong, in active where I believe we were up about 30% from the prior year level of units.
Which, again, is dawning and I'm not really comparing this to other companies we compete with but just other people in the apparel business that I see. I'd say we're on the low side of average in unit growth and inventory.
Which is, how you think about the sophistication, we all thought we had, I don't know how as an industry, we were so wrong in so many places and so many people were hoarding inventory or buying more than they needed and then all of a sudden the merry-go-round stopped and everybody had too much inventory.
at every step. And the inventory's all in finished goods as opposed to raw materials or...
Yes. Where does that stand now? It's either in finished goods or in process inventory, but the units are counted as finished goods.
Okay. And lastly, back on Salt Life, the migration of new stores would help how many do you expect per quarter or is it all going to come?
Back on Salt Life, the migration of new stories would help how many do you expect per quarter or is it all going to come near the Christmas season?
No, actually we got several that will be opening very quickly and so our ones, you know, going up the east coast, we have, you know, planned those to open for obviously the season. So there's no need to open them, you know, at the end of the season. So we'll have a couple of new source opening there.
We've already opened a couple of new stores this fiscal year, so they'll be opening sooner than later.
couple of new stores this fiscal year. So they'll be opening sooner than later. Okay, good job. Thanks, Bob.
Thank you. Next question is coming from Sam Thompson, a private investor. Your line is now live. Yes. Good afternoon. My name is Samuel helpful will go to a settled for the incident.
You all issued a S3 I think in December , ATL offering. It would be pretty brutal to raise money at these stock levels. Is there a way of avoiding that or is that something that you think you're going to have to take on in the next six months or so? No, that's a renewal of a shelf offering that's been in place for...
Okay, well, thank you for your interest today, and we'll look forward to communicating with you next quarter on second quarter results. Thank you.
Thank you. That does conclude to these telecomments of webcasts. Let me just connect your line after this time and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.