Earnings call transcript: Global Fashion Group sees Q4 2024 revenue dip, aims for growth

Global Fashion Group (GFG) reported its earnings for Q4 2024, revealing a slight decline in revenue and a strategic focus on achieving adjusted EBITDA breakeven in the coming year. The company saw a 1.2% decrease in quarterly revenue, while its annual revenue fell by 9% to €744 million. According to InvestingPro data, this continues a concerning trend, with trailing twelve-month revenue declining by 20.47%. Despite these declines, GFG’s stock price rose by 6.19% to €0.30, reflecting investor optimism about the company’s strategic initiatives and cost reductions. The company’s overall financial health score is rated as WEAK by InvestingPro analysts.

Key Takeaways

• GFG’s Q4 revenue decreased by 1.2%, with annual revenue down 9%.
• The company achieved a Q4 adjusted EBITDA margin of 3.8%.
• GFG reduced its cost base by €56 million and headcount by 20%.
• Stock price increased by 6.19% following the earnings report.
• The company aims for adjusted EBITDA breakeven in 2025.

Company Performance

Global Fashion Group faced a challenging year with a 9% decline in annual revenue, ending at €744 million. The Q4 revenue decline was more modest at 1.2%. Despite these challenges, GFG improved its adjusted EBITDA margin to 3.8% in Q4, reflecting effective cost management and operational efficiencies. The company also reduced its total cost base by €56 million and cut its workforce by 20%, which contributed to these improvements. InvestingPro analysis reveals two critical insights: the company is quickly burning through cash, yet maintains more cash than debt on its balance sheet. Subscribers can access 9 additional ProTips for deeper insights into GFG’s financial position.

Financial Highlights

• Annual Revenue: €744 million (9% decline YoY)
• Q4 Revenue: 1.2% decline
• Gross Margin: 45% (full year), 45.6% (Q4)
• Adjusted EBITDA Margin: -2.8% (full year), 3.8% (Q4)
• Normalized Free Cash Flow: €-45 million (€23 million improvement)
• Pro forma cash at year-end: €222 million

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, GFG’s stock price increased by 6.19%, closing at €0.30. The stock’s movement was influenced by investor confidence in the company’s strategic cost reductions and positive EBITDA margin in Q4. InvestingPro data shows impressive momentum, with a 31.7% gain over the past six months and a beta of 1.12, indicating higher volatility than the market. The stock remains below its 52-week high of €0.3595 but has recovered significantly from its 52-week low of €0.1432, indicating a positive market sentiment. Based on InvestingPro’s Fair Value analysis, the stock appears to be currently undervalued.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, GFG has set a net merchandise value (NMV) guidance range of -5% to +5% for 2025. The company’s primary objective is achieving adjusted EBITDA breakeven, with expectations of modest growth. Capital expenditures are projected to decrease to €20 million, reflecting a focus on efficiency and cost control. InvestingPro metrics indicate a current ratio of 1.74, suggesting adequate liquidity to meet short-term obligations. However, analysts anticipate continued sales decline and do not expect profitability this year. For comprehensive analysis of GFG’s future prospects, including detailed financial projections and peer comparisons, investors can access the full Pro Research Report on the InvestingPro platform.

Executive Commentary

"We are on the right trajectory towards positive adjusted EBITDA," stated Helen Hickman, CFO, highlighting the company’s strategic focus on financial health. CEO Christoph Bashewitz emphasized GFG’s unique positioning as a multi-brand pure player, stating, "Our positioning as a multi-brand pure player is still fairly unique." He also expressed confidence in the company’s performance in key regions, saying, "We feel confident that we are in those two regions now in positive territory."

Risks and Challenges

• Market-specific challenges in Southeast Asia could impact growth.
• Inflation expectations vary by region, affecting consumer spending.
• The competitive environment remains "rational," but market dynamics could shift.
• Continued cost management is crucial to achieving financial targets.
• The exit from the Chile market may have short-term impacts on regional revenue.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the company’s decision to exit the Chile market, which was attributed to strategic realignment. GFG also addressed customer acquisition strategies and inflation expectations, providing insights into regional market dynamics and consumer sentiment.

Full transcript - Global Fashion Group SA (GFG) Q4 2024:

Christoph Bashewitz, CEO, Global Fashion Group: Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Global Fashion Group’s Q4 and Full Year twenty twenty four Results Presentation. I’m Christoph Bashewitz, CEO of GFG and I’m joined today by our CFO, Helen Hickman. In addition to this presentation, we have also published our annual report and people and planet positive report for 2024 today. All materials are available on our website. I will now start with highlights from 2024 and cover our group wide strategic focus areas and regional segment results.

Evan will then take us through the group results and outlook. After that, we’ll open it up for Q and A. In 2024, we made significant strides to position GFG for long term success and sustainable future growth. As the year progressed, consumer sentiment improved and helped stabilize NMV trends in our largest markets with LatAm and ANZ returned by Q4. We achieved consistent quarterly improvement in gross margin, driven by stronger retail margins as we significantly reduced aged stock levels to 14%, Reduced our total cost base by over €50,000,000 while strategically investing in high returning initiatives like our OWS project.

This created fulfillment efficiencies as we migrated ANZs on the SEA Order Warehouse Management system. We adjusted EBITDA by close to €40,000,000 and normalized free cash flow by €20,000,000 compared to 2023. Throughout the year, we proactively managed our capital structure and successfully repurchased €124,000,000 of our convertible bond at a 16% discount on average. We have now addressed 85% of our outstanding convertible at attractive terms and well ahead of maturity, resulting in a stronger balance sheet. We are proud to have achieved many of our goals for 2024, including delivering at the top end of our full year NMV guidance and exceeding original expectations for adjusted EBITDA.

Before we take a closer look at our results, I have an update on our geographic footprint. In Q1 of this year, we decided to close our operations in Chile due to significant post COVID challenges and competitive pressures. Chile’s weaker performance stood out from Brazil and Colombia, the other markets in our LatAm segment, where we have managed to stabilize top line performance. Despite our efforts, a successful turnaround for Chile would have required substantial investment, which is not aligned with our immediate Group priorities. The Future Chiller was relatively small in the group context and accounted for about 4% of NMV and 3% of revenue in 2024.

Chiller is included in our results presented today unless otherwise status. Let’s now turn to our number highlights. Our improving top line trend observed throughout 2024 continued into the final quarter. In Q4, our top line KPIs, net merchandise value, active customer, and orders all declined at their slowest rate of the year. We achieved record margins in Q4 with a gross margin of 45.6 and a positive adjusted EBITDA margin of 3.8%.

This was driven by improvements in our retail business and effective cost management. For the full year, we achieved another record on gross margin at 45%. On adjusted EBITDA, our cost reductions led to a 4.1 percentage point improvement to reach negative 2.8% margin. This was at its strongest level since 2021 and positions us well to achieve our ambition of positive adjusted EBITDA soon. Let’s now turn to our strategic focus areas that have driven our twenty twenty four performance and will continue to build upon in 2025 and beyond.

One of GFG’s core differentiators is our curated assortment of brands and products and this remains a focus area as we ensure we are providing customers with a shopping experience that is both exclusive and relevant. We have a unique portfolio of internationally renowned brands that can be hard to find elsewhere in our region, alongside beloved local labels. We have been focusing on expanding our exclusive assortment. This includes our own brands which made up 70% of the group’s NMB in 2024 and exclusive collaboration with brands such as And Other Stories in ANZ and Mango in LATAM. By increasing exclusivity at both the brand and SKU level, we are able to further differentiate ourselves in a competitive market.

Another one of our key differentiators to drive customer engagement is our App Centric strategy. We have proven success with this as our App Share of NMV reached 66% in 2024. SEA leads with an impressive 92% App Share, whilst our efforts in LATAM include the new App rollout increased installs by 50% in 2024. As technology evolves, so do our front end platforms. We constantly innovate to deliver a more curated and personalized experience.

Our incremental yet impactful enhancements are central to that effort. This includes targeted app campaigns and new features like advanced sizing tools, filters, and discovery option. On this page, we have the ratio of new and reactivated customers over churn presented over the last six years. As you can see, we experienced strong customer growth during COVID. After a period of churn from these cohorts and broader market weakness, customer numbers are now recovering, and we are optimistic that this positive trend will continue throughout 2025.

Among the region, NZ’s ratio had already moved into positive territory in Q3. BATAM followed closely behind and turned positive in Q4. Our marketing cost percent of NMV illustrates how we have maintained stable marketing spend whilst increasing new and reactivated customers. This success is driven by our full funnel marketing strategy that aims to wire loyal customers and improve payback. Our strategy ensures that paid media campaigns are efficient, whilst also enhancing unpaid channels such as CRM with new tools and intelligent automation.

This allows us to deliver personal and timely customer interactions. For fulfillment, our infrastructure is already well invested, so we have been focused on optimizing capacity for greater efficiency, fully leveraging automation in Brazil and Australia and improving in house software. We operate seven local fulfillment centers, soon six excluding Chile, that have a total storage capacity of 24,000,000 items. This equates to approximately €2,000,000,000 of NMV capacity annually. As volumes grow, we require no additional capex.

Our fulfillment service is highly valued by customers and brand partner We leverage our network as it excels in fashion specific end to end last mile service. To enhance customer continuity, we’ve been expanding delivery options beyond a standard front door service by adding premium services such as next day delivery in more areas and 20 fourseven parcel lockers. Returns are a significant cost of business and we have been optimizing this through various data driven solutions as well as providing additional support for our frequent returners. There are some regional nuances to be aware of for our return rates. In LatAm, rising rates signal growing customer trust in a less developed e commerce market, whereas ANZ’s higher rates are aligned with other mature markets offering room to boost.

Next, on our platform transition. This remains a priority for the group, and we continue to be on track toward our future expectations. In 2024, Marketplace made up 39% of our NMV versus our longer term expectation of around 45%. We continue to balance retail and marketplace to optimize choice, availability, and delivery experience for our customers, meet our brand partners’ strategic preferences and capabilities while delivering value to them, and drive growth and profitability in our business. Our Fulfilled Buy and Cross Docking models now account for 39 of marketplace shipped items, owing we are progressing well toward our longer term goal of 50%.

Platform services made up 3% of our revenue, remaining a small but valuable direct revenue stream as brand partner interest in our offering grow. Demand is particularly strong for advertising services and our single stock solution where we fulfill brands orders across multiple channels external to DFG. Moving on to the exciting realm of Machine Learning and AI. Though obviously a hot topic across all sectors, we’ve been at the forefront of the trend and integrating these tools into our operations for years and we are committed to further innovation. From a customer facing perspective, we’ve leveraged AI to enhance search functionality.

The introduction of multimodal search and smart image tagging has significantly increased accuracy. It has also facilitated easier content discovery through the ability to search the intent based text and images. AI has allowed us to personalize more effectively for our customers. Our targeted promotion, complete the look suggestions, and card recommendations are becoming increasingly precise and driving higher conversion rates. In our fulfillment centers, AI continues to be transformative.

Key learning algorithm within our order and warehouse management system have optimized order grouping, leading to faster collection and improved delivery speeds for our customers. AI will continue to be a substantial growth and efficiency opportunity in 2025 and beyond. Now, let’s move on to our regional segment results. For LatAm, in this section, I will refer to our results excluding Bile. This will be the presentation going forward.

In Q4, LatAm and ANZ, our two largest regions, burned top line growth with NMV increasing 89% respectively. This performance was driven by near record Black Friday results, second only to 2020. The Bli, this return to growth was achieved whilst continuing to increase gross margin record levels for Q4, again excluding the COVID year. For the full year, all regions achieved strong gross margin improvement despite top line declines. LatAm and ANZ’s rate of decline slowed significantly compared to last year with NMV down 23% respectively.

LATAM and ANZ both also benefited from the flow through of higher gross margin and cost action that drove material improvement in adjusted EBITDA margin. LATAM’s adjusted EBITDA margin was up 6.8 percentage points and ANZ’s was up 5.3 percentage point in 2024. SEA had a difficult year and struggled to offset sufficient costs mitigate the DD leverage from the volume. The Regent NMV was down 17% in 2024. Addressing this decline is a top priority for us in 2025, which I’ll elaborate on in the next few slides.

Now taking a closer look at LatAm. We have been executing our investment plan over the past two years. We’re excited to see the efforts implemented now starting to show in the financial results. As a reminder, our investment plan had the following priority initiatives: increase assortment exclusivity and relevance improve discovery ease and inspiration via new front end drive marketing efficiency and ensure seamless faster delivery. The recovery in top line, strengthened gross margin and significant cost actions taken over the last two years have resulted in an adjusted EBITDA margin of negative 4% in 2024.

This is the best result since 2020 despite the reduced scale of the business in Brazil and Colombia and the closure of Argentina and now Chile. As we move forward, our focus for 2025 and beyond in LatAm is to further develop our assortment, optimize the Fulfilled by Marketplace model, shift marketing from transactional to deeper customer engagement, enhance app and CRM strategies, and drive efficiencies following our market exits in Argentina and Chile. Now moving on to SEA. The past few years have been challenging for SEA with top line declines due in part to the rebound of physical retail post COVID, low cost competitors and the growth of Brand.com platform. The gross margin SCA has increased by 13 percentage points since 2019, with higher marketplace participation and the expansion of platform services, of which SCA holds the largest share among our region.

2024 was especially challenging with a 17% year on year decline in NMV, but SEA still achieved its highest gross margin with a two percentage point increase year on year. On adjusted EBITDA, SCA is not far off from profitability and we are confident we can deliver the necessary cost and operational efficiencies through the region’s financial trajectory. To address the top line and strengthen our market position, we will curate the best of international and local brands focusing on our top 30 whilst removing long tail and on core categories and brands. We’re optimizing marketing across all channels to drive better engagement. Additionally, we will build greater customer value through our already app centric model and the Zalora VIP program.

Maximize efficiency, we will leverage existing assets and focus on core business models. And finally, we are committed to reducing costs across all areas including through the increased use of automation and II. II. Now looking at ANZ. In 2024, ANZ successfully regained its peak margin profile from 2020 despite facing a small top line decline.

We are thrilled to report that NMV growth returned in the fourth quarter, thanks to several strategic initiatives that we will continue to build upon in 2025. First, the gut you looking Master Brand reset led with 34% increase in unprompted brand awareness and a 9% rise in purchase intent from September 23 to September 24. Now in 2025, we have just launched the next phase of this campaign. Overhauled ANZ’s legacy warehouse management system integrating SEA’s OWMS successfully. This has increased automation rates and improved inventory accuracy.

BEMBA and the Black Friday period, the ANZ Fulfillment Center achieved the record 115,000 items shipped in a single day. Our investment in AI and our tech stack have profoundly impacted the business and improved the customer experience. For example, as one of the pioneers in multi modal search in the region, we have eliminated frustrating mouse searches. In line with our Group strategy, ANZ is also expanding brand partnerships and product range, scaling the Fulfilled Buy marketplace model and enhancing delivery speed and serve. Overall, we have proven our ability to turn around the top line in our largest markets and simultaneously improve their margin profiles.

We will continue to deliver on our goals in each region, so all can contribute to the group’s longer term financial ambitions. I will now hand it over to Helen to take you through our group results and outlook.

Helen Hickman, CFO, Global Fashion Group: Thank you, Christophe, and good morning, everyone. As we highlighted earlier, the rate of decline in all our top line KPIs, including active customers and order frequency, has continued to slow. By the end of 2024, our active customers declined by 9% year on year. Our order frequency reduced by 3% to 2.3 times in 2024, primarily driven by weaker performance in SEA. In q four, NMV slowed to its lowest rate of decline since 2022, and orders similarly slowed to their lowest level since 2021.

The marginal decline in NMV for the group in q four was driven by SEA and nearly fully mitigated by growth in both ANZ and LatAm. Average order value grew year on year for both q four and the full year. This was primarily driven by inflation followed by shifts in regional mix as the ANZ best as the ANZ business represented more of the group in 2024. Now looking at revenue and margins. Our revenue for ’24 was €744,000,000, declining 9% year over year on a constant currency basis.

In Q4, revenue declined by a significantly lower rate at just 1.2. We drove continued improvement in retail margin supported by better quality inventory and reduced discounting levels, which ultimately delivered improved gross margin in both Q4 and the full year. Gross margin improvements coupled with cost efficiencies led to an improved adjusted EBITDA position, achieving a 3.8 margin in Q4 with every region profitable in the quarter. Now turning to costs. We reduced our total cost base by €56,000,000 year on year, representing a 9% reduction on a constant currency basis.

In ’24, the majority of our cost reduction was delivered from fulfilment and tech and admin cost lines. On fulfilment, we executed efficiency projects like OWMS, packaging cost reductions, and implementing further automation to reduce order picking times. On tech and admin, we continued streamlining resources, including lowering external vendor costs. Overall, group headcount reduced by about 20% year over year. Our cost initiatives made up the majority of this reduction.

These were there were minimal external impacts as reduced volumes broadly offset inflationary increases. Looking ahead, we’ll maintain our cost efficiency programs whilst managing incremental increases in variable costs as volumes recover, particularly in fulfillment and marketing. In 2025, efficiency gains are expected from the centralization of our group technology team in Vietnam and fulfilment and marketing optimisation projects. Alongside our cost focus, we have maintained a prudent approach to inventory management. By the end of twenty four, inventory levels were down 10% year on year on a constant currency basis as we continually focused on optimising our assortment and demonstrating effective working capital management.

We’re particularly pleased with the reduction of stock older than a hundred and eighty days across all regions. For the group, our aged inventory share reduced by five percentage points year over year to 14% at the December. We are entering 2025 with a healthy inventory profile, which will continue to support improving gross margins. We will continue to monitor our inventory carefully throughout the year, ensuring we’re well positioned to meet demand. To conclude on our good results, I will cover our normalised free cash flow and resulting year end cash position.

In 2024, our normalised free cash flow improved significantly, driven by the €38,000,000 improvement in adjusted EBITDA. We maintained strong working capital management throughout the year, generating a €38,000,000 inflow. Although this is lower than the previous year, it remains substantial due to reductions in inventory and improved payables as a result of enhanced payment terms and timing benefits. Going forward, this inflow will significantly reduce as we annualise over actions taken in 2024 and broadly maintain current inventory levels. After adjusting for operating tax and interest payments, we had a normalised free cash outflow of €45,000,000, representing a €23,000,000 improvement compared to 2023.

Turning to our pro form a cash balance, we closed the year with €222,000,000 in pro form a cash and €164,000,000 in pro form a net cash. Throughout the year, we successfully repurchased the vast majority of our outstanding convertible bond at an average discount of 16%. Our net pro form a cash position excludes the remaining 55,000,000 convertible bond liability and other smaller loans. We remain open to opportunities to further reduce our outstanding convertible bond liability whilst considering our overall cash needs. Lastly, there was a 26,000,000 other cash outflow, which is typically in the single digit millions.

This was elevated as a result of our decision to reduce LatAm receivable factoring in Q4, along with a reduction in external borrowings. In 2025, we expect to return to typical levels of factoring in LatAm. As Christophe mentioned at the start of today’s presentation, we’ve made the difficult decision to wind down our business in Chile. Starting in q one twenty five, Chile will be classified as a discontinued operation with 2024 P and L comparatives restated to exclude it. As our guidance will look and outlook will be presented on an ex Chile basis, I wanted to highlight the impact this has on our key metrics.

In 2024, Chile generated €42,000,000 in NMV. Excluding its contribution, the group’s NMV declined by 7% for the full year compared to the reported 8% decline. Excluding Chile, our adjusted EBITDA margin improves by naught point three percentage points, and our normalised free cash flow improves by 4,000,000 Euro. Now moving on to 2025 guidance. Similar to last year, we remain focused on prioritising profit and cash flow over top line growth.

With the customer and NMV trends observed in Q4 and the first two months of twenty twenty five, we expect stronger NMPV performance than in 2024. And in a positive scenario, we see potential for the group to return to a modest growth this year. For NMPV, we expect a range of negative five to positive 5% on a constant currency basis, which translates to one point zero to €1,100,000,000 of NMV at December 24 closing FX rates. Our primary objective for the year is to is to reach adjusted EBITDA breakeven despite the challenges in predicting the top line due to external factors. Lease costs are expected to stay around 24 levels of approximately €19,000,000, and we anticipate working capital to be closer to neutral compared to last year’s €38,000,000 inflow as we cycle through timing benefits and align inventory with demand.

CapEx is expected to reduce by about a third to around €20,000,000 as we’ve no sizable investment projects planned for this year. Looking at our longer term ambitions, we remain focused on achieving positive adjusted EBITDA and breakeven normalised free cash flow. This page outlines our goal for a financially sustainable GFG, one where we achieve both of our ambitions. Our ongoing platform transition is central to these milestones. To date, we’re at 39% marketplace share versus our target of 45%.

This platform shift will increase our gross margin to 47% and build upon the 45% already achieved in ’24. These improvements combined with continued cost efficiencies will drive profitability. As we return to growth, our stronger margin profile and capital efficiency across CapEx, working capital, and leases will enable us to reach breakeven normalized free cash flow. To track our progress, we’ve clearly outlined the key steps on this page. We are on the right trajectory towards the positive adjusted EBITDA.

Once profitable, we will further improve margins and deliver cost efficiency benefit as NMV growth returns. We then expect to reach breakeven normalized free cash flow as group adjusted EBITDA margin reaches approximately 6%. Whilst work remains to achieve this financial profile, our track record demonstrates our ability to meet ambitious goals. Importantly, we have sufficient cash to support this journey as we close 2024 with 164,000,000 of pro form a net cash. From a regional view, excluding central costs, ANZ already achieved positive normalised free cash flow in 2024.

SEA was breakeven and LatAm remains negative, although has continued to improve. We entered 2025 well positioned to continue on the right path, paving the way for sustainable future growth. We will now open the call to your questions. If you’d like to submit a written question, please click on the speech bubble at the bottom of the screen.

Moderator/Call Facilitator: Thank you. We have our first question for today from Anne Critchlow from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

Anne Critchlow, Analyst, Berenberg: Good morning all and thank you for the presentation. I have a few questions. Shall I ask them just one by one perhaps? So the first question would be on the shape of trading from Q4 into your current trading in January and February in the different markets and where you think the consumer sentiment is in those key markets and perhaps what the outlook might be for 2025? Thank you.

Christoph Bashewitz, CEO, Global Fashion Group: Thank you, Anne, for the question. I’ll take this one. So trading, the first two months of the year has broadly continued similar to what we’ve seen in Q4. So more positive trend in LatAm and ANZ and a more challenging trend in Southeast Asia. 1 thing to call out is that obviously, as you know, Q1 is a quite small quarter, let’s say, for us anyway, especially since also most of our markets are Southern Hemisphere.

And we have now in March in Southeast Asia key trading events around the Raya season as well as our birthday sales. So actually the biggest month in the region has just started. So that’s probably where I would say we are for the year to date. In terms of the broader sentiment, I would say there’s kind of mixed signals overall. We have some positive trends.

We definitely feel Australia is doing better from that perspective. In Brazil, it’s more mixed in terms of data points consumer sentiment. But I think where we are quite confident is that we’ve done a lot of our homework in terms of having a fresh assortment. You’ve seen the data on a low share of aged inventory, those types of things. So I think in terms of positioning into the sentiment, we feel very confident of where we’ve started the year and therefore the output for the year.

Anne Critchlow, Analyst, Berenberg: Thank you for that. Very interesting. Then turning perhaps to the turnaround that you achieved in LatAm and how you’re going to implement this into SEA. You’ve got a kind of blueprint there, but are there any reasons why you wouldn’t be able to implement that blueprint into SEA? Are there any particular features of that market that might hinder a turnaround?

Christoph Bashewitz, CEO, Global Fashion Group: Yes. Thanks, Anne. So yes, there is if you want a blueprint, but I also really want to stress that there’s vastly different market. I think the number one thing that I would call out in terms of our business that is different is that in Latin America, we really had very localized markets, I. E.

A completely single country assortment, single country fulfillment center set up and also our commercial organization, marketing organization much more localized on a just country level. Whereas I would call Southeast Asia a much more integrated region where we have as you know three fulfillment centers. Stock in those fulfillment centers can generally be sold in multiple geographies. And therefore, it’s much more, I would say, an integrated web of commercial and operational relationships. And also our organizational setup reflects that.

We have a very strong team in the region, which I think really combines very deep roots and understanding of the quite different market needs in each of our four key countries Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and also Singapore with, I would say best in class expertise. And one thing that we’re definitely doing is leveraging the experience that we have as we have done historically, but we’re making a renewed effort around that from across the group, including from Latin America where certainly some of the market characteristics around discounts, pricing, competitiveness, even some of the specific competitors are similar and leveraging that experience from Brazil into Southeast Asia and kind of cross pollination in that sense. And so that is, I think, how we’re approaching this. What I think is also important to point out is that we while we are slightly EBITDA negative, it’s not the same structural lack of profitability that we had in LatAm Two Years ago. And so in that sense, I think it’s more a challenge around the top line turnaround and how we really leverage our strong asset of a fantastic brand, a good assortment, big reach, very high app install base into driving customer acquisition, reactivation, and engaging of the existing customers to drive up loyalty and drive up order frequency.

So probably a little bit more weighted towards the top line turnaround than it was in LatAm.

Anne Critchlow, Analyst, Berenberg: Thank you for that color. Perhaps I could go on to the competitive environment in your three different regions. And also perhaps talk a bit about your expectations for price inflation and what you’re seeing there.

Christoph Bashewitz, CEO, Global Fashion Group: Yeah. I’ll maybe take the competitive environment and let Helen comment a bit on what we’re seeing around inflation. So competitive environment, I think, we overall would describe as rational. So I think, you know, it’s been widely seen that many of our competitors, especially the general merchandisers, have really focused on profitability and optimizing that on their side. And I think that is helping because some of that more, let’s say irrational, highly subsidized activities that we’ve seen in past years has a little bit subsided.

At the same time, we see a crowded competitive environment between on the one hand the general merchandise players who are obviously very, very large multi category and not deep fashion experts, but then on the other side very strong presence from the brand.coms. So it is a crowded place, but I think we feel that our positioning as a multi brand pure player is still fairly unique and we really want to play to that strength and also sharply focus on our four fashion, sport and lifestyle categories in all markets because I think that’s really our point of differentiation that we need to kind of dial up even further. Our own brand to some degree plays a role in that as well, especially in Australia and we made some further investments there. So I think it is really a very clearly defined position in the market even though there is clearly quite a bit of competition. Helen, do you want to comment on inflation?

Helen Hickman, CFO, Global Fashion Group: Yes. Thank you. Good morning, Anne. Yes. So we’re continuing to see price inflation across our regions, and it’s the the main driver, driving our AOV.

I would say overall, we expect inflation to continue to moderate or decline in this coming year across most of our regions. I’d say the most notable exception would be Brazil, where we’re seeing inflation relatively high at sort of about 5%. And the the inflation rate, you know, likely to potentially increase, in that region.

Anne Critchlow, Analyst, Berenberg: Okay. Thank you very much, Helen. And sort of going back to the idea of inflation, I guess as inflation received a little bit in the other regions, you would need to drive active customer growth more strongly. I’m just wondering what are the key levers that you see to do that? For example, is it on the marketing side or is it for the AI benefits that are coming through?

Christoph Bashewitz, CEO, Global Fashion Group: Yeah. Maybe I’ll start and let Helen comment a little bit on the marketing spend side here. So fundamentally, I think what is very important is that our active customer numbers are backward looking. So it’s customers who’ve placed an order in the last twelve months. So it’s clearly a lagging indicator.

And that’s why we included the information in the presentation to show that actually when we look at how many customers we are winning as first time customers or reactivating relative to the number of customers that are churning out, we are now in ANZ and also in LatAm in positive territory. So the leading indicator if you want has actually already turned positive in ANZ in Q3 and LATAM in Q4. And we obviously while there will always be volatility and there may be some quarters where this looks different, but directionally we think we feel confident that we are in those two regions in now positive territory and that will also mean that the active customer number while it will be quite delayed will eventually turn into positive territory. So that gives us confidence there in Southeast Asia. We still need to achieve it.

How do we do it? It is a tailored market switching strategy, obviously in every geography. In ANZ, it is much more what we’ve done on re energizing the brand and I would call more the top of funnel. What we do everywhere is a strong focus on the CRM side because what we are seeing is that with the opportunities that are coming from AI and automation, CRM is really seeing a reinvention and that is something we really want to invest behind and drive through that a much more tailored segmented approach to engaging customers, active customers as well as reactivated or to be reactivated customers. Helen, do you want to comment on the marketing spend?

Helen Hickman, CFO, Global Fashion Group: Yes. Thanks, Christophe. We expect that marketing costs may rise slightly in this this coming year. And as Christophe mentioned to, you know, continue to, attract new customers and continue to reduce, the churn of our existing customers. Feel it’s the right time to invest, but as I say, that will only be sort of broad sort of marginal year on year.

And especially in places like Australia with things like the Got You Looking master brand campaign, that’s been very successful this past year.

Anne Critchlow, Analyst, Berenberg: That’s great. Very helpful. Those are my questions for the moment, so I’ll let somebody else have a go. Thank you.

Helen Hickman, CFO, Global Fashion Group: Thanks, Anne.

Moderator/Call Facilitator: There appears to be no further questions at the moment. So I’d like to hand the call over for any questions via the webcast.

Webcast Question Handler: First question from the webcast from Julius Krieg. What is your cost reduction outlook for 2025? Are you targeting a reduction of 5% to 10%?

Helen Hickman, CFO, Global Fashion Group: Thank you. I mean, we’re continuing our, cost reduction programme, as we’ve been very successful in 2024. We’ve got strong tight controls across P and L, and also across our CapEx, as you can see from our guidance, which will be delivered really from significant cost reduction activities across fulfilment, tech and admin. So we expect to see, significant reductions year on year.

Webcast Question Handler: And next question, why was the Chile operations not closed earlier? And are you planning to shut down additional regions?

Christoph Bashewitz, CEO, Global Fashion Group: Yes. On that one, obviously, we try to turn around the performance in Chile in parallel of how the work we have done in Brazil and in Colombia. And I think as we went through 2024, we saw that while we were succeeding and turning around the top line and substantially improving profitability and cash flow in Brazil and Colombia, That wasn’t the case to the same degree in Chile and that’s why we made the decision now. So clearly in hindsight, it’s always a good question to ask should we have done that earlier? But I think we strongly felt we had a good chance to actually turn around.

And I think also one thing that is I think is critical is we’ve been able to clear a lot of the stock that have built up in Chile when we had expected a stronger performance in ’23, ’20 ’2, ’20 ’3 in the course of ’24. And so when we’re looking at the overall cash outflow from that market between the cash flow in ’24 and the cost of winding down the business, we feel actually comfortable that this has been the right decision and the right timing of the decision. And just to the in terms of additional markets, we’re not currently planning to close any other markets. But obviously we are always reviewing the performance in every country, every category and making adjustments depending on the results that we’re achieving.

Webcast Question Handler: And do you expect a positive EBIT in Q4?

Helen Hickman, CFO, Global Fashion Group: Well, if we look at this year, we’ve had a positive adjusted EBITDA in Q4 and definitely expect that seasonality trend to continue into 2025. Based on an EBIT, if you think about, this year, it’s our group EBIT’s closer to £80,000,000 So our primary objective is the adjusted EBITDA breakeven for the group for the year, positive EBIT will follow thereafter.

Webcast Question Handler: Next question is from Russell from Edison Group. The low end of the range of NMB guidance for 2025 likely implies challenges in FCA continue. Can you give some specific insight into which countries are perhaps more challenging from a competitive perspective? Can you give some examples of what strength in the fashion and lifestyle position means and how differentiated the product will be versus competitors?

Christoph Bashewitz, CEO, Global Fashion Group: Yeah. Thanks for the question. So the the four key countries, Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore in SEA all have their own unique challenges. There isn’t a situation where we would say one or two countries are really the ones that are the most challenged and the others are doing really well. There’s unique challenges in each and they’re quite different given that it’s vastly different environments from a customer perspective, scale of the country, spending power, etcetera.

Therefore from a competitive perspective, clearly what we see is Indonesia is clearly the biggest market and in that sense a highly competitive one. But we do see intense competition even of the nature of that competition slightly different between the different markets. What we mean with strengthening fashion and lifestyle position is really to fully focus on those categories. In particular during the COVID years and subsequently we had really broadened our assortment into more adjacent categories. These are a small part from an NMB perspective and we will not continue operating in categories that are not part of the core proposition.

And within the core proposition, it is very important that we really have a distinct assortment. So brands that are not widely available or within the brands that are obviously the big international brands having an assortment that is clearly differentiated, comes as close as possible to the brand.coms and really puts a clear point of difference into our assortment relative to what is available on the general merchandise platforms. And I think that’s a big focus and that will mean that we will really pay attention to our top 30 brands in particular who we work with both through the retail model and the marketplace model in the region. We have a fairly even split between those two business models and we’ll focus on making sure that we have the most relevant assortment in the core categories.

Webcast Question Handler: We have no further questions from the webcast. Thank you all for joining today. If you have any further questions, please reach out to the Investor Relations team directly.

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