Neal Nackman; Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer; G-III Apparel Group Ltd
Morris Goldfarb; Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer; G-III Apparel Group Ltd
Robert Drbul; Analyst; Guggenheim Partners LLC
Ashley Owens; Analyst; KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc
Mauricio Serna; Analyst; UBS Group AG
Paul Kearney; Analyst; Barclays plc
Operator
Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the G-III Apparel Group third-quarter fiscal 2025 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Neal Nackman, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.
Neal Nackman
Good morning and thank you for joining us. Before we begin. I would like to remind participants that certain statements made on today’s call and in the Q&A session may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws.
Forward-looking statements are not guarantees and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results of operations or the financial condition of the company to differ are discussed in the documents filed by the company with the SEC. The company undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statements.
In addition, during the call, we will refer to non-GAAP net income, non-GAAP net income per diluted share and adjusted EBITA, which are all non-GAAP financial measures. We have provided reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP measures in our press release, which is also available on our website.
I will now turn the call over to our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Morris Goldfarb.
Morris Goldfarb
Thank you, Neal and thank you everyone for joining us. I’m very pleased with our strong third quarter results with earnings above our expectations driven by growth of our key owned brands, DKNY, Karl Lagerfeld, Donna Karan and Vilebrequin, which collectively grew over 30%.
Our teams continue to demonstrate strong execution despite a challenging consumer environment, unseasonable weather and supply chain disruptions. In fact, in the US, September and October ranked as one of the warmest on record. Had the weather been in line with historical trends, we would have captured incremental sales in the third quarter, driving further earnings out performance.
At the start of the fourth quarter, we experienced softer sales in cold weather categories. However, as temperatures have started to drop, heading into the holiday selling period, we’ve seen notable improvements in selling throughout across our brands and channels. This momentum was further amplified during the critical Black Friday period with our product strongly resonating with consumers.
Our marketing investments have driven a significant increase in consumer engagement as best seen in the boosted traffic to our owned North American direct-to-consumer stores and websites resulting in substantial growth in both conversion rates and overall sales. Our inventories are well-positioned to support holiday and early spring demand.
We remain cautiously optimistic about the remainder of the year as reflected in our raised earnings per diluted share guidance. It’s been two years since the unexpected announcement of the upcoming expirations of our PVH licenses. At that time, those two brands represented approximately 50% of our revenue.
We immediately set out to accelerate our long-term strategies and have made significant progress in transforming our business model. The plans we laid out are working. Our key owned brands DKNY, Karl Lagerfeld, Donna Karan and Vilebrequin can collectively grew over 30% this quarter. We’re building a complementary license portfolio to further diversify our business.
We continue to navigate the ever-changing retail environment as we gain market share across channels. International expansion remains a top priority as we continue to build our operational platform in Europe, complemented by our partnership with AWWG. Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger continue to deliver strong profitability despite the challenges of the transition. And for this fiscal year, the sales penetration of PVH brands is expected to be down to nearly 30%.
I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished together. This transformation was a call to action, and not only has our team risen to the challenge, but we’re delivering beyond our expectations. I want to thank our entire organization for helping to shape the future of G-III. Now let us review the financial results for the first — third quarter of fiscal 2025.
A GAAP earnings per diluted share was $2.59 and significantly above our expectations driven by gross margin out performance and lower than planned expenses. Gross margins for the quarter were better than anticipated, driven by greater penetration of our higher margin owned brands. Net sales for the quarter were $1.09 billion, generally in line with our expectations. Our inventory remains in good position down approximately 10% from last year third quarter.
Now let us review the progress we’ve made in our strategic priorities which include driving growth of our own brands, building a complementary portfolio of license brands, expanding our global reach and bringing our North American retail segment to profitability.
As we continue transforming our business model, we’re constantly evaluating our infrastructure and our warehousing footprint to drive greater efficiencies. Additionally, we’re investing in enhancing our technology landscape while assessing regional competencies to allocate resources to support business growth.
This year, our existing team combined with investments and talent enabled us to develop and launch four new brands. As these new brands scale and our business model evolves, we remain focused on refining processes, optimizing operations and capturing additional efficiencies to drive cost savings.
Throughout G-III’s history, we’ve adapted to sourcing strategies in multiple countries across the globe in order to bring the highest quality product at the most advantageous cost with on-time deliveries to our customers. This approach has enabled us to build a highly agile sourcing and supply chain network while skillfully diversifying our vendor base, ensuring no material dependence on a single partner or region.
We’ve significantly reduced that China production from what was at 1.80% several years ago, down to just over 30% today. And excluding outerwear the China penetration would be just over 20%. Should the potential for tariffs become a more prominent issue, we’re confident in our ability and our adaptability to respond quickly in order to mitigate risk as we’ve done in the past.
Capturing the long-term potential of our own brands is one of our top priorities. With full control over design, production, global distribution and marketing, these brands represent an important and sustainable long term profit driver, generating higher operating margins and providing an accretive licensing income stream.
As previously mentioned, we made outside investments in marketing this year to support the launch of Donna Karan and further drive brand engagement for DKNY. With an emphasis on campaign content, including talent and featured product, our investments are directed from top-of-funnel marketing to social media to SEO, all to better align with our product as it hits retailers’ floors.
Additionally, we’re working more closely with our licensees to coordinate our marketing efforts and further amplify their impact and reach. We continue to see these investment results in the outside [right] size growth of our brands. Our key owned brands, DKNY, Karl Lagerfeld, Donna Karan, and Vilebrequin, along with the rest of our go forward portfolio generated approximately $1.8 billion in net sales last year and expected to grow strong double digits this year.
And together with our new launches, we see over $5 billion in long-term net sales potential. I will now walk you through some of the brand highlights from the quarter. Donna Karan offers a modern system of dressing serving the needs of women in search of sophisticated product.
We meticulously analyzed thousands of archival looks and vintage details to craft a collection that honors the legacy and essence of Donna Karan. Every element from the refined jewelry-like hardware to the contemporary design touches reflects a seamless blend of heritage and modernity to meet the demands of today’s consumer.
Donna Karan delivered another standout quarter. On a year-to-date basis, retail sales have exceeded our expectations by double digits, while driving some of the highest AURs and sell-throughs across our portfolio. Our elevated product is resonating with consumers and generating healthy profitability for both our retailers and G-III.
Our retail partners expanded floor space and doors in the fall and have allocated further expansion for spring 2025. Our spring launch in North America spanned across 900 points of sale, which grew to 1,200 in the fall and is expected to reach over 1,600 in spring of 2025.
In addition, our digital business is performing incredibly well with particular strength on donnakaran.com, which has significantly outpaced our internal expectations. The successful reintroduction of Donna Karan is a testament to the brand’s enduring legacy and a beacon of sophistication for all women.
Our powerful fall campaign, Reflections on Women, featuring a group of eight iconic models delivered major brand awareness globally as well as demand for celebrity styling, including Kelsea Ballerini, Kaia Gerber and Kate Hudson, among others, all of which resulted in significant earned media value.
Alongside our launch, our fragrance partner, Interprop Boom, unveiled the new Donna Karan Cashmere collection. This collection of four new fragrances is off to a solid start and was just awarded this year’s best fragrance collection at the Marie Claire US Fragrance Awards.
A new scent is planned to be released next year. For the holiday season, we expanded our social dresses and handbags collection and added new elevated layering pieces, all of which are seeing strong sell-throughs while driving AURs even higher.
For example, AURs and social dresses are approximately 50% higher than our other brands. In support of these product initiatives, our digital marketing content is keeping the brand top of mind and driving demand during the important holiday shopping season.
Notably, given this is just a North American launch, the strong sales performance, product resonance and marketing impact give us confidence in the significant global expansion opportunity. We continue to expect over $1 billion in annual net sales potential for Donna Karan in the long term.
DKNY draws inspiration from the energy and attitude of New York and offers a modern wardrobe designed to seamlessly transition from day to night, appealing to younger consumers seeking contemporary stylish pieces. The brand delivered another strong quarter with sales increasing over 30%, driven by North America. Retailers are expanding floor space across key categories with over 700 new points of sale added in the fall.
Our owned North American direct-to-consumer business is benefiting from our recently implemented turnaround initiatives, which drove solid comp increases in line with the brand’s sales growth this quarter. We’re leveraging unique partnerships and brand-building experiences to help deepen our connection with the consumer and fuel continued desire for the brand.
In partnership with Kaia Gerber, we launched our Fall New York Stories campaign with book activations across New York City, London and Milan during each city’s fashion week. The fall campaign captured the attention of global audiences, garnering significant press attention and social engagement while helping us tap a younger consumer segment. Further, our prominently featured DKNY billboard at Yankee Stadium surpassed our expectations, enhancing the brand’s visibility as the team made it all the way through the World Series.
The fall marketing campaign, combined with our Yankees partnership brought the full lifestyle appeal of DKNY to life, delivering an impressive, earned media value. The global launch of our new DKNY 24/7 fragrance in the fall aligned well with the timing of our fall marketing campaign. The fragrance launched in over 35 countries and was backed by robust marketing around the world with an emphasis on key markets, including the US, Germany, UK, Spain and Travel Retail.
The new fragrance was advertised across larger outposts in over 100 key points of sale and prominently displayed in travel retail locations, including 70 screens at the Madrid Airport. Perhaps most exciting was the extensive takeover of multiple high-traffic subway stops in Madrid, which were wrapped wall-to-wall with fragrance campaign — with our fragrance campaign.
All of these efforts were capped off with a splashy launch event. The fragrance is off to a good start and Interparfum is expanding geographic distribution to new markets. Partnerships like this help expand the brand’s global reach to a broader consumer across additional lifestyle categories.
We believe there’s significant runway ahead for DKNY as we further enhance our lifestyle product assortment, drive consumer engagement and fuel brand heat around the world. We expect further growth to be driven by continued momentum in North America as we extend our relationship with key retail partners, expansion into new geographies and increased engagement across the wider consumer audience.
We’re in the early stages of international expansion and continue to expect over $1 billion in annual net sales potential for DKNY in the midterm. Karl Lagerfeld, an iconic name in fashion, captures the essence of its namesake designer’s timeless aesthetic seamlessly blended with a contemporary forward-thinking spirit.
The collection showcases Parisian-inspired classics infused with a rock-chic attitude delivering a bold take on high fashion. In North America, Karl Lagerfeld delivered another impressive quarter with sales growing over 30% to last year, also driven by continued momentum in North American wholesale. Our expanded lifestyle offering contributed to the addition of nearly 600 points of sale for a total of over 3,000 across North America.
Our owned North American direct-to-consumer business is seeing sequential improvement with the stores delivering double-digit comp sales growth and the website continuing to outperform with comp sales nearly doubling over last year. Internationally, Karl Lagerfeld continues to gain momentum and relevance in overseas markets as we expand distribution through new store openings and new geographies as well as introduce additional lifestyle categories.
Since the acquisition, the Karl Lagerfeld men’s business has grown substantially, serving as a nice complement to our women’s business and offering additional growth avenue for us to lean on. Our men’s product is resonating with the consumer and driving a nice lift to sales. Last year, our men’s business represented approximately 17% of the brand’s international sales, and we expect it will grow to over 20% this year with continued momentum into next year.
In the fall, we launched our new KL Studio collection featuring premium product showcased in our retail stores as well as pop-ups from renowned European department stores. The collection drove significant press attention and engagement and has been well received by international customers. While the line is narrow and distribution is limited, collections like this help reinforce the powerful brand halo and ignite fashion excitement.
Our newly launched Karl Lagerfeld premium jeans line further extends the brand’s offering, featuring a full product assortment to complement the denim lifestyle. In its second year, this line delivered solid growth in the quarter, and we’re focused on expanding our presence online by working with our digital pure-play partners to make the full jeans line accessible to a broader consumer.
Karl Lagerfeld saw a strengthening sell-throughs coming out of summer into the fall season. As we look to next year, the spring 2025 order book in Europe tracked well ahead of plan, and we expect to be well positioned for next fall.
Momentum in North America demonstrates the brand’s substantial opportunity to unlock future sales in international markets. We expect over $1 billion in annual net sales potential for Karl Lagerfeld globally. Vilebrequin, our status swimwear brand, cultivates a spirit of refinement and fantasy with perfectly tailored and always-in-style product for a top-tier clientele.
The brand continues to demonstrate powerful global brand awareness and engagement while building on its status appeal through enhanced experiences and premium lifestyle products that meet the needs of our aspirational customers. We’re navigating the challenging environment with retail softness impacting sales in the quarter, particularly in France, one of our largest markets, partially offset by stronger sell-throughs in digital.
We’re driving further brand desirability and are seeing strong demand for premium products such as our embroidered swimwear line. Expansion of our lifestyle offerings through new licenses and collaborations further diversify our product mix and create memorable brand experience for our customers. As an extension to our hospitality business and inspired by our Beach Club concept, we’re building a new line of outdoor furniture with a partner that will launch on our site summer of 2025.
Over the past few months, we’ve expanded Vilebrequin’s retail store footprint with four new locations in Macau, the US and Brazil. We opened our first-ever flagship store and beach club in Cannes and our second beach club operated by our partner just opened in the St. Regis Hotel in Doha, Qatar. Our Miami Beach rooftop restaurant will open next with several other projects in the pipeline for 2025 and beyond.
We’re on track to open approximately 15 partner-operated beach club concepts by the end of 2027. These clubs, along with our expanding store footprint, underpins our confidence in the long-term global expansion opportunity. Our next strategic priority is to further build out our complementary portfolio of licensed brands.
We’re thoughtful in our approach to partnering with brands, ensuring that each new brand complements our existing portfolio while offering unique propositions that further bolster our business. We seek brands that offer a differentiated range of lifestyle product with varying aesthetics that further diversify our distribution across channels and geographies and appeal to a broad range of consumers.
Importantly, licensed brands are also a capital-light way to grow our business and leverage our powerful corporate foundation. This foundation includes our experienced management team, best-in-class merchant expertise, dominance across a range of lifestyle categories, a well-developed global sourcing and supply chain infrastructure, and our strong relationships with retailers across a diversified distribution network.
The licensed team sports business is experiencing a strong year of growth. We have successfully renewed our NFL license and secured expanded rights for distribution of select product categories within big box retailers like Walmart, Target and Meijer. This spring, we will further expand our reach by distributing select products through the club channel.
The Detroit Lions recent success has been a positive driver for business, especially in their home markets where we’ve seen increased opportunities. We anticipate continued growth in this business moving forward. This year, our teams brought three differentiated brands, Nautica, Halston as well as Champion outerwear to the market in record time. Nautica offers iconic, modern and nautically inspired designs with casual fit, feel and function. We launched Nautica jeans this spring, which already replaced the sales of our Tommy Jeans business we exited last year.
We plan to expand the brand’s distribution as well as introduce additional categories over the course of this multiyear license. This quarter, we launched Halston and Champion outerwear, both of which performed as expected for their first season. Halston’s simple and classic elegance offers an easy modern approach to aspirational style, while Champion, a brand born from sport, offers iconic athletic apparel with a strong appeal amongst the younger customer.
Last quarter, we announced our newest global licensing agreement with Converse, Inc. for men’s and women’s apparel. Owned by Nike, Converse is an iconic American youth lifestyle brand with global recognition and a long-standing legacy across multiple sports and creative communities that meets the ever-shifting demands of the younger consumer.
The brand allows us to extend our active lifestyle offerings beyond our team sports business and with product that is differentiated from our fashion brands. It also enables us to sell across multiple tiers of distribution, including big box, better department stores, sports retail and sporting goods stores and with certain rights to distribute the brand globally, we see a tremendous growth runway ahead. We’re excited to see the product we’ve designed come to life. We will continue to seek opportunities to work with brands that further complement our portfolio as we drive our vision forward and evolve for the future.
G-III has a proven track record of growing potential brands into significant businesses as demonstrated by our success with Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger. Before we assume the licenses for both brands, their women’s business in North America wholesale was virtually nonexistent. We single-handedly built the women’s lifestyle categories for these brands and grew these businesses to a combined $1.5 billion at their peak.
As we transition our Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger business back to PVH, we’re working aggressively with our retailers to maintain budgets and shelf space in order to maximize the potential of these brands under G-III as PVH builds their spring 2025 order book and their plans for the future. Expanding our global reach of brands outside of North America remains one of our largest opportunities over the near and long term.
Vilebrequin, along with our acquisition of Karl Lagerfeld has helped accelerate our international presence. We’re in the early stages of global expansion for DKNY and just beginning with Donna Karan. Importantly, most of our newly added licenses, including Converse, Nautica and Halston provide an opportunity for international distribution. We continue to actively invest in and build upon our capabilities to support our international business. Our partnership with AWWG is in its early stages as we work to unlock synergies between our companies.
In fiscal 2024, just over 20% of our sales were from outside the United States. With our go-forward portfolio of owned and licensed brands, we see significant untapped potential to scale globally. In conclusion, we delivered a strong third quarter with earnings per diluted share exceeding our expectations while making strategic investments in our brands and business.
Looking at the remainder of the year, we remain cautiously optimistic as the power of our transforming business model driven by our owned brands is delivering margin expansion and bottom-line outperformance. However, we remain grounded in the realities of the current macroeconomic and consumer environment as well as the unseasonable weather during the first month of our fourth quarter.
For fiscal 2025, we’re updating our net sales guidance to $3.15 billion and importantly, raising our full year non-GAAP earnings per diluted share guidance to be in the range of $4.10 to $4.20. This raised guidance reflects our significant third quarter earnings outperformance and commitment to driving long-term sustainable growth and shareholder value as we make progress on our strategic initiatives.
Our proven track record of success and our strong balance sheet gives us ample flexibility to invest in long-term opportunities to expand our business. The plans we’ve laid out over the past two years are working. We’ve done a great job improving what we own, building on our infrastructure, cutting the North American Retail segment losses by more than half and adding what we need for the future.
The new G-III is already stronger and better than ever before. I’ll now pass the call to Neal for a discussion of our third quarter as well as our fiscal 2025 outlook.