Archive for category: Globe

The headline is that given the pandemic, Globe had a reasonable result for the year ended June 30, 2020 and ended with a strong balance.  In the press release, they say their performance held up “adequately.”  That’s a fine word to describe it.

Australian accounting rules only require six months statements, rather than the quarterly ones we see from U.S. companies.  When they come out with the year end statement, there’s no requirement that they include the second half of the year separately, and they don’t.

Unfortunately, that leaves me having to find those numbers the hard way, which I’ve done.  They are in the chart below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pretax income for the year ended June 30, 2020 fell 17.3% compared to the prior fiscal year from $7.776 to $6.433 million.  However, the 2020 result included a profit of $3.632 million from the sale of the Dwindle brand trademarks.  Interestingly, the transactions costs associated with doing the deal were $1.631 million.

Globe also received some money from Australian government stimulus programs including one called JobKeeper.  They don’t tell us the amount.  I think we can assume it was received in the second half of the year.  The program has been extended to March 28, 2021 so more payments may be received.

If we remove the one-time profit from the Dwindle sale, pretax profit was $2.801 million, a 64.0% decline from the previous year.  If we knew what payments they received from the government, we’d have a better idea of operating results.

Despite the decline in income, revenue for the year fell only 5%, as you can see in the chart above- largely the result of the sale of the Dwindle brands.  Globe sold Dwindle- a decision I’ve always thought a good one-to focus on what it calls its strategic growth brands.  These brands- “…FXD, Impala, Salty Crew and Globe Skateboards all recorded sales growth compared to the prior comparative period.”

Gross margin fell by just 0.3% helped, I imagine, by the sale of Dwindle.

Globe suffered from, and reacted to, the pandemic much like other industry companies.  In the six-month ended June 30, Globe had a pretax profit of $2.677 million, down 21.7% from the prior year’s six month.  Revenue fell 9%.  You can see they reduced expenses and purchased less inventory.  Here’s what they tell us about how they managed when the virus hit during the second half of the year.

“There were a number of negative impacts on the business as a result of lockdowns which resulted in restrictions on the supply chain, operations, wholesale customers and end consumers. However, partially offsetting these negative impacts, there were also a number of positive factors that affected profitability. This included savings from short-term salary reductions, including at the executive level; discretionary and renegotiated cost savings; government stimulus received (including JobKeeper in Australia); rent relief from landlords; and sales growth in certain categories that continued to sell well online throughout Q4.”

For the year, Australasia revenues fell from $81.977 to $79.333 million, or by 3.23%.  EBIT was down 15.5% declining from $13.176 to $$11.134 million.  “The decline in Australian revenues was driven by its licensed Streetwear division, which was the Australian business unit that was hardest-hit by COVID-19.”

The North American segment reported a year over year revenue decline of 12.6% from $53.479 to $46.768 million.  EBIT improved, rising from a loss of $144,000 to a profit of $2.656 million.  This reflects the positive impact of the Dwindle sale.

In Europe, revenue rose from $23.656 to $25.598 million- 8.2%.  But EBIT fell 80.8% from $1.094 million to $210,000.  “…the earnings were lower as a result of extra costs to grow these brands in their earlier stages of development and a decline in gross profit margins, mainly due to the stronger USD.”

I’ve already noted that the balance sheet remains strong.  They ended the year with cash of $26 million, up from $9.5 million at the end of the previous year.  Even as I’ve grumbled about the paucity of information in their reports, I’ve always recognized that Globe was pretty damned good at recognizing inflection points and making required changes.  Doesn’t look like this year, and half year, was any different.

 

 

 

 

 

Globe reported growth in revenue and income for the six months ended December 31 though, as usual, they don’t give us much information on how they did it.  I’ll tell you what I can glean from the public documents.  All numbers in Australian dollars of course.

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Globe’s report for the six months ended 31 December 2017, as usual, gives us very little information.  The only 17 page report makes just one incomplete mentions of their brands and tells us exactly nothing about how any of them are doing individually.

Perhaps I’ll start by reminding you of their brands.  They own are Globe, Salty Crew (50% I think), FXD, Dwindle, Enjoi, Blind, Darkstar, Almost, Tensor, Dusters and Sample.  Their third party brands, which means they distribute them, are Stussy, Obey, M/SF/T, Xlarge, Andale, Kryptonics and Hardcore.

Total revenue, compared to the same six months the previous year, fell by 0.71% from $70.7 to $70.2 million (all numbers are in Australian dollars).    Pretax income, on the other hand, rose 24.1% from $2.81 to $3.49 million.  How’d they do that?

“This growth in profitability was due mainly to an increase in gross margins across the board. The gross margin improvement came from a combination of factors including brand mix, customer mix, sourcing improvements and foreign exchange impacts. While overall costs were largely flat compared to the same period last year, there has been a reallocation of costs towards emerging and growth brands, to drive the growth in those brands over the coming years.”

Revenues from the Australasia segment fell from $41.3 to $38.3 million.  However, the segment earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) was up just a bit from $4.95 to $5.06 million.  In North America, revenue rose 13.4% from $17.75 to $20.13 million.  The EBIT loss improved, declining 41% from a loss of $2.15 million to a loss of $1.27 million.  In Europe, revenues were little changes, rising from $11.68 to $11.76 million.  However, EBIT fell from $284,000 to $83,000.

From a bottom line perspective, then, Australasia is carrying the load.  North America is losing money and Europe is barely above breakeven.

I don’t know what the change in gross margin was.  Of the factors they point to as responsible for the improvement, I’d be curios how much foreign exchange accounted for.  But fundamentally, they leave us with a picture of a company that’s managing its brands, distribution and customers consistent with a competitive environment where revenue growth is harder to come by.  I’d call that being in touch with reality.  Globe has tended to be that way.

Changes in the balance sheet, which is strong, are consistent with management’s description in the quote above of what led to the gross margin increase.  With revenue more or less constant, we see an 8.6% decline in inventory from $19.2 million a year ago to $17.6 million at 31 December 2017.  I also note that a current interest bearing liability of $4.59 million last year is down to zero this year while cash and cash equivalents is basically unchanged.

Based on the very limited information in the report, Globe is positioned to do well if its competitors struggle for whatever reason.

Globe published its results for the six months ended December 31^st on February 21^st and I missed it.  Better late than never I guess.

Happily for Globe, its largest market in Australasia was strong because revenues in Europe and North American (NA) were down pretty dramatically.  Total revenues fell 10.6% from $79.1 in the six months last year to $70.7 million Australian dollars in this year’s six months. (all dollar numbers are Australian).  Australasia revenue, representing 58.4% of total revenue, rose 15.5% from $35.7 to $41.3 million.

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