Archive for category: Quiksilver

Quik filed an 8K today announcing that a director, Elizabeth Dolan, had resigned from the board effective immediately. Here’s what she said in her resignation letter.

Dear fellow Quiksilver Directors:

It is with regret that I inform you that I am resigning from the Quiksilver board effective immediately.

I joined this board with a strong commitment to carrying out the full responsibilities of a Director. By excluding me from crucial board discussions and votes, I have been prevented from fulfilling this role. Indeed, your lack of trust in me has been made clear. On my end, this can’t be rebuilt.

With respect, I wish the best for the future of Quiksilver.

The terse, blunt language in her resignation seems to me to be a bit unusual for a resigning director. Here’s a description of Ms. Dolan’s background from Quik’s last proxy statement.

Elizabeth Dolan currently serves as Chief Marketing Officer of FOX International Channels (FIC), which includes global television channel brands such as FOX, National Geographic Channel and FOX Sports, where she oversees all brand development, consumer communications, new programming launches and trade marketing for more than 350 television channels in Asia, Latin America, Europe and Africa. Ms. Dolan joined FIC in January 2011. Prior to joining FIC, Ms. Dolan served as Chief Marketing Officer for OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network from January 2009 to June 2010. From November 2003 until September 2008, Ms. Dolan was President of Mudbath Productions, which produced radio shows for the ABC Radio Networks. From September 1997 until November 2003, she operated a marketing consulting practice. Prior to that, from August 1988 to September 1997, Ms. Dolan held various positions with Nike, Inc., including serving as Corporate Vice President and VP of Global Marketing. Ms. Dolan earned a bachelor’s degree from Brown University in 1979. As a result of her extensive experience in the worldwide marketing of globally recognized brands, our board of directors believes that Ms. Dolan will bring important insights and guidance to board deliberations regarding our brand development and overall marketing strategies.

If you want to know more, check out her LinkedIn profile.

To be clear, I don’t know what happened, and have not met or talked to Ms. Dolan. But based on the description of her experience, she’s the kind of person I think I’d want around if I were dealing with some of Quik’s problems.

This almost feels like a continuation of the management transition that happened when Andy Mooney got fired.

I will be interested to see what Quik’s quarterly report looks like when we see it in a week or so.

Quik filed their 10K last week, but the holidays kept me from any serious analysis until now. The best thing I heard in the conference call was CEO Andy Mooney saying, “The organizational restructuring of the company is now complete and the management team focused singularly on execution.”   We’ve learned, as we’ve watched other industry companies go through turnarounds, that cleaning up and getting organized is incredibly distracting from just running the business well.

I’m going to start with a summary of the financials. The first thing that jumped out at me was the year over year decline in stockholders’ equity from $388 to $58 million. That’s not an unexpected result given the loss for the year of $309 million, up from a loss of $233 million the prior year. Total liabilities, however, fell only 2.8% to $1.2 billion. Long term debt (net of current portion) declined 1.9% to $793 million.

The net loss includes a one-time gain of $30 million on the sale of Mervin Manufacturing and Hawk.

Obviously, no matter how you like to calculate it, the debt to equity ratio went through the roof compared to a year ago. I’ve written before about the need to get the turnaround producing positive cash flow and profits before the balance sheet deteriorated too much further. I’m still thinking the same thing, only with more urgency.

Sales declined from $1.81 to $1.57 billion (13.3%). There are some things you need to be aware of around goodwill impairments and licensing revenues. But first, here are the summary numbers according to GAAP straight from the 10K, which you can review here if you want.  The numbers are in millions of dollars.  Let’s run through these numbers and I’ll add a little “color,” as they say in earnings conference calls.

As you see above, revenues fell in all three regions. EMEA is Europe; APAC is Australia and the Pacific. The gross profit margin (not in the table) in the Americas declined from 41.5% to 41.3%. In EMEA it was down from 56.7% to 55.6%. In APAC, it rose from 51% to 54.6%. Overall, the gross margin rose from 48.2% to 48.6%. The increase “…was primarily due to the segment and channel net revenue shifts toward our higher margin EMEA and APAC segments, and retail and e-commerce channels versus our Americas segment and wholesale channel.” Gross margin dollars, you will note, were down in all three segments, though only very slightly in APAC.

You may recall that Quik is being selectively more aggressive on pricing, particularly on board shorts. If, while doing that, they can still improve their gross margin, it suggests that other parts of their program must be having some success. The caveat is that I don’t know the extent or breadth of those price reductions.

Sales in the U.S. represented 35% of Quik’s total sales, down from 38% a year ago.  Total U.S. sales, according to my careful calculations, fell 20% from $688 million to $550 million. Wow. The wholesale segment in the U.S. seems to suck for Quik. Not just for Quik.

Worldwide, wholesale business fell from 71% to 67% of the total. Brick and mortar rose from 25% to 28% and ecommerce was up from 4% to 5%. Quik ended the year with 683 company owned stores worldwide including 147 factory outlets. 100 stores are in the Americas. EMEA and APAC have 296 and 287 stores respectively. Those numbers do not include 252 stores “…licensed to independent third parties in various countries.”

I’d be curious about the financial model for those licensed stores. Does Quik get a fee for the licensed name and then sell them product at the same prices as to other independent retailers? Are they involved in merchandising? Anybody want to put a comment on my web site about how that works? You might as well as long as you’re hear reading this anyway.

Quiksilver brand revenue fell 12.9% ($93 million) from $721 to $628 million. $17 million of the decline was due to “Our licensing of peripheral product categories…”

Roxy fell 6% from $511 to $480 million. No impact from licensing for Roxy.

DC revenues were down 21%, falling from $542 to $427 million. $10 million of the decline was due to licensing. We learn in the conference call that additional categories may be licensed in the future.

I have no doubt that licensing the peripheral product categories is a good financial decision. But not long after it happened, I walked into my local Fred Meyers for my groceries and saw in their ad, “Quiksilver Kids- 25% off!”  Anyway, I worked my way to the clothing section and there in fact was the Quik and DC kids merchandise with a big sale sign on it.

So, I know it’s just the kid stuff, and I know it was a good financial decision, and I know I lack objectivity about this. But, damn it, it’s still representing the Quiksilver brand and I hated seeing it there and I hated the thoughtlessness with which it was merchandised and I hated what it was surrounded by. Okay, they needed to do it, and it was somehow the “right” decision and all that and it still depresses me to think about it.

Let’s move on.

Take a look at the SG&A expenses in the chart. The biggest reduction was in corporate operations ($24 million of the total reduction of about $30 million). Actually, I guess that’s what you’d want to see- spend the money in the places that can drive sales and profits. That’s generally not the corporate offices.

As a percentage of sales, however, SG&A expense rose from 47.4% to 52.7%. Obviously, that can’t continue. They note in risk factors that “We may be unable to continue to reduce SG&A at the same pace.” No kidding. I suspect Quik isn’t finished taking costs out of their supply and logistics chain, but SG&A can’t go down forever.

Promotion and advertising expenses totaled $78 million for the year. In the two prior years, they were $93 and $118 million respectively.

Now we get to the asset impairment charge of $180 million in EMEA. Yes, it’s noncash. Yes, it’s “one time,” though there always seems to be a new one charge time in the following year (Not just talking about Quik). No, that doesn’t mean you can ignore it. It is an indication of a real decline in future cash flows and the value of those assets.

Finally, at the operating income line, we see worse performance and a loss in all three segments compared to the previous year. Just for fun, let’s take out the asset impairment charge in EMEA. If we did that, we’d see the operating profit of EMEA was $13.7 million; positive, but down from the previous year.

Okay, almost made it to strategy. Just a few more financial comments.

The allowance for doubtful accounts has increased from $57.6 million at the end of fiscal 2012 to $60.9 million at fiscal 2013 end and $64 million 2014 fiscal year end. This has happened while sales fell 20%. Not necessarily supposed to work that way.

Also looking at the balance sheet, the current ratio has fallen from 2.49 to 2.13, but that’s still okay. Trade receivables were down 22.4%- more than the decline in sales. The same is true with inventories. They were reduced by 22.3%. They reduced the average day’s sales outstanding by four days to 93 and inventory days on hand from 122 to 118. Good work. I will not be surprised to see further improvement in the inventory numbers.

Interest expense was $76 million, up from $71 million last year and $61 million the year before that. Most of their long term debt is fixed rate, but the rates are between 7.8% and 10%. The first maturity of this debt is December of 2017.

Quik’s three fundamental strategies are “1) strengthening our brands; 2) growing sales; and 3) driving operational efficiencies.”

Nothing surprising there. I’m guessing every company would like to do that. You can read the details on page one of the 10-K. I see some progress in numbers one and three. Obviously, given the financial results, we aren’t there on number two yet. However, CEO Mooney tells us, ”Looking at the year ahead, we are pleased with our order book for spring ‘15 as it represents the stabilization of the business beginning in Q2 providing a foundation for significant EBITDA growth in 2015 with top line and incremental EBITDA growth coming in 2016 and beyond.”

Basically, he’s calling the bottom. And none too soon I’d say given the balance sheet. CEO Mooney projects a 2015 revenue increase “…in the low single digit range normalized for categories transitioning to a licensed business model.” They expect “proforma adjusted EBITDA” (whatever that means) to be $80 to $90 million assuming current exchange rates. Nobody is projecting a profit, though they expect positive free cash flow in 2015.

They make this statement in the 10-K:

“We believe that the integrity and success of our brands is dependent, in part, upon our careful selection of appropriate retailers to support our brands in the wholesale sales channel. A foundation of our business is the distribution of our products through surf shops, skateboard shops, snowboard shops, sporting goods stores, and our own proprietary retail concept stores, where the environment communicates our brand and culture. Our distribution channels serve as a base of legitimacy and long-term loyalty for our brands. “

You won’t be surprised I agree with that statement though, bluntly, I don’t quite see Quiksilver as having completely taken that approach since Andy Mooney became CEO.  But I’m partly willing to give them a pass because of the turnaround they had to engineer and are still engineering. There are some comments in the conference call about a being less promotional on their web site to support the core business and you’re aware they pulled DC back in distribution partly to address these issues.

With regards to marketing, Andy notes, “On marketing we went a little bit darker [in] marketing candidly in the transition, but we will come back with the vengeance in the spring as we said 40% increase in media. That media will be spent almost solely in core skate, surf and snow magazines in both print and vertical specifically to drive that business in the key markets of North America, Europe and Australasia. We are also going to increase our marketing spending in terms of point-of-sale presentations within the core surfer retail accounts reinvesting in grassroots and activating marketing the athletes that are important to those accounts and the consumers who shop in those accounts…”

That seems like a step in the right direction.

Given where they’ve come from, I really don’t dispute most of the operational steps Quik has taken. I haven’t liked seeing them all, but I understand them. I’m guessing we’re mostly though with SG&A reductions, though I’m thinking there might be some more improvement in gross margin through more inventory and supplier rationalization. For me, it’s right now about timely sales increases that improve cash flow to manage, and ultimately improve, the balance sheet.  We seem to have arrived back to where public companies in this industry always get- can you build strong brands while growing revenue enough to make wall street happy?

You know, maybe it’s a delusion, but an awful lot of corporate reports for the companies I follow are starting to sound the same. I need to read something else. Most of them say some variation of we’re trying to figure out how to integrate brick and mortar with online, sales growth is hard to come by, we’re rationalizing expenses and improving efficiencies, we’re reducing SKUs, we’re improving systems to get the right inventory to the right place at the right time, we have some constraints caused by our balance sheet, the U.S. market is especially tough, we’re pinning our hopes on Asia/Pacific, we’re trying to improve product, we’re focused on building our brands and managing our distribution, and the market is very promotional.

I think that covers it, and now I have to somehow relate that introduction back to Quiksilver. I guess I can do that by saying they are dealing with most of these issues.

Sales for the quarter ended July 31, 2014 fell 18.9% from $488 million in last year’s quarter to $396 million. Sales declines in the Americas, EMEA and APAC respectively were 26.8%, 12.8% and 1.8%.

The gross profit margin was down from 49.1% to 47.8%. The Americas gross margin fell from 41.9% to 40.2%. In EMEA it went down from 58.4% to 55.6%. In APAC it rose from 51.4% to 56.8%. The decline in gross margin “…was primarily due to increased discounting in the wholesale channels of North America and Europe (320 basis points), partially offset by net revenue growth from our higher margin direct-to-consumer channels (160 basis points).”

SG&A expenses were down just 1% from $215 to $213 million, but as a percentage of sales they were up mightily, from 44% to 53.8%. They reduced athlete and event spending by $5 million, but had a gain on the sale of a building of $5 million. Employee compensation fell $4 million because they didn’t have the severance costs they had last year. They spent an additional $5 million on marketing other than athletes and events, had $3 million more in bad debt expense and $2 million in higher depreciation.

Operating profit went from a positive $23 million to a loss of $206 million. However, that includes noncash goodwill impairment related to European assets of $182 million. Remember, however, that even though it’s noncash, it’s indicative of lower expected future cash flows from the assets being written down.

Ignoring all the noncash charges in this year and last year’s quarter, operating income fell from a positive $25 million to a negative $24 million, so it’s hardly good news. Interest expense was about $19 million compared to $20 million last year. There was a bottom line net loss (including the write down) of $222 million compared to a profit of $1.8 million last year.

Here’s the chart from the 10-Q that lays it all out for you by segment. You can see the 10-Q here if you want, though I doubt anybody ever goes to look. The Americas segment is just what you’d think it is and most of its revenue comes from the U.S., Canada, Brazil and Mexica. EMEA is Europe, the Middle East and Africa, but mostly the revenue is from Great Britain, continental Europe, Russia and South Africa. APAC (Asia and the Pacific Rim) is mostly Australia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea Taiwan and Indonesia. Notice how China does not make the top six yet.

Quiksilver, by the way, ended the quarter with 658 company owned stores. They are on pace to open a net of 60 new stores by the end of this fiscal year.

Please note that APAC’s operating income rose $3 million on a small decline in sales. Ain’t nothing like raising that gross margin.

In the Americas, “This net revenue decrease was primarily due to lower net revenues from our DC brand in the wholesale channel of $47 million driven by reduced clearance sales, narrowed product distribution to mid-tier wholesale customers, and the licensing of DC children’s apparel. In addition, net revenues decreased in the Quiksilver and Roxy brands by $14 million and $7 million, respectively, in the wholesale channel due to licensing of Quiksilver children’s apparel, lower customer demand, and less effective order fulfillment compared to the prior year. Americas segment net revenues decreased 28% in the developed markets of North America, but increased 9% on a combined basis in the emerging markets of Brazil and Mexico.”

The licensed kids business was responsible for $11 million, or 16% of the decline in the North America wholesale business.

I want you to specifically note that they are pulling back DC’s distribution with the goal of strengthening the brand. It’s about time. In this case at least, they are giving up some sales in a good cause.

There isn’t much good news about revenues in AMEA. The decline is “…due to lower revenues in the wholesale channel across all three brands driven by lower customer demand as a result of poor prior season’s sell through, and less effective order fulfillment compared to the prior year. These decreases were partially offset by double-digit percentage growth in the e-commerce channel … ”

Lower demand, poor sell through, and troubles with order fulfillment is quite a triple whammy.

In APAC, wholesale revenues were down but that was offset by growth in retail and e-commerce.

Here’s revenue for the quarter by brand.

The decline in the Quiksilver brand “…was primarily due to reduced net revenues in the Americas and EMEA wholesale channels of approximately $14 million and $15 million, respectively. A portion of the decrease in Quiksilver brand net revenues ($6 million) was due to the licensing of children’s apparel.

The Roxy decline “…was primarily due to lower net revenues in the Americas and EMEA wholesale channels of approximately $7 million each, partially offset by increased revenues in the e-commerce and retail channels.” Roxy was not licensed for children’s apparel.

DC’s decrease in revenue “…was primarily driven by lower net revenues in the Americas and EMEA wholesale channels of $48 million and $10 million, respectively. The Americas net revenue decrease was driven by reduced clearance sales, narrowed product distribution to mid-tier wholesale customers, and the licensing of DC children’s apparel.” They also reported successfully launching DC’s offering in “accessibly priced canvas footwear market,” and expect a positive impact going forward.

So it seems we can conclude that wholesale in the Americas and EMEA kind of sucks. You can see the problem in this chart showing sales by channel.

I’d like to point out the relative contribution to revenue of wholesale compared to retail and e-commerce. There were gains totaling $7 million in retail and e-commerce and a decline of $100 million in wholesale. E-commerce revenues were down 9% in the Americas by the way. Global comparative store sales were up 1% during the quarter. So when Quik talks about retail and e-commerce offsetting wholesale, it’s not much of an offset overall.

Looking at the balance sheet, you’ve got a current ratio that improved from 1.73 a year ago to 2.46 as of July 31. Long term debt is up slightly from $808 to $812 million. Total liabilities to equity have vaulted from 2.97 to 10.6 times. Liabilities fell significantly from $1.64 to $1.2 billion, but equity was down from $553 to $114 million.

Quiksilver notes that they are updating their profit improvement plan “…based upon recent difficulties within the wholesale channels of our Americas and EMEA segments. As part of updating our PIP, we will establish additional SG&A reduction objectives and allocate capital to our emerging markets, e-commerce and retail channel growth plans.” So more expense cuts to come.

In a short section on page 29 of the 10-Q called “Known or Anticipated Trends,” Quik gives us a look at what the future looks like. Over the next few quarters they expect net revenue comparisons will be “unfavorable.” That means they will be lower when compared against the previous year’s quarter. For the year they expect them to be “unfavorable” in North America and Europe wholesale but favorable in emerging markets and e-commerce. Didn’t say anything about retail.

“Unfavorable” is such a benign sounding word for such an unfortunate result, speaking of benign words.

They also tell us that the adjusted EBITDA for the year that ends October 31 will be lower than for the previous year. I tend to believe that if the adjusted figure is worse, the as reported will be even worse. Maybe I should have said “unfavorable.”

There’s a lot going on. Some of the things I think Quik is doing right have caused what I hope are short term difficulties. Reducing DC’s distribution is absolutely critical to the brand’s success, but in the short term costs revenue. They’ve stopped or at least reduced discounting on their web sites. Again, a possible short term revenue hit, but good for the brands. Just as a guess, I expect core shops to like that.

In the conference call, CEO Andy Mooney announced, as part of their positive accomplishments, that “…we moved a large number of small independent accounts to a B@B service model.” I understand the financial rationale for doing that, but I have reason to believe you shouldn’t expect those accounts to see it as positive.

And literally as I write this, I got an email telling me that Quik is reorganizing its marketing function to help give it a better connection to the core.

They also decided not to order any products in quantities below production minimums because of the additional cost. That eliminated some orders, but helps gross margin. Some late deliveries were the result of changing from regional to global demand planning, but it’s a good thing to do anyway.

There was also some discussion about the previously announced program to selectively reduce prices. They don’t expect it to reduce margins given the other efforts they’ve taken to reduce SKUs and rationalize production.

Quik is making changes in every facet of their operations. That some of them didn’t quite go according to schedule isn’t a surprise. I just heard from a client that they’ve got a container held up in customs because of an “invasive moth.” God, you just can’t make this stuff up and to some extent it happens to every company every year.

But Quiksilver doesn’t have the luxury of time. Its brand building (rebuilding?) has to be successful sooner rather than later. Its balance sheet can’t continue to deteriorate, but it sounds like we can expect further losses in the next few quarters. For all the things I think they are doing right, there’s a time limit here that’s gotten shorter as a result of a couple of tough quarters.