Conference Call Transcript 3Q07 Results Lojas Renner November 9 th, 2007

Transcription

1 Operator: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and thank you for waiting. At this time, we would like to welcome everyone to third quarter 2007 earnings conference call. We would like to inform you that a presentation is available to download at the company s website at the investors section. Also, this event is being recorded and all participants will be in listen-only mode during the Company s presentation. After the Company s remarks are completed, there will be a question and answer section. At that time further instructions will be given. Should any participant need assistance during this call, please press *0 to reach the operator. Before proceeding, let me mention that forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs and assumptions of s management, and on information currently available to the Company. They involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions because they relate to future events and therefore depend on circumstances that may or may not occur in the future. Investors should understand that general economic conditions, industry conditions and other operating factors could also affect the future results of Lojas Renner and could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in such forwardlooking statements. Now, I will turn the conference over to Mrs. Paula Picinini, Investor Relations manager at Renner. Mrs. Picinini, you may begin your conference. Thanks. Hi, this is Paula speaking and I would like to welcome shareholders and investors to our conference call today, during which we will be commenting on the third quarter results. I have here with me today José Galló, CEO, José Carlos, CFO and Gildo Melo da Silva, Senior Controller Manager. To start, I would like to draw your attention to two important factors that marked the quarter. Firstly, favorable temperatures, which benefited winter sales, and secondly, the entry of the spring/summer collection, which met with great success on the part of our customers. The third quarter, which coincides with the winter vacation for schools, has only one commemorative date, Fathers Day, which falls in the second week in August and that does not have the same commercial appeal as the other main dates, such as Mothers Day, year-end holidays, etc. Let us move on now to the presentation, which is available on our website, beginning with slide number three, which shows the sales growth. As you can see, net sales totaled R$395.4 million, 23.3% up on the third quarter of last year and 9.3% more in same store terms. In the first nine months, sales came to R$1.2 billion, 23.8% up year-on-year, while same store sales grew by 9.3%. The year-to-date performance is satisfactory and in line with our initial expectations. On slide four, which shows the geographical distribution of our stores, you can see that we closed the quarter with 88 outlets, versus 75 at the end of September last year, and a 1

2 total sales area of 190,000 m 2, 13.4% more than the 167,500 m 2 at the end of the third quarter of Side five shows our store productivity. Net revenue per square meter averaged R$2,099 in the quarter, 7% up year-on-year, and R$6,254 year-to-date, 6.4% up on the nine months Slide six deals with our gross profit and gross margin. Gross profit totaled R$182.1 million in the quarter, 28.4% more than in the third quarter of 2006, and accounted for 46.1% of net revenue. In the first nine months, gross profit came to R$532.1 million, representing 46.3% of net sales. Gains in efficiency from improved procurement and inventorymanagement processes helped the period s margin. In addition, the late arrival of lower temperatures meant that promotions were brought forward, impacting the second quarter of 2007 margin and, to a certain extent, benefiting the third quarter of 2007 one. The extremely cold winter, which extended until the beginning of August, ensured less markdowns, which also improved the margins. Now let us move on to slide seven, which deals with our selling expenses. These expenses totaled R$98.4 million in the third quarter, accounting for 24.9% of net revenue, and R$286.6 million year-to-date, also equivalent to 24.9% of net revenue. Both periods recorded important dilutions of those expenses, due to bigger contributions from the newest stores and gains in scale, which favored the dilution of fixed costs. Slide eight shows our G&A expenses, which reached R$39.9 million in the quarter, 26.1% more than in the third quarter of In the first nine months, they came to R$110.6 million, 25.4% up year-on-year. The increases were primarily caused by the increase in logistics expenses, as the Company expanded its operations into new markets, and by expenses from the employees profit-sharing program, which were provisioned throughout 2007 on a quarterly basis, according to the results obtained. On slide nine, we have our results from financial services. We adopted the same breakdown structure we did in the last few quarters, and you can see that these results came to R$17.8 million in the quarter, equivalent to 25.4% of EBITDA, and R$46.1 million in the first nine months, representing 25% of EBITDA. In October 2007,, in a partnership with Porto Seguro S.A., started selling insurance products through its store network. Renner Card Unemployment Insurance, Renner Card Personal Loan Insurance covering Unemployment and Renner Card Loss & Theft Insurances are now offered in the stores. We also launched Personal and Residential insurances in November this year. Slide 10 deals with EBITDA and the EBITDA margin. EBITDA totaled R$70 million in the third quarter, corresponding to 17.7% of net revenue, a big improvement over the 11.3% recorded in the third quarter of Year-to-date EBITDA stood at R$184.5 million, equivalent to 16% of net revenue, also considerably higher than in the two previous years. This was due to the improved sales performance, the greater contribution from new stores, which diluted operating expenses, and the positive impact of a non-recurring result of contingencies of civil and tax nature amounting to R$9.4 million in the third quarter of 2007 and R$5.5 million in the nine months On slide 11 we have the adjusted EBITDA, where we compare the Company s results excluding additional results from new financial services, pre-operating expenses related to future inaugurations and non-recurring results of civil and tax nature. As you can see, 2

3 adjusted EBITDA stood at R$50.9 million, accounting for 12.9% of net revenue, versus 10.7% in the third quarter of On slide 12, the third quarter net financial result was an expense of R$3 million. In the first nine months, this result was an expense of R$10.3 million. At the bottom of the slide, we have net cash and cash equivalents, which totaled R$132.1 million on September 30 th, versus R$123.4 million at the close of September last year. On slide 13, you can see that the Company posted a third quarter of 2007 net income of R$35.8 million, equivalent to 9.1% of net revenue. Year-to-date net income stood at R$93.1 million, corresponding to 8.1% of net revenue. Slide 14 shows our CAPEX evolution. Investments totaled R$16.8 million in the quarter and R$52.5 million year-to-date. As you can see from the table at the bottom, most of these investments went to the opening of new stores and the remodeling of existing ones, as well as technology systems and equipment, among others, including the new Distribution Center in Santa Catarina. On slide 15 we show our expansion plan. In addition to the stores inaugurated in the first half, which we dealt with in our previous conference call, in the third quarter of 2007 we opened an outlet in Belo Horizonte, state of Minas Gerais. In the chart below we show the stores that are planed for the fourth quarter of 2007, three of which began operations in October one in Brasília, in the Federal District, another one in the state of São Paulo, and the third one in the state Santa Catarina. Two of the remaining four one in Cascavel, Paraná, and the other in Salvador, Bahia will open in November. The last two in Caxias do Sul, South region of Brazil, and João Pessoa, Northeast will be inaugurated in December. All in all, we will have opened 14 new stores in 2007, totaling 95 outlets in Brazil. On slide 16, we have a summary of our balance sheet, where you can see our position on September 30 th. Once again, our main highlight was accounts receivable under assets, which came to R$351.4 million. Our inventories line stood at R$159 million and if you look at our accounts payable to suppliers, totaling R$200.2 million, you can immediately see that our suppliers continue to finance all of our inventories. Shareholders equity totaled approximately R$637 million, accounting for 57% of our resources. Now let us move to the Renner Card operations. On slide 17, you can see that we closed the third quarter with 11.5 million cards issued, 18.6% more than at the end of September last year. Then we have our average ticket, which reached R$ in the third quarter, versus R$98.22 in the third quarter of In nine months 2007, we had an average ticket of R$102.68, against R$99.45 in the same period of Slide 18 gives a breakdown of our payment options. The chart at the top right shows the third quarter and we would like to draw your attention to the share of the 0+8 interestbearing plan, which came to 13.6% of total sales, and that of interest-free payments, which came to 54.2% of the total. At the bottom right, we have the same information for the first nine months, where you can see that interest-bearing sales represented 13.4% of total sales, while sales in up to five monthly installments accounted for 54.6%. 3

4 On the left we have the same information for the previous year. The lower percentages of sales in the card refer to the greater number of new stores, where new customers initially tend to pay with other cards or in cash. Slide 19 shows our workforce numbers. We closed September with 9,569 employees, representing an increase of 2,368 new employees over the same period last year, being 2,042 of them allocated in the stores. On slide 20 we have some information on our share performance. At the top, we show the last two years performance of the Ibovespa Index versus the Company s shares. At the bottom, we have the daily traded volume, which grew by 149% year-on-year, from R$12.3 million to R$30.6 million now in the third quarter of Also in this graph, you can see that the Company s market cap totaled R$4.3 billion on September 30 th. Finally, we would like to inform that in September a new ERP software was implemented, pursuing the enhancement of security and controls over the processes. More than 70,000 hours were dedicated to the implementation and development and a further 50,000 hours to training in the use of the software. That brings us to the end of our presentation, and now we are at your disposal for any questions you may have. Tufic Salem, Credit Suisse: Good morning, congratulations for the excellent results. My question is regarding your expansion into new regions. Can you please give us a sense of how the new regions that you have been opening, the new states, have been performing and also if you can give us a sense of how the maturity process of those stores is going in relation to what you normally see in the rest of your store base. And if there is any specific highlight that you like to say about how the competition has been reacting from when you first opened shops in the Northeast, for example, and how it is today; if you have seen any dramatic changes in the competitive environment. Thank you. In terms of performance we are very satisfied with the performance of the Northeast. We know that the profile of the customers Northeast is a little bit different from the other regions; the market is less competitive. And we are very happy with the results that we are having. In terms of maturation, exactly as we have been indicating, the Northeast process should be faster than the other regions where we started opening stores, in 2000 and So we are satisfied with the results; we will continue to open stores there and in the North of Brazil as well. And in terms of competition I think there is no reason to highlight, no aspect that we could highlight. The two competitors that we have there are exactly the same that we have in the Southeast region. So it is not new for us. Galló wants to complement, just one second, please. José Galló: 4

5 Tufic, when we see Renner and the two other competitors, I think that the main proof that Renner is a different operator of department store is that our focus is more on A-, B and C, our other competitors are mainly B and C. The conclusion is that the customers are seeing that there is another kind of department store arriving. Perhaps for this reason we are, as Paula mentioned, we are obtaining the results that we planned. The customers are seeing that Renner is another player. Tufic Salem: Great, and just a follow-up regarding the ERP and implementation of Retek. Can you speak a little bit more about the implementation and the timings of whether or not the whole implementation has been taking place, or how you see the roll-out for the rest of the program? Well, basically it was absolutely aligned with our main objective. In terms of timing, everything was exactly as we planned. And basically the main reason why we decided to implement it was exactly to increase the control over the management, over the process, and to have improvement in our accountability and all that. So we only have positive points to highlight about this. Tufic Salem: OK. And the implementation is done and over? Yes, it is concluded. Tufic Salem: OK, great, thanks and again congratulations. Paul Trejo, Blackrock: Hello, my question is regarding the revenue from financial services. My question is: would it be possible for you to breakdown how much of that contribution was from the 0+8 and from the personal loan? I know they are combined in that one-line item. In terms of the revenues, around 50% comes from this 0+8 and the other 50% of the other products, I mean, mainly personal loans and capitalization loans. So in terms of revenues, the contribution is similar, and in terms of expansion for future bad debts and provisions, of course, considering the profile of the services, they have different methodologies of provisioning and all that. And the largest part is related to the personal loan. Paul Trejo: In terms of future performance, do you think that revenue contribution mix will be changing in the future, shifting one way or another? 5

6 Just one second, I think not, but I will confirm with the accountant. Hold on please. Probably the trend is maintained 50% of it is coming from interest bearing, and the other part coming from the personal loan. Lori Serra, Morgan Stanley: Hi, good morning or good afternoon. I wanted to ask a bit of a follow-up to the issue or the question of the pace of maturity of new stores. From what we can see from the published data, it seems like the new stores are getting ramped up very quickly, which is great, because it suggests a strong acceptance of your stores. So I am trying to understand how that is compatible with the decline in the rate of the cards in the stores. Can you comment on whether in some of the new stores you are seeing just really good sales levels and people do not want to take the cards, or are not subscribing to the cards at the same rate? Would you expect that to change? I guess I am sort of trying to understand how those two trends are compatible. In terms of maturation Lori, as I said, we were exactly expecting that the Northeast should have a faster maturation process. The existing markets now are more consolidated, so of course our new stores in São Paulo today can mature much faster than it used to in the past. So, you are correct. The maturation process should be a little bit faster at this point. In terms of percentage of sales in our cards, we understand that it is absolutely normal, because when you open a large number of new stores it is very common to have new customers that in a first moment will pay with other credit cards, or pay in cash. We believe that is probably going to take some years, some time to recover the same level that we used to have in the past, but it is absolutely acceptable. If you look at the number of new cards that we issued now in this quarter, you can see that we continue to issue a large number of We continue to have new card-holders in our base. So, I think that this is the natural trend when you are entering new markets, when you have a large number of new stores. Terrific. And a related question; I saw from the financial exhibits that it seems like your past-due loans have increased a bit above the cards and the personal loan. Can you talk about any trends you see in terms of credit quality, and also in terms of the personal loans? I know that that is a fairly new product. Are you at the point now where we think we should see a leveling off of the past-dues on the personal loans? In terms of past-dues, we have been monitoring these things; we are comfortable. If you look at the percentages of our provisions and effective bad debt, at the percentage of net sales, you can see that the combined number between the 0+5, the interest-free plan and the 0+8, the interest-bearing plan, as the percentage of net sales it is about 3.9% to 4% which is a very comfortable level. 6

7 And in terms of personal loans, with the maturity of the portfolio it is natural to have an increase in the provisions for future bad debts, exactly because we follow the Brazilian Central Bank rules for these provisions. And it is very conservative; it demands us to make the provisions based on the entire amount that is outstanding, not exactly only over the amount that is delayed in terms of payment. So we are comfortable with the numbers and we feel confident with these level of bad debt. What is your level of past-dues as a percentage of your personal loan portfolio today? Past-dues You are not talking about the losses effective, right? No, I am talking about past-dues. Past-due is R$23 million, you can see it on our explanatory note number six. Right. And that is about 25% of your portfolio. Is that where it should be? I am just curious in terms of your expectations, because it seems like a high number but maybe that is just incorrect on my part. Again, Lori, it is the delayed payment; it is not the losses. OK. You have to bear in mind that it is the delayed payments that we are collecting from the customers, but it does not mean that it is exactly the losses that we have. The effective losses we have been indicating exactly that it could be around 15%, 20% of this volume of new loans generated in each area. And these things are absolutely aligned with that. OK, thank you. Tony Macneary, Halbis Capital: 7

8 Hello, I have got three questions please. Of the 190 b.p. improvement in gross margin, can you give an indication to how much of that is derived from the better performance on mark-downs? Secondly, is there any kind of guidance you can give for gross margins and mark-downs through the remainder of the year? And the final question would be: is there any indication of numbers of store openings for 2008, in terms of store numbers and space? Thank you. Hi, Tony. In terms of gross profit improvement, we do not disclose how much comes from mark-downs and how much comes from improvements in our process. Basically we are having, and we were expecting to have, some improvement in our gross margin exactly because we are having an improvement in our operational size. I mean, we implemented the Retek system in 2005, we were in the learning curve of the system, we are aware that we are not using already the full potential of this system. But we are working to have a better system to manage our inventory by colors and sizes. We are having conditions to improve the product mix of each store, to have separate clusters for different regions and different markets. And all these things in the operational side are helping us to have this improvement in the procurement process, in the inventory management process. And of course, we also have the temperatures that helped us this quarter, specifically because we did not have any pressure because of mark-down cost by temperatures or something like that. So there is condition to continuing improvement our gross margin, or at least to maintain this level, exactly because we have been working to improve our process. And second, about the store openings, we have been indicating of course it is preliminary, because we are now working on our budget; but we believe that it is possible to open, next year, something around 12 to 15 new stores. Tony Macneary: Thank you. Do you have any idea of space on that? Normally the stores are about 2.3 m² or 2.2 m² of selling area; this is the average. Tony Macneary: Thank you. Robert Ford, Merrill Lynch: Good afternoon everybody and congratulations on the quarter. My question had to do with perhaps some more specific examples of what you are doing as you move down on the learning curve which Retek Oracle, as well as perhaps some specific examples of what this upgrade will empower you to do. 8

9 And Paula, you made some comments with respect to your ability to now manage color and size a little bit more effectively than you have in the past, and manage clusters of stores. I am curious as to what are your clusters like today versus where they were prior. And perhaps, you know, what have you been able to do specifically with your assortments and when did you begin managing color and size and that sort of thing, and what do you anticipate doing going forward from here? Just let me confirm if I understood. You would like to have more examples of the benefits of the Retek system, and the things that we are doing in terms of managing our inventories by colors and sizes, the planning and all these things? Absolutely. And perhaps some examples of what the new Oracle upgrade will empower your organization to do? Basically, with this system we have the ability to manage our inventories by colors and sizes. So when we send new products to the stores, we can send only the products that that store is exactly selling. We do not need to refresh the stores with the full clusters of products. This way we can have higher inventory returns, we can also have better adjustment, lower necessities of mark-downs Because each store will have exactly the products in the colors and sizes that they sell. So this is one of the main reasons. And during 2006 we also implemented the Retek system for the logistics process and for the planning of the buying area. So all these tings combined will help us to have a fine tuning in our ability to manage our inventories, to refresh the collections and in all that. We have been working to achieve it. So, Paula, you are saying that up until this upgrade of Oracle, you were not able to manage color and size on a store-specific basis? Before Oracle, before Retek, we used to send the products to the stores, the full clusters, not exactly only the things that that store was needing. I mean, if the store is selling just one size and two colors of products, we are going to send just the exact product that they need and not the full cluster. So now we have this ability that, in the past, we did not. And Paula, today how big are your store clusters and when can you get down to a cluster of one, retailer, assortments specifically for individual communities? 9

10 Our clusters today are divided by temperature, so stores with different weather conditions hot, medium and cold weather, social classes and also in terms of the grades, the sizes of each cluster. And how many stores are in an average cluster? Just to get a sense of how you manage your store base right now. Can you repeat that? How many stores do you have in a cluster on average today, and do some of the upgrades give you better visibility so you can further define your assortments by individual geography, and store, and economic? Actually, in this meeting today I do not have the Operational Officer, like we had in the past. So I will have to check with him these answers and this specific information and I will be glad to call you back with the answer, if you do not mind. I do not mind at all, I apologize for being so detailed. Thank you very much. Efrain Chavez, Artha Capital: Hello, thank you for taking the question. I was curious if you could make any comments on (18:23) a couple of weeks into November, around this coming holiday season. Just anything you can provide would be helpful. And my second question is on kind of your distribution center, and the opening of distribution center. What is the potential impact that I should think about in terms of efficiency gains or margins, how would you want us to think about that? About the distribution center, we just started the operation now in the first days of the third quarter And basically the main benefit of this new distribution center is the speed to process the products. It has the same size of the distribution center that we had here in the South, but it is more modern in terms of equipment and layout, and the benefit that we are seeing and that we are taking is exactly the speed to process the merchandise. Efrain Chavez: Thank you. But is there no sort of a quantification around what potential gain to margin that could provide, or any kind of numbers that we can think about? 10

11 No, I do not have any additional comment at this point. I am sorry, you asked something more? Can you repeat that? Efrain Chavez: Yes, my first question is just around the holiday season, the upcoming holiday season, if there were any kind of preliminary thoughts that you can share with us on how things have been turning? Basically, in terms of expectations, we are expecting to have a very good Christmas time here in Brazil, because the whole microeconomic scenario is very favorable. And we believe that it will be a good Christmas time for the retailers here. So, there is no specific information that I can give you thus far. Efrain Chavez: OK, thank you so much. Operator: Thank you. There appears to be no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the call back to management for any closing remarks. Thank you once again for your interest in Renner, and I hope to see you all again next quarter. Thanks. Operator: Thank you. This thus concludes today s presentation. You may disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day. This document is a transcript produced by MZ Data Products. MZ does its best to guarantee the quality of the transcription; however, it is not responsible for possible flaws, as outputs depend on the quality of the audio and on the clarity of speech of participants. This document is a simple transcript and does not reflect any investment opinion. The content of this document is responsibility of the company hosting this event, that was transcribed by MZ. Please, refer to the respective company s website for further extent of liabilities. 11