Gildan Activewear Inc.
Q2 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 1 Aug 2020

[Operator:]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Q2 2020 Gildan Activewear Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. I would now like to hand the conference over to Sophie Argiriou, Vice President of Investor Communications. Please go ahead.

[Sophie Argiriou:]

Thank you, Diana. Good morning to all and thank you for joining us. Earlier, we issued a press release announcing our earnings results for the second quarter of 2020. We also issued our interim shareholder report containing management's discussion and analysis of consolidated financial statements. These documents will be filed with the Canadian securities and regulatory authorities and the U.S. Securities Commission, and are available on the company's corporate website. On the call today, we have Glenn Chamandy, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Rhod Harries, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial and Administrative Officer. In a moment, Rhod will take you through the results for the quarter and a Q&A session will follow. Before we begin, please take note that certain statements included in this conference call may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve unknown and known risks, uncertainties and other factors, which could cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. We refer you to the company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Canadian Securities Regulatory Authorities that may affect the company's future results. I will now turn the call over to Rhod. Rhod?

[Rhodri Harries:]

Thank you. Thank you, Sophie, and good morning to all, and thank you for joining. We hope everyone is continuing to stay safe and is keeping well. This morning, we reported our second quarter results, and as we expected back in April when we last reported, we incurred a significant earnings loss in the quarter tied to the impacts that COVID-19 is having on economic activity, and in turn, our business. However, despite the loss in the quarter, we maintained a strong focus on our key priorities

[Sophie Argiriou:]

Thank you, Rhod. Before moving to the Q&A session, I ask that you limit the number of questions to two. And we'll circle back for a second round of questions if time permits. I'll now turn the call over to the operator for the question-and-answer session. Diana, go ahead.

[Operator:]

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Paul Lejuez of Citigroup.

[TracyKogan:]

Hi, thanks. It's Tracy Kogan filling in for Paul. I was wondering if you could talk about the specific categories that you took promotional pricing in. And was it in specific categories? Or was it across the board? And do you anticipate having to take any further action in the current in the coming quarters? And then just secondly, I wonder about the state of your distributor partners and if any of them are financially challenged? And if you think there are any troubles perhaps on the horizon there?

[GlennChamandy:]

Yes. I'll start off with the pricing. Look as far as our pricing is concerned, I mean, we went in April with negative POS of 80%. And then we started to promote our fashion basics and selective colors, which we saw great signs in terms of our POS, then we expanded that to all of our colors in fashion, which continue driving our POS. And then we added basics and fleece. So there are really three categories

[RhodriHarries:]

As far as the distributors are concerned, our distributors basically have done very well. Most of them are a POS has obviously improved. One of the reasons why we reversed our reversal on ADT is because of the payment from our distributors, so the cash flow is coming in. And we don't have any concerns about our distributor base today.

[Operator:]

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Vishal Shreedhar of National Bank.

[VishalShreedhar:]

Hi, thanks for taking my questions. Just wondering, as the markets recovered, did you see destocking turn to restocking? And can you give us a sense of how much months of inventory are held by our wholesalers?

[RhodriHarries:]

Well, we destocked about 1/3 of our inventory that was in the channel end of Q1, which is roughly about $150 million in the distributor channel. And we also destocked recently in retail as well. But as far as the wholesale channel, we destocked. And the other thing is that the typically in Q2, we sell a lot of fleece going into this fleece season, and we didn't ship any of those all quarters, basically, they'll be shipped as we move into Q3 and Q4, as of once spaces as the market needs those goods, so it won't extend dating terms on fleece like we historically have done. So those are really the two factors that have reduced sales basically in the quarter, and particularly in footwear and besides a negative for POS.

[VishalShreedhar:]

Okay. And regarding your PPE ambitions and thoughts, has that evolved regarding making masks and gowns? Or are you still expect a negligible contribution from that business?

[GlennChamandy:]

Look, we're doing our part in terms of helping local governments with masks and gowns, as part of our initiative in terms of COVID. But you have to understand that it's not a long-term opportunity for us. I mean, masks pre-COVID we're selling for $0.03 a piece. Today, they're selling at $1.50 so there's a lot of capacity that's coming online in Asia, particularly. And we think that that's a long-term sustainable business. But we'll do our part like the best we could to provide support to helping local governments asking gallons as part of the, our initiatives in terms.

[Operator:]

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Stephen MacLeod of BMO Capital Markets.

[StephenMacLeod:]

Thank you. Good morning. Thanks for all the color in your prepared remarks. I'm just wondering if you can if you have visibility or can provide some insight into sort of what end markets are driving the sequential improvements in POS in the imprintables business.

[GlennChamandy:]

Well, the thing that's really happened is I guess, from a longer-term perspective, the big positive is people is staying at home in casual wear, I personally have been at home since the beginning of the crisis, and I wore out my T-shirts and my sweatshirts, right? So I think that's a real positive sign for us. So the traditional way where people might have got a shirt in a gathering or a jog, run or something that may not be wearing or finding other ways to get those products, I mean and that's, I think, is the key. So we've seen online sales, the distributors that not sure but the screen printers that sell online, that's a big growing area. It's probably doubled in sales during the COVID crisis, I would say. And the other big thing is reselling, I mean, a lot of reselling of our products online. And also, one of the big areas that are the strongest part of our business right now is our national account business, where we have large free print customers that basically provide product to retailers. So we know the supply chain global supply chain is just not there today. So we're benefiting from as people look at buying more products, basically, locally, at once, we think that, that's a big opportunity. So retailers are putting more of the screen-type T-shirts on their floor right now as they reopen up. So people will find a way to get the product. I think that's the message here. Obviously, there was a shock in April, when everything came from fashion crashing halt at. But at the end of the day, we believe that the long-term viability of products that we make is there, and a market without more people to continue buying our products, and we're well positioned with our product strategy and our price strategy, we think, to capture a significant amount of share as we go forward.

[StephenMacLeod:]

Okay. Thank you. And then with respect to the gross margin, Rhod, you gave some good color in your remarks around all the puts and takes on gross margin in the quarter, and you indicated that you expect it to sort of revert to more normal levels as your sales recover. Is there anything you can provide in terms of anything more discrete around how you expect your gross margin evolve like into Q2 into Q3, sorry, and at the back half of the year?

[RhodriHarries:]

Yes. Thanks for the question, Stephen. So if you look at the gross margin, as we said, the gross margin was down in the quarter. And it was dropped down for the two reasons that I highlighted

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Luke Hannan of Canaccord Genuity.

[LukeHannan:]

Thanks, good morning, Glenn, I wanted to ask you on the decision to institute the sales discount, was this something that was determined sort of internally? Or was this determined based on what you --.

[GlennChamandy:]

I didn't hear your question, it didn't come in first. Can you just repeat that, please?

[LukeHannan:]

Sure. Yes. So I was just saying, the decision to institute the sales discount, was that something as reactions to what you were seeing in the channel? Or is that more a decision internally based on what you guys have in terms of your low-cost manufacturing footprint?

[GlennChamandy:]

If it's a decision on we were we drove the promotional activity in the market-based on our ability to look at where we are today and to continue our focus on our Back to Basics strategy, which is basically focusing on fewer SKUs, bring them to market at the right price, and driving market share. So we tested the like I said earlier, we tested our strategy early on. And as we saw the results, we continued our pricing strategy. And I think it's important, with all the initiatives that we put together, and we know to the 400 basis points of negative margin, that will even if we continue to price at these levels, our margins should normalize based on all the cost savings that we have go forward, so obviously, the upside for us is that we reduce our promotion and then we'll see margin expansion. But I think we can consider where we are now and how we positioned our back to basic strategy that we can pretty well be very aggressively priced and still maintain normalized margins. So I think that's sort of where we're heading right now as we continue to ramp up. So now we've come back and we started ramping up all of our manufacturing facilities and really just building it up to about 70% of the capacity that pre-COVID, and at same time, our focus is also continuing to focus on cash flow. So we're still working and doing a lot of work on reducing inventories and generating free cash in the back half of the year. So all these things combined have sort of positioned our strategy to make sure that we're positioned for the long term. And I think that the most important thing I can leave you with today is that everything that we've done over the last three months is going to make our company very strong as we emerge from this whole situation, including the I think that one of the biggest opportunities is basically the whole shift in the global supply chain. I mean if you look at the world in the future, people that were able to go and find Asia and go to see some manufacturer and go by product. They're not running so fast anymore. So I mean, if you look at we think the work, there's a lot of opportunity for us, particularly in our retail and our global lifestyle brands, as we continue to move into 2021 to leverage our low-cost manufacturing and basically take advantage of the big shift in the global supply chain.

[LukeHannan:]

Got it. And then one last one for me. I'm just curious to know what progress has been like in Bangladesh. I know you guys are in the early stages of building out the facility there, so I'm just curious to know if you can give any color on how that's progressing?

[GlennChamandy:]

Yes. Look, we're slowly progressing in final dash. I mean the reality is that we're probably going to be behind by six months, and the plant is scheduled now to start in Q2 2022. So we are cautiously seeing what happened over these three months, and then obviously, now we're putting our minds around going forward. But I look at Bangladesh for us; it is a part of our overall business. I mean, it's not just so much functionally for our international growth, but it's also a function of driving our fashion basics and other categories that we have. So it's not being built just strictly to support international, it's also to support where we think the market is growing in the future as we continue to gain share in those categories. So we're going to definitely go full speed ahead with the project, but it's going to still be delayed probably about six months.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Sabahat Khan of RBC Capital Markets

[SabahatKhan:]

Thanks and good morning. Just a commentary in the press release around the fashion basics category turning positive in June, just wondering maybe you can talk about the drivers of that? It was just surprising, given the current macro backdrop. I think some of that category services, I think the uniform business on the corporate side, is it that? Or was there something else driving that growth?

[GlennChamandy:]

No, this category is not really on the corporate side. I mean, the corporate side is really in our case, is more the basics, actually, because they're used for advertising, event planning and other things. So that's that category basically is still down. But we've come back because we think we're generating share in the category by our pricing strategy. But the fashion side of it is; it's completely different, it's more traditional screenprint-type business. And look, at the end of the day, we have basics and we have fashion, and the big two differences between these two shirts

[SabahatKhan:]

Okay. And then on the working capital, it looks like there was a sizable lift that drove the free cash flow there. Just trying to get an idea of what drove the strong kind of accounts receivable during the quarter? Was it from your larger customers? The smaller ones? And then sort of how are those collections trending into Q3, if you can provide some color there?

[GlennChamandy:]

Rhod?

[RhodriHarries:]

So big reduction in accounts receivable was really driven across the board, right? As Glenn mentioned earlier, I think the distributors have done a great job as they work through the second quarter. And effectively have worked with us, and we've collected from our distributors, we've collected from our retail customers. And so I would say, very definitely, we're very pleased with the way that our receivables came in through the quarter. And as we mentioned earlier, we've taken a reduction in our allowance for expected credit losses on receivables. With respect to inventories, we sold down out of inventories in the quarter as we expected to do with all of our operations basically down or operating at very low levels. And again, we're very pleased with the cash that we generated from inventory. And then with respect to our payable side, we work with a lot of our suppliers, a lot of our partners, and we were able to manage that, I would say, very well during the quarter. So all in all, I think it was a great job by the team, the whole team to manage working capital and to really effectively work our way through what is a difficult environment with everybody in order to drive that cash flow, and also really just set us up well as we continue into the back half of the year.

[SabahatKhan:]

And then if I could just squeeze in one on the inventory, I guess, as you restart your facilities, I think it was about $150 million to $160 million left to working capital now. Should we expect that to remain positive through the back half of the year as you start to restart or as kind of the industry restarts and you start to shape out? Or how should we think about that line item through the back half of 2020?

[GlennChamandy:]

We should think about look at our focuses continue to reduce inventory, but at the same time, improve service because we're focusing on less products, less SKUs. So we think there's still a significant amount of inventory we can take out of our system and generate free cash between now and the end of the year. So we're focusing on that. And we're ramping up our production. But obviously, we're not ramping up our production at the same rate of sell-through. So as we continue to grow and sell in Q3 and Q4, our production will be at a lower level than our actual sales that will allow us to continue to reduce inventories and generate free cash in the back half of the year.

[RhodriHarries:]

If you look at the full year, obviously, we did a great job in the second quarter. And one of our objectives really for this year, right, as we move through a difficult environment is to generate free cash flow, have positive free cash flow for the full year, and we're still very focused on that.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Brian Morrison of TD Securities.

[BrianMorrison:]

Hi, good morning, Glenn, you've alluded to my question several times, but I want to ask it directly. In terms of your incentives and your promotional activity, does this in any way impact your 30% gross margin target? Do you think you can achieve 30% in each of retail, private label and Printwear? And just maybe update us on the facility consolidation initiatives and SKU rationalization, is that complete at this time?

[GlennChamandy:]

The Printwear is definitely complete, there's still a little bit of work to do in retail. But as far as our overall margin is concerned, we are not changing aspirations to get to the 30% margin. And we're also focused on the sub-12% SG&A. So let's just look at that as also had a big driver of our focus right now. And as far as the Printwear is concerned, we've got in our product line down that we need it to be, and you just can emphasize the amount of costs we're going to take out of our system by just streamlining, it's going to be excessive, and it's going to be very positive to overall manufacturing. And we're providing the same look at our retail business. Not on the same scale because, obviously, it's not the same type of scale business, but we're going to continue to focus on large programs that give us good returns and few SKU, right? So I mean, similar to where we are in underwear right now. So we have a huge opportunity here to really consolidate our manufacturing base and focus on efficiencies and drive toward the target of our 30%. I think as we move into next year in our factories, we're not planning to see the Printwear business recovery fully. I mean, we just don't know at this point in time. So next year, I think when we look at if we can get our margins up to normalized type margins, and then move from there on to our goal. I think that would be a good outcome for us with a good SG&A reduction, is how we're trying to see things. But the promise is that thing is a little bit of the only. All right? So but I think we're really well positioned right now. And also focusing on our working capital cash flow generation, which we can't emphasize more, and making sure that enrollment is improving, right, because all these things will ultimately allow us to get a better growth on return.

[BrianMorrison:]

That's good. And then with respect to the shift in your floor plan strategy at your major retailer now fully complete and I think you said significant market share gains. Are you seeing the potential for an accelerated acceleration of the potential for product category expansion on those private label initiatives?

[GlennChamandy:]

Well, we've had quite a bit of expansion this year. I mean, a lot of the new products in the new space that we've obtained this year has really only got set probably the first week of June. So in Q2, although underwear has done fantastic, we really haven't really helped affect them how well things are going to go. So we're very optimistic of all of our retail business, to be honest with you. These are online business doubled in the quarter. So we're doing well everywhere. So I mean, retail, which is tracking on a year-over-year basis is also in July, and we're going to see continued growth as we move into the future.

[BrianMorrison:]

Okay. Just very quickly, Rhod, do we anticipate in terms of your period costs that get expensed in Q1 and Q2 here as we go through the remainder of the second half, manufacturing operations have restarted. Is that now behind us?

[RhodriHarries:]

No, you'll still see some period costs rolling through in the third quarter, right? Because, as Glenn said, effectively, we've got our facilities running 7% to 8%, in that range. And so when you we don't have effectively running at full levels of operation, right? So at those lower levels, you still will see some period costs running through in Q3, and then we'll see where we are in Q4.

[BrianMorrison:]

I appreciate the color.

[Operator:]

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Li of Desjardins.

[ChrisLi:]

Hey, Glenn, I just want to confirm what you said earlier. You guys are now restarting your manufacturing capacity. With the view that in printable sales will be back to about 70% of the pre-COVID sales. I make sure, did I hear that correctly?

[GlennChamandy:]

No. Right now, the Printwear sales are somewhat in June, and let's say; where we're tracking July is 15% to 20% negative. We haven't obviously, we don't know what will happen next year, but our manufacturing basically is ramping up to about 70% of our normalized capacity. And that's because sales are they're minus 20 that means there's a delta of 10, right? So and what we're doing is we're drawing down inventory. Now sales continue to grow like we saw at the beginning of July, then we'll just increase capacity, but we'll keep it up below our actual expectations of sales because we want to continue to look at the cash flow generation and reduction of inventory. So we can manage that as we go, and we're just bringing on in stages. So we'll see how things evolve as we move into the second, the third and the fourth quarter, but we're pretty optimistic, and we know our pricing strategy is working, and we'll see where it takes us. But we haven't guided to next year at this point. But we're bringing on as we need.

[ChrisLi:]

Okay. Great. That's helpful. And then just on the men's underwear, up 23.5% in Q2, did that strength continue into July? Or was part of that strength related to just depend on demand as people started shifting back to more discretionary?

[GlennChamandy:]

No, the overall category, I think, is slightly down overall. So we're selling our product, and it's not just our private label business, it's as well as our Gildan brand, which is doing very well at the retailers and online customers that are basically supplying and selling our products. So it's a combination of those 2. And we have significant share gains basically in underwear in the quarter, I mean; it was quite substantial on an overall basis. So it's going very well. And it's just a question of our positioning in the market, and we're pretty excited about the future.

[ChrisLi:]

Okay. That's great. Maybe a very quick one for Rhod. In last quarter, you mentioned you guys were maintaining your fixed cash cost at $35 million to $40 million per month. Is that still the case? Or is it starting to move up as you restart some of your capacity?

[RhodriHarries:]

Yes. The $35 million to $40 million is the guidance that we gave effectively when we've got everything idle, right? If you look at our whole system, effectively when it's idle. And if you look at how we performed during the quarter, we're very definitely probably in April, effectively, we're a little bit above that. As we guided into May, we could see that if we stripped away some of the costs associated with running facilities at very low levels and sort of starting a bit of the ramp back, we were very definitely at that $35 million range. So I think we feel very good about our cash burn, right? Associated with our underlying cost base. And again, as we moved through the quarter, actually, we've done more. As we talked about some of these initiatives, where we've taken out cost in certain areas that will also reduce our base underlying cash burn on a go-forward basis. So I think we feel like, overall, we're in very good shape. Our liquidity is very strong, right? It's $1.2 billion. And I think from ability to obviously weather further impacts on a go-forward basis, we've got a very strong balance sheet, very strong access to liquidity. We're winding down inventory, right, as we go forward in with the strategy where we balance up production. And so I think, overall, we feel very good about our positioning.

[Operator:]

Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Matt Bank of CIBC.

[MattBank:]

Good morning. First question is, can you give any color on what is happening in your two biggest in principles end markets specifically, so corporate and then merchandising and tourism?

[GlennChamandy:]

Well, I mean, look, it's hard for us to get a handle on that, to be perfectly honest with you. But look, if the market is slowly recovering, and maybe you can see that tourism is more of a local phenomenon where people are traveling and spending money closer to home. So instead of people coming from outside, they're basically it's more localized. So there is activity happening in all these areas. So the overall market, I would say, is probably the event-driven items are still large gatherings are still negative in the overall market, and those other categories are coming back. But I think one of the areas where we're seeing the strongest growth is online, basically selling through we don't it's sell all online, as people are at home and looking for products and features at difficult all day or didn't get something from a corporate event. So people are finding other venues to get the product, and that's a result of we see it is coming back in terms of our POS based on our market share gains from our pricing strategy, but at the same time, as the market recovery.

[MattBank:]

Okay. And then just a follow-up on that. Are you able to give roughly what percentage of other printables end market is related to large gathering-type events?

[GlennChamandy:]

It's pretty hard to do that, to be honest with you. Nut it's, let's say, 30%, I'll just -- because everything's a large gathering, right? I mean, a picnic's a large gathering, running marathon is a large gathering, rock concerts, hockey games, they're all gatherings. But people want to buy hockey, buying it online, right? So those are the types of things that, even though they may not have the event, they're still able to find products in different format, right? And I think parties you right.

[MattBank:]

Okay. And then I just wanted to clarify on a question asked earlier, I'm just wasn't sure. On the question of your customers' inventory levels, are your customers keeping inventories at the lean levels that they were at after the destocking process? Or are they now restocking, which is which would be basically a tailwind?

[GlennChamandy:]

Right now, I'd say that they're more or less staying at these levels. And in fact, there could be a little bit more destocking, to be honest with you, in this quarter, because they're I think that they're maybe a little bit. But overall, I would say it's cautious, stable or slightly down. I think the call.

[Operator:]

And there are no further questions at this time.

[Sophie Argiriou:]

Well, thank you, everybody. I'd like to thank everyone for joining us once again, and we look forward to speaking to you very soon. So stay safe, and have a great day. Thank you.

[Operator:]

Thank you for participating in today's conference. This concludes today's call. You may disconnect at this time.