Build-A-Bear Workshop, Inc. (NYSE:BBW) Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call May 30, 2024 9:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Gary Schnierow – Vice President-Investor Relations and Corporate Finance
Sharon Price John – Chief Executive Officer
Voin Todorovic – Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Eric Beder – SCC Research
Greg Gibas – Northland Securities
Steve Silver – Argus Research
Keegan Cox – D.A. Davidson

Operator

Greetings and welcome to the Build-A-Bear Workshop’s First Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder this conference is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to your host Mr. Gary Schnierow, Build-A-Bear Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Gary Schnierow

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Build-A-Bear’s first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. With us today are Build-A-Bear’s CEO Sharon Price John; and CFO, Voin Todorovic. During this call we will refer to forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially. Please refer to our Forms 10-K and 10-Q including the Risk Factors section. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement.

During this call, we will present both GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP measures is included in today’s earnings press release, which is distributed and available to the public through our Investor Relations website.

And now, I'll turn the call over to Sharon.

Sharon Price John

Thank you, Gary. Good morning and thanks for joining us for Build-A-Bear's first quarter fiscal 2024 earnings call.

For the past few years, you've heard us reaffirm our strategy, which is focused on the evolution of our business model to profitably leverage the power of the Build-A-Bear brand. Although first quarter results were slightly more challenging than anticipated, we are reiterating guidance given our expectation of the successful execution of our strategic plans for the balance of the year.

We believe that the diversified business model we have created and the systematic digital integration we've been working towards over the past few years has shown numerous proof points of our growth strategy. We have broadened Build-A-Bear’s brand reach through consumer, geographic, and category expansion with a mantra we like to refer to as more people more places and more products.

As an example of product expansion, we leverage the brand’s popularity and diverse consumer appeal with continuous launches of new make your own ‘furry friends’, including key licenses such as Pokemon or TikTok trend animals such as our Coffee Bar and new plush form factors like the recent successful introduction of our Mini Beans collectible.

The systematic execution of these strategic business initiatives has resulted in our ability to maintain a higher level of profitability, while continuing to invest in the future of the company and returning capital to the shareholders.

In fact, over the past three plus years, Build-A-Bear has enjoyed record-breaking sales and an unprecedented period of profitability, compared to any other time in its quarter century history as we have driven the business model evolution to deliver record profits and shareholder payout.

Even in this challenging environment, first quarter results remain at a much higher level of profitability when compared to any pre-COVID first quarter since the company's IPO in 2004. With this higher level of profitability, we remain committed to returning capital, distributing over $12 million to shareholders in the first quarter through the combination of share repurchases and our own recently announced quarterly dividend.

Now to recap first quarter, we delivered almost $115 million in revenue, which is a decrease of 4.4% versus the same period last year and pretax income of more than $15 million for a $13.1 million pretax margin.

Although as we had shared on the fourth quarter call, we recognized that the potential of some economic uncertainty and business volatility from our ongoing marketing and web transition could affect the first quarter, the impacts were somewhat greater than expected with web demand being a significant contributor to our overall revenue decline.

Now I would like to turn the page to a brief update on our three-pronged strategy to deliver long-term profitable growth. As you may recall, the strategy is grounded in what we believe is our most valuable asset, the power of the Build-A-Bear brand and is based on the following initiatives:

First is the global expansion of our unique experience locations, which includes the continued strategic evolution of a variety of store types and footprints, as well as our three retail business models, corporately-operated, partner-operated, and franchise.

As a part of our partner-operated business model, we opened five new locations in the first quarter. Two stores were an expansion of a relationship with our Italian partner, Giochi Preziosi with shop-in-shops in Rome and Fratelli [Ph].

In the US, we opened another two locations with the Girl Scouts and we expanded our South American footprint beyond our franchise relationship in Chile with our first partner-operated shop-in-shop opened in with Boeing Global in Bogota Colombia.

We are delighted to share that early in the second quarter, we opened our first partner-operated location in France at the iconic Paris Department Store, Galeries Lafayette on Champs Elysées in conjunction with long-time partner FAO Schwarz with whom we operate the recently expanded and very successful Rockefeller Plaza shop-in-shop in New York City.

This past Saturday, we opened another location with Giochi Preziosi in Napoli. Including the locations in Rome and Fratelli [Ph] plus Milan and Bergamo which were opened towards the end of last year,this brings the total number of partner-operated stores in Italy to five.

Separately, in conjunction with existing relationships, one new franchise location opened in China and two new franchise stores opened in South Africa, plus we opened one corporately-operated store in England near the popular tourist destination of Windsor Castle. We remain on track to open at least 50 net new experience locations through these three models this year.

The second initiative is the acceleration of a comprehensive digital transformation for the company ranging from systems upgrades to website integration to content creation.

Given the undeniable reality of the rapid advancement of the digital economy and the needed long range upgrades to our infrastructure, we began the journey to unlock the value from improved processes to new systems across the entire enterprise about a decade ago.

With best-in-class partners from Microsoft to Salesforce to Deloitte Digital, we have made step-by-step investments to unlock the power of an integrated ecosystem that leverages and unites the digital side of our business with our physical retail side. The goal is to create a true omni-channel entity by seamlessly merging our online presence with Build-A-Bear’s unique in-store experience to provide more personalization for consumers and what is referred to as the Phygital economy.

With that in mind, we are currently focused on driving synergy, elevation and integration across the entirety of our consumer-facing communications and direct transaction efforts. While it is not uncommon for a transition like this to be disruptive including impacts to web demand, we expect these steps in our digital transformation journey to unlock the combined power of e-commerce, email, social media, loyalty and traditional marketing through a unified vision.

Third is the continuation of investment and initiatives to leverage Build-A-Bear’s powerful multi-generational brand awareness to drive incremental profitable growth.

The meaningful improvement in the company's cash flow has allowed us to make longer term strategic decisions across the company touching products, brands, partnerships, content, talent and infrastructure, while continuing to return capital to shareholders.

A recent example of a new initiative was on the May 16th launch introducing the exclusive multifaceted collaboration with the movie IF that included a make-your-own version of the lead imaginary friend from the recent theatrical release named Blue, along with a specially curated in-store heart ceremony created by the film's creator writer, director, and star, John Krasinski.

This integrated effort with a multi-million dollar Hollywood endeavor represents more than just the release of a new ‘Furry Friend’ it's yet another example of the Pop Culture nature of the Build-A-Bear brand.

Separately, as I mentioned briefly on the last call, we were anticipating the launch of one of our most exciting initiative a comprehensive new brand campaign called The Stuff You Love. Since then, we have rolled out the new creative which is designed to further expand the pill the Build-A-Bear, while simultaneously connecting multiple generations to a universal message designed to continue to place our beloved brand right in the middle of the collective conversation.

Notably, we are executing all of this, while continuing to return capital of the shareholders totaling over $100 million through the last ten quarters.

In closing, although first quarter was challenging, as we continue to execute on the strategic initiatives to leverage the power of the Build-A-Bear brand that I just reviewed, we expect to see positive momentum as the year progresses across the number of fronts. And with that in mind, we are reiterating our outlook for 2024.

I would like to thank all the Build-A-Bear associates, guests and partners for their efforts as we continue to work toward our mission of adding a little more heart to life.

And now, I would like to turn the call over to Voin.

Voin Todorovic

Thank you, Sharon, and good morning, everyone. It's good to speak with you again today to share our first quarter 2024 results. Before I touch on the financials from the past quarter, I want to recap a few highlights.

Even with this softness, it was one of the most profitable first quarters in the history of the company. This reflects the work from our strategic initiatives over the past several years and that we are now operating at a sustainably higher level of profitability.

Also, as the result of solid business performance and more consistent strong cash flow generation, we continue to be committed in returning capital to shareholders. We paid our first quarterly dividend and during the quarter spent $9.2 million to repurchase over 343,000 shares.

Additionally, since the end of the first quarter, we have spent $2 million and repurchased more than 66,000 additional shares.

Now moving to first quarter results starting with a more detailed review that reflects a shift in the weeks compared to the prior year. Specifically, when compared to the 13 weeks of first quarter 2023, first quarter 2024 does not include the week ended February 3^rd, a strong week for us and the lead up to Valentine’s Day, our second largest holiday.

It was replaced by a more typical week at the end of the quarter for an estimated negative impact of about $2 million. This shift also affected the timing of some expenses.

For the quarter, total revenues were $114.7 million, down 4.4% year-over-year. Net retail sales decreased 3.8%, an 11.3% decline in web demand was a significant contributor to the decrease and web demand continues to be down quarter-to-date.

Additionally, the expected negative timing due to the calendar shift and small declines in both traffic and dollars per transactions also impacted sales.

Note that repeat customer growth was solid, while new customer acquisitions, particularly online was more of a challenge.

Commercial revenue, which primarily represents wholesale sales through partner-operators and international franchise revenue were down 13.7% versus the prior year as expected, due to the timing of product shipments. We noted on the fourth quarter call that commercial revenue had a particularly difficult first quarter comparison. We still expect strong growth for the segment on a full year basis.

Gross margin was 54.2%, an increase of 10 basis points, compared to last year due to commercial margin improvements. Although retail gross margins saw expansion in merchandize margin that was more than offset by the leverage of fixed occupancy costs and higher depreciation expense related to last year's rollout of the new point-of-sales system.

SG&A expenses were $47.6 million or 41.5% of total revenues, compared to 38% of total revenues in the 2023 first quarter. The 350 basis point increase in SG&A was primarily driven by higher wages, expense timing and general inflationary pressures.

For the full year, we expect SG&A as a percent of total revenue to be at or below 2023 level. Even with the higher SG&A expense, we delivered $15 million of pre-tax income.

Earnings per share was $0.82, down 16.3% reflecting the decline in pretax income, partially offset by a lower tax rate along with the reduction in share count.

With respect to the balance sheet, at first quarter end, our cash balance was $38.2 million, representing a $5.4 million or 16.5% increase. This was after returning nearly $30 million to shareholders over the past year.

Inventory at quarter end was $64 million, declining $2.4 million or 3.7%, compared to the same period last year. We remain comfortable with the level and composition of our inventory.

Turning to the outlook, we are reiterating our guidance. The full details of guidance are included in the press release, but I will highlight a few key metrics compared to fiscal 2023 excluding the impact of the 53^rd week.

We continue to expect total revenue to grow on a mid-single-digit basis. This growth is partially driven by the addition of at least 50 net new experience locations with the majority coming through partner-operated expansion both internationally and domestically.

Revenue growth will be back half weighted as we add more experience locations and expect a more favorable fourth quarter comparison on a 13 week basis. Pretax income to grow in the mid-single-digit range on the full year basis. The outlook also reflects ongoing wage and inflationary pressures, increased depreciation expense and freight costs.

In closing, I would like to thank all of our store and warehouse associates, as well as corporate team members and partners for their ongoing dedication to the execution of our strategy to evolve the company by leveraging the power of the Build-A-Bear brand.

This concludes our prepared remarks and we will now turn the call back over to the operator for questions. Operator?

Question-And-Answer Session

Operator

[Operator Instructions]

Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Eric Beder with SCC Research. Please proceed with your question.

Eric Beder

Good morning.

Sharon Price John

Good morning, Eric.

Voin Todorovic

Good morning.

Eric Beder

Thanks. Congrats on a lot of the positives here. When you look at your own store expansion, what are your focus on in terms of those stores? I know that you're doing 15 total, but when you look at outside of the commercial and the franchisees, what is kind of the focus for your own stores here in 2024 and beyond?

Sharon Price John

When you say our own stores, Eric, just for clarification, you're talking about corporately-operated versus partner-operated?

Eric Beder

Yes.

Sharon Price John

Yeah, we do have some expansion plans for corporately-operated, but as we noted on the call and as we said in many of our previous calls, we're focused more on our partner-operated expansion because that's an asset light model.

As you know that an example of that is our Great Wolf Lodge location that’s really great one where they - those partners purchased the fixtures and we trained their employees to be bear builders and to have a seamless took it from a consumer perspective operation that looks and feels just like a Build-A-Bear but then we sell at a - on a wholesale level the product to them, our Build-A-Bear product and then they benefit from our marketing et cetera.

So, those are - those are very good financial - I think, it's a very good financial model for us and that it does take less capital for us to expand the Build-A-Bear footprint. And the important piece of that besides the obvious expansion of the brand and the potential for sale is that that store experience is such a critical part of our ecosystem.

That's how we build this power as a brand that we keep referring to that you get to come in and choose your own stuffed animal go through the heart ceremony and then you're a fan for a long time, in some cases for life is that memory is so indelible for consumers.

Eric Beder

Yeah, I mean, actually, let's expand a little bit on that. In terms of the non-corporate locations, the franchisees and the international expansions, I know there's an initial ramp where they get the product in the inventory. Historically, how quickly do those stores start to continue - start to really start to grow and rollout as you add in new areas like Italy, Colombia and I'm sure there are other international territories that you're looking at right now.

Sharon Price John

Yes, we are looking at other international territories. We've had a mantra inside the company for many years that Fuzzy Hug is understood in every language and kids seem to understand Build-A-Bear and as well as adults interestingly. But we do believe there is extended opportunity - this is interesting, now your question and that these are partners.

So we have to work hand-in-hand. That's not - those aren't unilateral decisions. Some of these are shop-in-shops with other relationships those Giochi Preziosi, that relationship is actually in conjunction with our relationship with Hamleys. So some of those stores are shop-in-shop inside of Hamleys, Toy Stores, as an example. So when there's a pre-existing infrastructure, we can roll a lot faster.

The example in Colombia is actually with a relationship that many other countries inside of South America. We have a Chile franchise, but beyond that this is just a stake in the ground in an entire continent and that was just the first store.

So that's not just the Colombia relationship. So, specifically, it's sadly and it’s depends answer, but there are requirements and with - from a partnership perspective, for the relationship when we look at those contracts of what were the our best vacations are, but a lot of it is in their hands as it is their capital.

Eric Beder

Great. Thank you and good luck for the rest of the year.

Sharon Price John

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Greg Gibas with Northland Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Greg Gibas

Great. Hey, good morning, Sharon and Voin. Thanks for taking the questions.

Sharon Price John

Hey, good morning, Greg.

Greg Gibas

Wondering if you could speak to the web demand challenges and whether you're expecting that to persist? And also just kind of follow up on those, Voin, I think you mentioned that at a high level that the trends that you saw with total transaction versus average transaction size, if you could cover that again?

Voin Todorovic

Sure. So, definitely our web traffic has been challenging during the quarter and some of those trends continue to persist in so far in the quarter-to-date basis. But again, even within the quarter, some of those challenges as we saw from the web traffic perspective especially in February, we saw very strong conversion related to our Valentine's Day product and we saw growth in dollar per transaction.

For the rest of the quarter our - still we have challenging traffic. Even though the improved our dollar per transaction on the smaller level, our conversion was lower and not enough to offset some of the challenges from the traffic perspective.

We continue to work on different initiatives to improve our traffic opportunities and drive more visits to the websites. But again, we may have some choppiness throughout the year as we continue to focus on this particularly challenging piece of our business at this point.

As we think about some of the dollar per transaction that we are seeing and the traffic across the board, our DPP was slightly lower than last year. Some of that could be related to the overall economic environment, there may be also some trade-offs as you know we continue to see very strong DPP in our locations.

But there may be some shifting where people are more focused on the entry price points and some lower price products, compared to what was done in the past, again speaking from the overall economic situation. But we feel good about the engagement we are seeing with our guests and the overall things that we have in the line for the rest of the year.

Sharon Price John

Yeah, a couple of things just a little color on that is that, of course we're - when we see traffic softness, we kick in the gear to understand what's going on and the best we can from a research perspective. With the consumers, it's not uncommon as I mentioned in my remarks that when you are doing a comprehensive integration across your entire ecosystem to try to raise the water level. There's going to be some hiccups in the process particularly as it relates to web.

But that external traffic piece that also related to the rollout of a new brand campaign, takes you a minute to kind of get some traction on that. But separately, an interesting piece is that that we - that we've been brought to our attention is that from an - we're down from an organic search perspective. We've gone into a lot of data to try to understand what's going on with that.

Because of the brand’s success over the past two to three years, this is the only assumption that we have is that, we're being conquest at a much higher rate on search from a search engine’s perspective. And so we're going to have to work through what we do and how we manage assuring that our brand pops up when people are actually searching our brand. Just that sort of an indicator of the new economy.

Greg Gibas

Right. Yeah, that’s very helpful. Appreciate the color there. And I guess, as a follow-up, if you could just touch on what drove that elevated or unfavorable expense timing in Q1? And maybe how we should expect expenses to trend in the coming quarters, would be expense kind of return to normalcy?

Voin Todorovic

Yeah, so, timing of SG&A expenses as we called out, in Q1 it’s a little bit more elevated as we had some incremental expenses related to signage and marketing supplies related to the start of the new campaign, The Stuff You Love. We also had some timing of certain payroll expenses Q1 to Q2 and as I mentioned on the call, we expect SG&A on a full year basis to be at or below last year rates.

So we feel good about the overall SG&A on a full year basis. Just there is noise created with the calendar shift and couple of these things that I highlighted that's creating timing between quarters.

Greg Gibas

Great. Thanks very much.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Steve Silver with Argus Research. Please proceed with your question.

Steve Silver

Good morning, everybody and thanks for taking the questions. Congratulations on the international expansion in the new markets. It's - I guess my question is, over the course of the year, should we expect that the new international markets that are being penetrated will largely focus on building density in fewer markets or the goal is to really increase on a geographic level more broadly?

Voin Todorovic

Well, the short answer is both. And our goal is the really to increase penetration in the existing markets and just as a reminder, our first store in Italy opened late September of last year. So, just to be - again now, late May with six locations in six different cities in Italy it's an accomplishment and testament to the brand in the new markets.

But we are also engaged and in discussions with different partners around the globe and we continue to work on expanding not just in the existing markets, but expanding in new markets and more to come as those deals are being worked on and but we are definitely excited about the opportunity and that we are going to be adding at least 50 net new locations for the rest of the year.

Steve Silver

Great. That’s helpful. Thank you. And one more if I can. So the recent press release announcing the collaboration around the new movie IF, I know over the holidays last year, you guys mentioned some strategic initiatives in terms of tying in the Merry Mission movies with the theater chains showing them.

Just curious as to whether there's anything going on around this movie launch, just to work together to just drive traffic from the theater to the store where those tie-ins are possible.

Sharon Price John

Yes. Good question, Steve, that we have been doing that for many, many years. We often talk about the co-location of Build-A-Bear workshops in malls with theaters and that that's often part of a traditional trip on maybe a weekend to see the opening of a kid's film as you swing by Build-A-Bear, you get your stuff down there before or after.

And we've even partnered with theaters in the past and they're different circumstances as well as with Cinemark last year with the launch of our own Merry Mission film for the holiday.

This is collaboration. It's a little more integrated than a type of some of the collaborations that we've had in the past, which used to be a real staple of our business in the pre-COVID world. Just the clear opportunity to connect that concept of going to the theater, buying the lead character at Build-A-Bear. And really leveraging much of this usually hundreds of millions of dollars in marketing that goes behind these theatrical releases.

The IF collaboration is - we have the blue that Blue the lead character in all of the stores and of course we're doing marketing that that is in conjunction with those with the theatrical marketing. But we've also taken it to a place where in certain locations, Mall of America, which one at New York where it is a real next level type of experience.

And we've tricked out the store where you get an opportunity to have a feeling as if you're making your own imaginary friend in an entirely different way utilizing this heart ceremony that John helped us to create. And they've been extremely – I think I'm excited about this. I mean, John's been personally a part of the marketing for this what is it been a major release for Paramount and we - they're great partners for us.

So, again, the net of this question I think where you're going is this idea between theatrical content, the creation of emotional connection, memories, all of that goes together which also leads to not only why we partner with key entertainment companies, but why we create our own entertainment.

Steve Silver

Great. That's where I was going to. Thank you so much for the color.

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions]

Our next question comes from the line of Keegan Cox with D.A. Davidson. Please proceed with your question.

Keegan Cox

Good morning. Thanks for taking my question.

Voin Todorovic

Good morning.

Keegan Cox

I just wanted to ask a little bit, it kind of seems like you guys are seeing a trade down to the lower end and like he said struggle or some issues on the dollars per transaction. But what gives you confidence in the spending environment to maintain your full-year guidance through the back half? Is it like demand picking up or just executing on your initiatives?

Voin Todorovic

Thanks for the question and as we shared on the last call we expected this year to grow on a full year basis and it was back-half weighted. We also talked about the expansion from the store count perspective as we are adding net 50 locations both between partner-operated as well as some of the domestic locations that again is going to be in the second half of the year.

So we feel that that's going to help drive some of that growth. In addition, we had some softness in Q4 last year. So we believe that later in the year, we have some easier comparisons.

Now as we think about some of the choppiness and softness from the overall economic environment, we are definitely cognizant of those. Bu we also believe in the brand and things that we are able to achieve. We are seeing some strength, and again, we continue to deliver from both dollar per transaction basis, continues to drive strong performance.

Now we also had last couple of years of record results and some elevated numbers. So some of the and some comparison as we think especially earlier in the year and we are anniversaring some of the product launches and some of the timing when things were introduced or how the inventory was coming in after COVID does create some timing.

But we feel good about the numbers as we are projecting on a full year basis and like with the expectations that we are going to be able to recover some of the losses and improve on our web demand that's been a challenge for us so far this year.

Keegan Cox

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our question and answer session. I'll turn the floor back to Ms. John for any final comments.

Sharon Price John

Right. Thank you so much for joining us today. And we look forward to speaking with you next quarter.

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.