Clarus Corporation (NASDAQ:CLAR) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript May 4, 2024
Clarus Corporation isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).
Operator: Good afternoon, everyone and thank you for participating in today’s conference call to discuss Clarus Corporation’s financial results for the First Quarter ended March 31, 2024. Joining us today are Clarus Corporation’s Executive Chairman, Warren Kanders; CFO, Mike Yates; President, Black Diamond Equipment, Neil Fiske; Management Director of Clarus’ Adventure segment, Mathew Hayward; and the company’s External Director of Investor Relations, Matt Berkowitz. Following the remarks, we will open the call for your questions. Before we go further, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Berkowitz as he reads the company’s Safe Harbor statement within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that provides important cautions regarding forward-looking statements. Matt, please go ahead.
Matt Berkowitz: Thank you. Before I begin, I’d like to remind everyone that during today’s call, we will be making several forward-looking statements and we make these statements under the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statements reflect our best estimates and assumptions based on our understanding of information known to us today. These forward-looking statements are subject to potential risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results of operations or financial condition of Clarus Corporation to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. More information on potential factors that could affect the company’s operating and financial results is included from time-to-time in the company’s public reports filed with the SEC.
I’d like to remind everyone this call will be available for replay starting at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time tonight. A webcast replay will also be available via the link provided in today’s press release as well as on the company’s website at claruscorp.com. Now, I’d like to turn the call over to Clarus’ Executive Chairman, Warren Kanders.
Warren Kanders: Good afternoon and thank you all for joining Clarus’ earnings call to review our results for the first quarter. I am pleased to be joined today by not only our Chief Financial Officer, Mike Yates, but also Neil Fiske and Matt Hayward who lead our outdoor and adventure segments. At our Investor Day this past March, we discussed wanting to deliver a comprehensive segment level view so that we are excited to have Neil and Matt to deliver on board for earnings calls going forward. Last year, we took crucial steps to realign our overall platform and individual brands. And a key component of this strategy was hiring highly experienced and dedicated executives to guide the outdoor and adventure businesses. Since their appointments last year, both have made considerable progress implementing strategic plans to streamline business processes and capitalize on clear long-term growth opportunities.
Today, I am confident that we have the right team in place and we continue to be encouraged by the steps Neil and Matt are taking to advance our rebased businesses and turnaround. At our Investor Day, we outlined a strategic roadmap, highlighting anticipated multiyear growth and margin expansion targets for both segments that we believe Clarus can achieve. The first quarter of 2024 represented the initial phase of these plans. While Neil and Matt will provide more specific comments, we are encouraged by the incremental progress demonstrated in the first quarter. In outdoor, we continue to seek to prioritize simplification and rightsizing, which we believe is evidenced by a reduction in total outdoor inventory of 15% versus last year. At Adventure, we saw significant year-over-year sales growth driven by the launch of compelling new products and expansion in our OEM channel.
Based on the results to-date, we are pleased to reaffirm our full year guidance, which Mike will detail later in the presentation. There is so much more work to be done, but we believe we have laid the foundation to drive increased profitability and unlock new growth opportunities in 2024 and beyond. With that, thank you again for being with us today. And I will turn the call over to Mike.
Mike Yates: Thank you, Warren and good afternoon everyone. I want to remind people or let people know who are on the call that we have actually provided slides to accompany our presentation. They are available on the webcast and they are also available on our website. That’s something new. So I wanted to make sure all the participants were aware of the addition that we have made to our call today. On today’s call, I will provide a general Q1 update before turning it over to Matt and Neil to review the segment performance. I will conclude with a more detailed summary of our Q1 financial results, followed by a Q&A session. Beginning on Slide 4, we entered the year focused on initiating our strategic plans with Clarus’ next chapter as a pure-play ESG-friendly outdoor business.
As we have discussed previously, we completed the sale of our Precision Sports segment in February 2024, which represented a highly successful outcome for Clarus. Today, we have a more streamlined company focused on two consumer segments with broad appeal and attractive long-term tailwinds, outdoor and adventure. In outdoor, our focus is on simplification and solidifying the core. Although the macroeconomic backdrop remained challenging during the first quarter, the stabilization we mentioned during our Q4 and year end 2023 earnings call was confirmed as our North American wholesale market grew year-over-year. We believe that the work the sales team put in during the second half of 2023 is paying dividends now as we start to listen to our paid account and deliver the right product for them on time.
From an operation standpoint, we believe that our inventory reduction in SKU rationalization initiatives, are on track. In Adventure, where our core objective is to invest at scale, we saw a continuation of the strong sales growth momentum we established in the back half of 2023. We may describe both increasing brand awareness through global marketing programs and strengthening our Adventure team to ensure we’re best positioned to capitalize on strong market tailwinds. Complementing this progress and following the sales Precision Sports segment, Clarus has a debt-free balance sheet that we believe provides us with significant optionality to allocate capital for the benefit of shareholders. After retiring all of Clarus outstanding that was the proceeds from the sale, we had over $47 million of cash on hand at the end of the first quarter.
Importantly, this provides the flexibility in how we seek to pursue our long-term value creation objectives and growth initiatives. In terms of priorities, we are committed to reinvesting in our existing 2 segments to drive organic growth. We expect to continue to pay our quarterly dividend and also selectively look at smaller bolt-on M&A opportunities that may enhance our venture business in the United States and new geographies. Overall, our focus is on cash generation through the continued rightsizing of inventory and business expansion with the intent of accumulating cash on our balance sheet as we execute our strategic growth plans. Before I turn the call over to Matt, I’ll briefly highlight a couple of key figures on Slide 5. Clarus first quarter revenue of $69.3 million exceeded our guidance of $64 million to $66 million.
We also generated adjusted EBITDA of $2 million, which beat our expectations of $1 million to $2 million for the quarter. Overall, we are pleased with our execution in Q1 and with the building blocks in place, and we are ready to continue to meet Clarus long-term financial targets. I’ll now turn the call over to Matt Hayward, Managing Director of Clarus Adventure segment. Matt?
Mathew Hayward: Thanks, Mike, and good morning, everyone, from Australia. I’ll begin my remarks on Slide 6. I’m very excited to be part of these calls now to address our Adventure segment directly. I’ll try to tie back to many of the things we touched on during our Investor Day in order to track our progress financially and strategically. 2023 marked a reset and stabilization year for the Adventure segment, and we are pleased to have kicked off 2024 with significant momentum. The first quarter represented the initial phase of our new 3-year strategic plan, and we took important steps launching compelling new products and continuing to expand beyond the home market in Australia. Q1 sales increased 27% year-over-year supported by two primary drivers.
The first in wholesale, we saw strong key account performance across Australia, New Zealand and combined with the onboarding of new key accounts in the U.S. market. This has been supported by strong product portfolio introductions across all of our key categories, inclusive of trades where we have our category leading Pioneer 6 platform, our new crossfire system of RX100 and RX200 introductions and new accessory ranges with rooftop tents and storage boxes. Second, we continue to experience strong demand in our OEM channel, a vital channel for us that we believe will drive volume while enhancing our brands in new markets and vehicle models. Following the first deliveries to new OEM customers in 2023 for a product launch, demand has continued to remain robust, which has helped accelerate sales growth.
At the same time, our first quarter margins were affected by less favorable channel mix, particularly given the outperformance of OEM as that continues to grow. Q1 gross margins and adventure was 38.4% as compared to 41% last year. We also saw on boarding of new key account programs and locations, which do bring in some lower margins in order to be good partners in our dealer base. We continue to take immediate and intermediate steps expected to improve overall profitability and are committed to seeking to drive better SKU productivity, inventory management and organizational efficiency. Driving performance outside of [indiscernible] is critical as is the ramp-up of opportunities across both MAXTRAX and TRED as we expand brand and category reach across 2024.
In terms of market conditions, more generally, positive fundamentals continue to be supported by strong auto sales. This facts and figures, the standard for vehicle deliveries in Australia showed all-time record first quarter results for the auto sector, with 300,000 sales, a year-over-year increase of 13%. Close to the home in the U.S., new vehicle sales are expected to have risen 5.6% year-over-year to 3.8 million units volume in the first quarter of 2024 as per cost of the automotives. Diving into strategic initiatives, I’d like to highlight some of the key investments we are making in the U.S. market. During the first quarter, we identified several key positions that we believe will enhance our ability to grow. With our focus on delivering best-in-class products globally, we have recently added a new recognition, a national marketing leader that will sink up with our shared services in Australia to deliver best-in-class content tailored specifically for North America.
That will soon be joined by local IT leadership to not only help drive greater DDC transformation, but also to support enhanced integration with our key partners locally. Linked to the above are called out as a key impair to the Adventure segment is our strategy to grow our OEM opportunities on a global level outside of ANZ. To this end, we are very excited to be adding a new global head of OEM sales and development in the U.S. based in our Denver office in Q2. In terms of brand investment, we’ve stepped up investment and support across both trade marketing and parallel digital investment. Within trade support, we’ve been very excited to launch our first truly global brand and product catalog for Rhino-Rack, delivered in multiple languages for the very first time for partners across Japan, China and Germany and also added patients with basal specifics for U.S. and Canada.
This has been supported with trade-through investments across Japan, France and we will continue across markets in 2024. We will also be introducing a brand-new platform to support the Adventure portfolio as a whole across [indiscernible] later on in 2024. Developments to showcase our ramped up new product development delivered comprehensive campaigns for our world famous and industry leading Pioneer 6 platform, and our new focus on showcasing an adventure lifestyle supported by our amazing array accessories across all brands in our portfolio, including MAXTRAX and TRED in these campaigns. Our focus is clearly aimed at the support of our amazing partners globally, while we’re driving greater visibility with investment into digital platforms and media.
Lastly, new game-changing product arrives and is on the horizon. As we mentioned during our last earnings calls, the new Pioneer 6 platform in Australia marked the first major new product launch in the last 15 months, and we’ve begun to bring to market a portfolio of accessories that complement it. We also brought to market the first MAXTRAX port innovation for nearly decades through the introduction of the light board. We are pleased with the progress of launching four new products in the U.S. as well as new accessories globally, including rooftop tents during the first quarter. We believe that our Adventure segment is well positioned to capitalize on strong industry dynamics and a large and growing addressable market across multiple verticals.
We have made significant investment in professionalizing the same, process reengineering and product merchandization to ensure we continue to gain market share. Moving forward, we are committed to seeking to establish a best-in-class product ecosystem, while remaining intensely focused on enhanced product margins as we scale. At the end of the day, when we engage with our wider community and empower them with the opportunity to make space for adventure in whatever shape and activity that entails with our key partners globally across all key markets, we will win together. I’d like to now turn the call over to Neil Fiske, President of Black Diamond. Neil, over to you.
Neil Fiske: Thanks, Matt. Turning to Slide 7. Overall, results in the Outdoor segment were in line with our expectations for the first quarter of 2024, and we are pleased with the progress we’re seeing. At our Investor Day in March, I said that 2023 was a reset year for the industry and for Black Diamond, and that 2024 would be about simplifying the business to solidify our core, improve profitability and lay the foundation for long-term sustainable growth. This quarter, we are starting to see the early results from the hard work we put in over the last year. Importantly, our biggest region of North America returned to growth with the wholesale channel growing 10% year-over-year. This is one of the first areas of focus in our turnaround plan as we completely rebuilt our sales leadership team.
As Warren indicated earlier, in addition to the sales results, we’re hearing good feedback from our retail partners that our service levels have improved, that we are sharper in our brand positioning and execution and that we are, for the most part, outperforming the market in our core categories as we seek to expand our product leadership. We are also pleased with our progress in strengthening our relationships in the specialty channel, which is a top priority for us strategically. We are continuing to rationalize our product line under the direction of fewer, bigger, better. This quarter, for example, we made the decision to exit our distribution of ski bindings, a category which has low margins, high SKU complexity, low term and high cost to serve.
We expect to see further category in SKU reduction over the course of the year as we focus on our core sports and build on positions of strength. As we simplified the business, we’ve streamlined the organization and taken out costs. Operating costs are down 8.3% year-over-year, and we expect that they will continue to fall as a percentage of sales over the course of 2024. We closed five underperforming stores versus the same period last year. We’ve also made major strides in both the quality and levels of our inventory. Overall inventory is down 15% versus last year. But equally important, we’ve moved more of this inventory value into the A styles, which drives 80% of our sales. 59% this year versus 45% last year, and the trend is still improving.
Fill rates are up, markdown exposure is down. We’ve done a lot of work to bring apparel inventories in-line with a 38% reduction versus a year ago. Geographically, the reasons are in different stages of recovery. We’re pleased to see the turnaround in our largest region of North America. However, the Europe and independent global distributor markets still face tough market conditions. The EU was down 17% in wholesale, which was better than our expectations. The smaller D2C segment in EU was up 33%. EU represents 34% of our revenues in Q1. IGD is a different story altogether. Here, we have an added layer of distribution that is still overstocked from the pandemic boom and will likely take all of 2024 to get back in-line. For the quarter, IGD was down 44%, and we expect the year to be down 25% to 30% as inventories rebalance across the network.
IGD represents 10% of our revenue in Q1. Overall, gross margins per Outdoor were flat year-over-year. While we’re still caring through and rightsizing inventory, we believe we are less promotional than the overall market in North America and Europe. We have, however, begun to build a reserve to deal with any PFAS-related inventory that may be more difficult for us to move as a result of new regulations taking effect at the end of this year. By fall of 2025, all of our apparel and packs will be PFAS free, but there will likely be some residual PFAS inventory to clear in the first half of next year. In summary, we’re pleased with our progress and confident in our strategy, knowing there’s so much more to do and to demonstrate. I’ll now turn the call back over to Mike.
Mike Yates: Thank you, Neil. I’m on Slide 8, and I’ll begin with a summary of our financial performance in the first quarter. As a reminder, and as we’ve noted previously, given the sales of Precision Sports segment for approximately $175 million, which was completed and closed on February 29, 2024, during the first quarter. Our U.S. GAAP results are comprised of our Outdoor and Adventure segment and the results I refer to as continuing operations. First quarter sales were $69.3 million compared to $70.3 million in the prior year first quarter, driven largely by the softness in the European wholesale market in IGD market that Neil just discussed at Outdoor, partially offset by strong Adventure segment sales growth. On a constant currency basis, sales were down 0.5%.
FX was not material in the first quarter. Moving to consolidated gross margin. In the first quarter, gross margin was 35.9% compared to 36.3% in the year ago quarter. As you heard, the decrease was primarily attributable to promotional pricing at the Outdoor segment, the increase in cash-related inventory reserves as well as unfavorable channel mix in the Ventures segment. I’d like to highlight that adjusted gross margin of 36.9% in the first quarter improved 50 basis points versus Q1 of last year. Adjusted gross margin is adjusted for the PFAS reserve that Neil just mentioned. We reserved $729,000 in the first quarter for this exposure. Selling, general and administrative expenses in the first quarter were $28.2 million compared to $29.4 million in the same year ago quarter.
The decrease was attributable to success reducing cost at Outdoor as well as lower intangible amortization and lower stock compensation expenses. Higher investments in marketing initiatives in the venture segment partially offset the overall decrease. The loss from continuing operations in the first quarter of 2024 was $6.5 million or $0.17 per diluted share compared to a loss from continuing operations of $2 million or $0.05 per diluted share in the year ago quarter. Loss from continuing operations in the first quarter included $3 million of charges relating to the legal costs and regulatory matter expenses and $700,000 of PFAS inventory reserves. Adjusted loss from continuing operations was $0.1 million or $0.00 per diluted share, this compares to adjusted income from continuing operations of $400,000 or $0.01 per diluted share in the year ago quarter.
Adjusted EBITDA in the first quarter was $2 million or an adjusted EBITDA margin of 2.9% compared to $1.1 million or adjusted EBITDA margin of 1.6% in the same year ago quarter. Our adjusted EBITDA is adjusted for restructuring charges, transaction costs, stock compensation expense, and this quarter, we began adjusting for the PFAS inventory reserve. Additionally, beginning in the first quarter, we adjusted for the costs associated with the Section 16B litigation and the Consumer Product Safety Commission matter known as the CPC matter. These legal costs were $502,000 in the first quarter. Finally, also included in a separate line on our P&L, legal costs and regulatory matters with a $2.5 million estimate of our liability for the matter outstanding with the CPSC, which we recorded as a liability in the first quarter.
We have adjusted our EBITDA for this estimated liability as well. After consideration of these adjustments, the year-over-year improvement in adjusted EBITDA reflects the early results of our efforts to achieve less complexity and focus on the highest margin, highest return opportunities, particularly at the Outdoor segment. First quarter adjusted EBITDA by segment was $2.9 million at Outdoor and $1.9 million of debenture. Adjusted corporate costs was $2.8 million in the first quarter. We’ve provided a reconciliation of these adjusted EBITDA numbers by segment and the corporate cost at the back of the presentation included in today’s material. Next, let me shift to liquidity. At March 31, 2024, cash and cash equivalents were $47.5 million compared to $11.3 million at December 31, 2023.
Total debt at March 31, 2024, was $100,000 compared to $119.8 million at the end of 2023. Our reduced debt and substantially improved cash position reflects the closing on the Precision Sports sale in February and the termination and repayment in full of our credit agreement. During the first quarter, we realized a gain on the sale of Precision Sports of $40.6 million, which was recognized through discontinued operations on our statement of income. Consolidated cash tax expense for the full year is expected to be $2 million. which will allow us to maintain most of the net cash realized from the sale of Precision Sports. Free cash flow, defined as net cash provided by operating activities less capital expenditures for the first quarter was an outflow of $18.3 million compared to positive free cash flow of $1.7 million in the prior year quarter.
Free cash flow was significantly lower because of the significant reduction in accounts payable during the first 2 months of the quarter. As a reminder, we have net operating loss carry-forward for U.S. federal income tax purposes of approximately $7.7 billion at December 31, 2023. The company expects to utilize all the remaining NOLs in the future years. Before turning to our guidance, I would like to highlight that we continue to proceed in our lawsuit against HAP trading LLC and Mr. Mr. Harsh A. Padia. Both fact discovery and expert discovery has been concluded. The court set the following schedule for that half summary judgment motion and challenged our expert witnesses. Motion papers to be filed by May 9, 2024, opposition papers by July 2024, and we reply papers by August 9, 2024.
If this matter goes to trial, we would expect the trial to commence in the fourth quarter of 2024 or sometime in 2025. Moving on to our outlook for 2024. I’m on Slide 9. We have reaffirmed our guidance and continue to expect sales to range between $270 million and $280 million and adjusted EBITDA from continuing operations of approximately $16 million to $18 million or an adjusted EBITDA margin of 6.2% of the midpoint of revenue and adjusted EBITDA. We continue to expect capital expenditures to range between $4 million and $5 million and free cash flow to range between $18 million and $20 million for the full year 2024. Consistent with our historical seasonal pattern, the second quarter decelerated compared to the first quarter, therefore, second quarter sales are expected to be between $58 million and $62 million and adjusted EBITDA is expected to be between zero and $0.5 million.
I want to reiterate that our outlook does not include any expense for ongoing litigation specifically relating to the Section 16B matters, the CPSC matter or further increases in PFAS-related inventory reserves. As we look forward to the remainder of 2024, we are pleased with the incremental progress we are making in both Outdoor and Adventure segment, and we believe the foundation is in place for profitable growth ahead. While hurdles remain, we are confident in the exceptional team we now have in place and our new positioning as a pure-play Outdoor company. At this point in the call, operator, we are ready to take questions from the participants.
Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Laurent Vasilescu of BNP Paribas. Your line is open.
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