Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Allbirds Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Christine Greany with The Blueshirt Group. Please begin.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. With me on the call today are Joey Zwillinger, CEO; Joe Vernachio, COO; and Annie Mitchell, CFO. Before we start, I'd like to remind you that we will make certain statements today that are forward-looking within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including statements about our financial outlook, including cash flow and adjusted EBITDA expectations, 2024 guidance targets, impact and duration of external headwinds, strategic transformation plan and related planned efforts, go-to-market strategy, planned transitions to a distributor model in certain international markets, anticipated distributor model arrangements, expected profitability, cost savings targets, gross margin estimates, product plan timelines and expectations, third-party partnership strategy, marketing strategy, and other matters referenced in our earnings release issued today. These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Please also note that these forward-looking statements reflect our opinions only as of the date of this call, and we undertake no obligation to revise any statements to reflect changes that occur after this call. Please refer to our SEC filings, including our quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30th, 2023, for a more detailed description of the risk factors that may affect our results. Also during this call, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures that adjust our GAAP results to eliminate the impact of certain items. These non-GAAP items should be used in addition to, and not as a substitute for, any GAAP results. You will find additional information regarding these non-GAAP financial measures and a reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to their most directly comparable GAAP measures to the extent reasonably available in today's earnings release. With that, I will turn the call over to Joey to begin the formal remarks.

Thanks, Christine, and welcome, everyone. We concluded 2023 with Q4 results at the higher end of our expectations, marking the fourth consecutive quarter of meeting or exceeding our guidance with strong execution towards reshaping the business under our strategic transformation plan. This being my last earnings call at the helm of Allbirds. It is a big moment for me both professionally and personally. I'm incredibly proud of what Tim and I helped create over the last nine years. I'm also incredibly pleased with the renewed foundation we've established through our transformation work over the past year, not least of which being the incredible management team we have recruited to lead this next chapter of revitalization and growth. Zooming out for a moment, I want to remind everyone about our higher level opportunity. Allbirds makes shoes that are timeless and versatile in style and innovative in the nature-derived materials we use. The blend of our unique approach to design and materials creates a highly differentiated offering, one that our consumer feels immediately when they slip on our shoes. The consumer we target, a group called the Changemakers, represents approximately 20 million people in the US when applying the sharpest definition. And when we include closely adjacent demographic groups, this group grows to approximately 68 million people. Only about 5% of that 68 million target have purchased our products since our inception. And with a per capita average of eight pairs of shoes per year, the untapped potential of this group constitutes a tremendous market opportunity for Allbirds in the US alone. Judged by our consumer reviews and NPS, we know that people who try our products love them. The challenge we are tackling now is to raise awareness of the brand and compel this group to buy with delivery of great…

Thank you, Joey. I'm excited and honored to be stepping into this role and look forward to getting to know our analysts and investors in the upcoming quarters. This transition marks a high point in my career, which began in 1987 at Patagonia. It was during those early years that I developed a passion for creating exceptional products. I honed my skills in product development, operations, and merchandising over decades working with several iconic brands such as Nike, Calvin Klein, and The North Face and orchestrated the turnaround at Mountain Hardwear. I joined Allbirds nearly three years ago, attracted by its potential to become a lasting, iconic brand led by its lifestyle positioning, commitment to sustainability, and inherent consumer value. Since June of 2021, I've had the pleasure of working side by side with Joey. Initially, I was tasked with establishing operational excellence across various functions, including distribution, inventory, and manufacturing while leading our global commercial activities in digital, stores, and wholesale. As a key player in our operational transformation, I have been able to apply my turnaround experience to our inventory reduction, international transitions, and retail optimization. Most recently, I took charge of our product engine, where I installed Adrian as our Chief Design Officer. Together, we are building a world class design team. As the year progresses, we look forward to sharing more about our vision for the 2025 product line. As I step into the CEO role, I'm pleased that we have structured the business to deliver profitable growth in the years ahead. Consistent with the key pillars under our strategic transformation plan, in the near term, I will be prioritizing these four areas. Number one is product, ensuring we have a steady flow of compelling product that resonates with the consumer is paramount to my strategy.…

Thanks Joe, and good afternoon everyone. We're pleased to report our fourth consecutive quarter of both operational and financial progress. Our Q4 results came in at the high end of our guided range on the top line and ahead of our expectations on the adjusted EBITDA line. We also delivered significant progress across inventory and cash, with inventory reduced by half versus a year ago and operating cash use down both sequentially and year-over-year. Fourth quarter revenue of $72 million declined 14.5%, reflective of our actions to continue clearing through non-core product, and reduced marketing investments. Gross margin came in at 38.0% compared to 43.1% a year ago. This was in line with our expectations and was inclusive of our planned promotional activity, which allowed us to end the year in a healthy inventory position. The impact of promotions more than offset cost of goods savings resulting from lower outbound freight. Looking at expenses, SG&A dollars, excluding stock-based compensation and depreciation and amortization, came in better than we expected on both a sequential and year-over-year basis. This reflects lower personnel expense, as well as ongoing cost discipline. In 2024, we expect SG&A dollars to be down year-over-year, as we realize the full year impact from previous workforce reductions, and capture partial year savings related to 2024 store closures and international transitions. Turning now to Q4 marketing expense, we were up sequentially from Q3 in dollars, which was in line with our plans to increase spend in support of the holiday selling season, as well as our Wool Runner 2 launch. Looking at 2024, we expect marketing spend to be down, largely associated with our international transitions, with planned incremental investments in the US in the back half. Moving to the balance sheet and cash flow, we delivered another solid quarter…

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Alex Straton with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.

Hi. Thank you for taking my question. This is Katy Delahunt on for Alex Straton. My first question is, we were surprised to see sales decline even when adjusting for 12 closures in the international transition. What's driving that decline? Is it just waiting for the new product to arrive in the second half.

Hi, Katy. It's nice to hear your voice again. Yes, when you're looking at our guidance is there are a number of factors impacting some of the quarterly trends as well as the overall numbers. We talked about the closing of the retail doors that did already start in Q1. The international markets, the two new ones will happen mid-year. And then where we expect there to be growth to be coming from is the introductions of refreshed and compelling new product that will happen later this year and really is ramping up as we move into 2025. Additionally, we are planning to coincide our marketing investment with the launch of those new products. So in the first half of the year, we have all of the non-comp impacts, and it's starting in the back half of the year with the introduction of new product that gives us excitement as we work our way into 2025.

Got it. It makes sense. And then just one more for me. On the US store closures, is there any specific like demographic trend or driving behind the ones that you're closing? Like are they in more suburban markets or a certain size or any trends we should think about there?

Yeah I would say the overwhelming theme to think about in the ones that were closing for the year are really some of the newer ones that were designed with a little bit of a larger store footprint and probably best served with a more robust apparel offering. And as we refocus the product line really sharply on those iconic franchises and footwear. We wanted to make sure that the fleet was right-sized for the go-forward product as well as just a great optimized US marketplace so that we're in the key cities that we need to win and we can balance out some of those other places with more robust wholesale distribution.

Makes sense. Thank you.

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Janine Stitcher with BTIG. Your line is now open.

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to ask about the wholesale distribution. You talk about it being a long-term, a larger portion of your mix. What's needed to reaccelerate that there? How should we think about timing and magnitude? And maybe just remind us where you are and what accounts you're in and what the go-forward plans might look like. Thank you.

Hey, Janine. Yeah, I'll start us off here, and then I'll kick it over to Joe if he wants to add something for the go-forward. So, you know, just context-wise, we had some nasty work to accomplish last year and that was with a robust set of promotions and markdowns to make sure that we had a very healthy inventory to come into the year in 2024. So we did that and along the same timeline we were also refreshing the product line and moving things through the development cycle which really is going to start to hit in earnest in Q2 and beyond in 2024. And we think they're very optimistic about the back half of what's coming as improvement versus '23 and before, and really excited about 2025. So when we think about what we want to do with wholesale, we want to be great partners there. And the biggest and most important element for our partners is to drive great sell-through and margin. So we want to make sure that the right product is on the shelves and we're showing up fantastically for the consumer when we really push the acceleration in that channel. And we do think it's a very big part of our business going forward. We've always envisioned it being a sizable chunk when we had the right product to do that. So that is where we're headed, but we did want to make sure to be cautious and not put product in the channel that we didn't think would resonate strongly with consumers and create a messy marketplace. So that's the worst thing that could happen and so we were fairly prudent and cautious about making sure we had pulled back in that channel so that we could then reaccelerate. And our partners are great to support us there. Joe, maybe you can just mention who we're working with closely and what you have in store moving forward.

Yeah, and overall, Janine, nice to meet you. Hello.

Nice to meet you as well.

We believe that wholesale is a big component of our overall balanced US marketplace, along with our own digital and our own retail stores. We think the opportunity in wholesale is quite significant for us as we move forward. We purposefully held back last year for all the reasons Joey just described to make sure that we weren't putting product into the marketplace knowing that we had to move through our own inventory. And we're really fortunate that we've got marquee retail partners to work with. A lot of brands would be very fortunate to have the portfolio that we have. We are working directly with them and we'll be going on a road show over the next series of months to reintroduce our product strategy, our icon strategy, our communication strategy to reinvigorate our sell-in with those retailers and you should start to see products starting to come on line later in this year and early in next year.

Thanks so much for all the color and best of luck.

Thank you.

Thank you. One moment for our next question please. Our next question comes from the line of Dylan Carden with William Blair. Your line is now open.

Hey, thanks. Kind of some boring ones here, but the breakout between retail and digital growth in the quarter. I'm kind of curious how you're thinking about reporting go forward if you're going to start breaking out the wholesale distribution. As we kind of look to maybe adjust our models.

Dylan, for the immediacy, no, we're not going to be changing the way that we are sharing our segments and our information. For this year, we will be giving guidance for US and international separate. We did that for the full year for Q1. We understand that this shift international is going to be meaningful in terms of the modeling. So for this year we do anticipate giving this -- guidance in terms of reporting. No, we do not intend to change our segment quite yet.

So you're not going to be breaking out retail and digital? Is that what you mean? In order to providing a wholesale. Okay. And then on gross margin, the guide kind of actually up on the year despite, and maybe I sort of misheard you, but despite the sort of the lower gross margin associated with the distributor model. Is that simply because the offset on the promotion cadence or what might I mean missing there?

Yes. So we do, we are giving guidance and are expecting there to be margin improvement in 2024 over 2023. It's coming from a number of factors, and the largest one being exactly as you just called out, the reduced promotional intensity compared to last year. Last year, we ended up doing a significant amount of promotions to right-size our inventory. We were very successful at doing that, as you can see, from the inventory being cut in half from a year ago. We've since shifted back to more full price selling, and the consumer is responding when we give them freshness, either through a new product or color drop. So shipping back to full price is the largest. The next is the lower freight expense and some of the initial COGS savings from our factory shift to Vietnam and the material innovation. To add a little more color, specifically on the freight, these are results of the proactive efforts that we made last year to drive some savings. The inbound savings are coming from our redesigned shoe boxes, which are allowing for more efficient shipping. And outbound savings are coming from a freight tender that we completed in 2023. But you are correct. That's going to be offset by the distributor model. The gross margin in that is lower. However, with the OpEx and marketing being virtually zero. This is a strategic decision that will overall improve the bottom line and we expect a contribution margin around 20% coming from the international distributor business.

Got it. And then, sorry, last one, and again, apologies if I sort of misheard you here, it was going pretty quickly. But so the 190 to 210 revenue guide, 32 to 37 loss from store closures, 25 to 28 from distributor model shift. The midpoint of those two plus the midpoint of the guide would suggest actually growth in sales, but the organic guide is sort of down mid-teens, down mid-single digits. I know I'm missing something there but can you tell me?

Yeah, Dylan, yes, we definitely went through quickly. We're trying to get a lot of messages across today. The total of retail and international is 32 to 37. That's made up of retail. Yeah, the retail is 7 million to 9 million and international is 25 to 28. So I think there's a little bit of double counting that you might have had going on there.

That sounds about right. Okay. So the organic growth is down mid-teens to down mid-single is the right way to think about that.

Correct. That's exactly right.

Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Abbie Zvejnieks with Piper Sandler. Your line is now open.

Great. I have one for Joey. Can you talk about the decision to step down? And then I have a follow-up on SG&A. Thank you.

Sure. We've been now a year into this transformation and we're all quite happy with the progress, albeit not necessarily with the overall situation that we find ourselves in here. And when we're in this moment, it's incredibly important to have the right leadership team in place, both through the various phases of a transformation. And Joe and I have been talking about this virtually since he joined the company almost three years ago now, but really in earnest over the last year as an opportunity to get the best retail execution we possibly could at the helm and I think the timing is fantastic and Joe has proven to be an exceptionally capable leader and one that I personally thought was best suited to handle the transformation as we go forward here. So that in particular was the decision around myself and Joe, but I just want to underscore the fact that we have work to do and that work is predominantly around driving growth. And in order for us to do that, we have to get exceptional product teams in place and we have to have exceptional storytelling. And we have to have the resources to bring the bearer to invest behind those people. And fortunately, throughout this process being a deliberate and methodical one, we have a balance sheet that's extremely healthy and now we have an A-plus team in place and we think we have absolutely everything we need to -- we need in order to accomplish this next phase which is all about this return to growth and getting back on offense.

Got it. And maybe just as a follow-up to that before my SG&A question, have you seen any like green shoots on some of the new products that you've put out recently? I mean, we know that some of the performance stuff, you know, didn't really connect with your consumer, but some of the newer product launches, have you seen those green shoots yet, or is this still more of a 2025 story on product?

Now, we should see some in advance of that, and I think we've already demonstrated a bit, and maybe I'll let Joe speak to it and add a little color here?

Yeah, I think the Wool Runner 2 is probably the best near-term example of our icon strategy coming to life. So it was our best launch that we've had in a number of years. And the consumer really reacted strongly to the messaging and to the positioning of that product. And coming right behind it will be a product we're calling the Tree Runner Go, which is kind of a sister product to that with more of a summer expression that we'll be launching in the near future. And we expect similar, if not even greater results. The Tree Runner itself is our number one product in our total offering. We expect this new version to do quite well. We'll have a couple of more coming out the balance of the year, a product we're calling The Glider, which has a more active slant and is oriented more towards a female consumer. And then we've got a really strong Q4 offering coming right behind that. So we're really excited about the offering that we've got coming this year, and then the icon strategy and the distortion of the icons coming through '25 we think are really going to propel our growth and drive full price sales.

Got it. On the -- just the SG&A piece, can you talk a little bit more about the cadence of marketing? One, you said some reinvestment in the second half. Does that mean that marketing will grow year-over-year in the second half or will it still decline, but just at a lesser rate than the first half? Thanks.

Great. When looking at marketing, yes, overall, it will be down, sorry about that, overall it will be down, largely related to the international transition. In terms of the overall timing and cadence of it, we do anticipate that each quarter will be down and the exact timing and the investment in marketing will happen in the back half of the year, but we haven't articulated it into exactly which month or quarter. We want to make sure that we're supporting the product coming to life. And so while we'll be in the back half of the year, we do anticipate that each quarter will generally be down with potentially some changes in Q3 and Q4. Thank you.

And Abbie, maybe I can just add from a high-level perspective on just a slightly different way to think about it. You can see in the supplemental deck, we put up some specific timing on the international transitions and that really drives a lot of the overall decline in marketing. So that should actually kind of help you pencil out the timing and some of the relative weighting of what you should expect from that decrease related to the switch of the go-to-market. And then in the organic go-forward business, we really want to time the investment in marketing to coincide with this refreshed product line coming out. And we're going to start getting back on offense there and really showcasing some of the strength of this product offering. And just make sure we have the opportunity to meet all the new consumers who haven't even heard of Allbirds yet. And that's the biggest opportunity we probably have. So that's starting in the back half and we'll hopefully get gain strength and continue to accelerate.

Got it. That makes a lot of sense. Thank you.

Thank you. One moment for our next question, please. Our next question comes from the line of Tom Nikic with Wedbush. Your line is now open.

Hey, everybody. Thanks for taking my question. You know, on the Q3 call, you mentioned that you were still confident in getting to adjusted EBITDA profitability and potential confidence in 2025. I mean, do you still have confidence in that timeline? And just to read what I asked because there isn't much adjusted EBITDA improvement in the guidance for 2024. So even with the cost savings and stuff like that, it seems like a pretty long bridge to cross, but just kind of wrap my head around the timeline of getting that sort of profitability.

Sure. Achieving adjusted EBITDA profitability does remain our north star. And we anticipate that it may take longer than initially communicated. We believe the transformation work that we've done to date and will continue to do in 2024, is positioning the business to achieve top line growth in 2025. But this year, the deliberate strategic actions that we're taking around international and US store closures. We'll only see a partial year impact from these due to timing happening over the course of the year. And in 2025, we will benefit from a full year of profitability improvement, setting us up to drive long-term profitable growth supported by the new product and marketing coming online later this year and as we ramp up into 2025.

All right. Understood and I guess as we think out to 2025, I mean, I guess there should still be some amount of headwind from or a top line headwind from store closures and the international distributor transitions, right, as they kind of, you know, wrap around.

That is correct. When we do the quarterly comp year-over-year, we will continue to have non-comp impacts as we go into 2025. But remember, these strategic actions are being made because they will be impactful and positive on the bottom line. And so that's what we're focusing on as we go into 2025 is improving adjusted EBITDA.

Understood. Thank you very much and best of luck this year.

Thank you.

Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Dana Telsey with Telsey Advisory Group. Your line is now open.

Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. As you think about your store base in the closing of 10 to 15, what is the right number of stores that you should have and by eliminating these stores, what's the revenue impact and what's the cost impact that you see as a result? Thank you.

Thanks, Dana. The overall impact to the top line this year is 7 million to 9 million. That is largely based on about a half -- average of a half year convention with the door closures. So we do expect the top line to have some non-comp impact as we go in to 2025. In terms of the cost savings, we believe that this change this year, again, largely a partial impact, will be a range of positive 3 million to 5 million from closing these retail doors. And again, that's approximately on a half-year convention. Again, some are closed, some have already closed, and then some will continue to close over the course of Q2 and into a few into Q3. Does that help, Dana?

Yes. And what's the go-forward number of stores that you should have from the existing base after that? What are you looking to retain in terms of stores?

Dana, I think it's hard to put a number on that because as the base of customers who are aware of us and are purchasing our product expands. I think there's really big white space for the number of stores that could potentially exist. So we need to revitalize momentum and get some relevance with those new consumers we meet and then we can start thinking about building stores again. I think the most important aspect there is just maintaining balance, and we should, and we expect to have a lot of weapons at our disposal, including a much more robust wholesale offering. We have introduced products on Amazon, which has been really successful for us, alongside our DTC channel. So as we see the marketplace develop, it's going to be mostly about balance going forward, and the right number of stores should reveal itself as the business scales and we regain momentum and that'll be a geographic specific decision and one we want to maintain and drive great omni-channel purchase but do it in a very balanced way.

Thank you.

Thank you. This concludes the Q&A portion. I'll now turn the call back over to Joe Vernachio for closing remarks.

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. I'm incredibly energized by the opportunity ahead of us at Allbirds and I'm really personally excited to get to meet and spend time with our analysts and investors in the coming months. Thank you very much.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Everyone have a wonderful day.