Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for participating in today's conference call to discuss Clarus Corporation's financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2020. Joining us today are Clarus Corporation's President, John Walbrecht; Executive Vice President and CFO, Aaron Kuehne; and the company's External Director of Investor Relations, Cody Slach. Following their remarks, we'll open the call for questions. Before we go further, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Slach 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. Cody, please go ahead.

Thank you. Please note that during this call, the company may use words such as appears, anticipates, believes, plans, expects, intends, future and similar expressions, which constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are made based on the company's expectations and beliefs concerning future events impacting the company, and therefore, involve a number of risks and uncertainties. The company cautions you that forward-looking statements are not guarantees and that actual results could differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Potential risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results of operations or financial condition of the company to differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements used in this call include, but are not limited to: the overall level of consumer demand on the company's products; general economic conditions and other factors affecting consumer confidence, preferences and behavior; disruption and volatility in the global currency, capital and credit markets; the financial strength of the company's customers; the company's ability to implement its business strategy; the ability of the company to execute and integrate acquisitions; the impact that global climate change trends may have on the company and its suppliers and customers; the company's exposure to product liability or product warranty claims and other loss contingencies; disruptions and other impacts to the company's business as a result of the COVID-19 global pandemic; and government actions and restrictive measures implemented in response; stability of the company's manufacturing facilities and suppliers as well as consumer demand for our products in light of disease, epidemics and health-related concerns such as COVID-19; changes in governmental regulation, legislation or public opinion relating to the manufacture and sale of bullets and ammunition by our Sierra and…

Thank you, Cody, and good afternoon, everyone. I hope everyone has remained healthy and active in these first few months of the new year. Though we operated in a dynamic retail environment throughout 2020, our strategy and our portfolio of super-fan brands remained resilient. As indicated in our February pre-announcement and supported by today's results, Q4 showed the enduring strength of our well-diversified brands. Total sales were up 24% as we experienced accelerating sales growth of our Sierra brand and continued recovery of our Black Diamond brand. We generated $11 million in adjusted EBITDA for the quarter, representing a 56% increase year-over-year. Despite the retail demand freeze we experienced in the first half of 2020, our full year consolidated sales, gross margin and adjusted EBITDA results were also resilient, declining only slightly from our record performance in 2019. We also generated $24 million in free cash flow in 2020, more than 3 times increase from 2019. This is a testament to the hard work of our team and our commitment to our strategic priorities of preserving brand equity, while continuing to execute our innovate and accelerate playbook across our brand portfolio. As we have historically stated, our playbook focuses on investing in R&D and expanding product categories, new product innovation and driving brand awareness, all while remaining relevant to the core user. To break this down by our specific brand and business performance, Black Diamond sales continued to improve and ended flat to the prior year despite a lackluster winter season and continued negative impacts associated with COVID-19. Participation in the outdoor activity has broadly increased amid pandemic related restrictions, and this trend has showed no signs of stopping in 2021. Amid this elevated demand, however, global supply chains remained impacted by the pandemic, challenging the speed and the efficiency…

Thank you, John, and good afternoon, everyone. Jumping right into it. For the fourth quarter of 2020, total sales increased 24% to $75.9 million. We experienced sustained momentum in our brands and within our industry as a whole. By brand, Black Diamond sales were flat to $55.8 million and share sales were up 167% to $13.5 million. Our fourth quarter sales also include approximately $6.6 million of revenue contribution from Barnes, which as John mentioned, outperformed our expectations in its first few months on our platform. Excluding Barnes, our sales were up 14% organically for the quarter. The performance within Black Diamond was primarily due to 10% growth in Europe, particularly in our apparel, climb and mountain products. This sharp demand increase was driven by the reopening of certain markets and retail accounts in preparation for the winter season. In addition, our apparel business was up 19% with strong growth in Europe and domestically due to our approach of treating apparel as equipment, bringing to market award-winning products that are highly functional and developed around leading sustainable features. As John mentioned, sales growth at Black Diamond was also aided by a 12% increase in our direct-to-consumer business. This growth was partially offset by a decline in our international global distributor market due to lingering COVID-19 impacts as well as our transition away from a distributor model into a brand controlled strategy in the UK and Spain. We started selling directly in the UK in the fourth quarter of 2020, but Spain will transition in Q2 of this year. This transition reduced Black Diamond sales by approximately $1.4 million in the fourth quarter, but we would expect to more than make this up in the future once it is fully internalized. The $8.4 million year-over-year increase in Sierra was due to…

[Operator Instructions] We do have a question from Randy Konik from Jefferies.

So just I want to talk a little bit about the outlook, very impressive outlook, especially on the EBITDA dollar growth relative to the strong sales growth. So just to get a little more clarity there. Is that more of a mix item where the higher-margin Barnes and Sierra are impacting the EBITDA growth? Or is there -- and if it's something beyond that, is it also a potential SG&A leverage versus gross margin expansion? Because I think gross margin might be impacted a little bit by the supply chain. So I just want to get more clarity on the drivers of the EBITDA outperformance relative to the strong sales growth.

Yes. Randy, this is Aaron. Great question, and thank you. It's a multifaceted approach here, and this really highlights the benefit and strength of our overall portfolio. In that, the EBITDA growth will be a function of not only the strong performance that we expect to see within Sierra and Barnes, but also the recovery of the Black Diamond brand and the achieving or getting back to that magical milestone of 10% EBITDA within Black Diamond this year. So as a result, what we're seeing is a highlighted element of how this portfolio comes together, highlighting the strong performance and EBITDA profile of that, of Sierra and Barnes, while also being able to continue to leverage the SG&A and seeing some modest gross margin improvements associated with that of -- with Black Diamond as we continue to grow and scale the business.

Super helpful. And then I guess, John, a question for you, when you're talking to your wholesale account partners, just how are they feeling about the environment? And how are they thinking about their order trends for the balance of the year? It seems like things are strong out there, I just want to get your perspective on what your counterparts or your partners are telling you about what they see.

Yes. So both for spring '21, which is now, and fall '21, which will start for us, typically end of July, beginning of August, we are seeing strong bookings going into the year from our retail partners. Now in addition to that, what they are all seeing is currently the positive side of vaccinations around the United States, a warmer spring, the outdoors continue to explode and grow. And I think they're all optimistic that all those trends will carry into a very strong summer and fall business. And by the strength in economy, a very strong and robust Black Friday, Cyber Monday, holiday window. And so that -- their view is right now is the market is strong, both for outdoor-ism and the economy has got some upside.

Got it. Let me -- if I could sneak in one more, so sorry. The apparel business really took off in the quarter leading the way. Obviously, a lot of opportunity to get a higher percent -- higher penetration of that product category. What are you guys working on there in that -- in apparel in terms of SKU count proliferation or anything in that segment to kind of continue to drive strength in that part of the business -- in Black Diamond?

Yes. So obviously, I think what Aaron called out in the script was correct. We started to see real momentum for BD as a difference in the apparel market when we approached apparel as equipment for the first part. And that -- both award-winning product, but then also what we would call category killers, things like Stretch Rainwear, bottoms, stretch denim, backcountry ski apparel, those are the things that we have seen strong surge of growth and demand on, and they don't seem to be slowing down because those activities and choice of products aren’t slowing down. I think the other side that we've done really well is really start to look at this, we -- our line grows less in SKUs than it grows in growth. And the real focus is on that is getting deeper penetration with these category killers across our specialty national and key accounts as well as the surge that we're seeing in D2C and retail.

Next on the queue is Jim Duffy from Stifel.

Aaron, John, well I just have a question for you guys on the guidance. Hope you guys are doing well. Digging in on the guidance, so the BD guide calls for a return to 2019 levels essentially, which seems conservative, given some of the participation trends. Guys, if we're thinking about BD 2021 versus 2019, can you talk about how the mix of the business will be different? Is it seasonality differences, geographic differences, category channel differences? What's really going to be different looking at '21 over that 2019, $200 million base?

Yes. So we anticipate -- Jim, this is Aaron. We anticipate seeing greater acceleration within North America, both through the key accounts, but also our direct-to-consumer channel. We do anticipate seeing some softness in the international side through our international global distribution network that typically services the APAC region. And then also we'd like to be able to see some further acceleration within Europe. But currently with the lockdowns that are taking place, there's a little bit of uncertainty around how that continues to shake out. From a categorical standpoint, we anticipate seeing growth and continued progression within apparel. And then key categories such as lights, trekking poles, gloves, et cetera. And obviously, climbing will continue to be a mainstay, but those are where we're seeing the primary movers within those categories as we think about the future and in particular '21 versus that of '19.

So it's challenges in international markets to maybe holding back a more optimistic view in the guidance.

And we're also seeing a little bit -- what we saw in the fourth quarter in Europe is a surge because they came out of it earlier, because of the vaccine in the United States and the opportunities here, we're seeing faster surges in North America, as Aaron said, both in the wholesale side, but also the D2C side.

And then another point on that, Jim, is something that we highlighted in the script, and that's just related to the continued logistical or supply chain challenges that most of the globe is experiencing and we're not immune to it. We feel that we have really good supply chain partners. We are managing our working capital dynamically. We've been ramping up our supply chains really since October, November-ish, but some of the unforeseen challenges associated with the ports, et cetera, are causing us just to be a little bit more tempered in terms of how we're looking about the year, just recognizing that there's still a few things that we just need to iron out and continue to work through as we look to accelerate the business in the outer years.

Yes. Unfortunately, demand is not 100% translatable because of what's taking place either in factories or more importantly, frankly, in shipping.

And then -- I was going to ask about that. Should we consider that just a push from 1Q to 2Q within the spring season business? Or are you expecting these challenges that linger throughout the year?

Right now, it does appear that we should expect to continue to see some challenges, at least through Q2, if not into Q3. Unfortunately, that's something that is continuing to be part of the discussion as it relates to just not single a whole lot of relief over the next 3 to 4 months.

Okay. And then I wanted to ask on the Sierra and Barnes business. Can you guys talk a little bit about what capacity is in each of those? Sierra, I believe, on bullets alone, you've been doing kind of in the $14 million to $15 million range in capacity. Barnes, it sounds like you're already realizing some efficiencies there. And then I'm trying to think about how to consider revenue, the Barnes capacity gives you some incremental ammo revenue capabilities within Sierra. Is there a way to frame like that $80 million guide, what -- how that fits within the context of the total production capacity of the entities?

Yes. One of my favorite statements, as we always talk about is, obviously, as we look at this business, we continue to drive capacity as you're putting out. But at the same time, we're cautious to make sure that we don't line up for every single opportunity at bat to be a home run. So to your point, we continue to push capacity at Sierra, and we continue to see that strong. Obviously, much like we are seeing headwinds in BD with logistics, the difficulty in accelerating that business to the order book that we completely have is a function of components, not so much copper and lead from the bullet perspective, but if you want to build out the ammo side, which as you recall, is worth anywhere between 5 times to 8 times the revenue, you have to have bullets, which we make; plus primers, which we don't make; plus propellant, which we don't make; plus brass, which we don't make. In a Rubik's cube, that if you have 20 SKUs of ammo that you want to build, you have a Rubik's cube of 80 because the propellant, the primers and the brass is different by every bullet caliber. So it's a bit of a mathematical piece as we accelerate this. Obviously, right now, limiting part of that acceleration. We continue to maximize our capacity wherever possible on the bullet side. We have very strong order books on both Barnes and Sierra. We see lots of strength on the Barnes brand, and it's just a matter of accelerating that brand. But frankly, we believe that brand has as much value and importance in the market as the Sierra brand does. Though, despite today, Sierra is a brand that's on trend for 300 million to 350 million bullets of production and Barnes is in the 80 million to 100 million bullets of production range. So we continue to accelerate those. Obviously, our goal always is to maximize every single input to maximize every output. But at this point, like I said, we cannot -- our order books are strong, but we cannot deliver everything we would like because of constraints mainly on supply chains.

Next one on the queue is Laurent Vasilescu from Exane BNP Paribas.

Aaron, I appreciate that you broke out the Barnes revenues for the fourth quarter, I think, $6.6 million. Can you -- in terms of the guidance for 1Q of $70 million, how much should we assume comes from Barnes? And then how much should we assume for the full year? Would $25 million for the full year be the right estimate?

Yes, you're in the ballpark. Mainly, Laurent, we're going to view these 2 as a combined business. This is the strength of bringing these 2 businesses together is that with some shared capacity and manufacturing capabilities, et cetera, we may see some left pocket, right pocket type activity, but from here on out, we're going to really be focused more on what the combined business looks like versus trying to split the hairs, if you will, between the 2 brands.

Okay. Helpful. Okay. And then on gross margin, I understand there's lots of puts and takes, but you're obviously hearing a lot of companies talking about freight pressure. How do we think about the gross margin for 1Q? And assuming that this is just really one -- maybe potentially 2-quarter event, but could we see you guys get back to your 1Q '19 gross margin of 36% for the quarter?

It's going to be a little bit tough to get there just because of the compression on the supply chain side or on the logistics side. By way of context, as we talked about it, we saw a nice favorable mix when it comes to product and channel in Q4. We even were able to eliminate some of the value leakages associated with DM and discounting, and then also FX as a tailwind. But Q4, as an example, some of those challenges had a negative impact of close to about 200 basis points. And I would anticipate that we'll continue to experience some of that. I believe that we've been able to work through a good portion of that, but considering that it's still where we are today, I'd prefer to keep it a little bit more tempered on the gross margin side of things for Q1.

Absolutely. Okay. And then really nice to hear about the apparel side to Randy's question. Remind me, but Aaron, I think back 2 years ago, in the March 2019 call, it was called out, maybe things have changed with COVID. But the apparel business was about 10% of your Black Diamond business and footwear was a very low single-digit percent. Can you remind us where it stood for 2020? And where do you think the long-term potential is for these 2 categories?

Yes. So for 2020, we're sitting at, call it, 13% to 15% apparel as a function of the BD business. So we...

[And above our portfolio].

But as we discussed before, the way that we think about both of these opportunities over time is that we view these as needle movers. And in particular with apparel and the progression that we're seeing, long-term, we have a target of at least $100 million for this category for the brand, and it's going to evolve over the next couple of years, the way that it does. But that's how we're targeting at least the opportunity in the near term.

But even then, if you think about our business long term, to your point, and where we would be at that point, apparel, we believe apparel, especially the way in which we approach it as an equipment side of the business and accessories is probably worth 25% of our sales at some point.

Next one on the queue is Matt Koranda from ROTH Capital Partners.

For Matt. Just wanted to unpack the guidance a little bit. Just taking your comments around the return of a -- last time in back to around 10% EBITDA margin suggests some heavy compression there for Sierra. I understand the bunch of it will be tied to supply chain issues. Is there anything in OpEx that's coming up from the Barnes acquisition? I think I saw an incremental $1.7 million in the quarter.

Yes. Good question. And the guide that we're providing for '21 is very consistent with how we've outlined the combined business, being this 25% to 30% EBITDA business. So what you saw is that during 2020, Sierra obviously performed extremely well, and we'll continue to find ways to improve upon that, recognizing that there are some modest headwinds related to commodities and some other pressures. But what you're seeing in the guide is really a function of the combined business for a full year including that of Barnes and continue to ramp that up and integrate it into the system and making some investments into the operations and some key personnel and also the rebranding activities. And so for us, it's right in line with that target as it relates to how we're thinking about the year coming together and provides us with an opportunity to be able to continue to progress from there as well.

Got you. Helpful. And then for the cash flow outlook for the year. Just the $15 million, if I bridge that with CapEx, there's some modest working capital build suggesting in there. Anything else to think of or I might be missing out?

No, it's really the working capital. We want to have some optionality. With the cost of debt being what it is with our existing facility, the strength of our balance sheet is a great -- no pun intended, but it's a great asset. It's a great position to be in. It provides us with a lot of optionality, especially as it relates to how we think about managing inventory availability and also offsetting any noise associated with the cost of copper, as an example, we've been pretty open about how we manage the cost of copper and how we tend to go a little bit heavier on in certain windows of time to be able to insulate ourselves from such volatility. But then also on the Black Diamond side, this is a view for us to be able to utilize our balance sheet to ensure higher levels of availability, recognizing that it would come as a negative on the free cash flow side of things versus what we saw in last year. With that being said, we're going to continue to take a very disciplined approach here. We're not going to get over the tips of our skis, but we do recognize that there's an opportunity here amongst the volatility to take market share. And part of our playbook is product availability, on-time deliveries being easy to do business with, et cetera, et cetera. And we want -- we feel like we're in a really good position coming out of 2020 in the COVID side of things to be able to flex our muscles a little bit and try to put ourselves in a better position compared to that of our competition.

And counter to what everybody kind of came out of 2020, believing relative to COVID, what we've learned, despite that the world slammed into the marketplace, had we been sitting on $10 million worth of lights, we have sold those. Had we been sitting on $10 million worth of ammo, we would have sold that, right? And those are both functions of using our balance sheet to ensure availability of key product categories. And if it continues like it is, great, it will pay off in spades.

Next one is Linda Bolton-Weiser from D.A. Davidson.

Could you talk about -- I seem to recall that when you announced the Barnes acquisition that you talked about, some kind of innovation coming this year? I don't know. I guess it was in the Barnes side of things. Could you kind of comment on whether that's the case?

Yes. So to innovate and accelerate is a constant strategy, which is continue to innovate new bullets all the time, while at the same time, accelerating what you have now, both the existing as well as the new. And to be frank, we have lots of innovations that we could launch in '21 and beyond at this moment. But if I went out to a retailer right now and said to them, "Hey, guess what, I've got this new thing to show you," what he would say to me is "Love you, John, love the new products. But can you deliver me more of just the basics?" Right? And so this is a unique opportunity for the brand and something that Aaron focused on during our script is really focusing on maintain -- continue to gain market share with existing products while innovating but being ready for those of the future, deliver on time, have good fulfillment, be easy to do business with and steal market share through your on-time deliveries and fulfillment as fast as you can, which is great. We'll continue to innovate. And when the market isn't chasing us like crazy, we'll use that innovation to continue to drive the industry forward.

Great. And then can you remind us, you had taken some cost reduction actions in 2020. How much did you achieve for the full year? And then will any of those costs come back in 2021?

Yes. So we outlined a cost savings program of about $9.5 million, and we did not only achieve that but exceeded it modestly. And then as we think about those cost reductions coming back into 2021, there will be some level of that, that will come into play. One of the things that we highlighted before that we anticipated about $1.5 million to $2 million worth of those cost savings to be permanent in nature, which were committed to and consistent with in terms of our guide, but there are certain costs that we feel are necessary to continue to accelerate the business and support our long term initiatives. And so we've provided for those expenses for the year.

Next one on the line is Ryan Sundby from William Blair.

Just had, I guess, a follow-up on guidance as well. As we think about the sequencing for the year, in the past, I think like Black Diamond sales have been more of a 45% first half, 55% second half kind of slow. I know that wasn't the case last year due the COVID and some of the store closures. But should we expect to see BD look more like historical trends in 2021?

Yes, that 45-55 type split, spring/summer, fall winter?

Yes.

Ideally and obviously, that's the only caveat to that is just how much product coming out of Asia or sitting in containers, how long that takes. If you could ship anything today, yes, 100%.

Okay. And then I guess my follow-up on that was just to that point exactly is, given your guidance calling for an acceleration in sales in 2021, do you have any concerns about supply chain or port congestion or whatever impacting your ability to meet demand this year? I just want to make sure that was clear.

Yes, 100%. So as someone brought up earlier on the questions on this, our goal is to get back to -- into 2019 levels, both in revenue and also in EBITDA performance. Do we think that there's more outdoor-ism and demand for the brand than that today? Potentially, yes. And do we think that will continue to surge? Yes. The driver is not on order books or demand right now, it is as you -- as well brought up in this call, it's really more predicated on how fast can factories keep up with the demand with components being the supply chain shortage and then just the elongated logistics issues that we're facing, what used to be 6 weeks has turned into 12 weeks or longer. And port congestion and inability to either airfreight or boat freight because containers or planes aren't available, and it's just become a real challenge, not just for us, I suspect it's every industry trying to move things to the United States or to Europe right now.

Next question comes from Mark Smith from Lake Street Capital.

First one, just a clarifying question. I don't know if I missed it. On apparel, obviously, you had fantastic growth here in Q4. Can you give us what the number was for the year as far as kind of growth?

So it was 13% to 15% of total BD sales.

Perfect. And then second, looking at Barnes within kind of the guidance, 2 things. First, on Barnes, it doesn't sound like you're building that into the guidance at 100% capacity. Can you kind of discuss that, kind of what you're looking at for this year? And then I don't think you guys have typically quantified it, but can you talk at all about kind of the backlog of orders within the full Sierra segment?

No. So let me give you the perspective on that. Within Sierra, one of the fastest-growing categories has been that of ammo, right? And our goal, remember, as we talked about, was to get ammo when we launched it to be 10% of our business. And we think, as you saw in the fourth quarter, it became more than that, right? In Barnes, ammo represents more than 50% or 60% of the business opportunity within the segment and maybe more, given demand. And the reality is that Barnes only produces the bullet and can only load the ammo, but is at the mercy of the market for primers, propellant and brass. And so that literally -- it's not a function of what the order books are for Sierra and Barnes. When we put our guidance for 2021, it's really about how we can manage as scrappy as we are, how can we manage the component side of the business to accelerate this. Now as we get better in the year and manage it, we hope that we could meet or exceed the expectations. But we're being conservative because at this moment, like I said, the component availability is a real challenge.

Yes, absolutely. Next, just direct-to-consumer was really strong, continuing to see growth there. Can you break out at all the BD stores, kind of how those are performing? And kind of your outlook and thoughts on continued growth?

Yes. I think we were pleased given what COVID did in 2020 to retail. We were pleased with retail as a division of our D2C. As of today, we have 5 stores. Traffic was down in these stores, anywhere between 60% to 80%. But conversion rates jumped from the low 20s to 50% to 60%, which goes in sense, you're not going to go to the store, given the environment unless you really want to buy something. We continue to see opportunities to expand retail in 2021 and we'll probably add anywhere between 3 to 5 doors potentially. But again, you have to watch the market because not every market is responding or rebounding exactly the same. Like I said, we see as a long-term initiative. In the short-term, our focus has been more on the -- e-comm side of the D2C because it doesn't have closures. Unfortunately, even in markets like Big Sky, which we opened in November, we've had to close the store twice due to COVID restrictions. I think the other side that was really impressive and point out again about the growth in e-comm is that we did it without being off-price. And in a market that was very promotional driven, which we believe both proof of a super-fan brand, but also the discipline that long-term, the value of BD is in the product itself, not in its ability to short-term promote.

Okay. And last one for me real quick. Looking back when we have seen stimulus checks, any idea kind of any bump that those have put in demand for your products? And do you feel like you should get some bump and some piece of those checks that comes to you?

I don't know if we see it directly. Obviously, I think it has the potential to impact retail. I'd be honest with you right now, given our demand for our products, I don't think that will change it dramatically. Frankly, 1 or 2 deliveries out of Asia will have more impact than the stimulus check.

At this time, this concludes our question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the call over back to Mr. Walbrecht for closing remarks.

Okay. We'd like to thank everyone for listening to our call today, and we look forward to speaking to you again when we report on the first quarter of 2021 results. Be safe everyone, all the best.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.