Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Natuzzi's S.p.A. First Quarter 2024 Financial Results. As a reminder, you can join the conference call live also via telephone by dialing into the following number +1-412-717-9633 then Passcode 39252103# in addition to the link already provided via video. Once again, to join via phone, that's +1-412-717-9633 then Passcode 39252103#. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the introduction, we'll conduct a question-and-answer session. Instructions will be provided at that time for you to queue up for questions. Joining us on today's call are Mr. Antonio Achille, Natuzzi's Chief Executive Officer; Mr. Carlo Silvestri, Chief Financial Officer of the Natuzzi Group; Mr. Pasquale Natuzzi, Founder and Executive Chairman; Mr. Mario de Gennaro, Chief HR, Organization and Legal Officer; Mr. Diego Babbo, Global Retail Division Officer; and Piero Direnzo, Investor Relations. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. I'd like to turn the call over to Piero. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Kevin, and good day to everyone. Thank you for joining the Natuzzi's conference call for the 2024 first quarter financial results. After a brief introduction, we will give room for the question-and-answer session. Before proceeding, we would like to advise our listeners that our discussion today could contain certain statements that constitute forward-looking statements under the United States security laws. Obviously, actual results might differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements because of risks and uncertainties that can affect our results of operations and financial condition. Please refer to our most recent annual report on Form 20-F filed with the SEC for a complete review of those risks. The company assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking matters discussed during today's call. And now I would like to turn the call over to the company's Chief Executive Officer. Please, Antonio.

Thank you, Piero. Welcome, everyone, and good morning for people joining from US. Good afternoon from people joining from Europe. I will start by highlighting some of the figure of the first quarter 2024 and then provide more transparency on the strategic agenda and operational agenda, myself and the team is focusing on. So we closed the first quarter of 2024 with invoice sales pretty much in line with the previous year at around EUR84.5 million. If we look at that split by geography, US and China and the remaining geography are above last year South you know West Europe and emerging markets are the geography that reported lower sales versus last year. Clearly, when we talk about emerging markets, we include Russia and it's clearly a region where there is still a very significant geopolitical turbulence as well as when we talk about emerging markets, we talked about the Middle East area. And Europe is also in a sense, closer to those dynamics. In terms of sales, I believe it's important to highlight that sales from directly operated stores, so the store that we only operate directly have been growing of EUR20 million, sorry, arrive at EUR20 million, growing 13% versus first quarter same period last year and 10% versus 2022 that as you know was still a very strong year. This doesn't happen by chance, but happens because as we declared several times, we continue executing our strategy to become a more retailer-centric company. And in particular, that's true for North America, where the directly operated sales grew by nearly 30% versus the first quarter 2023 and 32% versus the first quarter of 2022. Again, let me restate that retail and US are toward a very central to our future development strategy. Another element I would like to…

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question today is coming from David Kanen from KWM LLC. Your line is now live.

Hi, guys. Are you able to hear me?

Yeah. We do.

Okay. Well, First, I'd like to, in a way congratulate you on some of the green shoots that I'm seeing. I think there are a lot of encouraging signs in the financial results that you reported. And I'd like to just drill down a little deeper to gain a greater understanding. I'm encouraged by the improvement in the gross margin as well as the management of operating expenses. It sounds like you have a number of growth initiatives underway expanding your network of DOS stores in North America. But what seems new is you called out this agreement with galleries in both North America and in Europe. So if you could speak to the incrementality of these galleries in Europe and North America. And then also you spent a little time talking about the JV in China. Is that an area despite the, let's call it, furniture depression that we're in right now, is that an area where also you expect to see some growth before the, let's call it, the reduction in interest rates and normalization and housing. So there's a lot I gave you there. I'll let you respond.

Thank you, Dave, and if the [Technical Difficulty] I will take one question at a time to make sure we're really capturing for the questions. So I will answer -- start answering today before opening to next question. So first of all, thank you, Dave for the encouraging award on the direction the company and the team is doing hard work to achieve clearly in a contest of still headwinds. To your question around the gallery in China. So we definitely are focusing on the quality of interaction with our final customers. These, in retail, reached the maximum, let's say, level of quality and brand immersion because we really can create and working specifically for Natuzzi Italia an immersive experience into our brand, showing the total living, which includes beyond the porcelain furniture, dining, bedroom, accessory lighting. And we also, as I mentioned before, especially for Natuzzi Italia, create a physical space where clients and designers are invited and welcome to spend time in defining a more, let's say, high quality project. This is the long-term direction, especially for Natuzzi Italia. At the same time, this concept applies to a portion of the market, which in certain geography is still an opportunity for us. In particular, I'm referring to US, where there are large retailers maybe in geography where a directly operated store would not be guaranteeing an adequate return. So we don't want to neglect those opportunity. At the same time, we want to elevate the quality of those opportunity, both for the benefit of the partner, so the retail and also for the benefit of establishing a strong relationship with the final customer. The reimagined gallery is really shooting for those two objectives because by providing a more conductive experience in the brand in this multi-brand environment, it guarantees high returns for the retailer because the investment in those reimagined gallery are really been very thoughtful about guaranteeing a good retail return for the partner. So we're not talking about investment in the amount that will go in a directly operated store. But still those elements that create an atmosphere of the brand, plus a very careful interpretation of the layout and the merchandising can provide an adequate level of experience of the brand for the final customer. And this apply specifically for Natuzzi Editions even though there are some circumstances where also Natuzzi Italia can explore this option. So this does not contradict at all our long-term view of having a more customer-centric and a more high-quality interaction with consumer. But recognize that there are pockets of growth opportunity in that channel that are very important and also somehow needed to sustain the volume we need to achieve for our growth. I hope I addressed in a proper manner, the first question, unless please Dave stop me because I will move then to the second question regarding China.

Well, if you could provide more detail on the gallery business in North America and Europe, in the press release, you specifically called out 29 new gallery agreements in North America and then 92 in the rest of the world. So should we view this as investors as this is incremental that the gallery business should grow year-over-year with this incremental distribution.

So, the short answer is, yes, but let me provide a bit more context because those they're not entirely new accounts. There are situations where those gallery are a way to restart a dialogue with accounts that they were [indiscernible]. This is the case for instance of Germany. Germany, we are not distributing. Now we are going to open 22 gallery. That is fully incremental business. In some circumstances, especially in US, part of that additional gallery is a conversion of a space that we have in a department store where the quality of display of the brand was not activated. But you could interpret that more as organic growth, elevating the quality of the distribution in existing account. So in that part of business [Technical Difficulty] somehow on organic growth we are re-qualifying. Dave, there's a bit of noise. Maybe, Kevin, you can help us in, okay, much better. Thank you. So within the gallery, you can see a part of, let's call it, organic growth, which is achieved by elevating the quality distribution of existing partner convincing them to step up and open a gallery instead of a less qualified environment and there is also new account which has been, which is appealing proposal of gallery that they get convinced to create a space for Natuzzi Italia, Natuzzi Edition that they didn't have before. So that is the way you should, as investors look at this opportunity, which is not, as I mentioned at all contradicting our idea of retail force.

Can you hear me?

Yeah. Now, yes.

Okay. And then here's a question for Carlo. We know that at some point, the housing market is going to improve. Here in North America last year, I believe, just over 4 million homes sold. When you look at the long-term average, it's around 5.5 million. So about 28% fewer homes sold and there's a direct correlation between furniture sales and housing transactions. They almost correlate one-to-one. So at some point, things are going to normalize and the Fed is going to cut rates. It seems with some of the incremental distribution, the new stores and a recovery kicking in maybe in the next 12 to 24 months that we should be able to get back over $100 million in revenue. So my question for Carlo is at $100 million of revenue, will gross margin exceed 40% with some of the measures that you've taken?

Let's say that, David, thank you very much for your question, first of all. And let's say that as our progression shows in the previous quarter, we are already heading in that direction. So also integrating the retail margin in which we are going to go versus the 40% that you did mention. So this is a progression that we did started already by improving our gross margin working on a price discipline and adding that into a retail progression to our numbers, we will go to -- we should go towards that 40% that you did mention.

Antonio, if you could answer the question, and then I'm going to go back into queue regarding the joint venture in China. It seems as though you now have greater autonomy and influence over the JV. Could you talk a little bit about that and the effect that you expect to see over the next 12 months in China if these changes will contribute growth year-over-year?

Okay. Let's move to China. First of all, just not to be misunderstood. The governance, the rules, the China JV hasn't changed, in the sense that Natuzzi owning 49% in our, let's say, correspondent part Kuka owning 51 still create a situation where the governance is clearly leading to a key operational decision taken by the majority shareholder. What we have been achieving is creating a legitimacy that supported us to be more active in driving key choices about store merchandising, retail merchandising. What we call commercial excellence, which is how you should approach sales with dealers, where we're basically in a very open and partnership by way we shared with the JV, which is relatively newer to brand management, what has been the achievement of Natuzzi in other geography. By sharing those best practice and by heavily investing personally, and when I mean personally, not me, but I mean also me, but the full team in showing what can be achieved, we create a space, a much larger space of influence on the JV, which is a positive influence. So it's not a power influence, but it's a competence driven influence. Some people, including General Manager of the JV will be in July, first week of July in Italy and the discussion on how to make sure this kind of influence can continue would be central to that. But this is a description of the process. So if I go back to 2021, for instance, we didn't have any visibility of the performance of the JV at the granular level. We now do see the performance of the JV at the store level for the stores which are directly operated by the JV, Diego Babbo, our Global Retail Division Manager is being involved in discussion with the team of…

Question is coming from Corey Pinkston from Waterways Capital Advisors. Your line is now live.

Right. Good afternoon. Can you hear me?

Yes, we do, Corey.

Great. Well, I think to echo what David said, and obviously, I've been a supporter and continue to be for a while here. Just quickly the leadership of you and the support and leadership of Pasquale and really the execution of the team is incredibly impressive with the macro headwinds that everybody in your industry faces. But the operating leverage that you're creating and your transparency, it's one thing to execute on these, but when you start to talk about the gross margins getting to 40% and then kind of giving us clarity around the breakeven targets, we all think kind of long-term as to what David said, which is the power in this brand is it's pretty strong. One comment that, as you said, you walk through the retail initiatives that against all of the transformation and turnaround of the operating side and getting that to where you want to have it. Clearly, the environment right now puts some constraints on the, as you said, the full retail expansion. But when I listen to this call and I read your results and you talk about what you're doing on the retail the design, the gallery, the trade business that you're developing, kind of what I'll call the commercial business with contractors, while you're not able to potentially expand the footprint or some of the other things, as an investor, it doesn't really feel that that you're having to be disciplined or more disciplined around the CapEx, et cetera, as to what you might do, but it really doesn't feel like you're missing on where you want to invest for the turn, as David mentioned, whether it's 12 months or 18 months as we get to a more normalized environment. So can you just expand on that a little bit because while you're not able to maybe put the CapEx you might in a normal environment, it doesn't seem like you're missing a lot for the turn.

Thank you, Corey, again. And it's really encouraging to get your support as investors because, I mean, we have -- and I have two priorities. One is the customer, the second one is the shareholders. So for me, it's very important that you are very direct to us and I appreciate your support to us. If I interpret quite your question, but let me restate basically, you're asking us why we're not putting more CapEx in retail to support our growth. Is that what you're asking?

No. Actually, I'm not asking that. I actually applaud you to the fact that you're taking advantage of this situation to not only rationalize your operating footprint and get that to where we want to have it because the power of that operating leverage drives to the bottom line when we get the turn. I guess I'm not asking why not more CapEx. It seems like you're able through your choices you're having to make on the retail side and the sales channels that you're kind of getting, you're able to continue to support the areas where you're going to drive the greatest growth now and --

Okay. I got. I got you. Yes. So basically, let's say, two discontinuity avenues to create a better margin and better leverage and then there is, let's say, business as usual. So business as usual, which is our focus is organic growth. When you have retail and stores, you bring on more the fixed cost, labor, rents, inventory. So the more you sell the better it is. And this is a handless job. We now have an US store in the range of 5 million, 6 million, which if you go back just 2019, the top performer were more in the range of 2 million. So something has been achieved and kudos goes to the management, which support us, but a lot still can be achieved to make this figure more systematic. So this is the first avenue to increase margin and return on capital also because we were talking about the margin and I want to remind that in a well-managed store, we get an integrated margin above 70%, where integrated margin means the retail margin plus the manufacturing margin, which, of course, then show us in our P&L. And let's say, organic avenue to create margin. Then there are discontinuity way of creating margin. One is reducing our SG&A structure, where what we can do in terms of reducing discretional spending has been done. We continue doing, of course, a great focus on discretional spending, but the company is clearly working on a very tight management of expenses. The other way is cutting, let's say, head counts. And this is something which very much depend on our long-term plan, which has been agreed on with the different stakeholders, but also our capacity to sustain the CapEx to execute those restructuring. And is the first avenue for creating value in a non-structural way. The second way is to open more stores. Opening a store is not something you should do light heart, because we learned the other way that if you open a store in the wrong location is a problem that cannot be solved. So we are very careful about it to find the right location. Once we have the right location, identify the right team. But of course, that is an avenue which if we identify the right location, the right team and we're operating well can be promising. The speed to which we can operate new store is, again, a function of our ability to invest. So it's true that for the time being, we have not been deviating from our, let's say, strategic agenda, which include those actions that I just finished summarizing. But of course, if we had more capital, we could accelerate on those two area mentioned, which is retained or restructuring. In a situation like this, we need to safeguard the cash. And of course this also call for some trade-off in terms of reinvesting in those area versus safeguarding the cash position. Corey, let me know if I addressed your question.

You did. And from our just the balance and clearly the team working on the trade-offs between cash management and the investments, it's just the observation is in a difficult environment, you're continuing to be able to push those areas where you see the ability to get traction in retail across the board without having to compromise or with being able to keep some of that CapEx or restructuring. And I'm not going to ask specifically what you anticipate, but I would assume that you are providing for the additional restructuring here and there that you may continue to need to take those charges. So we won't ask specific numbers. One last question and I apologize if I had stepped away, but you do refer to the raw material cost and the hyperinflation that we've seen there. And I'm not sure if you covered it earlier in the call, but are you seeing -- is that alleviating or softening somewhat? How do you see the trends on that side?

So material-wise, most of -- I mean we are a complex production company, where product gets a lot of different inputs. But when we look at the, let's say, bulk of input, which are fabric, leather, motion, metallic part. Most of those, they are, let's say, not experimenting anymore on inflation similar to what we experimented in the last year. So currently, we just review the progression of the year and most of material are in line with our internal expectation. So for gross margin, no surprise. For below gross margin, transport, as you know, there is one of the consequence of the political tension is the Suez Canal not being any longer available to cut the route towards West. And this is creating some transport increase for those, let's say, routing, which we start witnessing. We were making space in our budget for that increase. We were also protected for a significant part of the year by prenegotiated tariff, but that is somehow creating some tension on the transport level also because you know that then when the global transportation get unbalanced, there's always a cascade effect because companies start moving container from one part to the other, which have not been fully filled. There is also some tactical gaming played by the company, the shipping company. So they might be on shipping some tension. But for raw material, likely we are definitely witnessing a more normalized environment, which is another way, midterm for potential expanding the margin. We also been very systematic in assessing our marginality. The company operates in other markets, operates two brands, does result in 100 pricing list, sometimes which are customer specific. We are now being very systematically making sure that there is no spot in those pricing list that are eroding our marginality. So that is another area that give me confidence that midterm, we'll be able to extract more value in terms of gross margin.

Thank you. That's helpful. Thank you, guys.

Thank you to you, Corey. Kevin, maybe you want to go another round.

Sure. We do have one question in queue. [Operator Instructions] Our next question is coming from Kirby Newburger from Benjamin F. Edwards. Your line is now live.

Hello, gentlemen. Can you hear me?

We do.

Okay. Antonio, when we spoke a week or two ago, one of the things that was jumped out at me was that -- and maybe it was just in the United States, but over a period of time, your average sale has gone up by 10 or 20-fold and we talked about a little bit about the customers that are hotels and country clubs and the airport lounges or whatever. Are those mainly customized? And do they have a higher margin than the noncustomized.

Okay. So, Kirby, thank you again. And of course, I welcome any investor to reach us for individual discussion as the one we have regularly with some of you. We're very happy to engage and be transparent. Of course, in those discussion, we don't anticipate any let's say material on public information. Then going back on your question, Kirby, let me kind of divide in two. First is what we are witnessing on our traditional retail business and then the contract. And let me take US. So the stretch of the brand in the US, especially if we talk about Natuzzi Italia has been terrific. As Pasquale used to remind us the regional wave of success in the company three decades ago was very much about value for money. So it was delivering this innovative, colored leather sofa for 395, 400, 410 landed cost, which was, of course, a terrific innovation in the market at a very affordable price. And it was guaranteed the first way of success in the company. Natuzzi Italia now most sold individual product configuration. It's called Iago, leather 25, three engines is sold nearly to US$1400. So you can think about the stretch of the brand, but that's not only the -- that's only part of the reality because for most of client situation, we're not talking any longer to sell a product, but to create with the client project, a solution. So we have those kind of individual residential project that we call trade because often there is a designer involved, they can go up to US$50, US$100, US$200, US$300 for each project because there are multiple environment, very often in large villas that we can deliver. And this is happening in our stores. So in our store, both the individual clients tend to…

That answers a lot of my question, but I would still like to know a little bit about and maybe the numbers are here and I don't -- a breakdown of what percentage of sales is the Natuzzi Italia and what percentage of sales is this new contract business.

So. Let me clarify. Contracts. We do have visibility because I ask and I must say Carlo and the team responded very well to manage our business as some of the parts. So we definitely look at contract as a standalone business unit, but the sales that we do are typically Natuzzi Italia product. So you see that part of the Natuzzi Italia sales not as a different kind of, let's say, reported sales because they are not, which is very important for us. They are not on branded sales. They are branded sales because by those opportunity, we also look at ways to strengthen, let's say, our brand. If we look specifically at the first quarter 2024, the sales of Natuzzi Italia were 29.5 million, which include trading contract and the sales of Natuzzi Edition were 46.5 million, looking at first quarter 2024. So, Kirby, what I referred before is trading contract are included in Natuzzi Italia sales.

Okay. Thank you.

Then internally we don't -- we do have the share of the newly created division and maybe when things will get more mature, we also will be creating transparency for US investor to look at this newly established division that we're really looking to manage as a business unit, not only from an organizational standpoint because we appointed a separate team, but also from an economic standpoint because we're looking at it as a kind of new startup within the group. But for the time being, we don't disclose that figure in our press release. We might decide to do it for the time being, those get accounted under Natuzzi Italia sales.

Thank you. We reached end of our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over for any further or closing comments.

My side, I will say thank you again, all of you, for being with us. Let me stop here to pass over to Pasquale. If you want to have any final remarks in closing this conference.

Antonio, first of all, my personal and sincere complement, you touched all the points. You answered to all the questions in a correct way. I mean because there have been several questions addressed to you and probably one of the question or the answer that probably we need to address also to our shareholders is that in China we are teaching them. We are training them how to manage correctly the brand and retailer. In addition to that, also, we are addressing and teaching them, helping them to restructure the JV company. Because as you remember, certainly, Antonio, they just fired 30 people, and they are going to fire additional people. I mean but and then hire more qualified people to manage brand and retailers. I mean, so that's something that I'm sorry that you missed it.

Yes. Thank you for complimenting.

So that's one. Then there is another question. You mentioned the Natuzzi region. Okay. Yes, I strongly believe, as you know, that we should focus on organic growth, okay. And we know that there are improvements to be made in our stores, in our US, in America, but also in other geography where we should improve the consumer experience. That means that we should make some improvement in merchandising and visual training to sense people in the store. I mean so that's Diego knows very well what we are doing. Now brand region it's just disciplined. In other world our manager in all the geography they need a clear direction, they need to implement the brand management in a very disciplined way and that's what we are doing. That's what we have been doing in the last 8, 10 months and has been very much appreciated from the customer that they came to Milano, they came to HighPoint. They came into New York during the New York Design Week, they are coming here to the Congress also. I mean you addressed very well all the issue, but there are just those issues. We know that we have space for organic growth, we know what we should do. And certainly that's our priority. So as you know, Antonio, you and I, we very much agreed on the company's direction together with all the management team. Other than that, I appreciate all the questions that our shareholders are asking to us that means that they care about our company. And this is very important for us. Thank you very much, everyone.

Thank you, and thank you, Pasquale, for closing this call. Kevin, I believe we can close it now. Thank you, Pasquale, and thank you, everyone.

Thank you. That does conclude today's webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.