Conn's, Inc. Price & Performance (CONN)

Which could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated above. Your statements today are Norm Miller, the company's CEO and Tim Santo, the company's CFO. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Mr. Miller. Good morning and thank you for joining today's call to review the progress we're making combining W. S. Badcock and Conn's and our Q4 fiscal year 2024 financial results. I am excited to provide an update on the integration between executing against several near term strategic priorities that we believe will position the company for year over year improvements in retail sales and profitability, As a reminder, on December 18, 2023, we announced and closed a transformative transaction with Badcock, by uniting the 2 companies each with over 120 years of serving customers, we have created a leading home goods retailer with more than 550 retail locations across 15 states in the Southern United States.

Once fully integrated, we believe the transaction will accelerate our growth by combining 2 complementary businesses with similar product categories, payment solutions and customer profiles, while driving material cost savings, enhancing gross margins and improving operating leverage. Over the past 3 plus months, the combined leadership team is focused on integrating the 2 organizations [indiscernible] in the coming quarters. Our cross functional teams are working with strong momentum to quickly improve our performance and create last value for our customers, employees, Dealers communities and shareholders. As a result, we have identified 5 near term strategic priorities that include transitioning Badcock's credit program to Conn's in house loan product, optimizing our merchandising strategy, [indiscernible] Fully integrating our combined supply chain Leveraging Khan's e commerce capabilities, and finally realizing significant cost synergies. So with this overview, let's look at the strategic priorities in more detail starting with efforts to transition Badcock to Conn's credit program. As I mentioned on our last call, Badcock currently provides an in house revolving credit program to its customers and last year approximately 60% of their sales By its nature, revolving credit products provide consumers with higher monthly payments, lower availability and shorter durations. Compared to Conn's installment loan product.

For example, Badcock's average ticket last year was approximately $1400 which in the state of Florida equates to a monthly payment of By comparison, the same $1400 purchase in Florida would have a monthly payment of approximately $56 under Conn's in house installment loan. As you can see at the same average ticket, Badcock's monthly payment is nearly twice as much as Conn's. We have stated historically that our core customer makes a purchasing decision primarily based on the amount of their monthly payment. As you can see from this example, and with similar product categories and customer profiles, we believe we can significantly increase Badcock's average ticket. In fact, Conn's went through a similar multi year transition and had an average ticket of under $1600 when I first joined compared to an average ticket of over $1800 today. This successful transition supports a high degree of confidence that we can provide more purchasing opportunities for Badcock customers As a result, we believe credit driven growth strategies will be an important near term catalyst to unlock revenue and cost synergies in the coming quarters. With much of the work already underway, we have launched Conn's credit in select Badcock stores here in the month of April with the expectation of offering cons credit across all Badcock locations by the end of May.

We are also pursuing additional credit driven opportunities to capture more customers. First, we will focus on leveraging cons prequalified direct mail and credit based marketing expertise to drive sales at Badcock. Most recently, Badcock is focused on a product based marketing strategy, while over the years Conn's has utilized credit based marketing channels and messaging to promote our multiple payment options. Given our similar geographies, customer profiles and product categories, we believe we can quickly leverage Conn's credit based marketing experience to better promote the payment options of the combined company. 2nd, we plan to implement the innovative digital application process we successfully launched last year. This will make it easier for Badcock's customers to apply for the multiple payment options we provide while limiting the impact a credit application has on a customer's credit score. The enhancements we made to our application process over the past year had a powerful impact at Conn's as our application volume increased 21.6% year over year 3rd, we also believe the transition from Badcock's in house revolving credit product to Conn's in house installment loan will enhance the yield on Badcock's portfolio. Before we even consider expected increases in Badcock's sales, we believe the transition to cons in house installment loan will contribute nearly $20,000,000 in incremental finance charges and other revenue once the portfolio is fully seasoned.

While the yield will be higher, we expect our customers to benefit from a lower monthly payment and greater purchasing power similar to Con successful transition from a retail installment contract to a direct loan structure back in 2016. Finally, we expect Badcock to benefit from Conn's 10 plus years of experience offer While Badcock has historically offered 3rd party lease to own plans, it represented only about 3% of sales last year compared to over 9% of Conn's 4th quarter retail sales, which was the highest quarterly level at Conn's since I rejoined the company as CEO in October 2022. Lease to own growth at Conn's reflects the success of our efforts to refocus on our core credit constrained customers given Badcock's similar product categories and store locations, we believe there are material opportunities to drive lease stone sales at Badcock. It's important to note that over the past 8 years, Conn's has developed a best in class credit infrastructure with a team of highly experienced leaders, supporting sophisticated underwriting, servicing collections and recovery capabilities. We expect our credit driven strategies will quickly contribute to sales growth in the coming quarters and I look forward to updating investors on the success of our rollout on future calls.

Optimizing our merchandising strategy is priority I want to review today. Badcock was founded as a furniture and mattress retailer expanding its product categories over the years to include appliances, consumer electronics and home office, with furniture and mattress sales representing 70% of Badcock's annual sales prior to the transaction. Conversely, Conn's was founded as an appliance retailer expanding our product categories over the years to include consumer electronics, furniture, mattress, and home office with appliance, electronics and computers representing nearly 60% of Conn's product sales prior to the transaction. We believe this complementary sales mix creates opportunities to drive appliance consumer electronics and home office sales at Badcock while supporting greater furniture and mattress sales at Conn's. As we look at Badcock and Conn's assortment, approximately 95% of our product categories overlap but we only share 45% of the same vendors. As we align our assortment across our combined product categories, we are focusing on capitalizing on the best selling products at both Conn's and Badcock. We will also take advantage of material margin and cost opportunities as we consolidate vendors benefit from our larger scale and leverage the success of both Conn's and Badcock's private label platforms. We have already started to realize the initial benefits of transitioning Badcock's expertise in higher margin furniture and Matt and optimizing our merchandising strategy, as we work through our existing inventory over the next 12 to 18 months and further strengthen our assortment, we expect to benefit from additional opportunities to drive sales growth and expand margins over the coming year.

We will also benefit from Badcock's higher percentage of furniture and mattress sales. With just 6 weeks of Badcock's retail sales, our consolidated retail gross margin in the 4th quarter was 38.3% compared to 33.5% in the quarter prior to the transaction representing a 4 80 basis point increase. The contribution of Badcock was the primary driver of gross margin improvement from the 3rd quarter. As our integration efforts continue, we expect our retail gross margin to improve to over 40% in the coming quarters. The next strategic priority I will review today are the enhancements we are making to integrate our supply chains and transition Badcock to Conn's Last Mile delivery and service capabilities. In fact, efforts to integrate our supply chain are already underway. Recently, we started the process to consolidate regional where Conn's and Badcock overlap. We have also started to leverage Badcock's international freight capabilities and expertise, which we believe will improve our cost per container by approximately $1,000 going forward. Transitioning Badcock's delivery and service capabilities to Conn's best in class platform is another important component of our integration plan. Last year, Conn's provided last mile delivery services to approximately 74% of our retail sales.

In addition, 95% of appliance and TV repairs are performed by Conn's employees and our repair time is 50% faster than the industry average. On the other hand, Badcock's delivery and service model is decentralized and differs by location. By transitioning to Khan's centralized platform, we believe we can improve Badcock's customer experience and leverage our existing delivery infrastructure. In addition, since we operate in the same states, we can quickly transition Badcock's last mile delivery and service capabilities to cons while also driving efficiencies. We expect these efforts to provide another opportunity to expand our retail gross margin in the coming quarters. Turning to our e commerce integration strategies, For the year ending January 31, 2024, Cont had record e commerce sales of $109,300,000 representing a 38.2% increase from last fiscal year and nearly a ninefold improvement from the $12,600,000 in e commerce sales Badcock's e commerce sales $22,400,000 this past year reflecting a 27% year over year decline from a balance of sales standpoint e commerce represented 11.1% of Conn's total retail sales last year compared to 4.6% at Badcock. By leveraging Conn's established digital resources and capabilities, we are confident we can improve Badcock's e commerce sales and begin a multi year process to align Badcock with Conn's growing balance of e commerce sales.

Initially, we expect to improve Badcock's performance through the actions underway to optimize our product assortment and transition Badcock to Conn's last mile delivery and service model. During the year, we will begin leveraging Khan's digital marketing capabilities, which includes our recently launched application process and the investments we have made across our digital platform to further support the e commerce growth strategies of the combined company. As a result, we continue to believe we can grow e commerce sales to well over $300,000,000 in the next several years. The final strategic priority I want to review today are the actions we are pursuing to realize significant cost savings, and quickly expand profitability I am pleased to report that we are ahead of plan and during the Q4 alone, we removed approximately $50,000,000 of combined annualized expense optimizing vendor agreements and eliminating other operating costs. We have identified an additional $50,000,000 of cost that we expect to remove from the combined business over the next 18 months. Looking at our quarter to date sales, as of today's call, overall sales are up approximately 40.7% year over year as a result of the contribution of Badcock. Quarter to date same store sales for the combined business are down approximately 13 0.5%.

As the year progresses, we expect to see an inflection in same store sales performance as we benefit from the integration and growth strategies we have outlined today.

We also expect market trends for the home related products we sell to improve in the back half of the year. In addition, we continue to focus on supporting our customers and driving retail sales while prudently managing credit risk as our core customers feel the ongoing effects of higher inflation driven by increased housing cost and car expenses. We believe our sophisticated in house credit underwriting and collection capabilities combined with our industry leading payment options provide the company with a significant advantage over other retailers. Despite a fluid operating environment, we believe fiscal 2025 will be a transformative year for Conn's. The Badcock transaction has exceeded our initial expectations. We have quickly identified powerful operating and financial synergies and created a growth focused integration plan that we are now executing against. While there will be continued one time costs that will impact our results in the Q1, we believe our shareholders will begin to see the benefits of our new operating model in the second quarter and we expect to produce accelerating revenue and earnings growth through this year I want to reiterate my opt Over the coming quarters, I am confident will start to benefit from the powerful financial model we are creating which is supported by our premium shopping experience, best in class payment offerings, leading e commerce capabilities and unique dealer network.

In addition, we expect our larger scale will improve purchasing and logistics expenses while also driving opportunities to leverage fixed cost. We expect to benefit from more than $100,000,000 of annualized cost synergies as well as over $50,000,000 of revenue synergies over the next 18 months. As positive momentum in our business builds, we continue to believe that we can achieve annual adjusted EBITDA of between 180 [indiscernible] between $2,000,000,000 to $2,200,000,000 by the end of our next fiscal year. I believe strongly we have the right strategies leadership team, associates Dealers and platform in place to deliver on the goals we have outlined today. Together, we will have an even greater impact on the communities we serve and I am excited by the opportunities we have in front of us to produce long term value for our stakeholders. I would like to take this opportunity as well to acknowledge Tim Santo, who has recently appointed Conn's permanent CFO. Tim, on behalf of everyone at Conn's, congratulations on your promotion. Now I'll turn the call over to Tim to review our financial results in more detail.

Thank you, Norm. I am pleased to join everyone on this morning's call. And excited by the near term strategies we are pursuing to quickly integrate Badcock and produce improving sales and profitability in the coming quarters. [indiscernible] I look forward to updating investors on the progress we are making on future calls. Our 4th quarter financial performance reflects ongoing industry headwinds as well as onetime costs primarily associated with the completion of the Bagcock transaction on December 18, 2023, In addition, it is important to note that our 4th quarter results include approximately 6 weeks of Badcock's performance and Badcock's financial results will be consolidated in our quarterly results Going forward, On a consolidated basis, total revenues were $366,100,000 for the 4th quarter, representing a 9.3% year over year increase. For the Q4, the company reported GAAP net income of $43,300,000 compared to a GAAP net loss of $42,800,000 for the same period in fiscal year 2023. GAAP net income includes a one time bargain purchase gain of $104,900,000 transaction costs of $16,300,000 and a one time loss on extinguishment of debt of 14,200,000 Reconciliations of GAAP to non GAAP financial measure are available in our 4th quarter earnings press release that was issued this morning.

On an adjusted basis, we reported a net loss of $31,000,000 for the 4th quarter. Compared to a net loss of $36,700,000 in that same period last fiscal year. Looking at the performance of our Total retail revenues were 296 $900,000 in the 4th quarter. The 9.6% year over year increase in retail revenue was primarily driven by Badcock revenue offset by a 14.4% decrease in same store sales. Same store sales during the 4th quarter were impacted by lower discretionary spending for home related products, following an extended period of excess consumer liquidity, which resulted in accelerated sales. For the Q4, Retail segment operating loss was $38,100,000 compared to a retail segment operating loss of $19,500,000 for the same period in fiscal On a non GAAP basis, adjusted retail was $21,800,000 compared to a loss of $11,700,000 for the same period last year. Reflecting a decrease in same store sales and higher SG and A costs, partially offset by improved retail gross margin. Turning to our credit segment, 4th quarter credit revenues increased 10.4 to $70,800,000 primarily due to the addition of Badcock's receivables partially offset by a decline in the average balance of the Conn's consumer receivable [indiscernible] Overall credit trends remained stable reflecting prudent underwriting strategies aimed at controlling risk during a more uncertain economic period.

As a percent of the portfolio, the 60 day delinquency balance was 12.2% at January 31, 2024 compared to 12.7% last fiscal year, The balance of re aged accounts as a percent of the portfolio was 18.8% Compared to 16.5% for the same period in fiscal year 2023.

Both 60 day delinquencies and re age balance while we have also experienced a significant increase in the weighted average credit score of finance sales. In fact, our 60 day delinquency balance has improved by 30 basis points And the re age balance has improved 10.6 percentage points since January 31, 2020.

For the Q4 of fiscal year 2024, net charge offs as a percent of the average portfolio balance were 15.9% compared to 17.1% for the same period last fiscal year. The company reported a credit segment loss before taxes of $53,100,000 in the 4th quarter compared to a credit segment loss of $27,000,000 for the same period last fiscal year. On a non GAAP basis, adjusted was $1,400,000 compared to an operating loss of 13.9 $1,000,000 for the same period last year. Reflecting higher credit segment [indiscernible] partially offset by an increase in our provision for bad debt.

Our credit spread was 7.5% at January 31, 2024, compared to 9.1% last fiscal year. Looking at our balance sheet and capital position in more detail. On January 26, 2024, completed a $252,600,000 ABS with the Class A bond 13 times oversubscribed and the Class B bond 9 times oversubscribed which reflects the strong performance of our customer receivables. We anticipate completing 2 to 3 additional ABS transactions this year as a result of higher expected sales levels. At January 31, 2024, In addition, we had $50,000,000 of borrowing the delayed draw term loan resulting in total available borrowing capacity of $205,300,000 As we look forward towards the future, we are excited by the direction Conn's is headed. There will be continued one time costs that impact our results in the Q1, but we expect to see the benefits of our new operating model starting in the second quarter. In addition, we expect to benefit from more than $100,000,000 of annualized cost synergies as well as over $50,000,000 of revenue synergies over the next 18 months. As this positive momentum builds, we expect to generate annual adjusted EBITDA of between $180,000,000 to 2 $20,000,000 on total annual sales, of between $2,000,000,000 to $2,200,000,000 by the end of our next fiscal year.

Finally, I want to share my thanks to all our team members for their continued hard work, service and dedication. So with this overview, Norm and I are happy to take your questions.

Operator, please open the call to questions. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. Our first question comes from the line of Derek Zormers with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question. Hi, good morning everyone. Can you talk about your expectations for store count at both Conn's and Badcock in the near term?

Yes, Derek. Appreciate the question. What I would say is In the near term, I don't expect any variance from the 550 stores we currently have longer term. My expectations would be some of the overlap specifically in the Florida market where we're Conn's is relatively new in that market and we've got about 20 stores there and there is some overlap in that market in North Carolina. There could be some consolidation, but I wouldn't expect that to happen probably until next fiscal year.

Okay, got it. And then on the gross margin expansion, in this quarter, can you go go into more detail on some of the drivers behind that? How much was attributable just to product mix shift and were there any other drivers behind the expansion?

Yes, very excited about what's happening from a gross margin standpoint with the business. As I mentioned in my prepared comments, the product mix shift is a significant portion of it. That's probably 80% of it, both product mix shift on the con side and bringing the Badcock higher mix of furniture and mattress into the overall combined business. Is the primary driver of driving the higher margin We are seeing improvement from a freight cost standpoint. On both sides of the business, which is being helpful as well. [indiscernible] very bullish on the gross margin standpoint. The retail margin we would expect, as I said in my comments, that to continue to see upside there and that margin to be over 40 percent on a consistent basis here as we go through the rest of this year and going forward into the future.

Got it. Thank you. It's very helpful. And then on credit applications for the quarter, kind of year over year growth is moderating a bit but the mix of sales financed continues to grow. Which seems a little counterintuitive. Is there you provide any commentary on what's driving that dynamic or any other color behind Sure. Part of the reason that it's you're seeing some moderation in growth is we're starting to lap some of the increases the dramatic increases we saw in application growth a year ago.

A year ago. But the reason you were still seeing growth is we're seeing average ticket increase And we're also seeing better usage So it's not just a number of applications it's how many applications are approved and ultimately used. And as we get better and more efficient at targeting the right customers and we're getting more effective in that from that from that front, it actually is enabling us to still drive Conn's financing and LTO financing growth year over year.

Got it. And then on the the timeline for integrating Badcock onto kind of Conn's financing platform. Is there any kind of kind of we'll will corporate stores from Badcock have more or less access to financing products than franchisee stores or is there any kind of differentiation there on the store mix?

No. Really isn't a differentiation. Currently there is that Within the Badcock stores, they're but they are still doing Badcock financing and they have in their stores. But as we said, their in house financing is not nearly as sophisticated from an underwriting standpoint as well as the product itself is very different the installment loan versus the revolving credit. As we roll out and as I said in my comments that is already underway. We are already in a number of both corporate stores and dealer stores. With the Conn's in house finance product And it will be the same across ultimately all approximately 380 stores. Remember, even with the dealers, We control when I say we, the company controls the underwriting. Control the entire credit infrastructure who gets lend credit, how much credit, the collection process, it will be the same for both. Dealer stores and corporate stores, all control by our credit infrastructure system which has proven itself to be very very successful over the last 6 or 7 years.

Got it. I may add to the comment As Norm mentioned, we are already starting the process of implementing where the corporate stores did not have the legacy Badcock credit platform, we are already seeing a sizable lift in sales in those corporate stores. So we are expecting some very strong results.

Got it.

That's helpful. And then last one for me, just any commentary on on tax refund season so far? Any noticeable Yes. I guess having lived through through 8 or 9 of these tax seasons, what I would say is post COVID this tax season as from a collection standpoint, Pretty pleased with where this is shaking out. It's been very solid for us, very similar to last year for us. On the con side, it's very, very solid tax season. What I will say is on the retail side, since COVID, We did see an uptick, but not nearly to the degree that we had seen previous to the pandemic and COVID there used to be a larger increase from a retail standpoint when tax season kicked off and during tax season, My conclusion to that is that both from a pull forward of demand and with the product categories that we [indiscernible] [indiscernible] and the state of the consumer right now, there's that's not quite as robust in the high ticket items within the home has probably the consumer has used those funds for other things to a greater degree than they did probably pre pandemic in our categories.

All right, great. All for me. Thank you for taking my question.

Thanks, Derek. Appreciate it.

There are no further questions in the queue. I'd like to hand the call back to management for closing remarks.

Thank you. Just want to take a moment and express my appreciation to all of our employees across both the Conn's organization and the Badcock organization for their hard work their contributions, their dedication over the past 3 or 4 months as we are working hard to combine the 2 businesses truly remarkable what they're doing and it's very much appreciated. We also appreciate your interest in the company. For those on call and listening to the call and look forward and excited to share our results and performance in the Q1 as this integration continues. Have a great day.

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time. And have a wonderful day.