Hello, and welcome to the 2021 Q3 sales call. My name is Kevin, and I'll be your coordinator for today's event. Please note this conference is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the presentation, and this can be done by pressing star one on your telephone keypad to register your question at any time. If at any point you need assistance, please press star zero and you'll be connected to an operator. I would now like to hand over to our host, Mathilde Magnan, Head of Investor Relations, to begin today's conference. Thank you. Thank you, Kevin. Good morning, everyone. This is Mathilde Magnan, Head of Investor Relations speaking. Thanks for being with us today for SMCP Q3 results. I'm here with Isabelle Guichot, our CEO, and Patricia Huyghues Despointes, our CFO. As usual, we will go through the presentation and then we'll have the Q&A session. Before I hand it over to Isabelle and Patricia, I invite you to go through our usual disclaimer on page two. I think we can start now. Thank you, Mathilde. Good morning, everyone. Thank you all for joining this morning this call. I'll begin with a quick overview of Q3 2021, then I hand it over to Patricia, our CFO. She will detail our sales performance by region, and then I will make a brief conclusion. Let's move to the page number four of the presentation. As you've seen in the press release, we're very happy to announce that our Q3 sales are almost at par with 2019. In the third quarter, we achieved EUR 271.7 million sales, down -1% in reported versus 2019, -3% on an organic basis, and up 8.4% versus 2020. Let me share with you some of the key messages on this quarter performance. First, on a global basis, we see a progressive catch-up versus 2019 since the beginning of the year, with Q3 low single digits positive on an organic basis and nearly back on track as per the reported figure. In Mainland China, the performance remains strongly positive versus 2019, reaching 15.8% despite some pandemic resurgences impacting mobility and store traffic. America has turned positive on 2019 for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, with the U.S. still outperforming and accelerating, reaching +15% versus 2019, thanks to a very high demand. France and EMEA are progressively catching up 2019 levels, both supported by a strong local consumption. As you know, tourism is not yet back, unfortunately, in France and in Europe. Versus 2020, the overall performance of +8% is driven by like-for-like growth. Our teams are still fully committed to execute our One Journey strategic plan, which is our key ambition. In this context, the group continued to make steady progress on its strategy to improve full price sales, notably by deliberately reducing the promotional sales share, especially in digital. As such, we managed to decrease the discount rate in all regions, both in brick-and-mortar and digital, with a -5.5 points in Q3 versus last year. This is a result of improved inventory management, enabling us to reduce the quantity and duration of liquidation operations. Regarding network, as planned, we continue our brick-and-mortar network optimization plan with -38 DOS in nine months. In France, we closed 45 DOS, mainly very small stores located in small cities and not at the right concept, including -27 stores of Suite 341, no longer strategic for the company. After a wave of closures in Q3, we are nearly on target. On the other end, we continue our expansion in APAC with +19 new DOS over the semester, of which +14 in China. On digital, the group achieved a penetration of 24% of sales in nine months, normalizing in percentage of sales due to the complete reopening of physical stores and impacted by our full price strategy limiting the sales growth. To conclude, all regions contributed to this continued sequential growth over the quarter. These are very encouraging results considering the COVID resurgences in APAC, low tourism, and less promotional sales. Let's start with Sandro on the next slide. This quarter, Sandro has deepened its partnership with a leading local e-commerce titan. Sandro held a launch party for its fall/winter collection in Shanghai with Tmall. A few steps further beyond the digital arena, this featured its China ambassadors as Sunnee, a singer with more than 22 million followers on Weibo. This momentum in mainland market has come from dedication and innovation, leveraging omnichannel marketing with live streaming and a store lock feature to emphasize the New Hope campaign, which is a fall/winter campaign, and to engage new young shoppers. You see the pictures on the left side of the shop. A very successful event with more than 300 physically attended in Shanghai and more than 500,000 viewers online, generating traffic on Tmall multiplied by 35, new followers, tens of thousands more, and ranking Sandro as a top one in women's accessible luxury industry for the period. Now turning to Maje. Riding on the success from latest collaboration, Maje continued to collaborate with the celebrity Jian Tian to kick off the launch of its new fall/winter collection. This young Chinese actress, followed by more than 24 million followers on Weibo, has confirmed her commitment to the brand by accepting to be once again the brand ambassador of Maje in Greater China. A local shooting with images and videos have been produced to be displayed across all digital platforms, including Tmall flagship in China. It's the pictures of those special shooting you can see in the middle of the slide. A very efficient collaboration boosting traffic on our Maje TMall flagship website by almost 2 x more unique visits. Claudie Pierlot now. To strengthen brand awareness and to promote its new campaign, Claudie has decided to collaborate with five KOLs through social media platforms. Overall, our brands' dedication to digital transformation and their agility in the local market have demonstrated their advanced brand desirability among today's young generations and consolidated relevance to Chinese consumers seeking elevated and uncompromising accessible luxury. Moving to page six. Let's talk about digital now, which, you know, is at the core of our ambition. In Q3, we continued to extend our digital presence with two new virtual stores. First, we are delighted to announce a new key partnership. After Sandro in 2019, Maje is now available on FARFETCH since mid-September. FARFETCH is now one of the undisputed global reference in the luxury fashion world, and we are happy to reinforce our partnership with this high-end e-commerce platform. This is on a dropship model, basically a marketplace, and it enabled us to use their front end and to pick from our shared inventory located in Paris. A very efficient model for us. Let's go to APAC now, and more precisely to Hong Kong, where we opened Claudie Pierlot's first e-shop. This is another milestone for Asia digital business development and also a key step for Claudie Pierlot to engage with customers via digital. Moving on to page seven, a little snapshot of our retail expansion. Here you can see our APAC network, the continued expansion with some meaningful examples of store openings we did during the quarter. China Taikoo Li, Shanghai Taikoo Li, and an outlet in Shanghai Village, another opening in Taiwan. Over the first nine months of 2021, we opened in APAC +19 stores, out of which 14 in China. APAC remains the fastest growing region of the group. Moving on to page eight. Let's have a look at our partnerships. As you know, in some countries that we call non-directly operated, we are distributed by partners. About, it's about 10% of our sales. Thanks to strong partnership in key strategic countries, we are conquering new territories. What happened in those territories in Q3, let's discover some openings. Mexico, for instance, where we opened a new store in a luxury outdoor mall called Antara Fashion Hall, considered one of the most exclusive shopping destinations in Mexico. We launched several digital stores. This is a new digital expansion thanks to those, these partnerships. South Korea, where we reinforce our presence with the opening of 11 stores for Sandro and Maje, of which two outlets. We opened also two new digital stores in the United Arab Emirates with Bloomingdale's. These partnerships strengthen our brand exposure all around the world, and highlight the appeal of our brands to worldwide consumers. Moving to page nine. As you know, at the center of our One Journey strategy plan, we decided to boost our marketing investment to enhance brand desirability. From. This boost is from 2%-4% of our sales. Among the key initiatives we implemented this year, our collaboration with KOL is significant and emphasizes a strong brand desirability. Here we wanted also to highlight that organically, our brands attract more and more new KOLs or celebrities. I urge you to see the very nice picture of Amanda Gorman wearing a Maje dress during a Jimmy Fallon show, or Emma Roberts with a Sandro Hope sweatshirt. Their authentic artistic careers and vivacious personalities allow the brands to extend Parisian elegance to broader audiences all over the world, thanks to the halo effect. Now I will turn it over to Patricia, our CFO, who will take you through the Q3 performance by geography in greater detail. Thank you, Isabelle. Good morning, everyone. Moving on to slide 11, to get another view of our solid Q3. The group performance highlights a progressive catch-up versus 2019, a trend confirmed since the beginning of the year, as you can see on the graph on the left, with a major improvement in Q3, both in absolute value and in terms of evolution versus pre-pandemic level. Indeed, our sales are almost back to 2019, reaching EUR 271.7 million, down 3% on an organic basis. These are solid results considering COVID resurgences in APAC, low tourism, and less promotional space across all brands, regions, and channels. Now on the right, in nine months, our sales have reached EUR 725 million, - 13% versus 2019 and + 17% versus 2020. By region, on a nine month basis, France and APAC remain the most important areas with respectively 32% and 28% of sales. To be noted that Europe as a whole loses 5 points of penetration versus pre-COVID levels due to market evolutions and the very special situation this year with the impact of lockdowns in Europe in H1. Now slide 12, let me highlight some key messages on Q3 performance by region. In France, sales are gradually catching up 2019 levels, down 10% versus 2019 organic. A solid performance supported by local demand. If we compare with 2020, sales are nearly stable, minus 1%, which is very satisfying considering our ongoing full price strategy. Indeed, we managed to reduce our in-season discount rate by 7 points in Q3, and we registered a positive like-for-like growth. Finally, we continue to deliver our brick-and-mortar network optimization plan with -45 DOS in nine months, of which 27 Suite 341. We are completely in line with our 2021 annual strategy. In EMEA, we delivered a strong performance, catching up progressively versus 2019, reaching -9% organic despite the lack of tourism. Versus 2020, sales were up +16% organic, driven by brick-and-mortar like-for-like growth. A solid performance, considering also the decrease of the in-season discount rate by almost 10 points over the quarter versus last year. To conclude on these two regions, and considering the low tourism level and our full price strategy, we consider that we delivered a solid performance. Now, moving on to slide 13. In APAC, we delivered a very solid growth of +7% versus 2019 organic, driven by Mainland China, reaching +16% versus 2019. A strong performance despite new COVID resurgences and some major weather events in key cities, both impacting mobility and traffic. If we compare with 2020, APAC sales were down -5.7% organic, a trend explained by high comparison basis, as Q3 2020, as you may remember, benefited from a strong consumption wave post stores reopening. Rest of Asia remains solid despite COVID cases and a very low tourism, but driven by dynamic regions such as South Korea continuing to be very strong. Finally, over the first nine months, we continued our network expansion with +19 DOS, of which 14 in Mainland China. Now Americas turning positive versus 2019 for the first quarter since the beginning of the pandemic. The U.S. are still outperforming and even accelerating, reaching +15% versus 2019 on an organic basis. Continued growth over the quarter across all channels from strength to strength, driven by a very strong brick-and-mortar like-for-like growth. Sales were up +62.9% organic versus 2020. A strong performance considering the in-season discount rate decreased by more than 10 points. I will now hand over to Isabelle for a brief summary. Thank you, Patricia. Just to summarize, Q3 sales are almost on par with 2019. Americas have turned positive versus 2019 for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, and U.S. are still outperforming, driven by a very high demand. France and EMEA are closing the gap versus 2019, supported by local consumption. Solid growth in APAC, driven by strong Mainland China despite local resurgences and some major weather events impacting mobility and traffic. We pursue the execution of our One Journey strategic roadmap, focusing on our key pillars. Including this quarter, a steady and solid progress in full price strategy, leading to a drop in the in-season discount rate by 5.5 points, and our network optimization plan delivery. Looking forward, assessing a positive dynamic across all markets in the first weeks of October, we're confident in our capacity to reach EUR 1 billion in full year 2021 sales, and we confirm the midterm guidance presented during our Investor Day in October 2020. Thank you for your attention. We are now happy to take your question. Thank you, Isabelle. Thank you. Kevin, I think we have one question. Thank you very much. Yes. Just as a reminder to everybody, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. We do have some questions coming in now, and the first question comes from the line of David Da Maia from CIC. Please go ahead, David. Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Actually, I have three: one on current trading, one on gross margin, and one on shareholding. The first one on current trading. You said you have observed a positive dynamic across all your markets in October, but could you be more specific about trends by region? For example, are you still closing the gap with 2019 levels in Europe? Are you still recording double-digit growth versus 2019 as well in the U.S. and China? Second question on gross margin. You have significantly improved the quality of your sales this quarter. Should we expect further progress on your full price strategy in Q4? In this context, is it fair to assume that your gross margin in H2 could be clearly higher than in H1, despite, I would say, the ongoing inflation on your costs? Finally, on shareholding, can you give us an update on the situation? Do you have a better view on the identity or the profile of the bondholders represented by the trustee? I don't know, have you had direct contact with them since the enforcement of the pledge? Thank you to give us an update on that. Thank you. Thank you, David. I will take the first question and maybe the last one, and I'll hand over to Patricia for the second one. Current trading overall, what I just said is that we see an acceleration of October versus 2019 in all regions. They're all above 2019 in October so far. If I go a little bit more granular by region, APAC and particularly China continue to deliver strong double-digit growth versus 2019. Americas, good results driven by the U.S., the U.S. brick-and-mortar and the digital. France and EMEA is performing very well. Early signs of tourism coming back. It's just early signs, but we take it as a positive sign. Digital is performing both very well versus 2020 and 2019. Okay. You're above 2019 level in Europe as well? In all regions, I think, yes. In all regions. Okay, thank you. Yes. Regarding your second question, David, about gross margin, yes, I confirm to you that we anticipate to improve gross margin. By the way, all our P&L metrics in H2 compare to H1, and gross margin is one of them. Mainly thanks to our full price strategy. As you have heard from the call, the decrease in discount rates is quite significant, so it will enable us to improve our gross margin ratio. Yes, we see some inflation in the cost of goods. That's true, and that's true for everyone. Now, we need to offset this by this full price policy and also by our geographical supply policy. As you know, we have a maturity of supply coming from the European basin, so we can mitigate a little bit this, so yes, we confirm that we will improve our gross margin ratio throughout H2. As far as your third question is concerned, regarding our shareholder structure, it. Here is what we can say at this moment. Not much more than what you've probably read in the press and then different notices that have been made public. We've been informed that European Topsoho failed to redeem its bond exchangeable into SMCP shares at the maturity date in September, back in September 21st. You know, following this default, GLAS acting as a trustee, in relation to the exchangeable bond indicated on October 5th, that it's considering a temporary taking of position as part of the underlying SMCP shares, up to 29% of the share capital. This is what you know, it's public today. There is not much we can say on top of that. Regarding the bondholder's names and identity, you've also read what has been publicly said and written in all the different in the papers. There is not much we can say about it except what you've probably read. The important message that we wanted to reiterate today is that the situation does not affect our financing and operations. Value creation for all of the group stakeholders, which are shareholders, employee, and other partners, is at the heart of the company's strategy. SMCP and its team remain fully committed to the implementation of our strategic ambition One Journey plan for 2025. Thank you, David, for your question. Kevin, do we have another question? We do indeed. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Geoffroy Michalet from ODDO BHF. Please go ahead. Hi. Thank you for taking my question. I just have one. Has to do with the discount rate. I just wanted to know what kind of headroom do you still have when it comes to pricing? Actually, how does the current level compare versus 2019? Thank you. You mean the current level of discount versus 2019, Geoffroy? Yes, exactly. I mean, let's say the pricing strategy, how is it compared to 2019? Okay. Both discount rate and pricing strategy. In terms of discount rate, we have already reduced quite significantly. I think we still have a few points more that we can gain. In terms of comparison versus 2019, the discount rate had increased in 2020. We have caught up a big part of it in 2021 and maybe a little bit more to come. If your question is about pricing strategy, obviously we're working on it, and we are taking, as we speak, all the necessary steps to protect our gross margin. We're working on price increases obviously, and we continue to absorb part of this through cost management, as we already did in the past months. That's all we can say. Also better demand planning policy, which is absolutely key in that prospect. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you, Geoffroy. Kevin, do we have another question? Yes. Thank you. We now have a question from the line of Kathryn Parker from Jefferies. Please go ahead, Kathryn. Morning, everyone. I have three questions. My first question, I'm afraid, is on the discount rate again, and its impact on the gross margin. From a slightly different angle, would you say the improvements in the in-season and off-season discount rate means that the gross margin in H2 could perhaps be back at 2019 levels? That is my first question. My second question is just an update on the inventory situation, given global shipping difficulties. Would you say you have enough product availability in each of your global markets kind of coming into the busy Christmas season? My final question is on Activewear. We've seen the Maje x Varley capsule collection launched last week. I wondered how you see this opportunity developing and whether perhaps other brands within the group would also consider launching activewear. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Kathryn. Regarding your first question, well, you know that today is a safe call, so we will have the opportunity to rediscuss gross margin later in the year. Yes, I would say that we anticipate H2 gross margin to be in the area of H2 2019. Probably not very different from H2 2019 ratio. Regarding your second question, Kathryn, yes, we see some delays in the transportation and sourcing. But for the time being, it's something that we've really been growing over the past months. We've been really working in anticipation of those issues. Nothing has a significant impact on our business so far, and we've covered for the months to come. It's also that the timing of our buying wave allows us to reduce the risk of a large quantity being blocked and really jeopardizing the business for the year end. Also, as I mentioned earlier, our demand planning policy that we've implemented over the last 12 months allows us really to re-forecast permanently ourselves and to readjust our supply chain. Don't forget also that 60% of our sourcing is made in the Euromed region, which reduces the freight delays. We have a very agile production and supply chain, with the ability to turn around and manage if necessary, and also that we've been covering a lot with raw material buffers to be able to relaunch reproduction if needed. As far as your last question on activewear, thank you for noticing the Maje launch of the collaboration with Varley. It is an area that we are always investigating a little bit in terms of extension of our core lines. Some initiative last year with a capsule of jogging and athleisure. This is a more visible collaboration made with Maje today. For us, it becomes a little bit, and especially since the pandemic, it can be an obvious organic addition to ready-to-wear. It's something that we'll be venturing sporadically, whenever we can and whenever we feel it's relevant. Thank you, Kathryn. Kevin, we will take the last question. Thank you. Thank you very much. Our last question comes from the line of Floris Dijkstra from Aperture. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my question today. Just two quick questions from my side. The first is, we've seen a bit of a crackdown in China on the luxury segment, so it'd be interesting to get your views on how this might impact SMCP. The second question has also got to do with, I guess, the shareholder structure now. Could you confirm if there's been any discussions between, I guess, the management team and the bondholder group? Thanks very much. Sorry. Can you repeat your last question? Please. The second one we didn't hear very well. Oh, sorry. We've been reading that there's a bit of a crackdown on luxury goods in China. No, no. The second one. Oh, sorry. The second one was on the shareholder structure. Just trying to understand if there's been any, like, type of contact between the bondholder group that might collect on the shares and the management team. Regarding your first question, it's too early to tell, definitely, and then especially it's difficult to know if it will have an impact on general climate of consumption. As far as we are concerned as SMCP and considering our positioning, which is accessible luxury, we do not expect any direct material impact on the consumption. We also have a much larger client base than the luxury players. For us, it's not really a threat that we've factored in. Regarding your second question, I mean, we won't comment on that because it's beyond our. It's definitely not in our radar, I would say. Okay, that's understood. Thanks very much. Thank you very much. I think we are done with the questions, so we wish you a nice day. Thank you. Thank you very much. Bye. Thank you very much, everybody, for joining today's conference call. You may now disconnect your line.