Hello, and welcome to the SMCP 2023 Q1 Results Call. My name is Andrea, and I'll be your coordinator for today's event. Please note this call 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 call. This can be done by pressing star one on your telephone to register your question. If you require assistance at any point, please press star zero to talk to an operator. I will now hand you over to your host, Amélie Dernis, Investor Relations Manager, to begin. Thank you. Thank you, Andrea. Good morning, everyone. This is Amélie Dernis speaking, in charge of investor relations. Thanks for being with us today for the publication of SMCP Q1 2023 sales. I'm here with our CEO, Isabelle Guichot, and our CFO, Patricia Huyghues Despointes. As usual, we'll 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, Amélie Dernis. Good morning, everyone. Thank you all for joining us today. We will first have a look at the key figures of these quarterly sales and share an overview of main business initiatives. Patricia Huyghues Despointes will deep dive in our performance by area, and I will briefly conclude. Let's move on to page four. On page four, we are happy to announce a Q1 sales at a level of EUR 7.5 million, up 7% on an organic basis, driven by like-for-like, growing 8% at constant exchange rates. Let me share with you some key messages from this quarter's performance. On a global basis, a strong performance resulting in a solid level of growth with a high basis of comparison, 2022, as you remember, was a record year. Both volume and prices contribute to Q1 growth. Volume contribution slightly higher than price. Digital sales progressing at the same pace as brick-and-mortar, which is a very good news. On the DOS network, we reached 100K square meters, including Australia. That's now a new metrics that we will be glad to follow. Discount rate continues to decrease as anticipated. It is more marginal than in 22, obviously, and it's mainly driven by digital and Asia due to a higher basis of comparison. Moving on to page five, you will find here a performance by region. Patricia will get back into more detail later in the presentation. By brand, I would like to highlight the robust performance for Sandro with a high single-digit growth. A solid performance for the other brands, Claudie Pierlot and Fursac, with a strong double-digit growth. Maje registered a slower start to the season due to a very strong basis of comparison and the collection composed by very summery pieces this year. This should improve as the summer is coming. Page six, a major pillar of our strategic roadmap. Let's have a look at our main sustainability initiatives. Let's start with the first pillar, SMCP product. We continued implementation of our traceability project and reached now one-third of SKU fully traceable for spring/summer 23 collection. This will be improving season after season. Now let's talk about the SMCP planet. As far as circular economy is concerned, after the successful launch in France and Germany, Sandro launched rental services in the UK in collaboration with Hurr for spring/summer 23 collection. You all know that SMCP's commitment to sustainability also translates in the design with the use of more eco-responsible materials. It's not shown in that page, we are also proud to announce that one of our stores in China, Maje Hongqiao MixC, has received a gold grade of LEED certification. LEED meaning Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. Regarding the third pillar, SMCP People, the official launch of the omnichannel sales advisor training took place in Paris on January 13th. The students have started a training at ESMOD and also taken courses on fashion culture at IFM, Institut Français de la Mode, and a master class dedicated to the discovery of our brands. They are also integrated at the point of sales, as in all our four brands. Point to highlight is that SMCP has pursued its partnership with Médecins Sans Frontières to help the victims of the earthquakes that devastated Turkey and Syria in February. The board of directors of SMCP has decided to create a sustainability committee, which will ensure the following all topics in relation with social and environmental matters. This committee will also oversee the integration of those topics in the implementation of the group strategy. On page seven, let me present you some initiatives in terms of marketing strategies and creative collections to foster our brand's desirability. Starting with the celebration of the Lunar New Year, Sandro, Maje, and Claudie have created once again dedicated New Year capsule collection featuring an exclusive product offer. In particular, to celebrate the Year of the Rabbit, Maje and the illustrator Jiayi Li deep dived into poetic scenes of Chinese mythology and captured some spontaneous moments that occurred during the celebration. With her own vision, she created a strong and vivid images honoring the Year of the Rabbit, as you can see on the left side with that T-shirt. Page eight, Now let's talk about specific initiatives on each of our brands, starting with Sandro. You can discover the Sandro unisex pieces, which women can borrow from men's wardrobe to make it their own. Purchasing in the other gender is a more and more common phenomenon, and many customers, especially the youngest, adopt gender-fluid consumer behaviors. Considering Sandro positioning in men's and women's with a timeless approach, this brand is perfectly positioned to seize this opportunity. Page nine now. To celebrate the month of Ramadan, Maje has released a dedicated capsule of colorful, elegant, and delicate dresses. The collection features feminine pieces that can be worn during the day for the evening. Once again, the community of Maje and its expertise in ceremony dresses enable the brand to offer a perfect wardrobe for social occasion. What is displayed here on that chart is the specific assets that we've developed to launch that collection. Page 10 now. Let's move on to Claudie Pierlot. The story of the brand is first and foremost one of allure, roots, and a true Parisian style as its creator, Claudie Pierlot. This season, the brand has reinvented the wardrobe of the Parisian woman in need of timelessness. The style composed of occasionally updated basics, stripes, guts, blue shades, new workwear, and signature accessories. The perfect expression of the DNA of the brand, as you can clearly understand it from the pictures that are featured on the chart. Let's move on to Fursac on page 11. For the second season as part of the official Paris Fashion Week Menswear, Fursac takes up residence at the very famous Comédie Française Theater in January. In line with the brand strategy, Fursac autumn/winter '23 menswear collection is made of elegance and panache combined with casual pieces. Obviously, they're distinct fall/winter collection because they're part of the calendars. A few openings now in the brick-and-mortar network. Moving on to page 12, we can see some openings in Asia with at the same time opening in China, both in tier one and in Tier 2 cities and in other areas of the region. For example, in Singapore where we want to take advantage of the strong dynamism of this market. As you know, from one quarter to another, the seasonality of openings is very different in the second quarter. Therefore, we continue to grow in this region. We also get back to growth in Europe. I will leave it now to Patricia to do a deep dive on our regional performances. Thank you, Isabelle. Good morning, everyone. Regions now, starting with France. With an excellent performance this quarter, sales reached a record level of EUR 106 million and were up 13% driven by like-for-like. The quarter recorded a double-digit growth both on brick-and-mortar and digital and was sustained at the same time by local customers and tourists. We are all the more satisfied about the performance in France, as the context was quite adverse with several days of demonstrations in many cities, which had a negative impact on traffic in the stores and opening hours. In this challenging environment, we overperformed the market trends, and we continue to gain market shares, reflecting the work performed on retail excellence and brand desirability. Other brands, Claudie Pierlot and Fursac, benefit from a good momentum and perform very well with a strong double-digit growth. Full price strategy is continuing with a discount rate optimization on digital. Finally, the network slightly decreasing by four POS, including the closure of the remaining two, three-for-one stores, which was expected. This format is now officially over. In EMEA, the group maintained a very good momentum with a robust growth despite a high basis of comparison. Sales of EUR 89 million were up 7% organic, with a strong retail like-for-like growth of 15% from both brick-and-mortar and digital sales. This performance was driven by the largest markets such as the UAE, Italy, and Spain, and was supported by touristic flows. The significant difference between retail growth and total evolution in EMEA comes from wholesale. As you may remember, we stopped our partnership in Russia, and the last deliveries took place in January and early February 2022, before the start of the war. No deliveries this year since this partnership is now finished. The average discount rate registered a slight decrease, which comes from digital, same as in France. Finally, the network is down by seven POs in Q1, excluding the impact of Russia, four POs closed by the partner. EMEA's network is expected to get back to growth in the course of the year. Moving on to slide 15 now. In America, we recorded a revenue of EUR 59 million, in line with last year, which is quite good considering the outstanding performance that we had registered in 2022. During the first quarter of 2023, sales in the U.S. were resilient with a positive like-for-like growth in brick-and-mortar. Actually, the slightly negative trend for America at -3% in Q1 mostly comes from Canada, with a slow traffic normalization due to level of tourism which is low from Asia and rather weak local demand. Finally, the network is down by two POS in Q1, but is expected to grow in the second half of the year. APAC is getting back to growth at +2% organic, with a gradual recovery of the traffic in mainland China month after month and a return to growth since March. A good performance in Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Macau, which was supported by a dynamic tourist flow in the region. Australia and New Zealand are now fully integrated in our retail network. The average discount rate decreases by more than four points. This was the only region with an increase in 2022, considering the COVID situation, but now discount is on its way to normalize. Regarding the network, the region continues to expand, with five openings net in the quarter as explained earlier by Isabelle, to whom I will now hand over for a few words of conclusion. Thank you, Patricia. I won't repeat the main messages of this quarter. In a nutshell, we are satisfied by the resilience of our brand in all our markets. The growth recorded in Q1 enables us to confirm our guidance for the full year. APAC also shows a good level of growth, and especially of course in China with a very strong double-digit growth given last year basis of performance. Of comparison, sorry. Before we turn to the Q&A, I will answer the question you will all ask me about the shareholding situation. As you remember, GLAS had announced earlier in March the launch of the sale process for 37% of our shares. You may remember that in their statement, they had also announced that it would start with the first phase of a few months to initiate contacts on their side on the basis of publicly available information. Therefore, it's too early for an update on this operation, and it was totally expected given the timeline they had announced. No big news today, but of course we will keep the market informed in due course in case of any significant evolution of this process. I thank you all for your attention. We'll be happy to share with you our, actual figures on, at the end of July, and will now take your questions. Thanks, Isabelle. Andrea, I think we have one question. The first question comes from the line of David Da Maia from CIC. Please go ahead. Hi, good morning. Two questions from me, please. The first on China. You are mentioning a gradual recovery there with a return to positive growth in March. Obviously considering the low, the lower comps in March, this sounds quite logical. In this context, is it fair to assume that trends have also sequentially improved during the quarter compared to 2021 in a two year stack? If so, is this trend continuing in April, again, compared to two years ago? The second question on shareholding. Can you give us a bit, maybe a bit more detail on the way the sales process is organized by GLAS? What is your level of involvement in this sales process? I mean, are you being consulted by GLAS? Thank you. First question about China. Yeah, your analysis is absolutely right, I can confirm that we see a clear evolution of the trend in April. You know, if you read the, there was a very interesting article in Euromonitor Daily yesterday about the recovery in China. They were mentioning a bank study saying that, you know, the back to '21 levels should happen between first and second semester of the year, that's clearly what we're seeing. We can confirm that we see a very clear gradual recovery of China. I just come back from China. All week last, all last week in China, I tour five cities. What we see is a country that is back to normalization, and it's very clear in the consumption. It's true, nevertheless, that the growth from some being of luxury companies is mainly driven by a few big spenders. We have a more mixed clientele. We have big spenders. We have also middle upper class, which is a slightly more cautious due to the economic outlook and the measures that are expecting from the government. We have a more mixed clientele. The way our sales are recovering is slightly different from luxury, but it's really on a positive curve. I will hand it over. I don't know if I answered your question, but then I can... What? No, I leave you, to you the process. Regarding the process, just like Isabelle explained in the conclusion, GLAS is still at the beginning and the first phase of this process. Obviously it's a bit early to comment on that. We will probably have more update in the coming weeks and months, but obviously too early to say more today. Thank you. Do we have another question? The next question comes from the line of Jeffery Michalet from Oddo BHF. Please go ahead. Hello. Thank you for taking my question. I have two, and they are on the store network. Two things. First, on America, we see a slight decrease of the network, whereas I had in mind that you would wanted maybe to focus a bit more on America. Could we expect in the coming quarters, a network diversification, be it on DOS or POS? First thing. Second thing is on APAC and the fact that you bought back your Australian and New Zealand stores. Just wanted to know if there were any costs, be it OpEx or CapEx, related to that we should take into account. Thank you. First question on America, you're right. It's, as Patricia mentioned, it's a phasing issue. Yes, we have some openings that are planned in different cities, New York and other region, especially in the south, on Q3 and Q4. That's only a phasing on this first part of the year. Your second question regarding Australia and New Zealand, yes, we bought back the network. The amount of the buyback was not disclosed, but it's a very limited investment, corresponding roughly to the net accounting value of the stores and the inventory. Nothing specific. Yes. Also the CapEx request for this network will be the same as. Yeah. all our mature markets in the world, which is a global maintenance, some relocalization, a few openings and closing, you know, nothing. It's not a material-. -different from, It's not a material investment for the group. Okay. Very clear. Thank you very much. Thank you. I think we will take the last question. Okay. Before we take the next question, just a quick reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad now. The next question comes from the line of Marie-Line Fort from Société Générale. Please go ahead. Yes, good morning. I've got one question on other brands. Could you comment, is there any difference between the two brands? This is my first question. Also on the discount rate, which significantly down, particularly in Asia, is it some base comps which is making the Q1 particularly favorable? Thanks. As, as you can read in the figures, there was a slight difference in the growth between our two major engines, as I would call them. There is several reasons for that. First one, Maje had a really exceptional quarter last year, so a very high basis of comparison. It's true that this season, being a little summary, probably in its first phase, was, had a, you know, a softer beginning versus last year, and that translates into the figure. Sandro had a very good beginning of the year, so that's clear there is a slight difference between our two brands. You also remember that we did some management changes at Maje, and that the new CEO has started last week, and that's also part of our strategy. Now on the good, on the other brands, for second and Claudie Pierlot, we extremely happy because the... All the work and that with energy and that, and the creativity that was injected in the brand now translates into the figures, and that's always very gratifying, I would say. Are they performing at the same pace between Fursac and? Yes. It's very homogeneous. Yeah. Okay, thanks. Regarding the discount rates in Asia, Marie, as we explained earlier, the decrease is mostly explained by a normalization of the situation. Since last year, in China, there were quite a lot of COVID constraints, we could not have the same result in our full price strategy as we did in the other areas. As those constraints lasted for the biggest part of the year 2022, we expect in comparison 2023 in Asia to improve in most of the quarters. That being said, it's mostly in Asia. For the rest of the world, as we already discussed, we think we are at a level which is quite optimal. At the level of the group, it will result in a marginal improvement with this normalization of Asia. Many thanks. Very clear. Thank you. I think we have a last question, so we can take it. The next question comes from, Christel Viljoen from Alizé. Please go ahead. Good morning, Patricia. Good morning, Isabelle. I'm sorry, the line was pretty bad, so I didn't hear very clearly the full comments on the China point. Could you come back please on the last quarter in APAC, commenting on the way the user stores have been reopening and what the traffic has been against last year and possibly quarter on quarter? For APAC, how the metrics for the last quarter have been against last quarter and last year. Thank you very much. Okay. Thank you, christel, for your question. Sorry you couldn't hear the comments, but basically the idea was that the traffic improved month after month. You know that in December it was probably a low point due to the lots of cases that there were in China at the reopening. December was a low point, January was a bit better, February was better than January, and March was better than Feb. We can say, I don't have the exact figure in mind, but we can say that from - 30%-35% we went to a - 10% or 15%. It's really improving. It's not exactly back to pre-COVID, but now it's not far. As I mentioned in my comment, I would say that our clientele is much more mixed than the one from a high luxury. We have a mix of big spenders, obviously, but also middle upper class that is still a little cautious about the challenging economic outlook. I think that's important to mention. The big things that we will be carefully watching in the coming weeks are the Labor Day festival, so it's the first week of May, which is important shopping rendezvous for all China. Also, the Dragon Boat festival, which is in June. We have two major event coming in the coming months that should, I would say, pimp the Chinese scenario. I said I was just coming back from China last week, and I did five cities all around China, so I have a pretty clear view of how much the recovery is. I mean, the recovery is there. It's a steady recovery, and we see the country on the normalization path. Thank you, Isabelle. I think we are done with the question now. I wish you a very good day. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for joining today's conference call. You may now replace your handsets.