Good morning, good afternoon. My name is Jacques Stern. I'm the CEO of Global Blue, and I will give you today more color on our ZigZag Global acquisition. Executive summary, three things that I want to share with you. First of all, and I will come back in a minute on that, Global Blue wants to expand its product set. As you know, we are the champion of in-store international shopper solution with our tax-free shopping and our added-value payment services solution. We want to become a strategic omnichannel technology and payment partners for merchants. I will give you more color on this strategy. The first step towards this strategy is announced today, because we have signed on the 6th of March, sales and purchase agreement to buy 100% of ZigZag Global, which is a leading e-commerce return SaaS platform. I will give you more color why there's a rationale for this acquisition, and how highly complementary this business is to Global Blue. To fund this company, that will be my third point, Global Blue has raised EUR 70 million via private placement of common stock that has been done last week. We announce today not only the acquisition, but also the capital raised of the company. Let's go now into more details. As I said, let's start by the global vision of what is our strategy today, and what is our ambition. Clearly today, this is something where we have already positioned our company many times in dialogue with you. We are a strategic technology and payment partners on the back of two process, which has tax-free shopping and added-value payment services like DCC. Through those two processes, we empowered merchants to capture growth of international shoppers. As I was mentioning two seconds ago, so if you want, we are really a champion of technology integrated at point of sale, where we served merchants to basically serve international shoppers who are shopping abroad and in-store. From that point of view, we are in-store international shoppers. What is our ambition? What is our vision? Clearly, we want to go to other, I would say, sectors, but w ith a mindset which is very clear. We want to keep the relevance for our merchants, 300,000 stores, which are affiliated with Global Blue. Therefore, we want to offer them new solutions, but always linking to technology and payment, which can improve their processes. New solutions, it means that not only in-store, but also online, which means that we want to become omnichannel. Also, not only serving international shoppers, but also serving domestic shoppers. Always with one mindset, we want to empower them to capture more growth, and this is really what we are looking for. We don't want to expand our market in going everywhere and therefore nowhere. The vision that we have is really to be looking for verticals in terms of solutions, always looking to technology and payments, but which are not crowded. You will not see Global Blue going in CRM or in PSP or in POS verticals where you have a lot of players and it's already crowded. What we want is really to go where we foresee needs for our clients. I will give you in a couple of minutes why we believe that ZigZag tick this box. If I had to define where we are looking for in terms of new business to incorporate within Global Blue, I would say first, everything which is around e-commerce, and way to convert more e-commerce through adding human touch in digital interaction. Also everything which is around digitalization at store and create personalized experience. Everything which is around engagement with final consumer, and also everything which is around data. You know that the Global Blue have a very important data set of information. From that point of view, we want also to continue to expand this business around the data. Those are really the four, I would say, merchants need that we are looking at. From that point of view, I want just to reinforce the fact that we want, and we are today a trusted technology partner for merchant. This idea to complement to increase our product set to give more value to our merchant is not new. You see couple of example here. When cross-border payments started to be in the 1980s, we were adding the digital refund and the Dynamic Currency Conversion in our business. More recently, when there was more and more integrated payments, which were the way merchant wanted to go to optimize their profitability, we went to integrate our tax-free business with a point of sales and the PSP system. Even more recently, in the last three years, with the mobility and the digital marketing, we added those element to our value proposal for merchant. Today, ZigZag proposal acquisition is really going towards this continuing trend that we want to offer more value to our merchant by being their trusted technology partner. We are announcing today the ZigZag acquisition, which is going towards this omni-channel objective. What is ZigZag? First of all, ZigZag address the retailer returns challenge. The return, what does that mean? The return from the e-commerce. What they do, they enhance the consumer experience by digitizing what used to be the paper-based, what we call label-in-the-box return experience. Let me a bit more concrete. I'm sure that you receive at home, especially with COVID, a couple of box every week at your home. If it's not you, it would be your partner. Basically, in this box, you will usually find two, three, or four items. In that case, in between 40% and 50% of the items will be returned. You are returning up to 50% of what you have bought. It's why returns are, for any business on e-commerce, something which is really important. Going back to my example. In this box, you will have four items. You will keep two, you will return two. You will find a paper-based label in this box, and you will tick the one that you want to return. Usually, at that time, you will go to a drop box, UPS, DHL, and you will return the box. Few days, even few weeks after, you will get a refund on your card. What does ZigZag does? Basically, what they do is digitalizing this process. Instead of doing that on paper, you will go to your e-commerce platform. Let's say that you have bought on, I don't know, ralphlauren.com, and you will go to the section Return. There you will key in your number of invoice or your number of order, and automatically you will retrieve on the screen your order. The four items that you have bought. There you will be in ZigZag platform already, which is integrated with the e-commerce platform from the merchant. There, your choice will be to, one, you decide which you want to return or you can exchange. ZigZag platform has this key feature which enable you not only to return the goods but also exchange. If the color is not right, if the size is not right, instead you can exchange, and you will return, and then you will receive back the goods again with the right color or the right size. For merchants, this is a key feature because they are not losing the sale. In that case, they are just managing a logistics in order to get you the new goods. Secondly, if you want to return or exchange, you will have choice as a consumer on the platform to say how you want to return. You can typically say, "I will go to the drop-off box at the post office or at the UPS or DHL." You can also say, "I would like a carriers to come to my home or my office between 6:00 P.M. and 8:00 P.M. tomorrow night," for example. You have the choice of how you want to return that, which is not possible with the paper label, which basically has only one option. Obviously, because it's a dynamic, you can see, if you don't want to have the collection at home, you can see what are the drop box choice which are available. From that point of view, ZigZag seems to be quite simple, but as always, if you can explain it simply, it's more complex, I would say, in the way it works. First of all, ZigZag, absolutely, it's only a technology platform. They don't have any carriers. They don't have any warehouse. They don't have any e-commerce site. They are not merchants. It's really a platform. What they do is basically by connecting merchants, today they have more than 100, and we'll come back on that in a minute, merchant e-commerce platform which are connected. They allow, last year it was 12 million shoppers, to manage the returns through choosing the carriers and the warehouse that they are managing, and all of that in a way which is very seamless. What is the business model? First, the value proposal. First of all, as I was mentioning, the first thing is by digitalization, it improved the consumer experience, and basically giving them more choice. Choice in terms of not only return, but exchange or returns, and also choice in terms of the way to return the goods. For merchants, you have understood that the main element beside giving a better consumer experience is basically reducing the cost. As I was mentioning, between 40% and 50% of all e-commerce purchase are returned. It's really a big and increasing problem for merchant. Because of that, they need to optimize this process. How ZigZag is capable to do that? First, because they optimize the traffic routes. Second, because they aggregate the shipping to reduce the cost of the shipping. They also allow merchant to resell on local market. Typically, a parcel coming from Italy to the U.K., instead of going back to Italy, stay in a warehouse in the U.K., and we resell through the e-commerce website of the merchant to a U.K. customer. From that point of view, it's really a way to better manage the inventories, but it's also reducing inbound consumer queries. From that point of view, it's also a cost optimization. As I was mentioning two minutes ago, it's also allow to do exchange. Rather than returning, the ZigZag platform allow to exchange and therefore, in that case, the merchant has not the loss of the revenue. What is the business model of ZigZag? Very simple. Three source of revenue. First, a monthly subscription fee which is paid when using the platform. Secondly, a transaction fee per return which is paid by the merchant. Thirdly, a margin on the carriers which is used by the merchant/the consumer. Two way for ZigZag to sell their platform: direct to the merchant, which is obvious, but also by white labeling the platform to large carriers. Typically, in a few countries or several countries in Europe you will have DHL and FedEx, which have this return capability, but it will be under their name, but with the technology powered by ZigZag. Few figures in order to understand ZigZag. ZigZag is a company which is now around six years old, type of Series B company. It has been founded by Al Gerrie, and it's a company which is today really U.K.-based, even though the technology people are working in Bulgaria. Few figures. Around 100 merchant, 12 millions of shoppers served in 2020. The carriers network that they are capable to manage served 130 countries in the world. It's around 450 carrier service. More than 220 warehouse which are connected. As I was mentioning, they integrate around 30 e-commerce platform or shopping carts within their platform. I will come back on that also later. It's a rapid growth company. The level of return process last year had been multiplied by 500% versus 2019. Obviously, the perspective for the next year are very important. The gross profit, which is basically the revenue minus the cost of the carrier, is expected to be between GBP 4.5 million and GBP 5.5 million in 2021. What is the rationale for us to buy this company? Five element which I will go in detail in a second. First of all, the right segment. E-commerce is a large and growing market. A couple of figures that I will give you in a minute. Secondly, ZigZag as a company is outgrowing this level of growth of the market. Thanks to more digitalization and best-in-class technology, which help them to gain market share. Third, which is really very important for us as being the best company to buy ZigZag, we believe that there's a lot of synergy to do with ZigZag. First by cross-selling the ZigZag solution into Global Blue network of clients, but also assisting ZigZag in rolling out some new feature which are data-driven or payment-driven, where we can use the capability of Global Blue to fast-forward their product development. Last and not least, two element which are important. Obviously, it's for us a way to have a more complementary offer, which mean more reason to extend our strategic relationship with our current networks, and obviously the improvement of the growth profile of Global Blue through a very dramatic growth contribution from ZigZag. Let's go into the detail of those five elements. First one, e-commerce is a growing market. We all know it. We can say that it's between 10% and 20%, clearly more 10% before COVID. Increase with COVID has been sizable in 2020. What will be the growth level in the next years? We have retained a kind of 10%, but it can be more than that, as we would not be surprised if domestic consumer are changing their way of buying, and e-commerce continue a rapid growth. Second, as I was mentioning, and you have few figures there on the right of the chart, returns are a big problem for merchant because they represent between 40%-50%, at least in Europe, of the amount which has been bought on e-commerce. It cannot be a subject which is irrelevant for the merchant. It is already a very big problem, and it will only continue to be in the future, especially when merchant retailer are more mature on the front end, i.e., e-commerce. They will obviously look to their P&L and needs to address the return. Second reason for buying ZigZag is that the growth of the company is really beating, and it was beating by 500% last year the market trend. Why that? First, because the return is still a kind of very unpenetrated market. I was describing to you this traditional paper-based label-in-the-box system. This system still represents 75% of the returns. It mean that only 25% of the return are managed through a digital platform. One of the capability for ZigZag to grow faster than the e-commerce is just by digitalizing the process and converting some in-source solution done by the merchant through a capability for ZigZag to offer this solution for merchant. The second reason is that, and you will see couple of example in a second, they have best-in-class technology which has allow them to gain market share. Very recently, they have win company like The Hut Group, like Swarovski, and even Inditex, which is for some of them were working with competition. It's not only play where it's a digitalization greenfield, but it's also through couple of wins which are recent demonstration that they are capable also to grow by extending their market share of the penetrating market. You see the rapid growth of the clients. At the end of February 2021, they are already at between 100 and 110 clients. I think recently when we signed, they were at 110. At the end of February, 100. They are really growing very fast in terms of growth, and you see on the right couple of win recently in terms of merchant, but also in terms of platform integrated, but also in terms of distribution location. Third reason for us to have done this acquisition is we believe that Global Blue can really accelerate the adoption of ZigZag through our positioning of market leader in the tax-free shopping. We have, as you know, 70% market share. We are connected and integrated with 300,000 merchant store. We have really longstanding relationship with those merchants. Clearly, the adoption of e-commerce return platform will not be, I would say, going in all type of merchant at the same speed. The reality is all of them today are looking at e-commerce as a channel to develop. Probably much more the fast fashion and the electronics than still today, the pure luxury. Even pure luxury, watch and jewelry or fashion and apparel, the reality that their sales on the back of COVID has increased tremendously. The e-commerce sales have increased tremendously. We have the right connection in order to introduce ZigZag to this company. As you know, through our strategy, we usually interact with C-level in those company. Even though the clients, if you want, is not necessarily the CFO or the retail manager or the marketing manager like we are usually dealing with, it's more the logistic or the e-commerce head who will be the clients within the company. The reality is because we are working at C-level, we are capable to be linked to the right people and to introduce ZigZag to them. We believe that the cross-sell will be a huge opportunity and before signing up this acquisition, we have done some 15 trial with large customer, and we have seen really the attention of those customer to this solution. In most of the case, they didn't even know that there was such a solution available on the market. We believe beside the commercial synergy that we can also bring some added-value in terms of product development and in terms of geographic expansion. From a geographic expansion today, almost 100% of the clients of ZigZag are based from the U.K., even Inditex was signed for the U.K. Clearly, one of the strengths of Global Blue is to be present in 50 countries. We are covering most of Europe, and we can offer a platform for ZigZag to start in several countries, providing all the infrastructure and therefore forwarding their growth in terms of geographic expansion. We can also, from a product standpoint, bring them a lot. I will not go into the detail, but you can see in this right side of the page 14, a couple of ideas that they have. A very natural one would be, for example, that today ZigZag is not proposing to refund the consumer. What they do is they send a file to the clients, and the clients then is processing this file within their PSP. Clearly, we have the technology. We have also our process in the payment side in order to allow ZigZag to propose that to merchant. What does that mean to propose to early refund the consumer, as soon as the parcel has been collected by the carriers? Through data analysis, typically which clients will be end consumer will be the more risky, you don't want to refund. The one which are not risky because they are not returning heavily, you can do that. Typically, those kind of added-value, we have the technology both in terms of payment and data to enhance the value proposal of ZigZag. These are two reasons why we believe that we are the best candidate, and we were the best candidate to buy ZigZag. From purely, I would say, Global Blue point of view, clearly the solutions are really complementary. If you want, and this is what I was mentioning at the beginning, Global Blue is a champion of international shoppers and offline shopping, i.e. in-store shopping. If you think about ZigZag, they are the champions of online shopping, mostly for domestic shoppers. From that point of view, it's highly complementary, and clearly the vision is complementary for the benefit of the merchants in order to improve their profitability, but also, in terms of improving the user experience for the end consumer. This slide is a bit the same, but it also gives you the sense of the similarity of the business model. In both cases, in Global Blue and in ZigZag, we are integrated from a technology point of view with our clients and with partners. In the case of Global Blue, it would be a refund agent. In the case of ZigZag, it will be carriers. In all cases, we are integrated at point of sales with software, with merchant acquirer. From that point of view, we understand very well the business of ZigZag. The difference is, the growth of Global Blue is moderate, where the ZigZag one is really exponential. It's an hyper-growth type of business because the needs is nascent. Global Blue is present in the market with tax-free and DCC for now 40 years. As I was mentioning, ZigZag has been created around five years ago. The acquisition also, as a fifth reason to buy, will boost the Global Blue growth profile. You see there the profile of the number of returns, but also in terms of gross profit. It's a really dramatic growth in the last years, and it will continue highly, especially because those figures are not counting into effect the synergy that Global Blue can bring. Also, we believe that it's the right time to buy, because, again, more growth recently, but also the fact that the company has a real path in 2021 to become profitable. A quick slide to give you the terms of the transaction that we have signed, as I was mentioning, last Friday. It's a total enterprise value of GBP 50 million, which means an equity offer of GBP 48.4 million. The existing management, including Al as the CEO, will reinvest around 40% and therefore will hold 8% of the company. Therefore, it's the total proceed to be paid at closing of GBP 44.5 million with a possible earn-out based on the expected guidance in terms of gross profit of up to GBP 10 million. It's a maximum commitment of GBP 54.5 million, and you have on the left the same value in terms of dollars. Last point to mention is we have decided, and the Board of Global Blue have decided, to finance this acquisition through a capital increase. There also last week we were able to raise $70 million in a private placement with a new investor, which is also a very strong sign of confidence from the market on the strategy of Global Blue, but also on the long-term recovery of the tax-free shopping business of Global Blue. In summary, Global Blue buying ZigZag, for us it's a great deal because it's a scalable software business, ZigZag. It has a large and structurally growing market. It grows above the market because of digitalization and by winning some new market, new merchant on competition. Clearly, Global Blue can accelerate dramatically the growth of this company through the network connectivity that we have and also the functionality that we can bring to life into ZigZag. It's highly complementary, and so it will help us to even be more sticky and have more retention as Global Blue. As I was mentioning just two minutes ago, it has been fully financed through capital raised on the market last week. Thank you for listening to that. Obviously, myself and all the team will remain at your disposal for any question that you want to get. Don't hesitate to connect with us through email, and we will be pleased to either answer by email or to have a one-on-one session to explain more about this transaction. Thank you very much. Bye.
Loading workspace