Coty Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
May 7, 2025

There are 12 speakers on the call.

Operator

My name is Chelsea, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to CODI's Third Quarter Fiscal twenty twenty five Question and Answer Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded today, 05/07/2025 at 08:00 a. M. Eastern Time or 02:00 p.

Operator

M. Central European Time. Please note that on May 6 at approximately 04:30 p. M. Eastern Time or 10:30 p.

Operator

M. Central European Time, CODI issued a press release and prepared remarks webcast, which can be found on its Investor Relations website. On today's call are Sue Nabi, Chief Executive Officer and Laurent Mussien, Chief Financial Officer. I would like to remind you that many of the comments today may contain forward looking statements. Please refer to CODI's earnings release and the reports filed with the SEC where the company lists factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward looking statements.

Operator

In addition, except where noted, the discussion of CODI's financial results and CODI's expectations reflect certain adjustments as specified in the non GAAP financial measures section of the company's release. With that, we will now open the line for questions. And we'll take our first question from Rob Ottenstein with Evercore. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Great. Thank you very much. Sue, I was wondering if you could give us a little bit more detail on the Q4 sales outlook. Is it a reflection of weakening consumer demand or changes in kind of retail inventories or actions that you're doing just to kind of better understand why you expect to see that sales sharp sales deceleration in Q4, please? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Hello. Good morning, Robert. Good morning, everyone. So it has not to do with, I would say, worsening of the market conditions, not at all. This has to do a lot with our wish on the Prestige division, while the fragrance category continues to grow solidly to clean up the baseline.

Speaker 2

At the same time, we pressure coming on the prestige cosmetics market, mainly coming from Asia, travel retail and from China, which are still under pressure. So this is really in the prestige division about intervening actively to clean up the baseline given how big is going to be the pipeline of innovation for fiscal twenty twenty six. We wanted to play the role of stimulating the demand and coming back to growth as big as possible. And for this, need a clean baseline. For the Consumer Beauty division, we see a continuation of the mid single digits decline in the cosmetics category globally.

Speaker 2

We also see some impact on our cosmetics sales from the marketing allocation and some headwinds in the gross to net, which should reverse next year. So in summary, would say that this figure is if we didn't go to that cleaning, this minor the high single digits decline would be a rather low single digit decline without the cleanup. So that's the way I would describe it. Still the same trends, strong dynamism behind fragrances, including in The U. S, but still a mid single digit decline in color cosmetics, while our brands are continuing to fight for market share in both divisions.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from Filippo Fallorney with Citi. Please go ahead.

Speaker 3

Hey, good morning everyone. So maybe just following up on Rob's question, just on the prestige fragrance category, you mentioned it still grew at a mid single digit rate if you adjust for the Easter timing, low single digit on a reported basis. Can you give us a sense of just geographically how you're seeing the growth of the category, especially exiting the quarter, if you think this mid single digit is sustainable going forward? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Yes. Good morning, Filippo. So we believe this mid single digit percentage growth is sustaining for specifically in The U. S. It's also strong in most European markets.

Speaker 2

And the reason why we believe this is going to continue or sustain is that this famous fragrance index that we've been referring to since now almost three years is continuing in a way to play with the still and this is what we envision for the next years, still gains of penetration in a country like The U. S. Where penetration is still much lower, driven by a new generation of users. It used to be Gen Zs. It used to be male consumers, Hispanic consumers.

Speaker 2

This continues to a lesser extent, but now it's around male teens and still a continuation of Gen Z trending towards niche fragrances. So we believe this, I would say, growth engine for this category will continue in The U. S. In Europe, the growth probably in the coming years will be driven by mix and pricing. And in China, if this market, which we see starting to get a little bit better quarter after quarter, but there again, the penetration level is also so low that we believe the volumes coming from more and more users will continue to drive the growth of this market.

Speaker 2

So to answer the question, the market is strong in most European markets. It continues to be mid single digits in The U. S. It's today still affected in China. But we believe that all in all, the global growth of the category of fragrances, both in prestige and in mass, will continue to be the strongest among the three key categories of the beauty business.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from Susan Anderson with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to ask about the Consumer Beauty business. I think in your prepared comments, you talked about rebalancing your resources to profit. Not sure if you meant just within Consumer Beauty or the whole portfolio, but just curious how you're thinking about CoverGirl and if potentially you could sell that at some point?

Speaker 4

Or do you want to refocus your efforts here towards profitability and then some more consumer innovations, I believe you mentioned? And then also if you could just talk about the promotional environment in mass cosmetics, given it's been one of the weaker areas of beauty. And then I was curious how some of the international brands like Rimmel performed versus CoverGirl? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Thank you. So if I understand why your question is about how to increase the profitability of the Consumer Beauty division. So Consumer Beauty division is two stories, if I may say. There is color cosmetics on one side and then massive fragrances on the other side. The first information that needs to be known is that it's we see really diverging trends with color cosmetics under pressure.

Speaker 2

We know the declines of this market both globally and in The U. S. But what we see is at the same time, the mass fragrances are really continuing to grow high single digits, sometimes double digits growth. And this is really what we are trying to pivot now since one point years, accelerating in fiscal twenty twenty five, which is reflected in the figures that you saw during the presentation. So the color cosmetics category per se is when you look at the gross margin of this category at Coty, it's quite high in terms of gross margin.

Speaker 2

So it's really something that is not a big difference versus our peers who are more exposed to skincare, hence, higher profitability in this kind of mass market division. But if you compare color cosmetics to color cosmetics, we are quite close to our competitors. The thing that happened is that when we started as a team in 2021 to reposition the division, we had to reinvest in building an innovation pipeline, in increasing marketing spend, in strengthening brand reach, relevance, equity, stabilizing the distribution, which led to investments that really weighed on operating margin for some time. Importantly, what we saw is that we had tangible results for this color cosmetics cosmetics category. First, with a stabilized shelf space and second, with probably the strongest brand equities in many years in this division.

Speaker 2

At the same time, the market has continued to evolve, and we've seen the rise of indies or jewels, depending on how they are positioned, which at the end of the day did not grow the full market. And that's what I did say last quarter is that this color cosmetics market in mass market needs to be a story of legacy plus Indy rather than just a story of Indy who are failing to grow the total market. So on this side, what we are doing on the color cosmetics part is that we are making our effort even more granularly decisive, meaning that we've made a lot of studies to understand what are the lever that can support totally the brands with the highest return on investment, which really allow us to free some resources to put them behind Masked Fragrances, which are, by the way, much more profitable with gross margins much higher than Color Cosmetics. So that's the key shift that we are operating in this division, still continuing to do the right things behind Color Cosmetics while freeing investments to support what is growing and what is much more profitable for us, which is mass fragrances.

Speaker 2

To finish on this, I can give you one good example of what we have done with Rimmel in The UK, which is a very interesting example of what is the right playbook to be successful in this business. So on Rimmel in UK, we have put in place a combination of, number one, innovations that were prestige inspired, if I may say. I'm thinking about the libbutter. I'm thinking about the multitasker consider, which went very, very strongly viral and also benefited from very strong always on influencer content, organic consumer content plus advocacy, activations using TikTok shops for the first time, which led to a brand halo and a strong momentum on Amazon. Altogether, this required less investment than the classical launches we were doing before.

Speaker 2

But at the same time, they allowed us to stabilize the market share of the brand in The UK for the first time in three years. So at the end of the day, we feel that we are finding the right recipe to support color cosmetics with a little bit downsized investment while having better results, while reinvesting behind the mass fragrance category. And then there was a second question around promotional environment. Laurent, you want to take it?

Speaker 5

Yes. So indeed, I mean, we indicated, I mean, we are seeing some of our peers, I mean, playing really some stronger promotions. And we are really making sure that in our portfolio that we are protecting our brands versus this approach. So now we are really dedicating teams working on the SRM, so strategic revenue management, working working on the segmentation of the portfolio on the innovations. So indeed, yes, there is this context.

Speaker 5

But again, back to the point that Sue was referring to, we are making sure we are protecting the gross margin and really that we keep sufficient ammunition to support the brands.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from Bonnie Herzog with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Speaker 6

Thank you. Hi, everyone. I actually had a question on FY '20 '20 '6 phasing. You called out gradual improvement in like for like trends over the course of the year compared to expected weakness in FQ4. So first, as we think about the gradual improvement, should we expect continued declines in 1H, especially maybe in Q1 before you return to growth later in the year?

Speaker 6

And then second, how should we think about the timing buster launch that you mentioned in 1H? Could it add to growth in Q1? Or is this more about an FQ2 story? Thank you.

Speaker 5

Yes. Thank you. So indeed, just to give more details indeed on the phasing. So I mean, in the current uncertain macro environment, so we want to stay and we want to be prudent around the outlook. And indeed, so we are currently seeing indeed that some there will be some decline in sales in H1.

Speaker 5

However, we expect, I mean, the trend to be better than Q4. And this trend will gradually improve over the course of the year. So this is really what we are seeing. So then how this is built, I would say, more or less the same components as we just explained that we think that this decline will remain largely driven by Consumer Beauty, again, with color cosmetic category remaining under pressure, I mean, still in this H1 fiscal '20 '20 '6. And at the same time, we are seeing the prestige, pretty muted, but I would say more headwinds on the cosmetics and skincare, but fragrance remains strong.

Speaker 5

And step by step is really that we can reconcile our sell in and sell out. And indeed, this will be supported by big initiatives in Prestige Fragrance that indeed Soucan will comment now.

Speaker 2

Yes, Bonnie, good morning. To complement and to answer your question, indeed, this first half of fiscal twenty twenty six and the full fiscal twenty twenty six, we are back to the fiscal twenty twenty three and 2024 recipe of success, which is to put in place this game changing blockbusters, okay? So that's the first thing I wanted to really reinsist on. It's probably going to be the best type of innovations in the last five years. And this new launch that you are referring to will have an impact on Q1.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from Karine Wolfmeyer with Piper Sandler. Please go ahead. Hey, good morning, team. Thank you for

Speaker 7

taking the question. I'd like to touch a little bit on the tariff dynamic. You were able to quantify the impact and it seems like it's going to be more of a fiscal twenty twenty six event. But can you give us a little bit more insight on kind of like the progress of offsetting that tariff impact throughout fiscal twenty twenty six? Is it going to be immediate?

Speaker 7

Is it going to be more throughout the year? And then as we think about pricing coming in to help offset, which categories are going to see some of that pricing increase? And then how are you thinking about the elasticity of that? Thank you.

Speaker 5

Yes, absolutely. I mean, good morning. So I mean, first of all, I really want again to emphasize that, I mean, we are pretty well positioned in this context. And as always, you know that geographical footprint in terms of sales, but also in terms of manufacturing is creating some, I would say, a healthy positioning. I just want to give concrete example that our color cosmetic factories for U.

Speaker 5

S. Brands are in The U. S, talking about CoverGirl, talking about Salient Scent. So here we have released the best protection. And talking about Prestige, Prestige Fragrance, yes, we have most of our production is in Europe and you know that we have the biggest factory in Barcelona.

Speaker 5

We have also a prestige and fragrance factory in The U. S. And also skincare. So we have really these protections. So having said that, and we indicated that we see the impact being in the low €100,000,000 This impact is driven by Prestige Fragrance due to this sourcing in Europe, but it's also due to components, marketing material, GWP.

Speaker 5

So I would say it's more marketing stuff. So it's not finished goods, but which indeed is sourced from China. So this is indeed the sizing that we are sharing with you based on the current assumptions. So now we are taking and we started even before to make some actions. Number one, we built inventory before this tariff came in place.

Speaker 5

So that's why we indicate that we are well protected at least till end of fiscal twenty twenty five. So this is indeed something which is more coming for fiscal twenty six. So there is indeed the phasing. Number two, back to my point on components and marketing materials, procurement already started even before to work actively on change of sourcing and really to reallocate these sourcing production. And we have already some actions in place because we built also this dual sourcing approach, but we are accelerating.

Speaker 5

So this is absolutely what we are doing. From a manufacturing standpoint, we have levers. We have levers. And as I shared, we have already factories in The U. S.

Speaker 5

So we can make decision to route Prestige Fragrance line to The U. S. If needed. But this is something that we are contemplating versus how the situation is evolving. But we can do it indeed with an amount on investment which is reasonable.

Speaker 5

Okay, we don't need to build a factory. We have already a factory. So the last element is about pricing. So indeed, we shared that we are implementing mid single digit price increase on prestige. So this is what we are doing.

Speaker 5

And again, we use the same recipe as we did a few years ago. We have a dedicated pricing office. We are very granular. We do it in a very precise manner. Again, we are leveraging our tools about strategic revenue management, playing between mass fragrance, entry premium, but also high end.

Speaker 5

So there are also levers. So we're explaining also about the paint spray, which is also a segment which is growing very fast. So we are really playing with all these levers. So that's why I mean and we have the data that this category is pretty inelastic versus price increase. This is what we got from the last year when we did strong price increase, and you saw that the category kept growing in terms of volumes.

Speaker 5

So we are tracking very carefully. But indeed, we are pretty confident that we can do this indeed without impacting the volumes. We continue to monitor the situation and to see how it evolves based on the final decisions about this tariff.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from Oliver Chen with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Hi, Sue and Laurent. Regarding retailer replenishment, what do you see happening over the next quarters and years? And what are the implications for how you're managing your own inventory? Second question is on organizational changes in The U. S.

Speaker 1

That you mentioned. Would love your thoughts on how that will drive more agility and what's happening. And as you think about regionalization versus centralization, it sounded like both of those are different opportunities for different reasons. Thank you.

Speaker 5

Yes. Thank you, Oliver. So retailer replenishment, indeed, this is something that we flagged already a few quarters ago. I mean, we are seeing retailers being very disciplined and tight on their cash management, very strong on their inventory. So this we see in, I would say, both divisions.

Speaker 5

It started really we saw it first in consumer beauty, color cosmetic, but we see it also now in the prestige division. So we are really seeing retailers being very tight on their inventory. And this is also back to what we are sharing about the Q3 and the Q4 trend. Indeed, we are seeing these retailers moving from, I would say, pretty high inventory and now being really to very low inventory. So this is really a new pattern.

Speaker 5

I mean and this is also exacerbated now by the acceleration of the ecom players and to name the biggest one, Amazon, who are extremely strict, extremely disciplined, extremely well organized on this inventory management. And you see, of course, that the traditional retailers, of course, they are now need to take also the same approach to optimize their cash.

Speaker 2

And then on the second part of your question, good morning, Oliver, which is around the organizational changes in The U. S. This was something that we've been working on for now quite some time. We believe that when we reorganized the company back in 2021, we had to give, I would say, a lot of power to central organizations because we had to rebuild marketing strategy, brand equities to make sure that everyone is aligned behind the same goals, the same ways of doing the same culture. We believe this is the right moment to give the power to regions, specifically now that the brands and the way of doing is quite different from one region to another.

Speaker 2

So we created a new region, which is a region that is English speaking region with U. S, U. K, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. And this with the new leadership team that is in charge of it to really balance local versus global so that there is a rapidity of decision and then that there is more nimbleness, more ability to make decisions that are 100% driven by local, I would say, constraints or opportunities versus just what used to come from Central as a guideline. So this glocalization of the world is translated into a glocalization of our organizations.

Speaker 2

Global still had a key, I would say, power, but Local has as much power as Global today. So that's what I believe is making probably going to help us, sorry, to regain the momentum, specifically in The U. S. You've probably noticed that the immense majority of our decline is U. S.

Speaker 2

Driven for many regions. One of them is to strengthen the leadership teams and the management and the ability to execute properly. The other one is that The U. S. Market is indeed the market where Burberry, Goddess, Kylie, Cosmic and, of course, Marc Jacobs, Desiwald were the biggest successes.

Speaker 2

So this is really what created the biggest comp in this country more than anywhere else around the world.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from Steve Powers with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Speaker 8

Yes, good morning. Thank you. And this question may build a bit on Oliver's question there on The U. S. Organizational changes.

Speaker 8

But if we think about the cost savings initiatives that you've announced and accelerated recently more holistically, Is there a way to parse what proportion of them you think you would have done in any environment such that we might consider them truly structural versus those that maybe have been pulled forward more reaction to the current environment sort of as belt tightening such that they kind of may come back into the cost structure when conditions turn more favorable, even if they come back in a slightly different form? Thank you.

Speaker 5

For the question. So I mean, these are really structural interventions. So it's really and I think it's important to always to insist that we are really in a mode of constantly rethinking and re challenging our organization and ways of working because the world is moving very fast. So what Sue explained is really the change of organization is also in a context where indeed with this omnichannel is changing very fast. So Sue was explaining what we do in U.

Speaker 5

S. I just want to give also the example about Europe, where you are seeing that our retailers are moving also to cross country approach. And this is something, of course, that we are really matching very, very quickly. That's also the case about the ecom players. I mean ecom players, of course, they are playing a game which is cross country.

Speaker 5

So it's really that by doing this adjusting organization is really to gain agility, flexibility and also, of course, is really optimizing our cost structure always with this mindset that we can refuel the brands and reorganize. So indeed, it's structural, and this is something that we continue on ongoing basis. It's also leveraging technology. You remember last year, we shared with you that we implemented successfully S4HANA. I mean, it was very flawless.

Speaker 5

And now we are also leveraging all tools, this technology, of course, to optimize our ways of working. And we will continue, of course. And yes, so this structural change is also helping to address and to manage the current very high volatile environment. And Steve,

Speaker 2

to complement on Laurent's answer, I would say that this is really structural changes with a dose of contractual changes, if I may say. Laurent was referring earlier to the rise of the likes of Amazon, which may become the number one beauty retailer in calendar year. But at the same time, while Amazon is growing, you have a new challenger called TikTok Shop, which represents, I think, already $3,000,000,000 of sales, which is at the same time entertainment and sales in the same platform, in the same place. And this one is even challenging classical pure players of e retail. So there is really this kind of moves that are happening under our eyes, and we absolutely need to adapt on almost on a monthly basis.

Speaker 2

So it's really both.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from Olivia Tong with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Speaker 9

Great, thanks. Good morning. First, just a point of clarification on Consumer Beauty. If you could help clarify what drove volume to be flat while price mix was the driver of the weakness in Q3, Wouldn't have expected that to be the case. And then building on the all in to win plan, could you talk about what's new about the streamlining that you want to do as part of this plan versus the savings you were targeting in the prior plan?

Speaker 9

Where the headcount reductions are coming from? And then as you think about your portfolio, you be in all the brands that you have? Are you scrutinizing your portfolio thinking about potentially exiting some underperformers or repositioning some of the underperformers? Thank you.

Speaker 5

Good morning, Olivia. So on the gap between volume and pricing, I mean, the big reason on Consumer Beauty is that, as you understand, where we had really gaps in the performance was really on the color cosmetic, and we flagged mostly about The U. S. But on the other hand, as you know, we are very good performance in Brazil, where we have significant volume growth. But indeed, the net revenue or the price per unit in Brazil indeed is lower versus the rest of the countries of The U.

Speaker 5

S. So this is what's driving indeed this gap indeed between volume and price. So indeed, it's mostly geographical mix. So on your second question about streamlining support functions, so what we shared and we will keep you posted as when the process indeed is in motion. So it's really it's about consolidating and centralizing support function activities.

Speaker 5

And indeed, it's also to align support function also with the new commercial organization that Sue was describing. Okay? So again, if I give the example of Europe, where we are seeing retailers, where we are seeing e com players playing really a cross country approach is really that we are making sure that indeed we are streamlining our support function according to the commercial organization. We already started, as you know, we shared last time, we already started with the consolidation of demand planning into a single hub. So this is really what is already in motion for supply, really to manage the demand and the forecast and here again to leverage technology.

Speaker 5

And it's also now that we can enable also some AI tool in this demand. And as I shared before, so on support function, now we can also leverage the strong S4HANA footprint that we built last year.

Speaker 2

And to answer the second part of your question around the portfolio, Olivia, Good morning. As you know, like most of the corporations in this business, we are always and constantly evaluating the patinence of our portfolio and the long term opportunities. And of course, ROI driven by each and every brand, each and every category and each and every market. Will we keep all the brands in the portfolio? Not necessarily.

Speaker 2

And the best example is what we've just started to do with what we did with SKKN recently, which was announced during Q3.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from Ashley Helgans with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Speaker 10

Hi, thanks for taking our question. So I know you talked a little bit about retail inventory levels, wondering if you could just talk a little bit more about how sell in, sell out trends or retail tightening varies by region? And then also for the mid single digit price increases planned this summer, is that going to be total prestige portfolio or select brands? Thanks.

Speaker 5

So indeed, I mean, sell in versus sell out, just to be very clear, and we shared that we are seeing indeed in this quarter some disconnect in The U. S. And this is really what's driving most of our decline. And this is really what we are working on actively, really to reconcile our sell in and sell out. So this is the work we are doing and we will start to see the results in fiscal twenty twenty six.

Speaker 5

I mean, on the other regions, I mean, Europe remains very healthy category. If I talk really about prestige fragrance is very healthy. And here, we have really a bit sell in and sell out are pretty well in line. So we are tracking very carefully. But again, all the regions are very healthy.

Speaker 5

LatAm, Brazil, as I said, okay, also we are managing tightly. And Asia, as you know, is pretty small for us. So China is very small. So I mean but also we are seeing still indeed some headwinds in China, but it's pretty limited us. At the same time, I want to again, and this was a previous question, to insist about the fact that we are seeing our retailers being very aggressive on their inventory management.

Speaker 5

So this is something that indeed is more on the retailer side, which could still create some volatility indeed between the sell in and the sell out. And this is obviously also exacerbated in the current context where we are seeing indeed some slowdown in the Consumer Beauty category and some normalization in the prestige category. So that's why we remain very cautious, especially about the H1 fiscal twenty twenty six. So about price increase, again, are focusing first on the prestige U. S.

Speaker 5

Because there is just a mechanical effect that due to the sourcing from Europe. And this is a case of all players, to make it very clear, that it's really the normal adjustment that we have to operate. And again, because we are pretty confident on the inelasticity of this category. Now having said that, yes, we continue to be very active and we need to look carefully at all the categories and also at all the regions. And indeed, we see that we can implement price increase with lower elasticity, this is of course something that we will contemplate and put in place and also to continue our gross margin expansion journey.

Speaker 5

To complement on Laurent's point, Ashley, is that what

Speaker 2

we believe is going to happen being not elastic in terms of price increases behind Prestige fragrances of the toilette or the Parfums. We are, at the same time, making sure we have we increase the number of touches on the piano of scenting with body mists, with small formats, with pen sprays to a level that was not done in the past. We believe that the conjunction of the two should keep a healthy demand either with consumers looking for value proposals and they find them behind our brands or those who are just trying to increase the wardrobe effect or at the end, who are trying a small sample before moving to a bigger content and size.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from Andrea Teixeira with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Speaker 11

Thank you. Good afternoon for some of you. And so my question is on The U. S. Color cosmetics.

Speaker 11

Looking at the success you had elevating Rimmel in The U. K. And I know you invested in the studios here in The U. S. As well to modernize your way to get to the consumer.

Speaker 11

In retrospect, why it worked well abroad and not here? And what is the new leadership aiming to do differently from the past? Or do you think structurally the markets are completely different here? What works here wouldn't work in The U. K.

Speaker 11

And vice versa? And a follow-up to Laurent's point about the EUR $370,000,000 are win to win of cost saves. How much will go and flow through to the bottom line? You.

Speaker 2

Yes. Good morning, Andrea. Your question is a valid one, I have to say. So at the end of the day, what we see is that indeed, as you quoted it, there are structural differences, but it's a question of intensity rather than a question of what is at stake. So at the end of the day, both European and U.

Speaker 2

S. Markets are seeing a disruption coming from Indy or new brands, but this is to a much bigger extent in The U. S. So the reason why you don't see this happening as quickly as we should in The U. S.

Speaker 2

Behind Collardier, to name it, is that probably The U. S. Market is a much more competitive market. The exposure of Indy or new brands is much higher, especially in terms of shelf space. And the third reason is that what we are doing is that we use this part by testing new ways of doing in The UK before implementing this in The U.

Speaker 2

S. That was also the rationale behind having the same head of the region out looking at The U. S, at Canada, at UK and at Australia and New Zealand, which are markets with more or less the same portfolio of brands, English speaking markets, more or less the same dynamics, but two different intensities and different paces. So we believe that the portfolio sorry, the business model we have put behind Remail, especially recently with the test on TikTok shop we've done in The UK, this is something we are starting to implement behind CoverGirl next month, in fact, starting May. So this is really something that hopefully will give us the same kind of results and that's the way we work on this part of the business.

Speaker 2

So how much of the EUR370 million savings will flow through the bottom line? Maybe Laurent, you can

Speaker 5

take this Yes. Thank you, Andrea. So I mean, first of all, just to recap again, I mean, how this €370,000,000 is built. So it is really on the two coming years is really that we have €120,000,000 which is ongoing productivity. And indeed, on top of this, I mean, the programs that we announced two weeks ago is adding up 130,000,000 in addition to this ongoing productivity.

Speaker 5

So what's very important to have in mind is that as we discussed, these are structural intervention. The objective number one is really to create some headroom and really to manage the current volatility. And as you understand, there are a lot. Mean, tariff is one. So we are really working actively to do this.

Speaker 5

Number two, of course, is really to be in a position that we are using part of this money to invest in our brands, to invest in all our initiatives, who was referring indeed to the big innovation that we have next year on prestige fragrance indeed. But it's also that we need to continue and we are continuing really to invest on the other categories. Mass fragrance is a big one, but we need also to defend the other segments. So that's really the objective. There are also some elements that talking about next year, as I shared that, in fact, this year, there is also some short term variable compensation, which are helping the EBITDA this year and will reverse next year.

Speaker 5

So again, the objective is really to create this headroom to be back to a normal algorithm. But ultimately, the end game is that we is really to continue constant EBITDA margin improvement as we flagged in several forums. And again, this year is a clear example that we are accelerating and we will grow our EBITDA margin by 70 basis points. Again, 2026, there will be some reverse one off effect, but ongoing is to continue to improve our EBITDA margin by 20 to 30 basis points. So that's really part of the cycle using this money to reinvest to be back to the virtuous cycle and indeed to continue to improve our EBITDA margin.

Operator

Thank you. Our last question will come from Anna Lizzo with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Speaker 10

Hi, good morning. Thank you so much for the question. I was wondering if you could take a step back just thinking about the current market conditions for prestige versus consumer beauty. On the consumer beauty side, we've seen some weakness in lower income tiers just in U. S.

Speaker 10

Mass beauty broadly speaking. I was wondering if you're seeing some of this drive the incremental weakness here? And then in prestige, are you seeing any slowdown or incremental weakness from higher income consumers? Thank you.

Speaker 2

Alain. This is Sous speaking. So let me start with the Prestige division. And maybe Laurent, you can do the Consumer division, so we end up together on this question. Prestige division, regarding if we are seeing a slowdown, as I mentioned earlier, so far, we have seen this kind of normalization that happened between fiscal twenty twenty four and fiscal twenty twenty five, which was moving from either high single digits or low teens to mid single digits, which was really the way we've been guiding regarding how this market will evolve globally.

Speaker 2

And this is still the case, including with the latest numbers we got on the March. So this we don't see. Another element that we are also looking at is how the different markets are impacted or not by The Indies or Duke's phenomenon, if I may say. And if there is one market that is seeing a consolidation and a growing portion of, I would say, historical brands or designer brands, it's really the fragrance one, where it's increasing year over year versus other markets like color cosmetics, where you clearly see that in these types of dupes are taking a small portion of this market. So clearly, the prestige fragrance market structurally is continuing to grow, and we believe this is going to intensify specifically now that the number of touches of the piano are increasing with body mist that we believe are in a kind of very generous Eau de Toilette version of a perfume.

Speaker 2

You can think about the pen sprays, which are allowing people to play the Rod Rob effect or to test the fragrance or just because they don't have the ability to buy something more expensive. This is going to continue to drive the penetration of this category. Now when it comes on color cosmetics for prestige, we believe that the pressure on color cosmetics is going to continue be it in Asia and in Travel Retail Asia, for the regions that were mentioned by some of our peers, namely the disappearance of the Daigou phenomenon in this key region of the world. But also what we are seeing, for example, in some regions is that the brands that has been doing the growth for the last years, specifically on prestige color cosmetics, such as designer brands not designer brands, sorry, such as indie brands are the drainers of this market in a way. So what we saw in color cosmetics in mass market is also happening in prestige, meaning that people are probably refocusing on values that are value as we say in French versus trying again and again new things at the same time.

Speaker 2

So that's what I could say about what we see behind prestige market, namely on color cosmetics and on fragrances.

Speaker 5

On mass market, Laurent? Yes. Thank you, Anna. So on mass market, again, what's very important is really to understand that this category currently we are seeing two different dynamics. So if we take Consumer Beauty, as we indicated, I mean, now indeed, I mean, this quarter, I mean, global category entered really in negative, so low single digit negative.

Speaker 5

And when you open this category, you see that indeed it's color cosmetic mid single digit negative. But on the other hand, you see that mass fragrance is close high single digit or even double digit. So there are really these two speeds that we have to manage. Now in our model, we are assuming in fiscal twenty twenty six that color cosmetic category will remain negative. This is really the assumption that we are making.

Speaker 5

On the other hand, of course, we are really betting strongly on the mass fragrance acceleration. And as you know, we are very well positioned. I mean, we are the number one worldwide on this category. On U. S, we are number two to number three.

Speaker 5

We have very strong initiatives. So it's really currently the work we are doing in terms of resource allocation. So it's really on the one hand, is really capturing the growth opportunities from the mass fragrance. And you have concrete example with VIBE and there is more to come. And at the same time, of course, on color cosmetic, we need to be very targeted, really focusing on big innovations, really playing all these games, these advocacy and the Gen Z.

Speaker 5

So this is currently what we are contemplating for fiscal twenty twenty six, really with these two speeds really a model in the consumer beauty.

Operator

Thank you. That does conclude the question and answer portion of today's call. I would like to turn the call back over to Sue for any additional or closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Yes. Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity, and thank you for the questions. So let me zoom out for this closure remarks. As you know, across the latest economic cycles, again, what we have seen is that beauty has remained resilient in this for decades. Even in this very challenging landscape, we have, as you know, it significantly strengthened our strategic operational and financial fundamentals.

Speaker 2

We've been driving gross margin expansion. We've been driving a stronger cash flow generation. We've been substantially deleveraging the company over the past four years. Of course, while we are not satisfied with our net revenue performance in fiscal twenty twenty five, our strong fundamentals, coupled with our multipronged attack plan, which is the best in the last five years, with being back to the recipes of 2023 and 2024, other initiatives being distribution and efficiencies, all of these give us strong confidence for the years ahead. Thank you very much.

Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's program, and we appreciate your participation. You may disconnect at any time.

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Earnings Conference Call
Coty Q3 2025
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