I'm extremely conflicted on whether or not CROX deserves my investment. 80% of it is a cash cow: extremely profitable, robust growth, and just beautifully run.
The glaring, ugly, rotting corpse that is the other 20% is weighing the rest of the 80% down is HEYDUDE. Looking at the last q as an example, CROX reported $1,112M in revenue and $326 in operating income. They have decided to stop reporting operating margin by segment because they don't want to make HD look even worse than it obviously is.
On a segment basis: Crocs contributed $914M. While we don't know for sure, based on previous earnings report, we can assume a 35-37% EBIT margin, so let's call it 35% on the low end which means it contributed $319M to EBIT.
HD contributed $198M in revenue, and if we're lucky, contributed $7M to EBIT (3% margin). If we're unlucky and Crocs had a 37% EBIT, it contributed -12M to EBIT (-6% margin).
Let's break it down by segments and use a sum of parts analysis. Crocs is expected to grow 7-9% on the top line, and we will assume they maintain a 35% EBIT margin (which is bonkers btw). That brings the FY24 revenue to be around $3.27B and $1.14B in EBIT. This is quite frankly conservative as their most recent Q has shown Crocs is killing it internationally.
HD on the other hand is expected to contract -10% – 8% for the FY24 giving us revenue of $850M. Given that we already calculated an EBIT margin of 3%, this gives us an EBIT of $25M. I'm going to be pessimistic and say this is 0 as I hate this segment.
Using a very conservative 10x PE multiple, less the 1.7B debt CROX acquired from purchasing HD, that would give us an EV of 9.7B, or $153/share, representing 25% upside. Again, this is for a business that has consistent single digit growth with unbelievable margins, rivaling software companies.
The CEO is refusing to give up on HD, and pouring money to attempt to build it up but the results are just not showing. The market is clearly telling CROX they don't want HeyDude and Andrew Rees, the CEO who I very much respect but am very frustrated with, gave a bullshit answer in response to why they were showing no growth despite the increase in SG&A
Jonathan Komp
Hi, thank you. Just one more follow-up, but I wanted to ask a bigger picture question around the philosophy for the SG&A investments. And, obviously, this year is a year in which you are planning to grow revenue 3% to 5%. And yet, you are spending almost 20% higher SG&A for the year. So, could you just maybe remind us your overall philosophy? And as we lookout, is there hope that these investments drive faster revenue growth, and any color there in terms of the overall strategy? Thanks.
Andrew Rees
Great question, Jon. So, obviously, we are starting off — I would say we are starting off from a base of extremely high profitability, right? So, even this year with that distorted investment profile that you just highlighted in your question, we'll achieve kind of 25.5% in terms of EBITD margin, extraordinary level relative to our peers in the industry which we are in, and obviously, that's due to the very high gross margins we experienced on our Crocs brand and also the efficiency of our business model. In terms of philosophy going forward, I think there will be periods of time when we choose to invest in SG&A. Both variable and SG&A because of our marketing is variable and can be turned on and off at any point in time.
And where we will make investments in talent and people and infrastructure and capabilities that we think would be important for the future. The intent of those investments is to support and — sorry, support and guarantee — you know guarantees don't work. But, assure long-term growth. So, we are trying to build in a company and a brand that has long-term growth potential and can continue to grow for many years to come. So, I would say there will be periods of time when we distort an SG&A. There were periods of time when we leverage SG&A. And, that's kind of how we think about it from a long-term philosophy perspective.
The market is clearly placing a negative premium on HD, to the tune of -2B. Does it make sense to invest in a company like this, where the CEO is stubborn and refusing to cut off a rotting limb?
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