Watches of Switzerland Group plc. (OTCPK:WOSGF) H1 2024 Earnings Conference Call December 7, 2023 4:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Brian Duffy – CEO
Anders Romberg – CFO
Conference Call Participants
Melania Grippo – BNP Paribas
John Corks – Kepler
Adrien Duverger – Goldman Sachs
Brian Duffy
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our webcasting call on the results of the Watches of Switzerland group for the Half Year to October’23. We have previously reported Q2 and H1 revenues to the market and we have presented the status of the Company and plans for our group with our LRP and therefore this presentation is reasonably concise, allowing more time for Q&A.
Our agenda this morning, I’ll present an overview of the group’s performance, Anders Romberg, our CFO, will then present the financials, then we will present a summary of our LRP headlines and numbers together, following which we’ll open the lines for Q&A. We are very pleased with our strong first half performance in the UK and the US, despite a challenging economic environment.
Group revenue growth of 2% at constant currency, flat at reported rates; strong US revenue growth of 11% at constant currency. Adjusted EBITDA of GBP94 million was 8% down at constant currency, 10 at reported rates. EBITDA of GBP73 million, achieving a margin of 9.6%, which was down 170 bps versus last year, due predominantly to a reduction in net margin from product mix and interest-free credit costs.
Net cash of GBP60 million, compared to GBP26 million borrowing at half one last year, with cash conversion of 60%, 700 bps higher than last year. We’ve now completed the acquisition of the luxury showrooms from Ernest Jones. These stores had a combined LTM sales of around GBP45 million.
We have successfully launched Rolex certified pre-owned in both the UK and the US. We communicated our LRP through to FY’28 on the seventh of November. Our FY’28 goals in the LRP represent a more than doubling of our sales and profits. Looking here at the sales mix in more detail, the rapid growth of our US business means that US sales in a half are now 43% of the group total, compared to FY’19, a total year of 24%.
We see the US market as underdeveloped and we are very pleased with our growth and momentum in the US. Our group sales in a half were 95% to domestic clients, and this compares to 67% in FY’19. International sales have been hugely impacted by the removal of bat-free shopping in the UK following Brexit. We have more than compensated for this market loss with a successful increased focus on the domestic client.
I’m very pleased to confirm the completion of the asset purchase of a group of 15 showrooms from Ernest Jones in the UK. This was previously reported at 19; however four mono-brand stores have been sold separately. Ernest Jones is part of the Signet Group, which is predominantly a US-based group focused on diamond jewellery. Ernest Jones ceased partnering with Rolex in 2012, but continued a relationship with most other luxury watch brands.
The showrooms that we are acquiring include a total of 76 luxury watch brand agencies, including Omega, Cartier, Breitling, Tudor and Tag Heuer. These showrooms are very much in our space with great potential for growth, all in good geographical locations, complementary to our current estate, with good teams, locations and clients.
The focus immediately is to rebrand the stores, leverage our group systems, implement our client service and merchandising, and of course the training and support of our new colleagues. The pre-owned market is huge, particularly in the US, and represents a major opportunity for the watches of Switzerland Group.
We have now launched Rolex CPO in the US and UK to add to our already successful analog shift business in the US and UK pre-owned. We launched Rolex CPO in seven showrooms in the US in July, we’re now in 14, and in five showrooms in the UK in September, and we’re now in 10 with Metro Centre effectively launching this week.
Half One has been our busiest on record for developments with new showrooms, in all markets, including the transformation of a number of large turnover showrooms in the UK, which we have now reopened across November and early December to maximise trade in the holiday season. We have a healthy pipeline into fiscal year 25, including the opening of the flagship Rolex boutique on Old Bond Street in autumn 2024.
We continue to invest in our Goldsmith luxury designs, with expanded and elevated showrooms providing dedicated space for luxury watch brands, increased space for luxury jewellery brands, and new areas of hospitality and client service. In September we completed the most significant and largest transformation for Goldsmiths, in Liverpool City Centre, 6,500 square feet, across two floors of luxury watches, luxury jewellery, including a 1,200 square feet Rolex room and a 500 square feet Cartier room.
We’ve also introduced many new jewellery brands, including Pomellato and Fred. Since a half year we have opened a relocated Rolex boutique in Orlando, Florida, and completed Goldsmith luxury transformations in Birmingham Bullring, Manchester Trafford Centre and Newcastle Metro Centre. We have also successfully developed a new design for Mappin and Webb, focused on a more modern, contemporary look, whilst respecting the great heritage of the brand.
We have opened in York, Guernsey, Glasgow and Bluewater. You can see here, opens next week. We are delighted with the success of Soho and Hudson Yards in our New York flagships. These showrooms continue to grow in sales, and we believe we can continue to grow in Manhattan and the tri-state area. American Dream, New Jersey, opened firstly in May, anchored by Rolex.
One Vanderbilt will be our next Manhattan flagship, located next to Grand Central Terminal, at the base of arguably the premium office tower in New York City. This building is host to the first Amex Centurion Lounge, which spans a full floor of the building. The boutique is anchored by Cartier and Omega, and will open in Q4 of this fiscal year. Branded jewellery is a market we have highlighted to apply our winning model.
Mappin and Webb Manchester, a new store concept, will open in autumn 2024, with an impressive line-up of international luxury jewellery brands that will be regionally exclusive, and also designer brands, men’s jewellery and Mappin and Webb jewellery. The Mall of Netherlands, near The Hague, will be our first multi-brand location in Europe, and the first entry to the market for the watches of Switzerland brand.
We have a great line-up of brands, including Cartier, Omega, Breitling, Tudor and Tag Heuer, and the showroom is due to open by October 2024. E-commerce continues to be a key area of focus, not just in driving sales through this channel, but supporting client journeys ahead of visiting our showrooms. Sales were down 3% at constant currency for the half, reflecting tough comparatives and a higher mix of jewellery through this channel. We continue to invest in the customer journey both online and through our virtual boutique, to ensure each client gets a journey that meets their needs.
I’ll join you again shortly, but now I’ll pass over to our CFO, Anders Romberg.
Anders Romberg
Thank you, Brian, and good morning everyone. I’m Anders Romberg, CFO for the Group, and I’ll now take you through the financials. This is presented on a pre-IFRS 16 basis and excludes exceptional items. The reconciliations through the statutory numbers are included in the R&S. Revenue growth for the half was plus 2% on a constant currency basis and flat on a reported basis.
Growth was driven primarily through luxury watches with the jewellery market softer. The US has continued strong growth, with sales of plus 11% on a constant currency basis. In the UK and Europe, sales declined by 4%, with Q1 impacted by timing of supply. We’re confident that we’re continuing to take market share in both regions. Net margin for the half was 80 basis points down versus last year, reflecting adverse product mix and impact of interest-free credit costs.
Adjusted EBITDA declined by 8% on a constant currency basis or 10% on a reported basis to GBP94 million. Adjusted EBIT declined by 15% to GBP73 million, which I’ll talk you through on a subsequent slide. Financing costs decreased by GBP800,000 as higher market lending rates were offset by savings made as a result of the refinancing in May’23, lower level of drawdowns and increased interest income on cash balances. The effective tax rate was 29% for the half, exceeding the standard UK rate due to higher chargeable taxes on US profits.
For the full year, I expect the effective tax rate to be around 27% to 28%. Adjusted EPS for the half was 21.5p, a decline of 23%. The profit reduction for the half was primarily driven by reduction in margin rate from product mix and higher interest-free credit costs. Our cost base increased from opening of new showrooms, but was partially offset by management over existing cost base. Depreciation increased by GBP3 million, reflecting the increase in capital, and an adverse year-on-year exchange rate impacted EBIT by GBP2 million.
Moving to the balance sheet, the increase in PPE results from our ongoing showroom investment program, and the increase in right-of-use assets and lease liabilities due to expansion of our showroom network. Inventory increased to GBP400 million, 5% higher than the first half of 2023, driven by an increase in number of showrooms and the increase in the unit value of our stock from pricing. This was mitigated by strong management of stockholding in other areas of our business. It is important to remember that there is really no obsolescence in our inventory.
Net cash was in line with year-end at GBP16 million and GBP42 million ahead of prior year. On the cash flow, adjusted EBITDA was GBP94 million. The working capital outflow of GBP8 million represents the inventory bill for new showrooms, less than associated offset in trade payables. The increase in tax payments reflects the higher rate of UK corporation tax versus last year. Free cash flow conversion of 60% was 700 basis points favorable to last year.
We continue to invest in the showroom expansion and refurbishment program. With multiple new showrooms delivered across all regions, our expansion plan has been more front-end weighted, and we expect capital spend to be lower in the second half, reflecting full year guidance of GBP80 million. Net cash was in line with year-end at GBP16 million. GBP50 million of our lending facility was also paid down in the half as we managed cash and interest costs tightly. Post half-year, we completed the Ernest Jones transaction at a consideration of GBP44 million.
Today, we are reiterating the guidance that we gave last month when we released our Q2 trading update. Guidance is based on visibility of supply of key brands, reflects confirmed showroom openings, excludes M&A, and is based on a second-half average rate of GBP1.25 per pound.
With that, I’ll hand you back to Brian.
Brian Duffy
Thanks, Anders. We were delighted to share our updated long-range plan on the seventh of November. Our performance tracks significantly ahead of our previous LRP, and we are confident of significant growth over the next five years. This plan has been built in granular detail, with key building blocks shown on the slide. All of our capital investments work, delivering strong ROIs and paybacks.
Looking firstly at showroom investment, this is by no means just refurbishment. These projects in most cases involve showroom expansion, will always include additional brand distribution, and can often be a showroom relocation. Our cash payback, which we review ongoing, is between two and three years. Investing in our showrooms is a key driver of profitable growth, and we have the clearest visibility and most exciting investment programme in our LRP. The pre-owned market represents a major opportunity for the Watches of Switzerland group.
We have now launched Rolex CPO in the US and UK, to add to our already successful analog shift and UK pre-owned businesses. We will progressively expand distribution of our CPO to all Rolex agencies UK and US, and we will rebrand non-Rolex CPO to analog shift in the UK. We will increase distribution of analog shift in both markets, and we will support the business with in-store presentation and marketing, and develop the online sector.
Branded luxury jewellery is a significant opportunity for the group. We have success and credibility through our growth in luxury watches. We have learnt a great deal about luxury branded jewellery from recent acquisitions of Betterage and Mayors in the US, and we have decades of heritage in jewellery here in the UK. We are now ready to focus on this category. We will open a new concept store dedicated to luxury branded jewellery in the centre of Manchester. This showroom will include many brands available for the first time outside of London, including a De Beers boutique.
We will introduce prestigious luxury jewellery brands to our multi-brand luxury showrooms in both the UK and US, and online. Our new store developments all include expanded space for luxury jewellery, and lounge and hospitality areas conducive to jewellery selling. We will support these plans with a full marketing programme of advertising, PR and events. Online is a major growth opportunity and our size and scale is going to help us grow ahead of the market.
We will continue to add luxury watch brands along with developing the online success of Rolex Certified Pre-Owned and our own Analog Shift Pre-Owned, as well as developing a strong luxury jewellery branded proposition. We have had great success in driving growth through acquisitions such as Mayer’s Betterage and Winn, and identifying new projects and opportunities in underserved markets such as Hudson Yards and Soho in New York. We believe there is significant opportunity for growth in these areas, and we have projected significant investment to deliver the growth potential.
And I will now pass over again to Anders to give you the financial summaries of our LRP.
Anders Romberg
Thanks Brian. Overall, we entered the next five years with better visibility of projects than when we did our last five-year plan back in 2021. The focus on luxury jewellery and pre-owned watches are both new versus what we included in our last plan. In the UK we expect a sales CAGR of between 8% and 10%, about 2% to 3% ahead of the expected market growth. This is less than what we achieved between 2020 and 2023.
During the past four years, the UK market had severe disruption through lockdowns and loss of tax-free to overseas clients. Sales to our domestic clients in the past four years has grown at a CAGR of 21%. We have gained market share through our capital programs and expansion of our monobrand concept while driving our e-commerce channel. In addition, we will increase our focus on pre-owned watches. Rolex certified pre-owned is off to a good start and branded jewellery, which both are mostly additive to our existing business.
We also have the benefit from the Ernest Jones showroom acquisition and e-commerce growth. The US market growth is expected to outpace the UK as it still is, in our view, underdeveloped. We anticipate the market to grow at an average between 8% and 10%. We have planned a sales CAGR of between 20% and 25% in this market, so well ahead of the market growth.
The market is fragmented and consolidation is an opportunity, so acquisitions form part of our growth strategy. In addition to this, there are quite a few locations that we define as underdeveloped and should have distribution of luxury watches. So to gain distribution, you don’t always have to acquire a business. We have identified quite a few such locations and are discussing them with our brand partners. The pipeline of new projects is giving us good visibility over the years to come.
We have seen the benefit of our capital programs in Mayors and at the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas and don’t expect this to change as we complete the upgrade program over the next few years. The three better-rich showrooms will be completed by FY’26. Rolex Certified Pre-Own is off to a good start and we are expanding the number of points of sales. The US is by far the biggest market for jewelry and we will be more active in this segment over the next five years.
Our e-commerce is still in the early stage. There is a huge market opportunity in the US e-commerce space. We think the EU will contribute between 4% and 6% of our sales at the end of the planning period. This will include acquisitions. Over the five-year period, we plan to spend between GBP300 and GBP350 million on showroom capital. Our historical return on capital investment has been very good.
Our payback on capital programs has averaged out between two and four years depending on format and location. We also plan to spend between GBP350 and GBP500 million on acquisitions and new projects over the period. This could obviously go up if further opportunities were to materialize, but this is what we used in our plan. The plan calls for more than doubling of sales and EBIT over the five years. This chart illustrates the building blocks behind our model and indicates where we see the market opportunities.
Vertically shows in which market we see the opportunity in and horizontally indicates the size of the opportunity. Capital investment into existing showrooms is a proven model with good returns. We plan to spend between GBP300 and GBP350 million in this area, which includes space expansions and or relocations. E-commerce growth is expected to continue and certified pre-owned will further drive growth in this channel. Certified pre-owned is a segment we expect to add to our underlying growth.
Luxury branded jewelry is an area where we see significant growth potential and we will expand our distribution in this area. We just closed the acquisition of the Ernest Jones showrooms and this will drive further growth in the UK. In addition to this, we have planned to spend between GBP350 and GBP500 million on acquisitions and new showrooms. Our track record on acquisitions is very good with a payback of four to four and a half years. This will predominantly be in the US and EU markets. We expect improved operational leverage by between 50 and 150 basis points.
With this, I will now hand over to Brian for some closing remarks. Thank you.
Brian Duffy
Thank you, Anders. We have confidence in our model, which has driven incremental sales in the half. We continue to operate at pace, investing in our showrooms, completing the acquisition of Ernest Jones luxury showrooms and successfully launching Rolex certified pre-owned. We look forward to a busy holiday trading period and continue to execute on our long-range plan objectives.
With that, we will now hand over to questions.
Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Thank you. [Operator instructions] We will now take our first question from Melania Grippo at BNP Paribas. Your line is open, please go ahead.
Melania Grippo
Good morning, everyone. This is Melania Gripo from BNP Paribas. I have two questions. The first one is on your wait list. I was wondering if anything has changed in terms of consumer behavior and customers signing on in light of the CPO, especially in the stores that offer this service. And also, have you seen customers delaying, more customers delaying purchases lately? And then the other question is on store refurbished, what is more or less the increased selling surface when you refurbish them? Thank you.
Brian Duffy
Hi, Melania. Good morning. Thanks for your question. No big change on the waiting list. We’re still on the registration of interest list. We continue to add names to overall your point on CPO. We obviously contact customers on our CRM database and let them know the availability of CPO products and some have taken advantage of them.
But actually, the big business that we’re doing in CPO is from walk-in clients who are looking to buy Rolex and then get the news about the waiting times and then are interested to hear about the option of the own. So that’s much more so than we expected. That’s where the business is going. And it’s predominantly through stores and it’s predominantly through walk-in clients. So there’s been no impact there.
Anders, you wanted to put on increased footage overall?
Anders Romberg
Obviously, we’ve had a lot of stores under refurbishment in the first half. That’s impacted not just the second quarter, but throughout the half, of which all of them are open. The last one actually opens today, which is a Metro Center. We’ve expanded our Orlando Rolex store from 900 feet to 3000 feet. The big Cartier box is now open in American Dream. So there is some space expansion going on. But in our category, as a lot of our business is driven by supply. And when we open these big stores, we tend to get an incremental shot in arm from some of our key brands.
Operator
Thank you. And we’ll now move on to our next question from John Corks at Kepler. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
John Corks
Yeah, good morning, guys. A couple of questions on my side. On the CPO, can you give any indication of the sort of revenue uplift you’re getting in those stores where you have the program and subsequent impact on the group as a whole? That’s the first question. On the Ernst Jones acquisition, you mentioned I think they have revenue of GBP45 million. You’re obviously doing all the refurbishments. how should we think about anything dropping into this year? Because obviously you’ve got closures and you’re doing various things.
Should we get any benefit at all this financial year or will it be all in the next financial year? And then just a bit of an add on, the long range plan and obviously jewelry is going to be pretty important. Just wondering, how discussions are going with some of the branded players. I was wondering if you had any interest post your long range plan capital markets day, people picking up the dog and bone, as it were, to give you a call asking what your availability is, etc, etc. Thank you.
Brian Duffy
Thanks, John. CPO, we haven’t talked revenue by door, but it’s very encouraging, actually. As I said in answering Melania’s question too, it’s kind of ahead of what we would have expected and it’s particularly coming from walk-in clients. We did say when we presented the LRP that we’re packing, when we combine Rolex CPO and then other CPO, Analog Shift and the US CPO in the UK, when we combine those businesses and look at last year, we’re kind of tracking it double more or less in both markets.
But obviously it’s in 14 stores, Rolex CPO in the US, now in 10 in the UK with the Metro opening today will be in 10. So we have a lot more distribution to go at. We’re working on supply. The whole process is working reasonably well of product going to Rolex, being authenticated, whatever, getting back to us. And that’s a scale up of their resource and our resource as well. So I think it’s all going pretty well. We don’t yet have any proper marketing. We don’t have in-store furniture. We don’t have any window displays or anything like that.
Literally, it’s just product in cabinets. So we feel pretty bullish about Rolex CPO. We feel bullish about other brand CPO that we’re clearly developing alongside the CPO in the stores and the distribution of non-Rolex will be even greater. So we’re feeling good about it and we’ll look forward to reporting it in the years ahead. EJ Stores, we’re really delighted with how we have managed the integration.
Really, both Anders and I, along with Jake Bolton and the rest of our senior team, spent time with our new colleagues up in Leicester over the last few weeks. They’re a really great group. They really know their category well and know their clients well. But obviously, they don’t know our systems and our ways of doing things. And that’s what we’re concentrating on. We have rebadged the stores, rebranded them and reopened to take advantage of the Christmas season.
But our expectations of the stores during this transitional phase is not all that high. We think the real benefit will be into Q4 and our big focus is obviously in fiscal year 2025. It wasn’t an area of focus for the Signet group, but it obviously is a huge area of focus for us, the area of luxury watches. And the signet stores have really big potential. But we’ve got to get the profile of the stores right. You’ve got to get the training right.
You’ve got to get the clients knowing that there’s very much different products on offer and it all takes time. So we’ll get something in this fiscal year, but we’re not spiking it out as something that’s incremental and significant. Jewellery, to your point, we continue to negotiate and present on jewellery. We’re not finished there.
I think we have a great lineup of brands coming into Manchester and also get into other multi-brand distribution with us. But it’s ongoing.We have some other targets that we would love to develop a partnership with and we’re working on. But it really is a big deal. It’s been really well received by the industry overall. And I think we’ve created some real excitement internally and the industry overall.
John Corks
And much joy with the likes of Richemont brands or LVMH brands at all?
Brian Duffy
If you mean Cartier, we need to have them. Not yet. And I say not yet, but not at all at this point. It’s not really in our plan that we would ever expect to get Cartier jewellery. It’s not for the want of trying, as I think I’ve said before. But I think we’ve got a very strong case to say that we could represent those brands very well. But they have their own strategies which are focused on the retail in both cases. But we’re good retailers too. So we’ll carry on charting. But no, they are not in the plans.
Operator
Thank you. And we’ll now take our next question from Adrien Duverger at Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Adrien Duverger
Thank you very much for taking my question. So the first one, we spoke a lot recently and you have confirmed your guidance for the full year 2024 this morning. But I just wanted to know if we can confirm that there is no change for the Rolex allocation, both for your full year 2024 and also how does this look for calendar 2024? My second question would be on the Christmas season. We all know how important it is. But can we ask if you have seen any change in consumer behavior, in appetite by price point, in traffic, in conversion rates? Really any retail metrics that you can give us would be very interesting. And the third one would just be about the performance of the American Dream store versus your expectations. Thank you very much.
Brian Duffy
Okay. I’ll go in reverse order. American Dream is doing great. We’re really pleased with it, despite the fact that it’s been a really challenging project for the developers. They have to get American Dream going. You probably know its history. It goes on beyond 10 years. But and then COVID and everything else that happened. So they really had a lot of challenges. But they’ve opened a wonderful shopping center with the theme park and everything around it.
And the last area to fully open and be developed was the luxury sector. They’ve now got it very well leased in terms of agreements. The last set of agreements was the caring group coming in. But at this point, it’s not all open. And despite that, we’re really doing well. The store’s great. Clients responding really well. Rolex, Cartier, pre-owned. Omega. We’re really pleased with it. And I think it’s going to be, as already, a great addition to our network. I think it can only get better as all the spaces get fully open.
Carry on in reverse order. Christmas. So the U.S., first of all, very strong, you wouldn’t know that there’s any sort of concerns around economically in terms of what we are seeing consumer behavior and momentum in the U.S. So great there. Nothing further to report other than things carry on. Positively, we think we’re outperforming the market. Great response to the new things we’re doing. And as mentioned earlier, we opened this big Rolex boutique in Orlando. And that’s obviously a great start as well. So all good.
UK, the UK for the last 12 months has, I think, been impacted by consumer sentiment. We’ve particularly seen it in jewelry. You comment on the importance of the season. I just remind everybody, for us, it’s a little less important than the rest of retail. A lot of our business is about allocation and supply and therefore has no seasonality to do with it at all. But December weeks are bigger weeks than the rest of the year. So there is some seasonality in it.
Along with the rest of retail, we plan for and fully expect that Christmas will be a bit later this year. If you compare it to previous years, when there was lots of concerns about availability and whatever people shopping earlier, that’s not the case this year. And the way the calendar falls, there’ll be a full week of trading right up to Christmas Eve, Christmas Eve on a Sunday. So it’s pretty much as we expected. The traffic has clearly turned up a notch in the month of December.
We’re here in Oxford Street and you can’t walk on the pavement at this point by midday. So traffic’s back up again. And obviously we’ve considered fully the Christmas season and confirming our guidance overall. Regards to allocation, really not much to add. We don’t have the allocations yet for calendar ’24. We won’t have them until mid to late January from Rolex and similarly from Patek. So we really get nothing further to add on that. We get a bit of visibility obviously into January since we tend to be a kind of rolling three months and we’ll get February reasonably soon.
Operator
Thank you. [Operator instructions] We’ll now take our next question from Peral Dudania at RBC. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Analyst
OK, thank you. Morning. I just have one actually. Could you perhaps talk a bit more about the inventory build? I think it’s reached 400 million at the half year, which is up 12% on the full year number. Could you just help us understand what the composition of that increase looks like? Is it related to jewelry products or perhaps a build in inventories in constrained watch brands? Yeah, obviously it’s up 5% on the equal period of last year.
And that includes opening of 19 new showrooms. So that obviously means that the rest of the network is actually down as a result year on year. And the average selling, average cost per unit in our stock has gone up as a result of pricing over the last couple of years. And we are building a little bit more working capital in pre-owned and Rolex certified pre-owned because that obviously comes without a payable structure and needs some time for refurbishment.
So those are the main components of the inventory chain. Not concerned about it. I think our stock composition is really good. We’ve actually worked down some of the jewelry stock over the year. So we focused on that, seeing the slowdown and obviously worked that level of inventory down as you would expect. So we’re coming into the holiday season well stocked, not overstocked, but well stocked. So I’m very pleased with where we are.
Operator
There are no further questions in queue for audio. Sending it back to [ph]Scott. Over to you.
Unidentified Company Participant
Thanks very much. We’ve had a question on the webcast from Ruben Pathmanathan from Peel Hunt.
Ruben Pathmanathan
[interpreted]
Morning both. Just one from me. To what extent is CPO stroke and log shift revenue impacted by the falling secondary market prices?
Anders Romberg
Good question. And we would say not really impacted at all. We’ve been trying to point out to the market that that secondary market is something that we were in no way directly involved in, for sure, buying or selling in it. And I think pretty unaffected as well. You’ve had the change in secondary market pricing that’s happened over the last 24 months. And during that time, we’ve continued to maintain our margin and grow our sales.
So we’re really in a different market to that secondary market. And we see nothing like that degree of volatility. We didn’t get involved at all in the high profile products that were creating all of the excitement and attention. So we’re really running a different business model. And I think consumers buying a pre-owned product guaranteed by Rolex in some cases and in all cases guaranteed by us from Watches of Switzerland Group is a very different consideration than buying on that secondary market.
Brian Duffy
Just as an addition to that, we’ve always maintained our margin profile throughout this whole journey. So actually margin profile is coming in line with what we expected. So we haven’t had any compression on that either.
Unidentified Company Participant
That’s great. Thanks very much. We’ve got no further questions currently from the webcast. So, Brian, I’ll hand back to you for any closing remarks.
Brian Duffy
Thanks, Scott. Thanks, Laura. I went off a lot to add, obviously, given our half year numbers, we already had done a trading update that we did on November 7. And then we did the LRP. So we don’t have a hell of a lot to add. Profits were a bit better, as everybody would have seen, than what we’d indicated when we did the Q2 trading update, which is always good.
We have obviously a big second half to deliver. We always do have it built up in granular detail. We’ve got to do Christmas, we’ve got to get our allocations. We do have all of our stores reopened, which is great. We have some more incremental openings to come, like Vanderbilt and so on. So we feel good about it. Team’s very energised. They work very, very hard. I think I’ve said that already in December, but with great enthusiasm. They love it. So a great job done by them.
And thanks, everybody, for joining the call. And Happy Christmas to everyone.
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