📈Demand recovery on track:
👉Around 70% of outlets were operational till mid- Aug’21.
👉While the recovery in on-trade channels has been good, night/weekend curfews and restricted timings are affecting sales, with last orders being accepted at 8-9pm in select geographies.
2/n
👉Muted global travel has acted as a tailwind rather than a headwind as it led to duty-free demand converting to duty paid. The management is focusing on the modern off-trade channel to cater to this demand. It activated 2,000 outlets for Scotch over the last one year.
3/n
📈Focus on the margin accretive Scotch portfolio:
👉Black Dog is now available in 3-5 markets.
👉The relaunched Signature, which was present only in West Bengal, Haryana, and Telangana, will be present in 70% of the country over the next 2-3 months.
4/n
👉The Scotch portfolio is hugely gross profit accretive. The cash conversion cycle is also better at 75-90 days v/s 120-130 days for the overall portfolio.
👉RoCE is highly accretive for bottled in origin (BIO) Scotch.
5/n
👉At present, Scotch contributes 5-6% of overall sales by volume.
📈Granted price hikes to partially offset commodity inflation:
👉Price hikes were granted to a few players towards the end of 1QFY22 as prices for glass bottles experienced inflation.
6/n
👉Cost savings/productivity and price increases would be the key levers used to combat RM and overhead cost inflation. The two other levers – operating leverage and premiumization – will be used to expand margin.
7/n
👉The management is on track to meet its 1.5% cost savings target.
👉A&P spends will remain in the 8-10% range of net sales.
👉Working capital was 35-38% of net sales 5 years ago. With focus on improving productivity, it is now stands at 23-24% of sales.
8/n
📈Likely to start paying dividends:
👉The management said it has no major Capex planned.
👉It has plans to reward shareholders through dividends starting FY22 or FY23 as the company is now almost net debt free.
9/n
👉There are no exciting M&A opportunities, but the management is open to the same if something were to come up.
📈Other Key takeaways:
👉Details of the strategic refresh will be unveiled by the new CEO in its 2QFY22 conference call.
10/n
👉While topline growth has always been a key focus area for the management, a multiplicity of priorities may have led to lower topline growth in the past, which is not expected to be the case going forward.
11/n
👉The management would like to bolster its third-party colocation manufacturing and bottling network, which is currently at 50% v/s 25% three years ago. The aim is to move this closer to 70% over the next 2-3 years.
12/n
This arrangement helps save on freight, ensure a steady flow of ENA to manufacturing plants, and also saves on certain levies such as VAT to some extent.
End of thread🧵
13/n