PLBY Group, Inc. (NASDAQ:PLBY) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Alex Fuhrman: Okay. That’s really helpful. Thank you both. And then Lance, if I could drill down more on the pro forma calculations that you put out in your deck and kind of sketching to that $25 million of pro forma EBITDA. Can you help us unpack that a little bit more? I mean, you mentioned a few things this year that are going to be different between that kind of hypothetical pro forma number and the reality of 2023, some comparisons on Honey Birdette and changes in centerfold. And it sounds like I’m hearing those correctly. I mean, it sounds like some of those some of those differences are going to net to an improvement versus the pro forma results. I imagine the majority of those changes, specifically the fact that it’s going to take some time to realize the cost reductions probably mean we’re not going to see that full $25 million this year.

But can you just help to size that up a little bit? I mean if you kind of straight-line the cost savings that you outlined, I mean, do we kind of get to that $25 million at some point early next year on a run rate basis? I mean, how should we think about what you’re actually going to go through this year versus that $25 million number?

Lance Barton: Sure. Yeah. There’s a few different ways to think about it. But you’re absolutely right. Part of this is a little bit timing, right? We’re now sitting here mid-March. We’ve implemented some of these cost saving measures. We haven’t fully exited Yandy yet. We haven’t completed kind of what we need to do on Playboy direct-to-consumer. But the way I think about it is really when you look at it on a go-forward basis or a, call it, future 12-month or next 12-month basis, your baseline is kind of that $25 million once you’ve implemented all of these changes. And then the other things that aren’t really contemplated in that would be you’re still being burdened with that $25 million, you’re still being burdened by $8 million of losses in the 2022 pro forma from the creator platform.

So, if you’re able to get that to breakeven, that puts you closer to $33 million on a go-forward basis to the extent you’re able to get incremental revenue and EBITDA from opening, like we said, four to five new Honey Birdette stores. Those are north of 30% for while EBITDA margins you’d have to factor that in. The one thing you would net out a little bit on Honey Birdette would be the drag for the first three quarters this year as we take out promotion. But yes, I would say net-net, when you think about this, a very clean structure on a go-forward basis, you’re looking at kind of a baseline level of EBITDA well into the 30s and hopefully, we can optimize it even further from there.

Ben Kohn: Yeah. Alex, this is Ben. On the cost side, we’ve identified $15 million today. We believe there’s more cost to actually take out. It’s something I’ve done for 25 years in private equity when we go into businesses. And we are rebuilding this business line item by line item. But of that $15 million, $10 million was done this week. So, we won’t get the full annual benefit of it this year because we’re already — it’s already March 15th, but we’ve eliminated $10 million as of this week and then the other $5 million will be coming shortly hereafter as we continue to simplify the business. And then I hope there are more costs that we can continue to take out as we simplify the company, really looking less at the personnel side of things, which was done this week, but more at our vendor contracts moving forward.