Xcel Brands, Inc. (NASDAQ:XELB) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Seth Burroughs: Anthony, I can address that, it’s Seth. We’re still working on that, but I would say, we should expect to have an update on that in the next quarter, that would be favorable to the company.

Anthony Lebiedzinski: Okay. That’s good to hear. And then do you guys have any updated thoughts on the launch of your social marketplace and app in terms of timing or anything else that you can share with us? Or is it more or less kind of consistent with what you said previously?

Robert D’Loren: So it’s fairly consistent. The technology is done. We’re testing it in the Longaberger community now. Of course, it will turn into a broader marketplace approach. We’re anticipating that that will be for holiday of this year.

Anthony Lebiedzinski: All right. That’s good to hear. Thanks. Best of luck. I will pass it on to the next caller.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Aaron Warwick from Breakout Investors.

Aaron Warwick: Good evening. Thanks for taking the calla and congratulations on this great job of restructuring. Several things that I wanted to ask about, I guess, I’ll begin with, you have in your latest investor presentation on your website, showing $19 million revenue for next year and $5 million for EBITDA. My understanding is that that’s based upon the contract minimums that you have right now for royalties. Is that an accurate understanding?

Robert D’Loren: There’s two components to it. One is the contractual minimums and the new agreements that we executed. And then, two, historical licensing revenues coming out of our interactive television businesses. And to help you to compare ’23 forecasted top-line of $18 million to $19 million in ’24, you would need to back $3.2 million out of ’23 because those are wholesale sales that occurred in Q1, and there were a few small sales in Q2. So to get apples-to-apples, it’s $15 million of royalties in ’23 and $19 million of royalties in ’24.

Aaron Warwick: It sounds like though there’s some upside potential, that’s not really built into that model. And then from what you’ve said previously in your prepared remarks.

Robert D’Loren: No doubt, particularly as it relates to the G-III royalties. This is not our guidance. It was a statement made in their earnings call, they expect that the business will be at $250 million wholesale by the fourth year. And if you just do some correct math on average royalty rate, you’ll see that there should be very significant growth coming out of that license. And quite frankly, I couldn’t think of a better partner for us to be in business with for our Judith Ripka brand. At JTV, we’re expecting big things there. We’re going from 1 hour of on-air time last year with QVC to over 120 hours on the launch here. And as QVC has exited the jewelry business for the most part over the last 5 or 6 years, JTV has picked up a lot of that market share.

So we’re very excited about the potential there too. And we have a very robust pipeline of new brands going into interactive TV, our C. Wonder Christian Siriano brand is doing incredibly well. In fact, we are live as we speak with the TS today, shooting here from our studio in New York. And we are going to launch a brand with, it’s a household name. Everyone knows her. I can’t say who it is until we get a little closer to the launch. But we think we have great potential with the brand we’ve created with the supermodel, both on interactive TV and outside of interactive television. So we’re excited about the core business.

Aaron Warwick: Fantastic. So G-III, they made a one-time upfront payment. It sounds like they’re going to be making annual minimum payments plus potentially more than that. And then at the end of the 25 years, they have the option to purchase the brand, is that correct, from you?

Robert D’Loren: Correct.

Aaron Warwick: And I mean, can you give us a ballpark number, what the expected royalties would be from that and what the payment was?