Xcel Brands, Inc. (NASDAQ:XELB) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Robert D’Loren: Well, first and foremost, there are collection differences, generally speaking. If you look at our Judith Ripka brand, we have a significant presence on QVC with Judith. The product is not the same as the Judith Ripka brand, which is sold through direct-to-consumer channels, wholesale channels as well as live streaming. So it’s going to be a similar strategy. There will be some overlap in product. And we don’t view this any different than, say, Michael Kors being available on michaelkors.com and being there virtually every department store America.

Debra Fiakas: Okay. Thank you very much. That was all very helpful.

Robert D’Loren: Thank you.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Marc Lunder with Lunder Capital.

Marc Lunder: Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Where sales have always been kind of a next year type situation, can you talk a little bit and give some more specifics about what you’re going to do to kind of bridge us to there as far as compensation and SG&A, reducing those, both of those?

Robert D’Loren: Sure. So we have a plan in place Marc, to reduce overhead by $2.5 million, maybe more by year-end, and there will be some announcements soon about more specifically how we’re going to do that. And we believe those reductions in costs will right size the business. The challenge for us Marc is we built a significant platform for our wholesale apparel and jewelry business, and literally launched that in December of 2019, and then were hit with COVID in March of 2020. And it has been challenging at best to navigate through having onboarded all of those people, launching a business, making supply commitments to various retailers to only have to deal with COVID. So we have been working on rightsizing the overhead. So that now in 2023, when we think things really get back to normal, we can return the company to growth and profitability.

Marc Lunder: And do you have a €“ what kind of growth you’re looking to do? I mean it’s been a number of years where we’ve been looking for growth and profitability, I’m just wondering if you have some measurable objectives that you guys are shooting for that investors can say, okay, they’re meeting their objectives or they’re not.

Robert D’Loren: We do. There is analyst guidance out there as we think they’re looking at the business appropriately in terms of how we believe the business will grow. And a lot of that growth will come from us returning back to our core business in interactive TV with both HSN and QVC. And QVC is doing a great job navigating through this and some of the micro challenges they had with their warehouse fire, and we would anticipate that going into the second half of the year, QVC will work through their inventory issues. Certainly, work through their warehousing issues. And with all the new launches that we anticipate, we think that we’ll come out of all of the effects of COVID nicely and continue to grow the company.

Marc Lunder: Thank you.

Robert D’Loren: Thank you, Marc.

Operator: And at this time, there are no further questions. I’ll turn the call back to the speakers for any closing remarks.

Robert D’Loren: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your time this morning. We greatly appreciate your continued interest and support in Xcel Brands. As always, and more than ever, stay fit, eat well and be healthy.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may disconnect your lines.

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