UnitedHealth Group Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
March 13, 2025

There are 10 speakers on the call.

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Xponential Fitness Inc. Fourth Quarter and Full Year twenty twenty four Earnings Call.

Operator

At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to your host, Avery Wanamaker, Investor Relations. Avery, please go ahead.

Speaker 1

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, and thank you all for joining our conference call to discuss Xponential Fitness fourth quarter and full year twenty twenty four financial results. I am joined by Mark King, Chief Executive Officer and John Malone, Chief Financial Officer. A recording of this call will be posted on the Investors section of our website at investor.exponential.com. We remind you that during this conference call, we will make certain forward looking statements, including discussions of our business outlook and financial projections.

Speaker 1

These forward looking statements are based on management's current expectations and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from such expectations. For a more detailed description of these risks and uncertainties, please refer to our recent and subsequent filings with the SEC. We assume no obligation to update the information provided on today's call. In addition, we will be discussing certain non GAAP financial measures in this conference call. We use non GAAP measures because we believe they provide useful information about our operating performance that should be considered by investors in conjunction with the GAAP measures that we provide.

Speaker 1

A reconciliation of these non GAAP measures to comparable GAAP measures is included in the earnings release that was issued earlier today prior to this call. Please also note that all numbers reported in today's prepared remarks refer to global figures unless otherwise noted. As a reminder, in order to ensure period over period comparability and consistent with our reporting method since IPO, we present all KPIs on a fully pro form a basis, meaning for the full KPI history presented, we only include brands that are under our ownership as of the current reporting period. For the period ended 12/31/2024, this includes AKT, BFT, Club Pilates, Cyclebar, Lindora, Purebar, Rumble, StretchLab and Yoga6. I will now turn the call over to Mark King, CEO of Xponential Fitness.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Avery, and good afternoon to everyone. Let me start by talking about what's going well. As I expected when I joined last June, many of the fundamentals of the business are strong. North America system wide sales of $465,000,000 were up 21% year over year. North America quarterly run rate average unit volumes of $668,000 were up nine percent year over year.

Speaker 2

Total members stood at 813,000 at quarter end, up 15% year over year. We sold 400 franchise licenses and opened four sixty four gross new studios during 2024. So there are parts of the business that are performing well. However, as is also clear from the press release you may have seen earlier this afternoon, there are also parts of the business, both brands and corporate operations that simply aren't where we need them to be. Let me first delve into what we're doing since we last spoke and then I'll talk about some of the things we've discovered operationally that will require some pretty big changes.

Speaker 2

Let me start with some thoughts on where my team has been focused and the progress we've been making. I should note that all the things we have been executing on are prerequisites to achieving the five strategic pillars I spoke about last quarter. Perhaps most importantly, we're continuing to build out a senior management team comprised of leaders who know how to profitably scale companies and who know what great looks like. Our new hires, including our President of North America, our Chief Operating Officer, our Chief Development Officer and our Chief Technology Officer are best in class, and I am confident in their abilities to transform all the parts of the business necessary to become the franchisor of choice in Health and Wellness. With a great team in place, we've also completed a comprehensive organizational assessment that showed gaps in structure, capabilities and process.

Speaker 2

Let me give you some of the detail of what we found and how we're addressing things. First, we are in the process of forming field operations teams that will be physically present in studios across North America, working alongside our franchise partners to drive industry leading studio operations. Having this level of field support is critical for any successful franchise operation to achieve not only successful profitable studio operations, but also to create a culture of continuous innovation and relentless focus on delivering world class member experience. Second, until recently, franchise sales teams operated autonomously from real estate and construction. By bringing in an experienced Chief Development Officer and uniting real estate, franchise sales and construction all under one leadership vertical, franchise development, I believe we will be able to be more strategic and more efficient in the development of our brand footprint.

Speaker 2

In addition, we have departed from our historical broker network franchise license sales strategy and instead brought the full process in house, further ensuring we have maximum control over strategic development. Third, we are rethinking the layout of our studios both to maximize productivity per square foot and to ensure our box formats become more market customized, both in terms of size and placement. We believe this will drive studio profitability and customer traffic flow, ultimately benefiting both our franchisees and members. Fourth, and continuing on the customer experience front, our COO will be overseeing learning and education at Xponential, which is an important new role. His primary goal is to create a thoughtful member journey from the ground up, which in my experience is one of the most important drivers when it comes to long term customer retention.

Speaker 2

Fifth, our CTO is focused on two key areas, enhancing enterprise applications and platforms as well as a relentless focus on data and analytics. We plan to introduce technology solutions for our studios that will benefit both franchisees and members focusing on areas such as enterprise resource planning, operational platforms and our point of sale system. From a data perspective, Xponential is fully driving towards becoming a data centric company. We will do all of this against the backdrop of strengthening our IT systems and overall cyber resiliency. Though John will speak more specifically about what we expect financially in 2025 against a broader overall focus on franchisee performance, overall excellence and culture, I'd like to highlight a few key tactical areas that we'll be focused on moving forward.

Speaker 2

As I said last quarter, I see no reason why Xponential shouldn't have as many studios operating outside The U. S. As it does domestically. Though we'll share a long term vision for this during our Investor Day later this year, we are most focused on expanding our solid international footprint for Club Pilates, followed by strategically adding more exponential brands in key international markets with the mature Club Pilates presence. Xponential will have on the ground leadership in Europe and Asia starting in the coming months and quarters as part of our commitment to support our international studio operations.

Speaker 2

Leadership will be based out of London initially with presence in Asia expected later this year. Second, we will drive innovation in all aspects of our business. We've all become accustomed to rapid innovation in various aspects of our daily routines. In 2025, we're not only going to focus on what's working, but we're also going to help our franchisees more regularly exceed their customers' expectations. At Taco Bell, innovation was a huge part of our success.

Speaker 2

We constantly monitored consumer sentiment. I'm excited to build an innovation department here at Xponential. Number three, data. Data is becoming more central to every industry and health and wellness is no exception. At Xponential, we have access to a vast amount of data, but the real opportunity lies in building the right foundation to harness it effectively.

Speaker 2

In 2025, we're focused on taking the necessary steps to turn this potential into a strategic advantage, laying the groundwork for real time insights, operational efficiency and enhanced member experience. Before I turn the call over to John, I'd like to speak frankly about the EBITDA miss and the overall health of the portfolio. Though John is going to speak in detail about our financial results, I would like to be clear about what they mean from my perspective. Every successful transformation is rooted in transparency. Here, as I've done everywhere else, I've impressed upon my team the need to examine everything we do from ground up and I've instituted this culture of transparency.

Speaker 2

Inevitably, as part of this exercise, we have found and may continue to find legacy operational issues that need to be addressed. Some of these are and might continue to be reflected in our financial results. Our hope is that they won't be material, but to the extent we do uncover issues that need to be addressed, we will address them. You may have seen from the press release that the company restated 2023 financial statements and that the company also corrected what it believes are immaterial errors in 2022 and 2024 financials. This was done in order to correct accounting errors primarily related to accrued inventory, four zero one compliance, purchase accounting and vendor rebates.

Speaker 2

John will provide more detailed thoughts. On the one hand, it's not surprising to me that we are encountering some of these issues. They represent a combination of rapid scaling and lack of organizational maturity. They have been brought about by the very gaps in structure, capabilities and process I described above. Most companies that grow quickly go through some version of this given that the very same things that make companies grow quickly initially can often be impediments to long term sustainable scale.

Speaker 2

On the other hand, we need to be clear that the goal here is to from ground up build a culture and infrastructure with corresponding structure and processes that will ensure exponential scales in a long term sustainable manner. Practically, this means that 2025 largely is going to be a year of foundation building, allowing for growth to reaccelerate in the out years. We will discuss all of this in more detail during our Investor Day in May in New York. I understand that this will be a disappointment to some of our stakeholders, but the last thing I want to do is to overpromise and under deliver. John is also going to share with you some brand level economics as we typically do during our Q4 calls.

Speaker 2

On brand strategy broadly, I'll say that we're in the process of thoroughly reviewing whether and to what extent our portfolio needs to change so that shareholder capital is best allocated. Those of you who know me know that I've led through situations like this before, and I've learned a lot from those experiences. I've learned that perspective and context are important. I've also learned that an experienced team can build enormous value when they focus relentlessly on constructing a scalable foundation under their most valuable assets. That's what we're here to do.

Speaker 2

John, over to you.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Mark, and thank you to everyone for joining the call. I'd like to start by noting that today in our earnings press release, we announced that the company restated twenty twenty three financial statements and the company also issued what it believes are immaterial corrections for 2022 and 2024 financials. This was done in order to correct accounting errors primarily related to accrued inventory, four zero one compliance, purchase accounting and vendor rebates. There are additional other corrections that will be detailed in our Form 10 ks financial statement footnotes. Collectively, these corrections would be too large to take as an out of period adjustment in the current period, so we are making revisions in the prior periods.

Speaker 3

These corrections, which are known as a Big R Restatement, represent our belief that the errors were material to the company's previously reported 2023 financial results. However, we do not believe that these corrections affect the company's overall financial health. Furthermore, the company has also come in below the range of where it had guided to on the Q3 twenty twenty four earnings call for gross new studio openings and adjusted EBITDA. Gross new studio openings missed by 36 studios coming in at four sixty four versus the expected 500 gross new openings at the midpoint of the range, a miss of 7%. This was driven by an operating decision to let Sidios open on a more organic timeline.

Speaker 3

Adjusted EBITDA missed by $5,800,000 or 5% coming in at $116,200,000 for the year, instead of the expected $122,000,000 at the midpoint of the range. The lower EBITDA was primarily driven by $2,300,000 in lower equipment margins, which included the effects for the higher freight costs in the period $600,000 in overall lower merchandise margins, which include a $1,200,000 write off of slow moving inventory $1,200,000 in combined expenses for bad debt and loan liabilities and $500,000 for severance. Let's now turn to an overview of our fourth quarter results. We ended the quarter with 3,233 global open studios, opening 120 gross new studios during Q4 with 83 in North America and 37 internationally. There were 65 global studio closures in the fourth quarter and two twenty five total in 2024 representing approximately 7% of our global Open Studios versus the 3% to 5% previously communicated.

Speaker 3

The elevated closures in the period were attributed to StretchLab, CycleBar and Yoga6. We sold 56 licenses globally during Q4 and 400 licenses in 2024. The volume of licenses sold was lower in the period compared to prior quarters due to a pause in sales, while we closely reviewed and updated each brand's franchise disclosure documents. We anticipate franchise disclosure documents for the year 2025 to be filed in the coming weeks as part of the normal renewal process. Our base of licenses sold and contractually obligated to open is over 1,600 studios in North America and over 1,000 master franchise obligations internationally.

Speaker 3

These licenses will provide a foundation for the future new studio openings, albeit note that as of 12/31/2024, we estimate that approximately 30% of our licenses contractually obligated to open are over twelve months behind the applicable development schedule and are currently inactive. Fourth quarter North America system wide sales of $465,000,000 were up approximately 21% year over year with growth driven primarily by the 5% same store sales increase within our existing base of open studios coupled with the growth from new studio openings. In 2024, system wide sales increased approximately 23% to $1,700,000,000 from $1,400,000,000 in 2023 and full year same store sales were 7%. North America run rate average unit volumes of 668,000 in the fourth quarter increased 9% from 612,000 in the prior year period. The increase in AUVs were largely driven by a higher number of actively paying members, higher pricing for new members and the continued favorable trend of proportionate studio openings coming from our scale brands which make up 95% of the system wide sales and 94% of our open studios in North America.

Speaker 3

On a consolidated basis, revenue for the quarter was $83,200,000 down 7% from $89,300,000 in the prior year period, which included $5,100,000 in revenue from the company owned studios. In 2024, Xponential generated $320,300,000 in revenue, a 1% increase from the prior year. 78% of the revenue for the quarter was recurring, which we define as including all revenue streams except for franchise territory revenues and equipment revenues given these materially occur upfront before a studio opens. Turning to the components that make up revenue, franchise revenue for the quarter was $45,300,000 up 17% year over year. This growth was primarily driven by an increase in royalty revenue as system wide sales were supported by year over year memberships and visits increasing 1519% respectively.

Speaker 3

Equipment revenue was $12,700,000 declining by 22% year over year. This decrease was primarily the result of a lower volume of installations in the period compared to the same period prior year. Merchandise revenue of 6,100,000 was down 34% year over year. The decrease year over year was due to lower sales volumes and price discounts as the company focused on reducing inventory levels. Going forward, the company will continue to explore alternatives for our retail operation that will result in greater profitability for Xponential, improved service levels for our franchisees and merchandise that more closely aligns with our members' interests.

Speaker 3

Franchise marketing fund revenue of $9,200,000 was up 23% year over year, primarily due to continued growth in system wide sales from a higher number of operating studios in North America. Lastly, other service revenue which includes sales generated from company owned studios, rebates from processing studio system wide sales, B2B partnerships, XPath and X plus amongst other items was $9,900,000 down 43% from the prior year period. The decline in the period was primarily due to our strategic move away from company owned transition studios in 2023 resulting in lower package and membership revenues. Turning to our operating expenses for the quarter, cost of product revenues were $13,700,000 down 23 year over year. The decrease was primarily driven by the lower volume of equipment installations and merchandise sales during the period as well as year to date reclass of expenses from our cost of product revenue to cost of franchise and service revenue.

Speaker 3

Merchandise inventory levels at year end are now roughly 50% lower than the prior year end creating a more manageable position to turn inventory over more frequently requiring less discounting going forward. Cost of franchise and service revenue were $6,100,000 up 29% year over year. The increase in franchise sales commissions was driven primarily by the previously mentioned year to date reclass of expenses from cost of product revenue to cost of franchise and service revenue in the period. Selling, general and administrative expenses of $57,100,000 were up 8% year over year. The increase in SG and A was primarily driven by $18,100,000 in legal fees during the quarter to address regulatory inquiries and accruals for various potential franchise legal settlements with partial offsetting cost savings related to no longer operating company owned studios.

Speaker 3

We do anticipate that a portion of our legal costs in 2025 will be offset by coverage from our insurance policy. Impairments of goodwill and other assets of $46,000,000 were up 849% year over year. The increase was primarily associated with a one time impairment of goodwill and intangible assets of $41,000,000 related to BFT, Cyclebar and Rumble. In addition, there was $2,700,000 in write down in the right of use assets for permanently closed studio leases in connection with our restructuring plan and $2,200,000 for impairment of our XPath software assets. At present, we have entered into lease settlement agreements of approximately $30,300,000 and have paid approximately $28,100,000 through the fourth quarter.

Speaker 3

As of 12/31/2024, we have approximately $15,000,000 of lease liabilities yet to be settled. We expect the majority of the remaining liabilities will be settled in the first half of this year. Moving on to depreciation and amortization, expense was $4,500,000 up 8% compared to the prior year period. Marketing fund expenses were $5,900,000 down 8% year over year driven by lower spend in the quarter primarily for Club Pilates. To avoid competing with presidential election media coverage and holiday advertisements in Q4, this lower spend has been committed to the first quarter of twenty twenty five.

Speaker 3

As the number of studios and system wide sales grows, it is expected that our marketing fund increases. Since we are obligated to spend marketing funds, an increase in marketing fund revenue will always translate into an increase in marketing fund expenses over time. Acquisition and transaction expenses were $1,900,000 compared to a credit of $1,000,000 in the prior year period. As I have noted on prior earnings calls, this includes the contingent consideration activity which is related to the Rumble acquisition earn out and is driven by the share price at quarter end. We mark to market the earnout each quarter and accrue for the earnout.

Speaker 3

We recorded a net loss of $62,500,000 in the fourth quarter or a loss of $1.36 per basic share compared to a net loss of $12,300,000 or earnings of $0.03 per basic share in the prior year period. The change in net loss was a result of $4,700,000 of higher overall profitability, a $7,100,000 decrease for financial transaction fees, a $2,200,000 decrease in restructuring related charges, offset by $41,100,000 increase in impairment of goodwill and other assets, a $17,100,000 increase in litigation expenses, a $3,000,000 increase in acquisition and transaction expense, which includes a non cash contingent consideration primarily related to the Rumble acquisition, A $1,300,000 increase in transformation initiative costs, a $1,200,000 increase in contract settlement costs and a $500,000 increase on the loss of brand divestiture. We continue to believe that adjusted net income is a more useful way to measure the performance of our business. A reconciliation of net income and loss to adjusted net income and loss is provided in our earnings press release. Adjusted net loss for the quarter was $7,100,000 which excludes 1,900,000 in acquisition and transaction expenses, $100,000 expense related to the remeasurement of the company's tax receivable agreement, $46,000,000 related to the impairment of goodwill and other assets, $500,000 loss on brand divestitures and $6,900,000 related to restructuring and related charges.

Speaker 3

This results in adjusted net loss of $0.19 per basic share on a share count of 32,900,000.0 shares of Class A common stock. Adjusted EBITDA was $30,800,000 in the fourth quarter, up 13% compared to $27,200,000 in the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 37% in the fourth quarter, down from 38% from the previous quarter and increasing from 30% in the prior year. For 2024, our adjusted EBITDA was $116,200,000 up 16% compared to $100,300,000 in the prior year period. I'd now like to provide a comprehensive summary of our annual results that include more granular brand level metrics and data.

Speaker 3

It's important to note that this additional data will only be provided during our Q4 calls. At times, I will discuss our scaled brands in our portfolio or those brands with greater than 150 studios operating in North America, which currently includes Club Pilates, Cyclebar, Purebar, StretchLab and Yoga6. In 2024, the strongest license sales occurred at Club Pilates with two fifteen, Landora with 84 and BFT with 46. These three brands represented 86% of the 400 licenses sold this year. Most license sales occurred in North America with 63 and the balance of 37% internationally.

Speaker 3

For gross openings, Club Pilates led with 236% followed by StressLab with 84% and BFT with 59% representing 82% of the four sixty four new studio openings this year. New studio openings largely occurred in North America with 76% and the balance of 24% internationally. Over time, international operations are anticipated to become a greater percentage

Operator

of the total new studio openings.

Speaker 3

System wide sales are driven directionally by the number of studios operating and the maturity of those studios. It is expected that the brands with the growing number of studios will continue to generate higher proportions of our system wide sales as AUDs increase. Our scaled brands represented 94% of North American studios operating at year end and contributed 95% of the system wide sales in 2024. Club Pilates with ten seventy five studios operating at year end in North America contributed 56% of our total system wide sales for the year. Purebar with six twenty five and StressLab with five zero two studios operating contributed approximately thirteen percent and fifteen percent respectively.

Speaker 3

Run rate average unit volumes increased 9% and reached 668,000 at year end. Amongst the scaled brands, four of the five brands had AUV increases year over year. Stretched Labs AUV decreased 8% year over year to 550,000. We continue to view run rate AUV as one of the key measurements of franchisee health and will remain an area of focus to enhance performance through the initiatives Mark spoke to earlier. Same store sales across the portfolio have normalized to the mid to high single digits for the year as expected with Club Pilates at 12% continuing to over influence performance due to its scale.

Speaker 3

Within the other scale brands, Yoga6 and Purebar had same store sales of 63% respectively for the full year, while Cyclobar and StretchLab had negative 3% and negative 5% respectively. Turning to the balance sheet, as of 12/31/2024, cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash were $32,700,000 down from $37,100,000 as of 12/31/2023. In 2024, the company's cash position decreased by $4,400,000 For the year, net cash provided by operating activities was $11,700,000 which includes $24,500,000 in lease settlements. Net cash used in investing activities was $14,100,000 with material cash usage of $8,500,000 for the acquisition of Lindora and $6,500,000 for the purchase of property and equipment and intangible assets. The cash used in financing activities was $1,900,000 which included a 25,000,000 borrowing on long term debt, $11,200,000 on tax receivable agreement and tax distributions to pre IPO LLC members, $5,800,000 on preferred stock dividends and a $3,500,000 payment on a promissory note liability.

Speaker 3

Total long term debt was $352,400,000 as of 12/31/2024, compared to $328,500,000 as of 12/31/2023. The increase in total long term debt is primarily due to the company drawing $25,000,000 in additional debt in the third quarter of twenty twenty four to address the lease termination payments on previously owned studios and for general working capital purposes. We are in the process of finalizing an amendment to our credit agreement with our existing lenders. Our interest rate and repayment terms will be similar to our existing agreement. We will continue to seek more inexpensive capital with more favorable terms and ultimately seek to complete a whole business securitization.

Speaker 3

Let's now discuss our outlook for 2025. Based on current business conditions and our expectations as of date of this call, we are issuing the following guidance for system wide sales, global new studio openings, total

Operator

revenue

Speaker 3

and adjusted EBITDA for the current year as follows. We project North America system wide sales to range from $1,935,000,000 to $1,955,000,000 representing a 13% increase at the midpoint from the prior year. We expect twenty twenty five global net new studio openings which is net of closures to be in the range of $200,000,000 to two twenty representing a 12 decrease at the midpoint from the prior year. We expect the number of closures to be 5% to 7% of the global system this year as a percentage of total open studios with a longer focus to reduce global closures to a low to mid single digits as a percentage of the total global system. Total 2025 revenue is expected to be between $315,000,000 to $325,000,000 representing no change year over year at the midpoint of our guided range.

Speaker 3

Adjusted EBITDA is expected to range from 120,000,000 to $125,000,000 representing a 5% year over year increase at the midpoint of our guided range. This range translates into roughly 38% adjusted EBITDA margin at the midpoint. We expect total SG and A to range from $130,000,000 to $140,000,000 When further excluding the one time lease restructuring charges and regulatory legal defense expenses, we are expecting SG and A of $115,000,000 to $120,000,000 at a range of $99,000,000 to $104,000,000 when further excluding stock based costs. In terms of capital expenditure, we anticipate approximately $10,000,000 to $12,000,000 for the year or approximately 3% of revenue at the midpoint. Going forward, capital expenditure will primarily focus on our data transformation initiative, brand application and platform enhancements and general technology investments that support our digital offerings.

Speaker 3

For the full year, our tax rate is expected to be mid to high single digits, share count for purposes of earnings per share calculation to be 34,000,000 and $1,900,000 in quarterly cash dividends related to our convertible preferred stock. A full explanation of our share count calculation and associated pro form a EPS and adjusted EPS calculations can be found in the tables at the end of our earnings press release as well as our corporate structure and capitalization FAQ on our investor website. We anticipate our unlevered free cash flow conversion to be approximately 90% of adjusted EBITDA as we require minimal capital expenditure to grow this business. We continue to expect that our anticipated interest expense in 2025 will be approximately $45,000,000 tax expenses to be approximately $10,000,000 including the cash usage for tax receivable agreement and tax distributions to pre IPO LLC members and approximately $8,000,000 in cash dividends related to our convertible preferred stock resulting in levered adjusted EBITDA cash flow conversion of over 40%. This concludes today's prepared remarks.

Speaker 3

Thank you all for your time today. We'll now open the call for questions. Operator?

Operator

Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. Our first question today is coming from Chris McCall from Stifel. Your line is now live.

Speaker 4

Thanks. Good afternoon, guys. First, John, can you help us understand the comp performance that is embedded in the 2025 system sales guidance? I think it's calling for 13% growth.

Speaker 3

Yes. The assumption that we have is what I stated in the guidance. We're looking for about mid single digits as an expectation around comp. The split obviously changes amongst brands with Club Pilates has been over indexing to a higher percent historically, but when you take it into context of the entire portfolio, you should expect to see about a mid single digit comp for 2025.

Speaker 4

And then, Mark, I know you've been focusing on revamping the franchise recruiting process. Can you provide an update on what you believe needs to change and how quickly you believe you can rebuild that pipeline with franchisees that are kind of more in line with the type of operators you hope to target?

Speaker 2

Well, first of all, hi, Chris. How are you? Good. I would say this, we've hired a new Chief Development Officer who has a lot of experience in the franchise world, very excited about having him on board. The first thing that we've done is we've put all of the functions of franchise sales, real estate and construction under his purview.

Speaker 2

So where we were very fragmented before, we have now one unit that works as one that's and they're up and running today. So that's number one. Secondly, we've definitely taken a different approach or we will when we start selling again after the FDDs are filed that you can buy one, two, three, you can buy whatever you want. So we're not going to be overly aggressive in selling the number of franchise or the number of licenses. And then the third is we really want to make sure that the people that we're selecting, one, are committed to being an entrepreneur and a franchisee that have the capability to run a small business and are well capitalized.

Speaker 2

So those are new requirements that have higher standards, I would say, that I think gives us a better chance to have really successful franchisees going forward.

Speaker 4

Okay, thanks. One last one, John, did you see how many gross openings you're expecting for 2025?

Speaker 3

Yes. Just to note, we did change from gross to net this year in our guide. The $375,000,000 is kind of the midpoint for the gross openings and we expect about $165,000,000 closures in that that number. So it should get you to $2.10 which is the midpoint.

Speaker 4

Great. Thanks guys.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is coming from John Heinbockel from Guggenheim Partners. Your line is now live.

Speaker 5

Mark, what's your assessment of StretchLab, right, in terms of the negative comps? And then if you look at four wall economics, right, for the franchisees, particularly with some of the brands that are comping negatively, How would you look at that? And I know you talked about being holistic with brands. Sort of the idea here that some of the brands, I don't know if they don't work, but should either be smaller or should be owned by somebody else, I mean tackle all of that?

Speaker 2

All right, John. Well, thank you for the multi question question. The first thing I'd say is since I've gotten here, StretchLab has been slowing, so it's not something that's brand new for us. So we're all hands on deck looking at everything at StretchLab. Starting with how do we qualify more flexologists in an easier way, it's very expensive, it's time consuming, which is one of the challenges is to have enough labor to be able to take in more people to be stretched.

Speaker 2

So that's number one. The second thing is we're looking at how we're deploying our marketing resources, looking at moving more of those to local marketing to drive more efficiency and be more involved in the community. We're looking at different programs like corporate programs, recruiting corporations in to offer it to their membership. So honestly, John, we're looking at the whole model to see if there's things that we can add there. We're also looking at and we've experimented with this in the past, but we're looking at it again.

Speaker 2

Is there a way we can do group stretch and not just one at a time? So I would say right now everything is on the table. We've got some of our best resources in house looking at it and have quite a few workshops going on to drive that. And then the last thing is that we have much better we need much better communication with our franchisees, the ones that are out there and are experiencing this. So we're trying to build a platform for them to be able to contribute all the things they know.

Speaker 2

As it relates to the other brands, we are looking at everything and I said that at the last earnings call that we're going to take 2025 to look at the non scaled brands to see is there the opportunity and what's the capital requirement to drive those brands. That's ongoing. We're only in early March, but all of those decisions will be made sometime during the year.

Speaker 5

Okay. Thank you. And then maybe my follow-up. I know you want to grow internationally. I assume that you talked about boots on the ground, right?

Speaker 5

So you're going to have, I guess, some people in London, some people in Asia. What sort of the extent of that? And is the idea here you talked about building around Club Pilates, so there will be more of a focus on specific countries, right, where Club Pilates is strong?

Speaker 2

Yes, I think so, John. Plus, BFT is also very strong internationally. So it's both the main reason for boots on the ground is as we start to sign up these MFAs with different master franchisors in different countries, we need to be sure that we're there to help them get started to train their staffs to make sure they're doing the right things. And today we do that all remotely and they all the franchisees from around the world come here, but we've got to be closer to them in their markets to understand how to help them with marketing, site selection and those types of things. So if we're going to really grow to we have thousands of studios outside The U.

Speaker 2

S, we're going to certainly need people around the world. But that will be a slow build over the next few years. It's not something that will happen this year. But we are starting with a couple of individuals in London to help with the expansion in The UK and Spain and then some of the other European countries.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is coming from Randy Konik from Jefferies. Your line is now live.

Speaker 2

Thanks. I guess, Mark and John, can you just clarify the thoughts around the closures? I just want to repeat those comments and just kind of where are we with kind of that are we getting towards the end of the line of cleansing the cleansing process around the real estate? I just want to get some thoughts, just how you guys think about that as we go over the next couple of years? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Randy. One of the things we're doing is just we're taking a really close look at all the underperforming studios and we're really being more, I would say conservative how we're dealing with those because we really need to get to where the struggling underperforming studios probably need to close and we need to end up with a healthier system and that would help not only the brands but the franchisees that survive. So we're taking a much different look at existing franchisees and really trying to on the side of facilitating a healthier system.

Speaker 3

Hey, Randy. Following up on the lease settlement around the real estate, we're getting there. We've settled or gotten into settlements in around $30,300,000 worth of the leases. We paid cash around $28,000,000 of it. So there's some of the leases that we've got into payment plans on and kind of getting to the end of those in the first half of this year.

Speaker 3

There's about, I would say, just under $15,000,000 We said $15,000,000 in the talk, but it's about $15,000,000 of leases that are outstanding that we need to settle up with landlords. I think these are the more tougher ones where the landlords are holding out. So our expectation is we're actively trying to get through those as much as possible and get them settled. But the expectation is that the first half of the year is where we'll address, I would say, the majority of that $15,000,000 that's outstanding. We've actually done quite a bit of it already in the first quarter and expect to continue in Q2 to try and get it wrapped up.

Speaker 3

So hopefully in the second half it will be sort of an immaterial number that will be left outstanding.

Speaker 2

Got it. And then Mark, I think the theme that you've kind of come up with is this idea of less is more. We don't need hyper growth. We need profitable, solid, stable growth. And when you kind of give the when you talk about Club Pilates or you look at Club Pilates, obviously, it's a very stable, very good business.

Speaker 2

And it seems there's these other businesses that are less so. Are you are there kind of specific hurdle rates you're thinking about when assessing these other brands as it pertains to looking out over the course of 2025 to think through what do we really keep here, what do we not keep, like how are you thinking about that decision making process? Because I think the market really believes in Club Pilates less so on the other stuff. So just kind of just want to try and get your thoughts on this idea of less is more and how you're going about thinking about these other concepts? Thanks.

Speaker 2

Yes. Randy, I think it all starts with franchisee profitability. Any of these brands, if we can figure out and we're looking at that now, the different size boxes and does Yoga six need to be hot yoga, can it be different. So we're looking at all those for me it starts with franchisee profitability. So what does that need to be?

Speaker 2

It needs to be 20%, twenty five % EBITDA margin at a studio level. And if we can do that, franchisees are going to want to grow, they're going to want to open up new ones. So for me, it's all around can we get these brands profitable at the franchisee level. And the challenge when you run a portfolio is you can't invest in all of them and that's why for me less is more because it will give us an opportunity to take whatever capital we do have and invest it in fewer brands to be able to help those grow. And that investment would be marketing, sales training, new innovation at the modality level.

Speaker 2

So it's all those things. It's just really challenging to do. So we're going to have to make some decisions on what brands have the biggest opportunity and we have the right capital allocation. That's how we're looking at it. But to me it all starts with profitability at the four wall economics.

Speaker 6

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is coming from Jonathan Komp from Baird. Your line is now open.

Speaker 7

Yes. Hi, good afternoon. Mark, I want to follow-up. You talked a bit about the development process changes. But when you look at the other strategic initiatives, could you give a little better sense of the either the roadmap or the timeline to get some of the key pieces in place?

Speaker 7

And then just to follow-up on the legacy issues that you mentioned, could you just give a little more context around your comments what may still be out there or areas that you're thinking are not fully certain at this stage?

Speaker 2

Jonathan, those were two very different questions. Can you repeat the first one, the first part of that question?

Speaker 7

Sorry to jam a couple in here. The first question Oh, you guys

Speaker 2

are all clever trying to do that.

Speaker 7

Go ahead, John. And I have a follow-up. No, yes, just want to understand the major initiatives that you have just more on the roadmap and the timeline.

Speaker 4

Okay.

Speaker 2

Yes, okay. So the last time we were together, I talked about our five strategic pillars and one is franchisor of choice. And that really I think Jonathan starts with mindset that what we do around here really needs to first we need to think about our franchisees and how do we help them. The second thing is our field ops team. So we actually have people out in the field that can help them.

Speaker 2

We're going to deploy a handful of people mid year and we'll be running a pilot on where we put these people, what do they do, how do they most help. So that will be in place. We feel over the coming years we can scale that pretty significantly, but we're going to start slow. And then the third thing on that one is the LMS system, the learning management system, which is really this playbook for how franchisees can be successful. So that's a big one for us.

Speaker 2

The second one is member experience and that's really all about innovation and curating these member experiences. That's not very expensive. That's just looking at how we deploy our current marketing dollars. Data is a big one for us and we've hired a new CTO. We've got a big data warehouse project going on to look at BI and consumer insights.

Speaker 2

So that is really moving ahead right now. And then the international and we're starting to deploy a few resources there. So they're all in motion. I would say, Jonathan, I think where they really start to pick up momentum is probably in 2026. And then you had a follow-up question.

Speaker 7

Yes. Second unrelated question, the operational issues that you mentioned that there could be some more and you're hopeful that they're not material. But can you just give a little more context to those comments? And what areas may still be out there where there's some uncertainty?

Speaker 2

Well, here's what I would say. We've done a lot of work over the past ninety days to look at the organization as we look to transform it in building a really solid foundation. We believe that we've done a lot of really good work. That being said, you can never know what you don't know. But we do believe we've identified all of the issues that we know presently.

Speaker 2

And what I really believe is that we've had a cultural shift around here around transparency and franchisee mindset first. And we have a leadership team that I think is really committed to working together as a team to collaborate, to communicate. So some of these issues that we've run into, which were really in my opinion a result of a lack of the right structure, capabilities and process. So I think we're on the way to really managing this in a much more effective way.

Speaker 7

Okay, great. And my last follow-up, I know you mentioned the portion of the licenses that were inactive for the last twelve months. Is there any way as we think about the base of studios open, what percentage in total today is maybe below the threshold if it's 20% to 25% EBITDA margin or some other threshold that would be potential closure risks as we look over the next few years?

Speaker 3

Hey, Jonathan, I'll take that one. Yes, I mean, when we look at we look on a monthly basis, we evaluate the portfolio. We focus mainly on AUVs because to me it's the easiest kind of KPI that assesses franchisee health. All portfolios have a bottom 10%, right? But it's we understand kind of if you go all the way back to our prior Investor Analyst Day that we did a while back, there's about a $30,000 a month breakeven point.

Speaker 3

And so we typically look at AUVs below $360,000 as kind of a general rule. And that's where we kind of assess the line in the sand of anybody below that $3.60 mark is where the focus needs to be on profitability and figuring out why they're performing below that. It's still, I would say, in that as we guided to the number of closures, it's that 10% rule. Some of the franchisees run the model a little bit differently, which allows them to operate below that $360,000 a year kind of AUV level. But as we mentioned, you can't stay down there very long because at the end of the day, you have to generate, as Mark mentioned just previously, in that 20% operating margin to kind of have long term success there.

Speaker 3

Otherwise, if you're operating in that 0% to 10%, there's just too much volatility at the breakeven point. You're operating too close to the breakeven point. So I would say there is the bottom 10% as we guided about 5% to 7% closures in 2025 kind of addresses that. So I don't know if that answers your question, but it is about 10% of the portfolio that we're focused on, but there's probably about 5% to 7% that are in more of that critical range that if they don't grow their AUVs, they'll likely end up closing.

Speaker 7

Okay. Yes. That's helpful. And thanks for all the color on this call. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is coming from Joe Altobello from Raymond James. Your line is now live.

Speaker 8

Thanks. Hey, guys. Good afternoon. I wanted to ask about the studio openings. I think, John, you mentioned you're expecting about three seventy five or so gross openings at the midpoint here in 2025, obviously, a little bit below what you've been doing in recent years.

Speaker 8

Is that a number we should consider a good steady state number or is that a or is that a temporary number?

Speaker 3

I would say it's the number right now. One of the issues that we had in kind of the back end of twenty twenty four and early part of twenty twenty five is not having our FTDs active, which we are in the process of getting those filed. So that will help us with getting new license sales. But without the FDDs being active, we haven't been able to sell licenses, which kind of impacted the back end of 2025. Typically, you see studios that or licenses that you sell at the end of a year or at the beginning of the year, those typically get opened by Q4 of what would be this year.

Speaker 3

So it did take a little bit of momentum out of the back end of this year. So I would call it the number for this year. I think as we kind of get FDDs active and we start selling licenses again, we'll be able to provide a better number beyond 2025.

Speaker 8

Okay. And then in terms of the health of your member, I'm trying to kind of get to that. You mentioned membership was 15%, but I don't know if you gave us visits and maybe any other sort of anecdotal data you can provide on your member? Are they cutting back on visits or reducing the number of classes they're taking, etcetera?

Speaker 3

No, we haven't seen a shift in like the weakness of our members. Visitation obviously, visitation in the first quarter is usually higher just given the higher given like the New Year's resolution kind of effect, but visitation and members are up year over year and haven't seen any kind of weakening shift in trends there.

Speaker 4

Okay, great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is coming from Richard Magnuson from B. Riley Securities. Your line is now live.

Speaker 6

All right. Thank you for taking our call. You were talking about the field operations teams and then some of the international leadership. It's going to take a while to build that out, but can you give us an idea of the impact of operating expenses from that? Is it more of an incremental expense?

Speaker 6

Will you have an extra team there in the beginning and then sort of meter off after a while? I just want to get a better picture of that.

Speaker 2

Yes. Richard, thanks for the question. We're looking right now, we're actually in the process of interviewing internal people that would move from internal support jobs to external support jobs. So during this year, for sure, it would be cost neutral. And then on the international side, we're moving one key person that was inside that we're moving them to The UK to be the first boots on the ground.

Speaker 2

So at this point, Richard, it's cost neutral on both of those

Speaker 6

fronts. Okay. That sounds great. And then I have just one more. Regarding the Lindor Clinics, I don't think you talked about that much, but are there any changes that we should know there?

Speaker 6

And what is the AUV of that one right now, if you can tell us that? And then some of the changes with some of the weight loss studies recently and some of those are no longer in short supply, has that had any effect on that business model? Maybe some of that color?

Speaker 3

Yes, I'll take that one. I think I caught all of them. The main one was the AUV that you were looking for. So in the fourth quarter, the AUV for Lindor was just under $1,000,000 it was $984,000,000 When you think about the overall sales profile within Lindora, there hasn't been a big mix change as far as the services that are being offered. They continue to kind of be pretty stable even with the shift in a lot of people kind of entering the space.

Speaker 3

There hasn't been an overall movement or a trend that varies from prior in the prior part of the year.

Speaker 6

Okay. And then the latest news in that part of the industry about the weight loss drugs no longer being in short supply, that hasn't played any significant role in the business?

Speaker 3

It has not. It has not shown an impact on the business as of now.

Speaker 6

All right. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is coming from Owen Rickert from Northland Capital Markets. Your line is now live.

Speaker 2

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Can you talk a bit about the third pillar of becoming a data driven company? I think I did hear well, I did hear you have the new CTO and I believe I heard a data warehouse initiative if I'm correct. Just can you give us more color there on this pillar as a whole and how this will help going forward?

Speaker 3

Yes, I'll take that one just simply because it hits home for me. I mean the business has been very, I would say spreadsheet driven given the lack of investment in technology. So about a year ago, the company put forth a what is I believe it's called a data lake house now, but we'll call it a data warehouse in which all information is being dumped into a central repository for which we could use data visualizer or something like a Power BI to create dashboards that are not only applicable by brand, but by department. As you for me, it's extremely helpful for financial reporting. It will include things like your budget versus actuals.

Speaker 3

So we'll be able to stay on track from that perspective. But as you move it out to operations, the intent here is for the data to be almost real time. In essence, anybody in the company who has access would be able to come in and see what the sales were the day before, how many studios we opened yesterday or last week or last month. They can look at information by the studio location. The field ops people that Mark talked to, these are people that will need access to information being somewhat disconnected if they're sitting in Texas or Florida, being able to get onto their phone or their laptops, pull up a dashboard and pull anything they want almost real time in regards to franchisee performance or the health of a system.

Speaker 3

So it's been it will be a game changer. We've got early user acceptance testing coming to an end here. So for our perspective, probably another by probably the next earnings call, we'll start moving into live dashboards and actually be able to use it.

Speaker 2

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Next question is coming from Corrine Wolfliner from Piper Sandler. Your line is now live.

Speaker 9

Hi. This is Sarah on for Corrine. Just one on how should we should be thinking about brand and membership investments over the course of the year and then the cadence over the quarters, and how much flexibility guidance builds in there?

Operator

What was the first part of the question?

Speaker 9

Just how we should be thinking about brand and membership investments over the course of the year?

Speaker 2

We have quite a bit of money in the marketing fund, for example, on Club Pilates that we're going to and we've committed, John talked about it in his remarks, we're going to spend that in Q1 to make that stronger. We also are committing some of our own dollars against, let's say, StretchLab to match some of the funds that they are to help drive business short term. So I think as a consumer driven company, which that's what the franchisees are, it's all about their consumer, we've got to constantly be looking at where do we put our resources, how do we best use them and how do we drive members back into the studio. So that's something that we do every day.

Speaker 9

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. We've reached the end of our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over for any further or closing comments.

Speaker 2

Well, thanks everyone for joining today. We look forward to seeing many of you at some of the marketing events next month. I'm also excited to remind you that we plan to host an Investor Day in late May and we intend to elaborate on all of our strategies and specifically our growth trajectory. We'll communicate more details as the event gets closer. So again, thanks for tuning in today.

Operator

Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference and webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.

Powered by Quartr
Earnings Conference Call
UnitedHealth Group Q4 2024
00:00 / 00:00