Seven & i Holdings Co Ltd

TSE:3382

Q1-2026 Earnings Call

[Yoshimichi Maruyama, executive]

Good evening to you all. This is Maruyama speaking of Seven & i Holdings. Thank you very much for taking the time out of your busy schedules to join us today. And I also would like to express our sincere gratitude for your continued understanding and support of the group.

And now I would like to take you through the financial results for the first quarter of the fiscal year 2025. Please turn to Page 2. This is today's executive summary.

The consolidated results for the first quarter of FY '25 increased both in sales and profits. Net income, in particular, increased significantly due to the impact of special gains and losses. For the full year consolidated earnings forecast, we will maintain the forecast announced in April at this stage. We are steadily implementing the management measures announced on March 6 to enhance corporate and shareholder value.

Please turn to Page 3. Today's agenda. First, I will cover the first quarter results, followed by an update on the progress of major business initiatives. Let me take you through the results of the first quarter.

Please turn to Page 5, highlights of the consolidated results for the first quarter. JPY 2,777.3 billion in revenues from operations, 101.6% year-over-year and 99.4% against the plan. Operating income, JPY 65 billion, 109.7% year-over-year and 111.8% versus the plan.

Net income attributable to owners of parent, JPY 49 billion, 229.2% year-over-year and 248.8% versus the plan.

Amortization of goodwill under Japan JGAAP was JPY 35.4 billion.

In the first quarter, net income increased significantly by 229.2% year-on-year to JPY 49 billion, mainly due to the recording of a gain on the sales of noncurrent assets, gain on sale of land of JPY 32.113 billion as extraordinary income from the sale of Ito-Yokado store sales and the fact that extraordinary losses were largely completed by the liquidation of businesses and assets that did not generate profit by the previous fiscal year.

The impact of foreign exchange on operating income was positive of plus of JPY 200 million.

Please turn to Page 6. This is a breakdown of revenues from operations, operating income and EBITDA by segment and year-on-year comparison. Please note that the figures are after amortization of goodwill.

First of all, regarding the domestic convenience store operations, sales at existing stores, same stores increased due to the strengthening of the lineup of high value-added products and consumer spend increased, but there were issues in designing a product mix that balances detailed pricing based on consumer needs, resulting in a decline in gross profit margin. Regarding SG&A, increase in personnel costs and rent were not offset by other cost cuts, resulting in a decrease in profit.

In overseas convenience store operations, although the growth in same-store sales remained sluggish, the effects of the measures have been positive. Profit increased due to improvement of gross profit margin and control of SG&A expenses.

In the Superstore business, profits increased due to effects of structural reforms. In others, Specialty store businesses such as Loft, Akachan Honpo, Seven & i Food Systems, profit increased due to strong sales. As a result, we were able to achieve an increase in profit on a consolidated basis.

Please turn to Page 7. These are the results versus plan by segment. Operating income fell short of the plan in the domestic convenience store operations but exceeded the plan in all other segments. Therefore, achieved plan on a consolidated basis. EBITDA was largely in line with our plan.

Next, I will turn to the progress of our major business initiatives. Please turn to Page 9.

First of all, first quarter results for Seven-Eleven Japan. Please take a look at the chart on the left. This is a waterfall chart of operating income compared to the previous year breakdown by factors.

Same-store sales grew by 0.6% in the first quarter, positive impact on profit. Gross profit margin, however, was down 0.6%. The image that 7-Eleven products are expensive led to conservative pricing that, in turn, pushed gross profit margin down. Measures are being taken from this fiscal year, such as strengthening our high value-added products. But with soaring of raw material prices, we are still on a path towards recovery.

Going forward, we will strengthen our efforts to set prices that are commensurate with value and optimize the product mix.

SG&A expenses increased due to increases in advertising expenses, personnel expenses, rent, among others, and operating income decreased by JPY 6.7 billion from the previous year to JPY 54.4 billion.

Please take a look at the line chart on the right. The orange line shows the growth rate of same-store sales. The green line shows the number of customers and the red line shows average customer spend. In particular, we recognize that the number of customers or traffic in the first quarter decreased by 0.7%. So recovery in traffic is a major challenge.

Please turn to Page 10. The slide is a summary of progress of the 3 major initiatives for fiscal 2025, which I explained -- which was explained in April.

Regarding efforts to strengthen high value-added merchandise as a result of continuing to strengthen the fresh-made foods, sales of hot foods, Seven Café lineup, including new menus for teas and smoothies, all increased on a daily basis. The average daily sales of fresh-made food category as a whole increased by 3.8%, confirming the effectiveness of our efforts.

Regarding strengthened SIP initiatives, the slide shows the number of stores that have introduced Seven Café Bakery. In the first quarter, we introduced it in 817 stores, and the gross profit margin in these stores have approximately showed to be 0.2% higher overall compared to stores that have not introduced.

Regarding the Strengthen 7NOW, total sales have increased significantly with the completion of nationwide rollout. These strategic measures have been steadily making progress, and we have been able to confirm certain impact, but not enough to able -- to be able to achieve strong sales growth or show recovery in gross profit margins.

Challenging consumer environment continues, and consumers are shifting to other formats that are more price appealing, such as supermarkets and drug stores. This is an urgent issue to be addressed. It is crucial to enhance our awareness with price appeal and by implementing initiatives I have explained.

Please turn to Page 11. Our greatest strength lies in the appeal of our original products while maintaining the importance of developing high-value products such as tasty, safe and secure and healthy products. We recognize that it is important to be more sensitive of whether we are offering products that embody the value that customers need, including price and volume and whether there are any discrepancies between our offer and expectation from customers.

At SEJ, we will change our system to quickly implement strategies that strengthen our marketing perspective. It is a management system that combines products, promotions and operations in Trinity. In the previous process, plans were made for merchandises and promotions, and those plans were then linked to operations. However, we have now established a system in which operations are involved in the planning stage and knowledge from the field is reflected in the plans. This enables us to implement measures that accurately capture customer needs.

In addition, planning information is shared with relevant departments at an early stage, allowing all parties to be fully prepared for the implementation of measures. This makes it possible to conduct thorough discussions between field counselors and owners and to prepare sales floors with greater care.

As the first step in this Trinity management strategy, we held a super sales on rice balls and sushi in June. This is more than simply a sales promotion, but also, it was intended to be a test to verify the demand for combination purchases of other daily items with rice balls, which are products with high customer contact and to formulate measures to acquire new customers in addition to existing customers by combining the sale with promotions.

As a result, many customers purchased combinations of rice balls and noodles or rice balls and deep fried food, contributing to an overall increase in daily sales. From now on, in addition to rice balls, we will strengthen noodles on a seasonal basis as our core products.

In this context, we will also introduce products based on targets such as young people and women. In addition, we will also link this to promotions such as offering of a selection of set food menu that combine core products in deep fried food products.

In this way, in the short term, we aim to maximize the effects of our strategy by linking target-based product development, promotion and operations in a three-pronged manner. In addition, from a medium- to long-term perspective, we established the Communication Strategy Office in March, and we will once again reconsider what 7-Eleven contributes to society and what we will provide to our customers and promote initiatives in order to strengthen our branding.

Please turn to Page 12. Next, let me take you through 7-Eleven, Inc.'s first quarter results. Please refer to the waterfall chart on the left.

In merchandise business, although same-store sales declined in the first quarter, due to favorable outcome of the initiatives that I will explain later and the changes to the pricing strategy that closely monitors customers' behavior, the merchandise margin improved by 1.1%, which contributed to an increase in profit.

On the other hand, in fuel business, gasoline sales volume and sales per gallon were lower than the previous year, resulting in a decrease in profit.

However, in this challenging environment, we continue to strengthen our cost leadership initiatives. And as a result, improvements were seen both in the OSG&A to sales ratio and OSG&A amount. As a result, operating income was JPY 245 million, plus JPY 43 million year-on-year.

Please look at the line chart on the right. Same-store sales reached the same level as the previous year due to a significant increase in average customer spend due to a review of pricing policies. Excluding cigarette products, same-store sales remained almost flat year-on-year. However, if you can look at the green line graph, as with SEJ, recovering customer traffic is being a major challenging for the time being.

Please turn to Page 13. Next, I would like to explain the progress of the 4 major measures that we explained in April.

First, let's talk about the status of our efforts to grow proprietary products. We made solid progress in rolling out our food and beverage modernization program with an additional 435 installs during the first quarter. As a result, gross profit margin in the fast food category had a positive effect of approximately plus 0.5% on the entire merchandise margin.

In addition, the number of new PB products with high profit margin has been generally in line with the plan. And we confirm that the gross profit margin of PB products has a positive effect of approximately 0.1% positive on the entire merchandise margin. As you can see, our initiatives led to the improvement in gross profit margin.

In addition to the food and beverage modernization program, we are also working to expand the restaurant business, which is a major initiative to change the customer perception to 7-Eleven with plans to open 15 -- excuse me, 50 restaurants by the end of this year.

Next, Page 14. On this page, I would like to review 3 other key priorities. With regards to accelerate digital and delivery, the number of 7NOW stores increased by 74 compared to the end of the previous fiscal year, and we are on track to reach 7,500 stores by the end of this fiscal year. Sales are also progressing steadily.

As previously mentioned, to improve efficiencies and cost leadership, we are focusing further on maximizing management efficiency by controlling the OSG&A and installing RIS and DEX, a 7-Eleven's proprietary point-of-sale system.

In terms of grow and enhance store network, we continue to invest in our store portfolio with a focus on new standard stores. In the first quarter, we opened 26 new stores, including 16 new standard stores, comprising larger food for focused facilities with fuel.

We will continue to accelerate our efforts to improve our business performance in fiscal year 2025 and build a foundation for future success. At the same time, consumers are changing their behavior due to economic influences and other factors such as remote working, accelerating value preferences and a shift to online and mass retailers.

To accurately respond to these changes and continue to be the store of choice for consumers, we must promote measures to meet consumers' expectation in addition to these 4 key strategic priorities.

Next, please. Turn to Page 15. I would like to explain the progress of the plan to unlock shareholders' value through leadership changes and transformational capital and business initiatives announced on March 6.

This slide is a posting reposting of the presentation materials from March 6. The reform of the management structure described in #1 was approved at the General Meeting of Shareholders in May, and we will accelerate the implementation of strategic measures under the new management structure. I will briefly explain progress of other items in the next slide.

Please turn to Page 16. First of all, preparations for SEI's IPO are proceeding as planned.

With regard to shareholder returns, as we disclose every month, we are making steady progress in the acquisition of our own shares with a cumulative acquisition of JPY 90 billion as of end of May and at the end of the first quarter, a cumulative total of JPY 156.2 billion as of the end of June, the most recent year, and the progress rate in terms of amount is 26%.

With regard to business portfolio transformation, the deconsolidation of SST business is making steady progress towards the closing on September 1. And the deconsolidation of Seven Bank was completed on June 24.

For accounting purposes, it should be noted that Seven Bank and its subsidiaries will only be included in the company's consolidated financial results until the end of this August.

Lastly, I would like to explain the transformation of business operations. First, with regards to SEI, the comprehensive profit enhancement program has entered the implementation phase since July as scheduled. This program is promoted as an initiative to bring about a disruptive change by incorporating an objective perspective and is being incorporated into the plan formulated under the new management led by CEO, Mr. Dacus.

In addition to promoting the 3 initiatives that I explained earlier and the strengthening the marketing strategy based on the Trinity, SEJ has started initiatives based on the recognition that it is essential to comprehensively reform its business structure and cost structure as with SEI.

We recognize that this initiative is not a short-term one, but a challenging initiative that will take a considerable amount of time. We recognize that this is a challenge that takes time to achieve full-fledged profit and loss improvement. However, this reform must be achieved in order for SEJ to grow sustainably in the future, and we'll aim to achieve it as soon as possible.

Last but not least, we are pleased to announce that our group has embarked on a new journey under the leadership of CEO, Mr. Dacus. By taking this opportunity, we plan to hold a briefing in August, where Mr. Dacus will explain the group's management strategy and its implementation plan. Details such as the date, time and location will be announced separately. So please stay posted.

This concludes my explanation. Thank you very much for your attention.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]