Caleres Inc (CAL) 2014 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good morning.

My name is Regina, and I will be your conference operator today.

At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Brown Shoe Company second-quarter earnings conference call.

(Operator Instructions)

Thank you.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Ms. Peggy Reilly Tharp.

Ma'am, you may begin.

Thank you.

Good morning, and thanks for participating in the Brown Shoe Company's second-quarter 2014 earnings call, which is being made available to the public via webcast.

I'm Peggy Reilly Tharp, the Vice President of Investor Relations for Brown Shoe Company.

Earlier today we distributed a press release with detailed financial tables, which is available on our website at BrownShoe.com.

In addition, slides are available on our website for you to reference during today's call.

Please be aware that today's discussion contains forward-looking statements which are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties.

Actual results may differ materially due to various risk factors, including but not limited to the factors disclosed in the Company's Form 10-K and other filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Please refer to today's press release and our SEC filings for more information on risk factors and other factors that could impact forward-looking statements.

Copies of these reports are available online.

The Company undertakes no obligation to update any information discussed in this call at any time.

Joining us on the call today are Diane Sullivan, CEO, President and Chairman; Russ Hammer, Chief Financial Officer; and Rick Ausick, President, Famous Footwear.

Today we'll begin with a strategy review from Diane, followed by a financial summary from Russ, before turning the call back over for Q&A.

And I would now like to turn the call over to Diane Sullivan.

Thanks, Peggy, and good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today as we report second-quarter earnings of $0.41 per share, which is up 17% and ahead of our expectations.

Second-quarter sales of $636 million were up 2.3%, with both Famous Footwear and wholesale contributing to another successful quarter.

This good performance was delivered despite a choppy retail landscape, which ranged from a strong May to a more subdued June, and then finally in July improving somewhat.

Starting with Famous Footwear, same-store sales were up 1.6% over the 6.8% the team delivered in the second quarter of last year.

The lifestyle category, as we've been saying for some time now, maintained its hot streak, with canvas in particular up 27% as consumers continue to shift to lifestyle versus performance footwear.

We've increased our canvas inventory to meet this demand.

And as a result, total Famous Footwear inventory for the second quarter was up 2.5%.

This was in line with last year's peak, and for the third quarter, we're already below last year's inventory level.

In addition to strong canvas sales in the second quarter, we also delivered a very respectable sandal season.

We actively managed inventory and resisted promotional activity.

As a result, women's sandals were up 1.4% in the quarter, with July a 5.5% improvement, helping total spring sales fall in line with last year's.

We also not only maintained overall sandal margins, but saw an improvement in the quarter.

Let's talk a little bit about third quarter and our back-to-school strategy.

Very similar to last year, we're targeting four components for success, focusing on big brand ideas, investing in key product categories, increasing our digital and online advertising, and continuing to focus on our rewards program growth.

Our assortment strategy continues to target a more narrow but deep selection of items, which we then focused our back-to-school marketing efforts around.

And not only do we have the top brands in stock, as we always do, we also have exclusive style and colors only available at Famous Footwear.

Our omni-channel strategy has helped us with these efforts by enabling us to get the word out about these exclusives available only at Famous.

For back-to-school this year, we enhanced our mobile and outreach -- social outreach -- in order to remain a key footwear resource for families.

We now have nearly 1 million downloads in less than a year from our Famous Footwear mobile app, and that really continues to gain traction and momentum.

Our rewards program maintains key for our core customers, and our communications to them during this back-to-school season are even more personalized, more informative and more connected.

And we're maximizing our back-to-school store traffic to drive participation in our rewards program for the third year in a row.

Once again we expect to add more than 1 million new members as part of this effort.

So while we still have a few weeks of back-to-school remaining, we're generally pleased with our results.

Back-to-school same-store sales are up 1.8%, following a 5.6% improvement in back-to-school sales last year and 5.5% in 2012.

So all-in, another good quarter delivered by Famous.

Now turning to our wholesale operations, where second-quarter sales of $194.3 million were up 7.7%, with a solid majority of our brands contributing.

Star performers including Via Spiga, Vince, Dr. Scholl's and Sam Edelman, with each up at least double-digits.

At Sam, we had another great quarter, up double-digits, with strong sell-throughs, and next month we'll be opening Sam's second store in Beverly Hills.

We also launched apparel at the end of the second quarter for fall, and while still early, the outlook is very good.

Without a doubt, as we shared with you at our Investor Day, the brand is performing extremely well and we are on track with our strategic plan for the growth of this brand.

For Vince, sales were up significantly, with all major department stores reporting double-digit sales growth.

This brand has seen explosive growth and is setting a strong aesthetic and design pace in the marketplace.

The result is great products spread across key trend categories, such as modern dress shoes, upfront block heels, sneakers, sport sandals and espadrilles.

During the quarter we also launched men's in 50 doors, and these sales have had a similar clean and understated luxury feel as our women's line does.

The Via Spiga turnaround continues.

And that was because we really elevated an on-trend product that delivered higher AURs, lower allowances and fewer close-outs.

We have a lot more planned for this brand as we move forward, with new imaging, a new website and a whole lot of other refreshes planned as we move into 2015.

Dr. Scholl's delivered another good quarter, despite spotty women's sandal sales, which were offset by growth in flats and athletic styles.

Men's, which account for approximately 40% of Scholl's sales, did especially well in sandals, and with casual and sport leisure styles as well.

At Naturalizer, (technical difficulty) sales were lower, as we operated fewer retail stores versus a year ago.

And due to retail promotions for sandal across all channels in both June and July, there were fewer re-orders for Naturalizer sandals.

So for the quarter in our wholesale business, operating margin improved to 9.9%.

This 540 basis-point improvement helped contribute to our 4.9% consolidated operating margin rate, up 120 basis points, as we continued to drive toward our long-term goal of 8%.

I'm very pleased with our growth so far this year and in the second quarter.

The solid foundation that we've built over the last several years are really going to enable us to maintain our progress against our long-term targets, and importantly, allow us to continue to deliver shareholder value as we report another good year in 2014.

With that, I'd now like to turn the call over to Russ for a review of our overall financials and a little more detail around our guidance.

Thanks, Diane.

And thank you, everyone, for joining us on both the call and the webcast.

We appreciate it.

Although Diane briefly reviewed our results, I'd like to add a little more color.

For the second quarter, we reported net sales of $635.9 million, up 2.3% versus $621.7 million in 2013.

Second-quarter net earnings of $18.1 million or $0.41 per diluted share were up 17.1% over the $15.4 million or $0.35 we reported last year.

At Famous Footwear, we improved our trailing 12-month revenue per square foot to $212, as we closed or relocated 16 stores in the quarter and opened 17.

We're operating 24 fewer stores versus this time last year, and we currently expect to open approximately 50 stores in 2014, and close roughly 60.

Let's turn to a review of our financial metrics now.

Overall gross margin in the second quarter was 40.8%, which was down 20 basis points over last year.

SG&A as a share of revenue was 35.9%, which improved by 130 basis points year over year as we continue to leverage our expense base and see the benefit of our cost management actions.

Inventory at quarter-end was $657.7 million, up 6.8% over last year's second quarter.

Wholesale inventory was up 22.9% at the quarter-end, driven by Sam Edelman as consumer demand continues to increase for this brand.

At Famous Footwear, inventory was up 2.5%, in line with last year's back-to-school inventory build.

Our corporate tax rate was 31.4% for the quarter.

Net interest expense of $5 million was down 1.8% in the quarter.

Cash and equivalents for the quarter were $46.9 million as we continue to build our cash position back up following our February acquisition of Franco Sarto for $65 million in cash.

We ended the quarter with no borrowings against our revolving credit agreement, down $23 million year over year.

We also improved our debt-to-capital ratio to 28.1%, from 34.2% last year.

Before we begin Q&A, I'd like to review our FY14 guidance.

First, to account for a better-than-anticipated second quarter, we are raising our annual guidance range to $1.50 to $1.60.

As a result, we now expect our consolidated net sales of $2.58 billion to $2.60 billion; same-store sales at Famous up low-single-digits and in line with year-to-date performance; specialty retail sales down mid-single-digits due to store closures.

Net sales at wholesale operations up mid- to high-single-digits as we're encouraged by the strength of our fourth-quarter orders.

Gross margin up approximately 10 basis points; SG&A of $929 million to $930 million, with continued leverage.

Net interest expense of $20 million to $21 million; and an effective tax rate of 32% to 34%.

Depreciation and amortization of $51 million to $54 million; and capital expenditures of $55 million to $60 million.

For the third quarter, while we're generally pleased with the back-to-school selling season to date, we are seeing slower growth versus last year.

As a result, we expect third-quarter EPS to be up mid- to high-single-digits year over year.

As always, we will continue to update you with our progress against our expectations.

And with that, operator, we would be happy to answer all questions.

(Operator Instructions)

Jeff Stein with Northcoast Research.

Good morning, guys.

Couple of questions.

First of all, Franco Sarto.

Diane, you didn't mention how that business performed, so I'm just curious if you could give us an update there.

And then, question for Russ.

It looks like you guys are doing a great job in wholesale in driving higher gross margins, but it looks like the real uplift, both in first and second quarter, has been from lower SG&A expenses in that business segment.

And I'm wondering if you could talk us through your thinking about the outlook for the back half of the year in terms of the SG&A.

Because it looks like SG&A dollars were down about 7.5% in the second quarter in wholesale, after being down just 2.5% in Q1.

So, stop there and love to hear what you have to say.

Good morning, Jeff.

Hi, how are you?

Good morning, Diane.

Franco Sarto actually had a an okay quarter.

It wasn't up in the quarter.

I highlighted really the star performers.

Our forecast for them for the year is to be up in the low-single-digits.

We like what's happening with Franco Sarto.

We had some shoes that shipped in the third quarter.

No big news there, which is why I didn't mention it.

So up low-single-digits for the year, is what we expect.

And Jeff, let me answer the SG&A question.

We do continue to expect to see continued leverage as we go forward in the second half.

Keep in mind, our third quarter is our largest quarter and also our largest marketing-spend quarter.

So that is our higher-dollar SG&A quarter in the year.

But we do expect to see SG&A leverage in the quarters and for the year as we go forward.

Some of the things driving that within wholesale are the cost actions that we've taken before that we're now getting the full-year benefit of, which we only had partial-year benefits of before.

And as well as continued action on where we see synergy opportunities within the business, and a lot of that's been headcount-related.

Got it, thank you.

You're welcome.

Chris Svezia with Susquehanna Financial.

Good morning, everyone.

Hi, Chris, how are you?

Good morning, Chris.

I'm well, thank you.

First, Rick, for you -- just walk through a little more color on Famous, what other categories performed well, did not perform well.

A little surprising, just given your focus in on some key categories and brands and where the comp emptied out.

So I'm just curious if you can add a little more color around that.

Probably the toughest business has been the -- on the women's non-athletic side, both on the dress and casual business.

I think that's market-wide, if you listen to what people are saying.

So that business was difficult.

We were able to again run sandals flat.

So that wasn't an increase, it was flat, and that's a huge part of our business in second quarter.

Athletic, frankly, was up almost mid-single-digits store for store in the second quarter, so we got some benefit there.

Kids' and men's, again, probably driven a little bit more by some of the sandal business that was a little softer there.

We're down a little bit in second quarter.

So again, I think it's kind of a mixed bag.

But the big -- the hardest parts of the business right now have been the women's dress and the casual businesses.

Okay.

And then, as you stepped into August, you said -- I think you said you were up 1.8%.

How much of your market's already set for back-to-school at this point?

We're about 75% through, I think.

Our last timing group, their peak week is the rest of this week, and then we fall into -- they all go back to school basically after Labor Day.

So that's the Northeast, Upper Midwest -- some of those markets where we have a good number of stores.

So the next 10, 12 days are important.

We stop our back-to-school a week after that.

And again, we believe there's still -- we've seen it, as we have over the last few years -- later and later movement towards back-to-school purchasing.

And there is this -- the kids go back to school, and whether it's a budget thing or whether it's a fashion thing that they want to see what's going on, there is another kind of lift after a week or 10 days of school starting, where they're back in shopping again in our business.

And our early markets actually continue to be very good several weeks after they went back to school in places like Florida and Texas and Arizona.

And Rick, just that transition to boots, how do you expect that to play out as the third quarter unfolds?

I mean there's usually --

We always have a small boot assortment in our stores, as we speak.

We usually bring our key items in now so we can start making sure we get a read on them -- so some tall shaft boots, some of our shearling business is in.

We are generally pleased with what we've seen early.

Again, small numbers, so we don't get too excited right now.

But we haven't seen anything that tells us that the boot business is going to not be good this year.

So we'll wait and see what happens weather-wise, and how all that plans out.

But the items we have are selling nicely today for the amount of inventory we have in.

And can I ask just one shoe particular question?

Kaishi -- how's that -- the Roshe Run look-alike?

How's that doing for you at Famous?

It's done nicely.

Again, some of the pricing actions around there have been kept at more regular price, and non-promotable, if you will.

So it hasn't had the same velocity as other things.

But based on all that, I believe we like the way it's performed.

It gives us -- we like the look; we think the look is important.

We bought it pretty aggressively for a shoe we had never carried before, and believe it still has some long-life visibility, depending on how we materialize it and update it for the next few seasons.

But we're generally pleased with it.

Okay.

And Russ, just for you on the guidance.

You did up 15% in the first half of the year, in terms of EPS growth.

Back half assumes down slightly to up 10%.

Is that just looking at Famous comping up 1.8% good, but third quarter's important, you see how it plays out?

Or are you seeing something else that just gives you that little more conservative viewpoint?

No, most of it is the Famous.

When you're looking at the slower growth year over year, that's such a big piece of our business, that, that does drive it.

But we do see the strength in wholesale, which we're encouraged by, which is why we're taking up the annual.

Okay.

And then just lastly, great job on the wholesale side, nice margin -- 9.9% is great to see.

I assume that's going to be sustainable.

Ha, ha -- just kidding.

(laughter) That's the goal.

Yes, for sure.

I'm just curious.

It's great to see.

Is there anything -- I guess I'm going to ask -- one-time specific that drove such a surge in the number?

Or is -- we just chalk this up to everything that we've been doing, this is where we want to be, and something that's by and large --

I think it definitely -- it's the journey that we've been on.

And it's been improving really for the last number of quarters.

And really if we look at all of the brands in our portfolio today, our expectation is that they're going to all be up this year, which -- it's been a while since every brand in the portfolio has done that.

And then you add a couple of red-hot businesses in there, and it really makes for a terrific performance.

So again, I think we've been working hard at it, and it's starting to pay out for us.

And just a little bit of a comment on guidance.

We are always really thoughtful about how we manage our guidance, and so what you're seeing from us today is very consistent with what we've been doing the last year or two, as well.

Okay, fair enough.

All the best to you guys.

Thank you.

Thanks, Chris.

Thanks, Chris.

Steve Marotta with CL King & Associates.

Good morning, everybody.

You guys mentioned that the back-to-school comp is up 1.8%.

Is that different -- I believe it is -- than third quarter to date?

And if so, could you parse the two, if you don't mind?

In other words, back-to-school, I believe, is mid-July.

You start counting it earlier than the August 1 start.

I think, Steve, what we've said was that would be -- the 1.8% is really what we're trending for back-to-school, to date.

And I think what we'd prefer to do is wait until it's all in and give you the color on back-to-school completely when we've finished the journey in August here.

We don't want to give you any misreads on that, so we're going to stick with the 1.8%.

Fair enough, no worries.

Russ, you said that from the EPS guidance for the third quarter was due to slower trends.

Could you delve into that a little bit?

Because the 1.8% for back-to-school is slightly better than the 1.6% comp for the second quarter at Famous.

Year over year, we're expecting -- I mentioned third-quarter EPS be up mid- to high-single-digits over last year, and heavily driven with Famous having store-for-store sales last year of 6.8%, and this year of 1.6%.

We're just seeing a slower rate of the bigger growth business -- bigger piece of the pie.

I understand what you're saying.

That's a primary driver.

Okay.

From an inventory standpoint, you mentioned that wholesale was up pretty strong, mostly from Sam Edelman.

Sam Edelman is a relatively small portion of the entire wholesale, but for it to account for so much of the growth would mean that inventory there would be enormously large.

Is there anything else that's going on in the wholesale inventory that you can comment on?

Maybe to give you a little color there, of our wholesale inventory increase, Sam was more than half of it.

And Vince, our other high-growth brand, was another good percentage of it.

And those are the two primary high-growth pieces of our wholesale business that accounted for the inventory growth.

And then also that for the entire year, there's bits here and there, because we expect a full year against all of our wholesale business to be up.

But it's primarily Sam, and then, to Russ's point, Vince, and then a little bit everywhere based on the strength of the portfolio.

Our order book and the replenishment business that we're anticipating is a primary factor in those high-growth brands.

Okay.

Lastly, you mentioned that the gross margin opportunities for this year on a consolidated basis are roughly 10 basis points versus last year.

Can you talk about gross margin opportunities beyond this year?

We're not giving any guidance in addition to next year and beyond.

Our long-term goals are still as we discussed at the Investor Day, and we're making solid progress.

I think what we're really encouraged by, as Diane mentioned earlier, is we're seeing improvement across the board in our margin in all of our brands on the wholesale side.

And that's very encouraging for us.

They're running ahead of our internal plans, and that's very encouraging.

That's great.

Helpful.

Thank you.

Yes, thanks, Steve.

Jill Nelson with Johnson Rice.

Good morning.

Good morning, Jill.

Good morning, Jill.

If you could talk about -- Famous Footwear gross margins were under some pressure in the second quarter.

If you could talk about the components of that.

And then, how does that read into back-to-school with the promotional environment and whatnot?

Yes, the second quarter was driven, Jill, by the categories I mentioned -- the dress, women's dress and casual business, as we cleared and got those things into clearance mode and cleaned our inventory up, primarily.

But back-to-school -- there's a little bit of a combination of things.

There's a mix issue going on from some of the -- we're selling more sandals in August than we did last year.

And even though our margins are relatively comparable to last year, they're at lower rates than the rest of our business.

So there's a mix issue with some of that.

And in addition to our rewards business -- we've driven our rewards customers very hard through back-to-school.

They shop us heavily during the year, but they're even shopping us more heavily at back-to-school with some of the discounts we offer them.

So there's a little more discounting that way.

They're smart -- customers are smart, and they're finding ways to take advantage of those things.

We're happy too, because it's built long-term relationships with them.

But that piece of the business is stronger than it has been, so our margins are a little bit stressed there.

But nothing that we don't believe we can find a way for the balance of the year to overcome.

Okay.

And then just digging a bit more on the trends to date on back-to-school, if you could talk about -- are you seeing any variance between the Southern markets versus the Northern markets, where school has been in for a few more weeks?

Are you seeing stronger trends there?

Yes, this is Rick's version of the world, so don't take anything besides that.

We seem to have in the markets that had the severe winters -- the upper Midwest and the Northeast -- everything seems to be delayed by three to four weeks.

They had no spring; they had to go to school longer; their summers were shorter.

Back-to-school is coming and the back-to-school thing is the one thing that stayed constant in all that.

Everything else seemed to move on them.

So we've seen those markets be more difficult in trying to get the customer enthused.

They started buying sandals later; their back-to-school is later.

We're seeing more momentum there today than we had earlier in the season.

So that's really where most of the trouble spots.

The rest of the country by and large is doing nicely.

And the warmer markets -- Florida, Texas, Arizona and California -- are actually very nice.

Those businesses are doing very nice and trending better than our total -- what we're describing as our total.

So there is a little bit of this bifurcation, if you will, of the places that didn't have that struggle for the winter and the ones that did, and the delay there.

Whether that comes and manifests itself over the next 10 days to two weeks, I think, is one of the questions we have, which is why we're wanting to wait and see.

We think that there's still opportunity.

The good news is, we have been working for several years on making sure our inventory levels in those late markets were adequate to cover the business.

And I believe today, with some the improvements we've made in our systems over the last 18 months, we are better prepared there than we've ever been.

So if the customer is ready to buy, we're ready to sell.

I appreciate the commentary, thank you.

Scott Krasik with Buckingham Research.

Thanks, good morning.

Good morning, Scott.

Good morning, Scott

Most of my questions have been answered.

Just a couple of quick ones.

Do you have any read -- has the apparel, the sportswear for Sam delivered yet?

It has, Scott.

And the early reads are very encouraging.

I saw some sell-throughs last night that were anywhere in the 10% range up to the 30% range.

So pretty big swings, because it's only been out on the floor a week or so.

But overall, early reads are encouraging.

And then internally, what are your expectations?

You're launching handbags, I think, for spring.

Is that right?

Yes.

And how have you positioned that?

How are they going to be priced?

How big of a launch do you think it's going to be?

It's too early to really judge yet on that.

Sam's really just now getting all the feedback back in from all the shows, in terms of how the handbags are going to do.

So I'll probably have a better update for you in 30 days from now.

But generally speaking, the reaction has been good on all of that, as well.

Okay, and then, couple more.

Rick, can you just tell us what the women's non-athletic comp was this quarter?

I probably could.

I think it's basically flat for second quarter.

For the second quarter it was flat?

Yes.

Okay.

And then, Diane, just bigger picture.

Coming back from the shows, I think everybody recognizes that comfort is so much more important.

Fashion brands are putting comfort into dress shoes for the first time.

You have a big portfolio of comfort brands.

Do you think that hurts you because it's harder to differentiate those, or does it help you?

And how do you think about growth in Naturalizer and Scholl's (multiple speakers) --

Well, it's interesting.

As I said a little earlier, I have to think about that one a little bit, Scott.

I think the consumer, to your point though, they expect shoes to feel good.

And so I think no matter what kind of footwear it is, I think the brands that we have do that extraordinarily well.

And when I look at the overall performance -- I'm just taking a look at this now -- even in the quarter we were up low-double-digits in Scholl's, up mid-single-digits in LifeStride, up double-digits in Ryka, and down a little bit in Naturalizer, as we said, because of fewer stores that we've [said].

So I look at the current performance and I think about all the improvements that we have made in a lot of our comfort systems in those categories of businesses, that I think we're going to have to be on watch.

But I think the teams are continuously trying to innovate in that area to make sure that we stay ahead of the curve.

Okay, thanks.

Thanks.

Sam Poser with Sterne Agee.

Good morning.

Thanks for taking my questions.

Good morning, Sam.

Hi.

Okay, a couple things.

Rick, can you -- I think that you guys define athletic differently than other people do.

So can you remind everybody what's in athletic and what isn't?

Because some people assume that some of the things that you're talking about athletic are there, but you have them categorized somewhere else.

Yes, the [northwest] typical athletic brands, plus we do put our Converse and Vans businesses included in those categories when I say athletic.

And part of Skechers; not all of Skechers, but part of Skechers.

The Go Walk business with the -- by and large, the Go Walk business is there and whatever the athletic side of that piece of it is in there too.

Then, with Vans apparently, the canvas as strong as it is, and Skechers based on their numbers, as strong as it is, what's keeping that business not as good as it probably would appear on paper?

There's obviously ins and outs.

The traditional skate business, which has been a big category for us and we worked on that for a decade, if you will, is not -- I don't want to say nonexistent, but is much less than it has been.

So the canvas vulcanized business is where that customer is, not the [capsule] business.

And we used to do quite a bit of business in that category.

So that's down.

We planned it down, we bought it down, and all those kind of things, and invested other ways.

Same thing -- we're finding some resistance in training and running and some of those traditional looks that were selling for the last few years, where the customer has decided that, again, the more casual canvas or Go Walk kind of business is more what they're wearing with their exercise outfits, to and from their classes, and to the soccer field, as opposed to a running shoe.

So those -- again, it's not everybody in running.

It's parts of it.

So our running business is still reasonably healthy, but it's basically flat to down a little bit.

And that's a big category.

So that's another place where it's hindering the overall growth, if you will.

Thank you.

And then, Russ, can you just let us know how many Naturalizer stores are there now?

How many did you open and close in the quarter?

How many of the specialty retail stores?

Yes, total specialty retail, there's 174.

And in the quarter -- let me get that for you, Sam.

I'll have to get back, Sam; I don't have that at my fingertips.

And then you said -- I just want to get clarification.

You said for the stores for Famous, for the full year, you're planning on opening -- was it 60, and closing 50?

Other way around.

Other way around.

50 and 60.

50 openings, 60 closings.

Okay, I think that's it.

Thank you very much.

Good luck.

Thanks, Sam.

At this time, I will turn the conference back over to Diane Sullivan for any closing remarks.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

Look forward to seeing you in the next quarter and our conference call in November.

Thanks.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference.

Thank you all for joining, and you may now disconnect.