家得寶 (HD) 2007 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Welcome to today's Home Depot conference call.

Good day everyone and welcome to today's Home Depot fourth-quarter earnings conference call.

As a reminder, today's call is being recorded.

Beginning today's discussion is Miss Diane Dayhoff , Senior Vice President of Investor Relations.

Please go

Thank you Matt, and good morning to everyone.

Welcome to the Home Depot fourth-quarter earnings conference call.

Joining us on our call are Frank Blake, Chairman and CEO of The Home Depot, Craig Menear, Executive Vice President of Merchandising, Mark Holyfield, Senior Vice President of Supply Chain and counsel made Chief Financial Officer.

Following our prepared remarks, the call will be opened for analyst questions.

Questions will be limited to analysts and investors and as a reminder, we would appreciate it if the participants would limit themselves to one question with one follow-up, please.

This conference call is being broadcast real time on the Internet at www.homedepot.com with links on both our homepage and invest relation section.

The replay also will be available on our site.

If we are unable to get to your question during the call, please call our investor relations department at 770-384-2387.

Before I turn the call over to Frank, let me remind you that today's press release and the presentation made by our executives include forward-looking statements, as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties.

These risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to those factors identified in the release and in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Now, let me turn the call over the Frank.

Thank you, Diane.

Good morning, everyone.

I believe, we'll look back at 2007 as one of the most difficult years ever for Home Depot financially.

But I also believe, we'll look back on it as one of the most important years for the long-term health of the business.

On the financial side for the year, consolidated earnings per share declined 15% to $2.37.

For our continuing operations, earnings per share were down 11% for the year.

Our comp sales were negative 6.7%.

When we set our plan in the beginning of 2007, we thought that we'd see an improvement in the market by the fourth quarter.

In fact, we saw conditions worsen.

Markets that had been soft, like California, Florida, and the northeast, stayed soft, and markets that had been relatively strong, like the southwest and midwest, weakened.

The fourth quarter was our worst comp performance this year at negative 8.3%.

But despite the difficulties in our market and our tough environment, I also believe 2007 has set the stage for the long-term health of the business.

We are focused exclusively on our retail business.

We set out our five priorities for investment in the retail business and committed resources to them.

They are the same priorities for 2008 and beyond.

Associate engagement, shopping environment, product availability, product excitement and own the pro.

We have made significant progress on each.

On associate engagement, we realigned compensation and reward programs to ensure that our associates are being appropriately recognized.

For example, despite the difficult second half, we had 50% more associates in success sharing than in 2006 and addressed the average payout by almost 40%.

Our objective is to once again set the standard for associate knowledge and customer service.

It won't happen overnight but we're taking the right steps.

In 2007, we hired over 2,500 master trade specialists, licensed plumbers and electricians to work in our stores.

We introduced Homer Badges to reward associates for great customer service.

In 2008 we will be introducing a new PK Badge that will reward associates for developing enhanced product knowledge.

In 2008 we will also focus on redeploying non-customer facing expenses to selling hours, an initiative we call, Aprons on the Floor.

An example of this is that we are changing the way we are handling freight in our lower-volume stores.

In more than 1100 stores, we are moving to day receiving and inventory stocking in the early morning and late evening hours while the store is open.

This increases our ability to staff more customer facing hours and shift full-time associates to busier selling periods.

Paul Raines and his store operations team have piloted and rolled out this major initiative in a fraction of the time that it would have taken in the past, a sign of both increased velocity of decision making and greater focus on regional implementation and ownership.

On shopping environment in 2007, we completed an aggressive list of maintenance projects with new lighting and basic cleanup activities for over half our stores, as well as, more complex repair and maintenance activities for hundreds of other stores.

In 2008, we will continue to invest at levels significantly above prior years.

We now have an established programmatic maintenance cadence for our stores.

We have also set out new store standards across the company that address the clutter we have allowed to develop over the years.

On product availability, Mark Holyfield will discuss the progress we have made on our supply chain transformation.

In 2007, we piloted a new distribution concept.

We're pleased with the results and in 2008 through 2010, we will roll out new distribution centers.

It is our number one initiative for 2008, and will help us lower costs, increase asset efficiency and improve the customer experience.

On product excitement, Craig will discuss some of the new production and activities that he and the merchandising team are driving.

But I'd like to give you a point of view on our merchandising organization that we haven't much discussed before.

Those of who you follow the Home Depot for awhile, know that the company made a significant move several years ago to centralize all of our merchandising functions.

At one point we had 9 divisions, each with its own merchandising organization.

Then a few years ago, we consolidated all those organizations into one in Atlanta.

That centralization had a number of very positive impact but it also created some issues and gaps in strategy and execution as merchants lost direct touch with their markets.

Throughout 2007, Craig and his team, along with store operations and supply change, have worked to build basic processes to fill the gaps and fix the issues created by the centralization.

We're well along.

We'll continue in 2008.

This work is critical for our performance in 2008 and will also position us for successful implementation of core retail.

On that point , we begin to pilot our new ERP sale in Canada this Spring .

Once out of pilot, we will roll the new platform to all Canadian stores and expect to be fully operational with the new system by the end of the year.

On our own the pro initiative, we have grown our volume by over 200% this year.

In 2008, we will continue to leverage our customer analytics to drive a deeper relationship with these valuable customers.

Finally, our international business has performed very well in 2007.

We are the market leader in both Mexico and Canada.

Mexico posted double-digit comps for the year, Canada had positive comps, and China has posted positive comps since we've rebranded our stores last summer.

On all of our initiative, we are proud of what we have accomplished but realistic about all the work we have left to do.

We have improved our voice of customer scores, but we are still too often perceived as lagging in customer service.

We know in that a down market, we have to work all the harder to earn our customers' confidence.

So as we look at 2008, we know that we have to continue to make investments in our business to drive our key priorities.

We also know that we have to stop doing some things.

We should be judged by the discipline we bring to executing on our key priorities and the discipline we bring to stepping away from activities that aren't priorities.

Chief among the activities, we are downsizing is new store growth.

We will open about 55 new stores in 2008, only which 35 will be in the United States.

We expect 2008 to be another challenging year in terms of the housing and home improvement markets.

There is a substantial inventory of houses for sale, continued pressure on housing prices, uncertainties around credit availability and concerns around the overall economy beyond the housing sector.

Throughout this year, I have referenced the data on private residential construction as a percent of GDP.

At this time last year it had fallen from 6.3% at the beginning of 2006 to 5.3%.

The 60 year average is 4.8%, which suggested there was still room for the market to fall.

And did it.

It dropped another 110 basis points and now stands at 4.2%.

So we are now below the historic mean.

We probably still have room to go.

And the historic drops in this indicator suggest that is the case.

But this gives us at least some cause for cautious optimism as we look out through 2008 and into 2009.

Carol will cover our 2008 guidance in more detail in a few minutes.

But in summary, we expect continued negative comps in 2008, with sales decreasing 4% to 5% as compared to last year.

We also expect negative comps in the mid to high single-digit range.

Since, as Carol has described, every point of negative comp drives about 20 basis points in operating profit deterioration, and since we expect continued cost impact from our private label credit card our earnings per share will decline by approximately 19% to 24%.

I'd like to go back to a comment I made on my first earnings call a year ago.

The Home Depot is a company built on a strong set of core values.

We have hundreds of thousands of associates who understand those values, believe them, and live them.

They make difference for our customers, for our community and for each other.

They love solving problems.

They are passionate about helping others.

I want to thank them for their dedication and hard work.

They make this a truly special company.

Now let me turn the call over

Thanks, Frank, and good morning, everyone.

Our merchandising departmental sales reflect the softness in the home improvement market.

For the year, every department experienced flat to negative sales growth compared to 2006.

With those categories most closely associate with construction like lumber, building materials, electrical and millwork posting double-digit negative decline.

In the fourth quarter, we experienced negative sales growth in all departments, except one.

The departments that helped perform the company's average comp were seasonal, plumbing, paint, and hardware.

The one department that experienced positive comp sales was seasonal, driven by strong performance in holiday, fireplace, and chemicals.

Flooring performed although at the company average.

The weakness in the quarter came from continued softness in big ticket and construction categories.

January was particularly soft.

The pros went home for the holiday and didn't come back until the latter part of the month.

Special order kitchens, windows, roofing and fasteners all had double-digit sales declines across all regions in the country, except the southwest.

Additionally, we saw continued commodity deflation which impacted lumber and building material categories like dimensional lumber and gypsum.

The combination of softness in the big ticket and commodity deflation negatively impacted average ticket, which was down 2.3% from last year to $54.96.

While we saw pressure across the store, there was relative strength in repair/remodel categories.

Fasteners, builder's hardware, plumbing repair, pipe, along with the associated tools needed to make repairs, performed above the company's average comp in all regions except the hardest hilt areas of California, Florida, and portions of the northeast.

We saw strength in seasonal categories.

Fireplace, heaters, power equipment posted positive comps for the quarter in every region of the country.

except more temperate climates such as in California and Florida.

Additionally, holiday posted positive double-digit comps across the country, as a result of our enhanced assortment, and increased values for our customers.

I have shared with you throughout the years that we're focused on merchandising fundamentals.

While some of my comments will seem obvious, let me tell you what's been done in 2007 and what my senior leadership team and I will continue to focus on in 2008.

First, to ensure that we are in touch with our customers' needs, every merchant is required to walk our stores at least one day a weak.

The objective is for our merchants to use this time to speak with customers and associate to get direct feedback on their assortment and merchandising opportunities.

Second, we have constructed a weekly meeting where merchandising leadership and our regional merchants, together with operations and supply chain leaderships discuss upcoming events and operational issues.

This creates a sense of urgency, quickly resolving issues normally by the end of the day, and it creates a collaborative ownership of results.

Third, we ask our IT and finance teams to provide improved tools to help merchants more effectively do their jobs.

We don't have time to wait for core retail on multi-year initiative to provide these tools.

Our technology team delivered an enhanced assortment tool that makes it it easier for our merchants to absorb to a market and even down to a specific store.

They also provided a new forecasting tool.

The new forecasting tool is essential because speed in decision making is more critical than ever in this business environment.

Enhanced forecasting is particularly important in our seasonal business.

We use this improved forecasting tool for spring planning and feel good about having the right amount of product in our stores for our customers at the right time.

Fourth, I've asked our merchants to accelerate implementation of our focused bay approach.

Our belief that not all bays are created equal, which drives our investment decisions.

In 2007, we exited consumer electronics.

This year we plan to exit pet and halloween categories.

My team knows that they need to make the tough calls to drive resources back to core home improvement categories.

Even within core home improvement categories, we need to accelerate decisions on line structure, introduction of innovative products and communicating the value proposition to improve our assortment productivity.

These actions, along with other investments, have allowed us to narrow our share loss in 2007.

Specifically, these actions have helped us drive improvement in several product categories, such as power tools, soft flooring, paint and seasonal.

While we have made progress in many product categories, there are still others which we continue to lose share.

This represents an opportunity for us going forward.

For example in 2008, we are confident that we will improve our business results in lighting, kitchens, bath fixtures and hand tools by focusing on the fundamentals and leveraging these new tools.

Our suppliers are key partners.

I know that we will always negotiate over price but we are in this to drive business together.

And we are driving a more collaborative planning process, doing a better job of sharing information and working together on product innovation.

These merchandising processes and stronger vendor partnerships better equip our merchants so they can leverage our regional merchandising team in the field and sharpen our local merchandising efforts.

For Spring, I have some great products that I am really excited about.

We have a new exclusive charbroil grill with infrared technology ensuring even cooking and the ability to sear or slow cook with a range of temperatures from 250 to 800 degrees.

It's also energy efficient and self-cleaning with a touch of a button.

We are introducing new patio sets that bring affordable luxury to our customers.

This year we introduced Thomasville to our lineup, complimenting Hampton Bay, both of which are exclusive programs.

Our sets start at $399 and include everything from rust-proof aluminum frames with hard-surface tops to wicker and cast aluminum sets and indoor/outdoor wood.

We are introducing an electric-start gas trimmer under our exclusive Ryobi brand.

The new touch-start trimmer is a very innovative product.

It's the only gas trimmer sold in the United States that can be started with the push of a button, as opposed to the standard pull cord.

Finally, I want to highlight our new fresh-air paint for ICI, which is the only true voc, or volatile organic compound-free paint in the market.

It is a trend forward color palate of 65 colors, inspired from nature.

It is the one -- one of the only paint products that is green-guard certified.

It's truly odor free which makes painting a much more pleasant experience.

2008 is going to be tough but we have a strong merchandising team that will remain focused on our merchandising fundamentals and delivering long-term value for our customers.

Now I'd like to turn the call over to Mark.

Thanks, Craig.

Good morning, everyone.

First, I will walk you through our supply chain accomplishments and then I will outline our plans for 2008.

In 2007, we started transforming our supply chain so we could deliver on the priority of improved product availability or better in-stock for our customers.

One of our first objectives was to complete a comprehensive review of our supply chain, its capabilities and its limitations.

In terms of capabilities, not too surprisingly, we discovered our biggest opportunity is to radically increase our central distribution penetration.

This will allow us to manage our inventory much more effectively, both for regular replenishment inventory and for our seasonal and promotional products.

The existing Home Depot Supply chain worked great for high-volume stores, which had no trouble making frequent orders to vendors for direct store delivery to allow them good in-stock and inventory turnover.

But in lower volume stores, without an effective central distribution network, our store associates are forced every day to make the tough choice of being out of stock or overstocked due to vendor minimum order quantities, long lead times, and unreliable replenishment.

Given this need for much more central distribution, we developed and end-state vision for what an ideal network would look like for the Home Depot in the United States.

This distribution network strategy effort employed industry-standard techniques to map and analyze all of our existing and forecasted network product flows all the way upstream from our suppliers and downstream to our stores and customers.

Through this effort we developed an optimal distribution center network strategy model that we will continue to use to guide all of our network development decisions in the future.

A few of the highlights about the optimal network strategy.

Our goals are, first, to move from a central distribution penetration of about 20% of product flow measured by cost of goods sold to about 75% of product flow.

Second, to operate fast-flow distribution centers with the capability to process faster moving goods, which we will call rapid deployment centers or RDCs.

The optimal distribution center, or DC network, would include 20 of these fast-flow RDC's facilities.

More volume will pass through these fast-floor RDCs than through traditional DC's.

Third, to operate lumber and bulk DCs along with traditional stock and pick DCs as we do today.

So the biggest opportunity in front of us was to develop these RDCs and to move quickly, as the gap from 20% of central distribution flow to 75% is obviously quite large.

Concurrent with our supply chain efforts having a general idea where the end state supply chain strategy would take us, we began to pilot these fast-flow capabilities in our existing distribution network.

In late March of 2007, we kicked off an RDC pilot in Atlanta that included 67 Atlanta-area stores and 20 vendors, converting part of an existing Home Depot operated DC in Braselton, Georgia to these fast-flow or RDC capabilities.

The results of the RDC pilot were better in stock at the stores, reduced lead times, improved shipment integrity and improved inventory turnover.

We ramped up more stores and more vendors and today the Atlanta area RDC's served 99 stores and processed almost 100 Home Depot's vendors product through it.

We continue to add vendors to the mix weekly.

So we now after DC network strategy, proven concept of operations as its corner stone, and we have begun to roll it out.

Our second RDC was opened in Chicago in January and we are ramping up volume there now.

When we open an RDC, if there is a transit facility nearby, as in Chicago, we will close it and in corporate those existing processes and freight flow into the new RDC.

The keys to executing this strategy are getting more RDC's buildings opened and operating effectively and onboarding vendors to the program.

We will have several more openings in 2008 and we have a major push on getting vendors on board.

Our target is to complete 2008 and enter 2009 with 40% of our U.S.

stores receiving RDC service and 30% of those stores product flow measured in cost of goods sold on the RDC program.

To get to the 40% of stores targeted, this corresponds to opening six additional facilities this year, ending 2008 with about 8 RDCs given that each facility will serve about 100 stores.

Beyond 2008, we will continue to open RDCs until we have reached 100% of our U.S.

stores.

We will also continue to ramp up vendors through the RDCs making progress toward the end state goal of 75% central distribution.

Keep in mind, while RDC's will ultimately make up half of the product flow, the 75% distribution target include the existing lumber DC's and the traditional stock and pick DCs.

We expect to complete are RDC rollout in 2010.

At this point, we estimate the required capital investment to be about $260 million through 2010.

We will keep you posted as we progress on this very exciting initiative.

We think that long term, it means lower supply chain cost, better in stocks and higher inventory turns.

Another important objective in supply chain was to establish a world-class team of supply-chain professionals.

I've been very pleased with the supply-chain talent that we have on board here at the Home Dept, and we have augmented that talent with key leaders who will help to us deliver on our commitments.

In addition to Mark Huffman, Vice President of Inventory Planning and Replenishment, and John Deaton, Vice President of Supply Chain development, let me highlight a couple leaders who have joined us recently and are already making big impacts.

Charlie Armstrong is our VP of Distribution and joined us in October.

Charlie has years of transformation experience in retail supply chain, working with Wards, Melville, [Garth] Consulting Group and others.

Charlie is accountable for all DC's and their operations as we radically increase our central distribution capabilities and rollout the RDCs.

Additionally we hired a new VP of transportation, Michelle Livingstone, who also joined in October.

Michelle is a lifelong transportation professional.

She came from us from a CNS Wholesale Grocers, a large distributor to over 2,000 retail stores.

Prior to CNS, Michelle worked with JC Penney as Vice President of Transportation and was there during their retail transformation.

So she also has experience with the scope of our effort.

In closing, we are very pleased with our progress and excited about 2008 and the future as we transform our supply chain to the benefit of our customers, associates, and shareholders.

Now, I will turn the call over to Carol.

Thank you, Mark, and hello, everyone.

There are a couple of items I'd like to mention before I cover our results.

First, our fiscal year consisted of 53 weeks, so our fourth-quarter results reflect 14 weeks of operations, compared to 13 weeks last year.

Second, fiscal 2007 results include 7 months of HD Supply as a discontinued operation.

HD Supply operating results, including the impact of the sale of the business are found on a line item entitled "earnings from discontinued operations".

In the fourth quarter, sales were $17.7 billion, a 1.5% increase from last year.

For the year, our sales declined by 2.1% to $77.3 billion dollars.

The 14th week in the fourth quarter added approximately $1.1 billion in sales to the quarter and the year.

Excluding the sales impact of the extra week, our fourth quarter sales declined by 4.7% and our fiscal year sales declined by 3.5%.

We reported earnings per share from continuing operations of $0.40 in the quarter, down 4.8% from last year, and for fiscal 2007, earnings per share from continuing operations were $2.27, down 11% from last year.

The extra week increased earnings per share by approximately $0.04 for the quarter and the year.

Consistent with our guidance, the slowing housing environment significantly impacted our comp sales, which were a negative 8.3% for the quarter.

Consolidated same-store sales were negative 6.6% in November, negative 7.2% in December, and negative 10.8% in January.

We do not include the extra week in our comp calculation.

For the year, comp sales were negative 6.7%.

In the fourth quarter, our gross margin was 34.3%, an increase of 67 basis points from last year, reflecting 47 basis points of margin expansion due to lower deferred interest associated with our private label credit card, and 20 basis points of margin expansion due to a number of factors, including a chain in the mix of product sold and less promotions in the quarter.

For the year, our gross margin was 33.6%, flat to last year.

In the fourth quarter, operating expenses increased by 197 basis points to 27.2% of sales.

Our expense de-leverage reflects the impact of negative sales where, for every point of negative comp, we expect to de-leverage expenses by about 20 basis points.

With a negative comp of roughly 8%, we would expect to report expense de-leverage of 160 basis points.

In the fourth quarter, we experienced an additional 37 basis points of expense de-leverage due to several strategic business decisions, including the closing of our Tampa Call Center and write-offs associated with certain future store locations that we determined we will not open.

Further, as we anticipated, the gain share from our private label credit card program was less in the fourth quarter than last year.

The year-over-year decline in gain share is about equal to severance we paid out in the fourth quarter 2006.

For the year, operating expenses increased by 188 basis points to 24.3% of sales.

Operating margin was 7.1% in the fourth quarter, down 130 basis points from last year.

For fiscal 2007, operating margin was 9.4%, down 186 basis points compared to last year.

Diluted shares for the fourth quarter were 1.68 billion shares compared to 2 billion shares last year.

The reduction in outstanding shares is due to our share repurchase program and includes the tender offer we completed in September.

Since our share repurchase program began in 2002, we have repurchased a total of 743 million shares, or 31% of our outstanding shares.

Moving to our operational metric, during the fourth quarter we opened 26 new stores, including five relocations, for an ending store count of 2,234.

At the end of the fourth quarter, selling square footage was 235 million, a 4.9% increase from last year.

Reflecting the sales environment, total sales per square foot on a 14-week basis were approximately $279 for the quarter, down 8.7% from last year, and for the year were $332, down roughly 7% from fiscal 2006.

Now, turning to the balance sheet.

At the end of the quarter retail inventory was $11.7 billion, up 4% from last year.

On a per-store basis, inventory was flat to last year.

Inventory turns were 4.2 times compared to 4.5 last year.

Computed on the average of beginning and ending long-term debt and equity for the trailing four quarters, return on invested capital was approximately 14% down 290 basis points from last year due to the decline in our operating profit.

We ended the quarter with $44.3 billion in assets including $457 million in cash and short-term investments.

This is a decrease of approximately $160 million in cash and short-term investments from the end fiscal 2006, reflecting cash generated by the business of approximately $6.2 billion, net proceeds from the sale of HD Supply of $8 billion, and commercial paper issuances of 1.7 billion, offset by $10.8 billion paid for share repurchases, $3.6 billion of capital expenditures, and $1.7 billion of dividends.

As Frank mentioned, the home improvement market is very soft, and it's difficult for us to know just where it will go in 2008.

Our guidance reflects our best thinking at this point, and it's important to note that we have not factored into our thinking the impact of the economic stimulus package.

We're going after our fair share but really don't know how the consumer is going to react in this environment.

We have detailed our guidance in our press release.

So let me hit the high points.

From fiscal 2007 reported results, we expect fiscal 2008 sales to decline by 4% to 5%, with negative comps in the mid to high single-digit area.

In the first three weeks of fiscal 2008, we are seeing mid single-digit negative comps consistent with our plan.

For the year, we expect to open 55 new stores.

For fiscal 2008, we expect earnings per share from continuing operations to decline by 19% to 24%.

Included in our earnings per share guidance is our view that gross margin expansion will be flat to slightly positive and that our operating margin will decline by 170 to 210 basis points, as we expect expense de-leverage due to negative comp sales and expense pressure from our private label credit card program.

Let me take a minute and comment on our private label credit card program.

By way of background, we currently offer six products as part of our private label credit card portfolio, which range from three consumer-oriented cards to three cards that serve our professional contractors.

As of the end of fiscal 2007, almost 30% of all sales tendered were tendered through the use of our private label cards.

The cards are offered and administerd by a third party in a program that includes a profit sharing provision.

There are three main components of the program that impact the earnings statement.

First, deferred interest.

We are charged a flat fee, which we call deferred interest.

Every time a customer uses one of our deferred financing programs, like no interest, no payment for six months.

This flat fee is treated by us as a cost of goods sold.

Second, interchange.

We are charged a fee each time our pros use their card.

It's like an interchange fee for Visa or American Express.

We treat this charge as an operating expense.

Third, gain share.

This is our share of any profits in excess of a targeted return.

The portfolio has been much more profitable than the targeted return so we've been enjoying a gain share which is treated as a reduction in operating expense.

The sum of all three totals the total cost of credit.

Since 2004, the total cost of credit as a percent of credit sales has dropped by over 100 basis points and in 2007 was less than 1% of private label credit sales.

Under our credit agreement, the cost of credit can increase if the portfolio decreases in profitability.

In fact, we project that the cost of credit will increase in 2008.

And a major factor to this increase is less gain share due to higher losses in the portfolio.

We believe the total cost of credit will reach 2% in 2008.

While the year-over-year increase is large, 2% is in line with the cost of credit for traditional bank cards.

Now moving to capital allocation.

Our capital spending plan for 2008 is $2.3 billion, down 32% from what we spent in the retail business last year, primarily due to lower new store openings.

Approximately 50% of our capital spending plan is for new stores and the remainder will be used to invest in our existing stores in support of our key initiatives.

Given that this is a transition year for our supply chain, we are not planning for any inventory turnover improvements, and given the sales environment, we may see slight deterioration in our turns.

Finally, I want to give you our latest thinking our recapitalization plan.

In 2007, we completed almost 50% of our $22.5 billion recapitalization plan.

Late last year, we put the recap on pause given market conditions.

2008 is going to be another challenging year and we think the prudent thing to do is to keep the program on pause until we see stabilization in our business and the credit market.

So thank you for your participation in today's call.

And Matt, we're ready and we'll be happy to take your questions.

Thank you.

(Operator Instructions) .

We'll go first to Steve chick with JP

Hi, thanks.

I guess, Carol, first off, just in terms of the credit card, the 2% that the private label card will cost you in '08, I'm calculating that's about $440 million or so.

And I know you gave us what the numbers were for the second half of '07.

Can you just give us what the -- well, confirm if that absolute number is right and what the total increase will be right year-over-year that you're projecting at this point?

Steve, you're a little high on your analysis.

Let me give you a bit more color in how to think about our private label credit card.

There are three aspects of the program that impact the earnings statement.

If you think about deferred interest, that is treated by us as a cost of goods sold.

The year over change is going to be very little.

In fact, we'll have fewer credit promotion days in 2008 and we expect very little change in the cost of deferred interest.

As you come down to the selling and store operating expense line, clearly, we will have a lot less gain share than we had in 2007.

I'm thinking that the amount of de-leverage that we'll get year-over-year because of lower gain share is in the amount of 50 basis points.

Okay.

50 basis points will be the portion within your selling and administration expense?

Yes, in the operating margin decline guidance that we gave of 170 to 210, as much as 50 related to gain share.

Okay.

That helps.

Second thing, this quarter your comp gap with your competitor narrowed pretty nicely and it looks like it was in the months of -- the last two months of the quarter.

Are you -- can you speak to that?

Is it maybe this quarter and might have been kind of an anomaly, or do you really think some of the cultural things and the things that you're implementing at the store level are starting to gain traction - but relative to the marketplace?

Steve, we, I guess, the right way for us to think about it is not with respect to any one particular competitor but to think about it in terms of the market as a whole.

As Craig said, we were pleased in some of the areas where we think we've picked up share, but there are lots opportunities out there for us to continue to gain share.

Okay, thanks.

Last, clarification point, if could I.

Carol, the guidance for D&A, which I think you said is 1.9 billion is that the D&A on the face of the P&L or is it the - the total depreciation and amortization that you disclosed separately?

It's the total depreciation and amortization that we disclosed separately.

Okay.

So that is a billion now compared to 1.82?

That's correct.

All right.

Great.

Thank you.

Your Welcome.

We'll go next to Matthew Fassler with Goldman Sachs.

Thanks a lot.

Good morning.

I'd like to focus today primarily on distribution.

If you could talk about the decision to go with the RDCs versus other distribution alternatives, stocking fixed DCs specifically.

What the cost difference is and the thought process behind that call.

Yes, Matt, it's Mark Holyfield.

On the decision to go to fast flow as opposed to stock and pick, what I would point out is that we do have stock and pick distribution centers today that we use primarily for import products but also for domestic products.

So we have capabilities in that arena already.

Given our gap of 20% to 75% where we want to go - the fast-flow facilities are much simpler to set up, much smaller in general and much lower in capital investment.

So we felt that this was the fastest way to make that acceleration from 20% to 75% central distribution penetration.

Just one follow-up.

Thank you for that, Mark.

Carol, you talked about the quarter to date same-store sales trends down mid singles is a pretty sharp improvement from the numbers that you saw in January.

How would you -- how would you characterize or what would you attribute it to and how do you think about that in the context of expectations for the rest of the year?

Well, clearly we think the first half is going to be softer than the back half.

As you can given the comps that we are up against.

We did have a very, very strong President's Day weekend.

So that's obviously contributing to our year-to-date performance.

But as Craig pointed out in his comments, in January the pros, they went home for the holidays and they just didn't come back, but we're starting to see them come back in our stores.

Thanks so much.

We'll go next to Eric Bosshard with Cleveland Research.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Two things.

I'd love to get some guidance on.

In terms of the Delta in CapEx, Frank or Carol, can you talk about where the investment is changing in '08 relative to '07?

I know you indicated store openings is an important Delta but where else is there a Delta taking place?

In 2008, we planned to spend $2.3 billion, which is down $1.1 billion from what we spent in the retail business in 2007.

$900 million is directly related to new store openings.

So that's the biggest change.

Remainder decline is in areas where we spent money that we don't need to spend in 2008.

For example, we put radio call boxes in our stores in 2007.

We don't need to repeat that in 2008.

We are being very judicious on merchandising resets.

As Craig mentioned, we are accelerating merchandising resets that assist the product line review process but for those major transformational resets, we are pulling back on those a bit.

Because we think that makes the most sense for the business.

Secondly, for Craig, can you comment about what you're seeing in terms of sourcing costs.

Specifically, your direct import program.

If you're seeing the influence of Chinese inflation, how you can respond to that?

Certainly, Eric.

No question there is cost pressure in the market as a result of the taxation change in China.

We're working hard with our suppliers to try to offset those costs wherever possible.

We have taken some and in other cases, we have been able to work with them to offset costs and forego that.

So there is pressure there, but at this point, it's not something that we don't feel is unmanageable.

Very good.

Thank you.

We'll go to Danielle Fox with Merrill Lynch.

Thanks.

Good morning.

Can you talk more about the financial impact from the rollout of this optimal supply change strategy?

Should it be earnings diluted neutral or accretive over the next few years?

How do you manage the potential for disruption, as you make major changes to your distribution network?

Thanks.

Danielle, on the financial impact, as you can appreciate as we're rolling this out, it will be earnings dilutive.

It's included in the guidance that we gave you for 2008.

As Mark mentioned, we expect to be fully functioning in 2010, and that's when we'll see the economic benefit starting to flow through in terms of lower supply chain costs and higher inventory turns.

On the disruption, we are planning for that.

Mark, you might want to comment.

Yes, I think - we roll these out over the course of about three or four months, as they open up and get to full volume.

We have learned a lot from the Braselton test.

We learn each time we're going.

We are working very closely with the stores to insure that our store partners understand the process.

We've -- I won't say we've perfected the program, but through the Braselton pilot, we've stumbled across just about everything we can stumble across.

We believe, we'll have a good rollout going forward.

Okay.

Thank you.

We'll go next to Todd Duvick with Banc of America.

Good morning.

Quick question for you.

Appreciate the comments on the recapitalization program.

Just wondering if you can tell fuss that if that precludes any opportunistic share repurchases as we go throughout the year, until you do feel the time is right for the recapitalization program?

What we've said all along is that we will use excess cash to return capital to shareholders through share repurchases.

As you can see by looking at our balance sheet, we don't have any.

We have $1.7 billion of outstanding commercial paper and we need to run the business with $500 to $1 billion of cash.

So we anticipate, based on the guidance, we will be in the commercial paper market in 2008.

But in terms of any large debt issuance, you are going to wait and see when the business improves and following that you are going to plan to finish the transformation program?

We are committed to the recapitalization program but given our business, as well as, the conditions of the credit market, we think it is prudent to pause.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

We'll go to David Schick with Stifel Nicolaus.

Good morning.

Question really for Mark.

If you think out maybe five years, and I know it's just 90 days of data on Braselton and Chicago, but you think about product costs and gross margin versus inventory turns are driving comps or product availability.

Can you rank-order that opportunity or at least talk about what's bigger and what's smaller in those opportunities?

Yes, I would point out that we have almost a year of experience with the Braselton RDC.

As I said, we opened that in that late March of '07.

So we've got a fair amount of information on that and experience with that.

In terms of the business case for RDC.

It's really based upon logistics cost, which we expect to lower through improved transportation and handling.

Improved inventory turnover through a better allocation process and lower the lead time and the amount of time it takes for product to travel to stores from the vendors, and improved in-stocks leading to greater sales through the process of lowering the lead time and improving the responsiveness to inventory changes in the stores.

In rank order, it's kind of tough.

I think logistics cost is very clear.

You can measure that very clearly.

Inventory turns, there's a whole lot of things that impact inventory turns.

So it's tougher to point to a specific benefit there because there's a lot of moving parts.

Same things with in-stocks.

But we do expect all three to improve greatly as we roll these out.

But if you love cash, one full turn improvement in inventory is over a billion and a half dollars of cash.

So Mark, I don't know about you but I'd put that high on the priority list.

Thanks a lot.

We'll go to Budd Bugatch with Raymond James.

Good morning.

Just a couple of quick questions.

Carol in the past, you've given us 5% change in sales, be gats a 10% change in EPS -- and the 20 basis points operating margin for every 100 basis points of change in comps.

Do those still hold?

Do those still hold for the long term with the exception of the deferred -- the credit cost issue that you had this year?

Right.

Excluding the private label card portfolio.

We think our rule of thumb of 20 basis points of de-leverage for every point of negative comp hold.

I think that would change in an environment if we were prolonged double-digit negative.

We're not there.

But clearly we have minimum staffing levels in our stores that we need to be sensitive to but we've modeled this and we're comfortable with the guidance that we have given.

Mark, for you.

I'm just a little confused on the difference between the fast flow facilities of Braselton and what you had - I think you had 10 transit facilities that also served 100 stores each, if I remember right.

Can you give us what's the difference between those two physically and maybe operational?

Sure, Budd.

The transit facilities, the easiest way to think about those is they're really more of an in-house LTL dock, a less than truckload freight handling dock.

We place a store-level order direct to the store and it simply passes through the transit facility where it it's aggregated with other store-level orders going direct to the store.

So it's really -- the easiest way to think about it is - in house LTL dock.

We already see the difference in that.

We place a DC level order - a single order for the 100 stores.

So we reduce the number of purchase orders that we send to the vendor by 99%.

We reduce the number of orders that he has to pick by 99%.

We reduce the number of shipments by the same amount.

So it's a single bulk shipment into the RDC and at the RDC, then we break that down by store and use the information we have on inventory at that point what is needed in each store to allocate what's needed to the store.

It's more handling in the RDC but we gain benefit in terms of in-stock and inventory turns.

As we roll vendors on to this, we work with them to take the costs out they're saving in terms of fewer orders to process.

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Chris Horvers with Bear Stearns.

Hi, Chris.

Stepping back on square footage growth, you cut back the growth this year.

Can you talk about how you're thinking about longer term?

What your longer term square footage growth will be?

How many stores you might think about in 2009 and 2010, domestic versus international?

First let me take the domestic side, Chris.

We've said for awhile you should look at our new square footage growth as pretty much matching the market.

Obviously, as market growth has come down, then our plans going forward on new square footage growth is coming down.

So I would not expect, at least within our planning horizon, much change from what we're going to do in 2008 and if there were a change it would probably be slightly decremented, not going up.

Internationally, we continue to see opportunities in Mexico.

We really haven't even started to roll out China.

We've stayed with the initial dozen stores from a year ago, just working through that business model.

So we haven't really even put on the table yet what the new store growth plan for China.

okay.

That's very helpful.

Frank, in prior conference calls you've talked about your relative market share, gain or loss versus the market and how you saw some improvement.

I'm not sure if I missed it.

Could you review that?

Sure.

I think Craig mentioned it just in passing.

The way we look at it - is we think we've still lost share to the market.

We think we've -- I don't want to do a double negative here, but we've reversed the rate of our declines, so it's improving, but we -- we don't see in our performance now that we are picking up share to the market yet.

We feel like we're on that trajectory but we're not there yet.

Do you have the '07 versus '06 what the numbers were?

I don't off the top of my head.

We can get that back to you.

Ballpark, I'm remembering, we cut it in half.

The rate of declined.

Something like that.

We'll get back to you.

Okay.

Then finally, Craig, can you talk about trends in the appliance category?

You didn't call it it out.

How do you feel you're making progress and how do you look at that from a market share perspective?

We improved our share in the quarter again from 10.8% to 11.8%.

So we had a positive gain in the quarter.

The industry in total is contracting, but we still feel that based on the share information that we are - our assortment and lineup is something that the customer is responding very positively to.

Excellent.

Thank you.

Matt, we have time for one more question.

We'll take our final question from Gregory [Mallic] with Morgan Stanley.

Hi.

Thanks.

I have a couple of questions.

One, on the credit, Carol, you mentioned that you thought was 50 bips this year.

That essentially no longer making money for you or in '09 if credit continued to deteriorate could it go further?

In other words, how profit making is credit overall?

And I have a follow-up on distribution.

Remember, there's always a cost to credit.

While we share in the profitability of credit, when you had a it all up there's always a cost.

The cost has been declining.

It's now less than 1% of sales.

It will increase to 2% we believe.

It all depends on a profitability of portfolio.

Could it go higher?

Yes.

It really depends on what happens in the portfolio.

We have stress tested this and put it through the wringer.

We don't think it could get any higher than 4%.

We certainly not predicant this.

But we said bankruptcies jump and delinquencies increase and we stressed it and it went into a prolonged recession scenario and that's the output of that analysis.

And that compares to the 2% that you talked about this year?

2% for 2008.

The second is on distribution.

Mark, you gave the number of 200 some million for CapEx.

I assume, are you leasing these DCs?

And if you are, what is the cost for that?

What would be the implied cost?

The numbers, $260 million, that does not include the land and equipment, or - excuse me, the land and building that we -- we lease those.

That includes our leasehold improvements and our systems that go into it.

The lease costs are included in the guidance that we gave you.

As you can appreciate, the locations of these facilities are not the same as our stores where we seek for A-related estate.

These are in C-location.

So the rent expense is very reasonable.

So the number - if you were to add those lease cost, it's not billions?

No, sir.

And on that, as you get these DCs rolled out, does it increase your likelihood, Frank, in terms of doing the stores three or four years from now to go into more roll markets or to do more infills or is that not the purpose of the exercise?

That isn't really the purpose of the exercise, but for sure it could be the case that our improved distribution network could facilitate different stores than we have now.

But that really isn't the purpose, and that's not what we're looking to do.

Great.

Thanks.

Thank you everyone for joining us today.

We look forward to talking to you next quarter.

That does conclude today's call.

Thank you for your participation.

Have a good day.