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Operator
Good afternoon. Welcome to the Lakeland Industries first quarter 2006 conference call. [OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS] Before we begin, parties are reminded that statements made during this call contain forward-looking information within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements are all statements, other than statements of historical facts, which reflect management's expectations regarding future events and operating performance and speak only as of today, June 9, 2005. Forward-looking statements are based on current assumptions and analysis made by the Company in light of its experience and its perception of historical trends, storing conditions, expected future developments and other factors it believes are appropriate under circumstances.
These statements are subject to a number of assumptions, risks and uncertainties and factored in the Company's filings with the Securities & Exchange Commission, general economic and business conditions, the business opportunities that may be presented to you and pursued by the Company, changes in law or regulations, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company. Listeners are cautioned that these statements are not guarantees of future performance, and the actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statements. All subsequent forward-looking statements attributable to the Company or persons acting on behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by these cautionary statements.
At this time, I would like to introduce your host for this call, Lakeland Industries President and Chief Executive Officer, Christopher Ryan. Mr. Ryan, you may again.
- President & CEO
Thank you, operator and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Lakeland Industries fiscal 2006 first quarter conference call. With me today is Gary Pokrassa, our Chief Financial Officer, who will take you through our financial results after a brief introduction.
For those of you who are new to Lakeland, Lakeland manufacturers and sells a full line of safety garments and accessories for the industrial protective clothing market. Our products are used by industrial customers such at chemical, petro chemical, automobile, steel, glass, construction, smelting, janitorial, pharmaceutical and high technology electronic manufacturers, as well as hospitals and laboratories. We also supply federal, state and local government agencies and departments such as fire and police departments, airport crash rescue units, Department of Defense, the CIA, the FBI, and USA Secret Service, the Center for Disease Control and, most recently, the Democratic and national -- Republican national conventions.
We had a little bit of technical difficulty getting our press release out, but it should be out by now so that you can see it. We had some problems with the text people and the SEC.
So I'll get right into things fairly -- you know, in a minute. But I think -- from a general point of view I think Lakeland margin expansion, and our margins did expand this first quarter, at least from a percentage point of view, essentially emanated from our movement of our USA production to Mexico and China, and the improving margins we'll see there. I have spoken about this to many of you before, but it is actually happening, and it is going on on a month-by-month basis.
I also know one of the questions I will probably have to answer two or three times is when will this be accomplished? Well, as of today, half our glove production has been moved to Mexico and about 40% of our wovens production to China. As an example, our first China-made fire coats and fire suits have arrived in the U.S., and we are currently selling China-made FR Cotton and Nomex® coveralls in the U.S. So, they've made the round-trip. Our Chinese facility can essentially make now about 40% of what we currently make in the U.S., and those products are hitting our shelves this week and in the coming weeks. The movement of those two pieces of our USA production should continue to prove our margins dramatically over the coming yea,r from today through 2006, as we get more and more volume through this channel.
Now I will turn it over to Gary Pokrassa, our Chief Financial Officer, who will walk you through the quarter-end results and pretty much follow along with the press release that should be in front of you by now. Gary?
- CFO
Thanks, Chris, and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
Net income increased 280,000 or 20.2%, up to 1.71 million for the three months ended April 30, '05, from 1.43 million to the three months ended April '04. Net sales decreased 1.1 million or 4.2% to 25.7 million the three months ending April '05, from 26.8 million for the three months April '04, not entirely for lack of orders, but due to supply chain issues precluding us from fulfilling all our orders. Gross profit decreased 200,000 or 3.2%. That's 5.8 million for the three months ended April '05, from 6.0 million for the three months ended April '04. However, gross profit as percent of sales increased to 22.5% for the three months ended April '05, from 22.3% for April '04, the three months.
More significantly, operating profit increased 6.4%, up to 2.5 million for the three months ended April '05, up from 2.4 million for three months ended '04. Operating margins increased to 9.9% for the three months ending April '05, compared to 8.9% for the three months ending April '04. Lakeland's operating margins are at the highest level in Company's history, which were 8.0, 6.5, 5.6 and 4.8, working backwards from fiscal '05, '04, '03 and '02, respectively. Despite rising raw material prices, we've been able to increase profits over the last year, due to tighter controls on our SG&A expenses and our international production planning. We do expect this upward trend to flatten out later in this fiscal year, and then to move up again, depending on when the increased chemical suit sales do kick in, as we within to continue to move a larger portion of our domestic production to China and Mexico, as Chris has just laid out. This is an ongoing program, which should improve margins continually on a monthly basis,
During the second quarter of FY '05, which ended July of '04, the Company issued about 1.3 million new shares to the public, which helps solidify the balance sheet. And in April '05, we recorded a 10% stock split. These issuance of shares had a negative impact on the Company's earnings per share, because the weighted average shares outstanding increased 39% for the three months ending April '05, compared to the same three months April '04.
Earnings were $0.34 per basic and diluted share for the three months ended April '05, compared to $0.40 a share for basic and diluted for three months ended April '04, as we stated for the stock split, even though net income increased 280,000, or 20.2%, to 1.71 million for the three months ending April '05, up from 1.43 million for the three months ending April '04. On April 30, '05, the Company's balance sheet included total assets of 63.9 million, cash and marketable securities 8.7 million, working capital was 49.8, no bank debt, and stockholders equity of 56.2 million or $11.20 per share of book value, after the stock split.
Let me just give you some key metrics and their history. ROI for Q1 of '06, this current year, was 12.13%, which is up from 10.16 for the full fiscal year '05, but down from 12.96 for Q1 of last year. ROA was 11.03 for Q1 '06, up from 9.32 for full FY '05, down from 11.56 for Q1 of '05, last year. ROE was 12.39 for Q1 '06, down from 12.62 for the full FY '05 and down from 22.15 for Q1 '05, last year. ROE down, due to the secondary offering in mid '05, as we just said, which will take some time to properly invest in the business, instead of short-term financial instruments. EBITDA, as a percent of sales, was 10.74 for Q1 of '06, up from 8.54 for the full FY '05, and up from 9.34 in Q1 of FY '05.
With that, I will turn the call back to Chris.
- President & CEO
Thanks, Gary. And I'll go to the other area that I know everybody asks about right away, and that's Homeland Security. So in the homeland and defense side, we're seeing a continuing softening of demand for our high-end chemical suits. It is difficult to identify why this is o -- why this is, other than bureaucratic bottlenecks, but more so because new Homeland Security management, post Tom Ridge, is still getting settled in. Spending delays have also been caused by the geographic priority argument versus the pork debate going on in Congress, and further with Christopher Cox leaving as chairman of the House Select Committee on Homeland Security to go to the SEC, and other events further muddying bureaucratic buying decisions.
Essentially, over the last couple months, what's been happening is there has been a debate in Congress, actually led by Christopher Cox, as to how the money is going to be spent. I.e., whether each congressional district is going to get the same amount of money, or whether certain areas like New York, Washington or Miami should be targeted with more money. So it's what I call the geographical priority versus the pork debate. And I think this may be slowing down buying decisions, because the bureaucrats are basically afraid of taking a position and being caught on the wrong side of the debate in the future.
Some of the key elements that we're going it look to in order to continually increase our earnings is for one, and this is the good news, our major supplier, Dupont, increased the cost of Tyvek® and related materials by us by 3.7% on January 4, 2005. They also have raised the price of Tyvek® again to us by roughly 6% to begin June 13, 2005. However, they have also raised the price of their garments by 6% and they claim that that's going to take place 2005 also. So, net-net, we should be picking up some extra margin here.
Dupont is also one of our major competitors in the industrial protective clothing market. And as I said before, Dupont is raising their garment prices. So we should see, probably, close to 100 basis point increase in our margin as a result of these garment price increases going forward from, roughly, what I would figure is July. So, from July going forward we hope to have some incremental margin increase as a result of this pricing. We're currently preparing revised pricing on our own Tyvek® garments for our own increase on June 20, 2005. So, that's the area we're going forward to.
But quite frankly, until we see the actual prices by style and size on our competitors garments, we won't be able to really precisely predict what our margin increase will be. Now, Kimberly Clark raised the prices on their garments by 6% last month. Dupont is following by raising their garment prices 6% in June, and so are we. But we're going to basically be looking at prices style-by-style, and I haven't yet seen some of the competitors detailed pricing style-by-style yet. So that's the only thing that's out there that's still not yet really, you know, hard information.
But in the meantime, we're going to continue reducing our expenses. For instance, last quarter we reduced selling expenses by 170,000 and that's in one quarter. However, that was offset by Sarbanes-Oxley related increases and consulting fees and professional fees of about 140,000. So net-net, we reduced our selling expenses by more than the Sarbanes-Oxley expenses this quarter, and this is a pretty heavy quarter for Sarbanes-Oxley expenses. We also re-negotiated cost decreases and other non-Dupont raw material, and raised our woven garment prices. Our wovens are the fire coats, the pants, the aluminized clothing, and anti-static polyester coveralls. So we're raising those garment prices, too, and we're seeing a nice profit coming out of our wovens, which has historically always been losses. And that has been part of the fact we're producing a good portion of these garments in China and we've also raised prices on the garments.
And, finally, the Company's completed all its acquisitions of real estate that it utilizes in Decatur Alabama, and Ronkonkoma, New York, thereby eliminating the rent expense of 615,000 dollars annually. But this savings won't start until the third quarter, ended 10-31-'05. And the savings, which will probably be offset by an increase in depreciation expenses, roughly 100,000. But, again, in the second and third quarter, we're going to start realizing even greater savings. So, other than acquisitions, which I think you'll hear something about during the summer or the autumn, I'll open it up to questions right now.
Operator
[OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS] Our first question is coming from David Cohen of Midwood Capital.
- Analyst
Couple of questions. Chris, you just described, with some specificity, exactly what Dupont is doing on their Tyvek® raw goods price increases. How certain, and less specificity, on their garment price increases. How certain are you that there will be a price increase and that it will be relevant for the sort of style types that you basically compete with them on?
- President & CEO
Dupont announced to us, privately, that they were raising our Tyvek® prices by 6%, and they announced publicly to their customers in the marketplace that they were raising garments by 6%. So very simply, we saw a 3.7% increase and a 6% increase. That worked out to about a 9.9% increase in fabric costs. But they're also raising garment prices by 6%. That works out to, certainly, a better situation than what we had just before, where we had a 3.7% increase in fabric and no garment increase. We're going to pick up a little bit, a few basis points here.
The only thing is we haven't seen any actual Dupont prices yet on specific garments and styles, and they can vary. But in general, they said they're going to raise prices by 6%, so I'll take them on their word on that. Like I said, we haven't seen detailed prices yet, and they generally can bounce around a little bit here and there simply, because one is an accessory or one is a cover all and it may not be exactly 6% here. It might be 55 or 65 there. It varies, and it just varies because there is 6 or 700 SKU's here.
- Analyst
Okay. Second question is can you clarify what you're referring to with your supply chain issues that got in the way of, basically, generating revenue? What happened and is it fixed? Is this going to persist?
- President & CEO
No, it's fixed. Basically we were just short on supply and getting our basic disposable garments out of China on time and into our warehouse. So, we probably missed sales because we didn't have it in inventory. However, that is not the problem now. We have basically fixed it.
- Analyst
Is this a thru-put problem, because you had bought Tyvek® in advance of what you thought was --
- President & CEO
We had enough Tyvek®, We didn't have enough sewing power.
- Analyst
Okay. How much more sewing power do you have versus when you ran into the problem?
- President & CEO
We put on 60 new people since the end of April.
- Analyst
Great. Thanks.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is coming from Brian Butler of Friedman Billings Ramsey.
- Analyst
Congratulations on the good quarter, Chris.
- President & CEO
Thank you. At least we made more money in dollars this quarter than we have in any other quarter.
- Analyst
Your margins look great. That's part of my question is you talk about fiscal 2006, in the press release, being a challenging year based on higher Tyvek® prices. But you've managed to get margins to the highest level yet and you expect them to increase a little bit more, possibly, while they flatten out towards the end of the year. So, is the pressure for 2006 coming from the margins or is it coming more from sales?
- CFO
Let me tackle the first part that, Brian. This is Gary. The margins for Q1 were all based on material that we had purchased prior to the price increase. It takes a good three months to go from us accepting a shipment, with the supply chain until it hits finished goods, and then it goes out. So, all of our sales, virtually all of our sales were at the pre-January 1 increase price for the raw materials. Those price increases are just now hitting us in finished goods.
- Analyst
Right, but you made the statement just on the call that you thought margins were going to continue to either flatten out or improve.
- President & CEO
Okay. Our margins should improve, number one, because of the garment price increase. They should improve because we're continually moving production to China and Mexico on gloves and wovens. We're continuing to reduce our SG&A expenses and other expenses. We're going to -- we really haven't realized any of the savings through the real estate, and I think you'll see something on the acquisition front in summer and autumn which would be accretive to earnings. I think we will be in a much better position at the end of third quarter to give much more precise future or comments on earnings for the year end and going forward, even after the year end.
- Analyst
Okay. Just sounds -- it sounds that 2006 could be more positive than you guys think if revenues are still going to grow in some 4 to 6% range. That's, I guess, where I was going with that question.
- President & CEO
Well, our May sales, I believe, are stronger than our sales last May. We're out of the hole here on sales, at least for the month, and a month doesn't tell you that much. But we're out of the hole on sales and we are delivering. We've gotten our stock back up and will be fully stocked by -- certainly by mid-June. And right now, sales are taking off probably because everybody is trying to beat the price increase.
- Analyst
Okay. And then, I know you answered part of it on the Homeland Security part. You saw a softening of demand. Do you think you can still continue at what you saw in fiscal '05 levels, or is it declining? Is it just flattening out?
- President & CEO
It's just, basically,It started declining in November, last November, and it's basically flattened out. And it's not increasing or decreasing right now too much On a monthly basis, it can be up or down $100,000, but it basically took a sharp decline from November through January and then has been sort of flattened out. It's been up a little bit and down a little bit every month but basically flattened out right now. All I can see is it is basically staying where it has been in the first quarter for the second and maybe the third quarter, until something happens within the government that's to sort of get them spending the money that they have sitting around.
- Analyst
So as of now, you're still just on a kind of $12 million on annual basis pace.
- President & CEO
It's more like on 11 million.
- Analyst
More like 11. Okay. And then ast one on the tax rate. You guys are at about 33%. Is that a good rate to go forward on the next three quarters?
- CFO
That is a good rate going forward, yes. We had some unusual circumstances in last year, comparing it to that. Now it should be a good rate going forward.
- Analyst
Thank you. Congratulations on the quarter again.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is coming from Craig Allison of Heller Capital Partners.
- Analyst
Chris, it is Craig Allison. How are you?
- President & CEO
Fine , Craig.
- Analyst
Just a quick question for you. In terms of production in China to get sales growth. can you give us color as to where you can see sales coming from China in the coming year?
- President & CEO
Well, the Chinese basically, I think, have got their first order from a fire department in China. Right now the Chinese domestic sales are small, but we're basically building a sales team over there now. And we're beginning to approach the car companies and the fire companies with the products we either will make for them, ala China style, or we'll actually offer them American style. But right now we're in the very process of going to our first trade shows, hiring sales people, interviewing more sales people. So it's -- we're really starting at the bottom here in China, but it is a big market and it will take some time to build. But I hope to have to build it from 1 million to 5 million in the next three to five years. Craig, are you still there?
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is coming from Larry Raider of LAR Management.
- Analyst
Hi. How are you doing.
- President & CEO
Fine, Larry.
- Analyst
Question. The more you go through, and you do an excellent job of describing your business, it appears to me that, other than on -- totally on the manufacturing end, only nominally do you exercise any control over the demand side for your revenues. Why would you strongly disagree with that?
- President & CEO
If you look at our demand side, it is basically driven by venues or bodies going into suits. We sell to distributors. I mean, we're selling to distributors to resell to end users. And the only way you can drive demand, I suppose, is by being in the end users face and that is difficult for us. We only have 42 salesman and there's probably 150,000 end users. So it is difficult for us to drive demand. It is really the distributors, our customers, who have to drive demand.
- Analyst
Yet you still feel you have control over your destiny or your fate?
- President & CEO
Well, we do live with the ups and downs in the economy. If we -- if you have a recession, our sales will flatten out and won't grow. but If you have a boom, our sales really do grow. But we really have to respond to the overall economy. I don't think [inaudible] control over demand.
- Analyst
But you're dealing with derived demand. Somebody has something happen to them, like the warehouse goes down a little lower in terms of inventory, and they call you, and they say we'll take six or 16 more. But you can't call them and say you guys should order six or 16 because, first off, you don't know until they tell you what their inventory levels are.
- President & CEO
That's generally true. We can -- we do call them to say do you need more? And then they may look at their computer and say, oh by the way, you're right. What we're trying to do up in Canada is get into a situation where we basically start doing the planning for them.
- Analyst
Can't you get to automatic inventory replenishment system?
- President & CEO
Yes. I mean, that would be id -- you know, something --
- Analyst
That's ideal, but can't you move toward it, because you're not there?
- President & CEO
Yes, we're not there right now and you have to convince the distributor to do it, and then he generally has to have the computer systems to do it also. You have to start inner-locking the computer systems.
- Analyst
Okay. Thank you.
- President & CEO
Thanks, Larry.
Operator
Thank you. [OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS] Our next question is coming from David Cohen.
- Analyst
Hay, guys. Can you just provide a little more color within your top-line. What kind of year-over-year growth you saw in the basic disposable Tyvek® for your core market and your other key categories, at least in terms of percentage, change, year-over-year? i mean, in particular, how much did the core grow or was it flat?
- CFO
Last year, sales were up 4 or 5%. This year the sales are down, but that's really a supply chain problem more than anything else. We're looking for sales overall to go up around 3, maybe 4%. It is tough to predict. It's certainly not going to be up 10%. But, you know, May is going quite well. I suspect June will go quite well. July and August will be slow, as they've always been seasonally. So the real interesting thing will be to see how autumn and the rest of the years go, in terms of getting up over 100 million in sales from the 97.5 we did last year.
- Analyst
Your goal is somewhere --
- CFO
Our goal is over 100 million.
- Analyst
You said earlier that you think the Homeland Security type spend, chema (ph) suits I presume, that is sort of a big category, that's sort of flat at $11 million run rate?
- President & CEO
Right. It is flat and you just never know when it can take off.
- Analyst
Right. So of your total, what is in your kind of plain old disposable Tyvek® ? How much of the volume is in that? What kind of --
- President & CEO
It is about 75 to 77 million in what we call basically Tyvek® and polypropylene disposable.
- Analyst
Okay. Thanks.
- President & CEO
One of the things that will help our sales go up in terms of just dollars is the fact that garment prices are going up 6%. Increases -- should increase our margins a little and it will certainly increase the sales dollars from June 20 forward.
- Analyst
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is coming from Craig Allison.
- Analyst
Hey, Chris, Craig Allison again. I think I got disconnected. Just a follow-up question from before. If the margins are increasing in the various sectors for your products, and just looking at the press release it indicates that the earnings per share is going to be pretty flat for the rest of the year per quarter,can you just give us more color as to why that is and how things can improve?
- President & CEO
The biggest reason why it is flatter or declining is [inaudible], it is the other side of the fraction, the number of shares out there. And as I said, we issued 1.3 million shares in the summer of last year in the secondary offering, which was very beneficial to the Company and we're reaping the fruits of that now in the strength of a balance sheet. But the fact is, all that cash takes awhile to put to business investment and is sitting there earning money market rates at this point. It takes awhile to digest all of that. So that's why the earnings per share may be flat while the earnings dollars are growing.
- Analyst
And just with the earnings, the actual earnings rather than earnings per share, if earnings are going to be flat for the rest of the year, not earnings per share basis but earnings, can you give us an idea as to, not just the number of shares outstanding, but how we can improve earnings?
- President & CEO
I'm sorry. You broke up. Can you repeat that sentence?
- Analyst
Sure. If terms of the earnings, not considering the shares outstanding for a moment, but in terms of cash earnings, if cash earnings are going to be relatively flat according to the press release in the various sectors margins are increasing, can you just -- what can we do to increase the actual cash earnings per share? I am sorry, just cash earnings, please.
- CFO
I think we pretty much gone through that. The issue is the sales, which was covered. The margins, which will be impacted by the two sets of material price increases. One we had in January, which is just now coming through our warehouse and the other, which we're ju -- we won't see in our purchases for another few weeks. But we'll see it -- we'll see it starting in July with purchases for July. So that's two sets of material increases and only one set of retail -- not retail but price in -- selling price increases, as Chris has said, of the garment price increase. That means, at best, our margins will be flat. At best I think we will be doing well to come out with that, with flat margins here. We've cut back our expenses in areas and we're still moving production out to Mexico and China, which will continue to improve our expense ratios and our margins, but at this point that's --
- Analyst
(inaudible) Mexico and China
- President & CEO
I'm sorry?
- Analyst
And when will all the manufacturing be out to Mexico and China? When will that be completed?
- President & CEO
That should be done by December of this coming year.
- CFO
So the full impact won't be felt until next -- next fiscal year.
- Analyst
Thanks very much, guys, appreciate it.
Operator
Thank you. [OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS] Our next question is coming from John Davis.
- Analyst
Hi, Chris.
- President & CEO
Hi.
- Analyst
Just one question. You know, nothing really happens until you make the sale. That's the old story and I was in business, run a company. But the point is, I wish -- I just think maybe we ought to make a little more investment in the selling area. Short term it hurts a little bit financially --
- President & CEO
You're breaking up. I can barely hear you.
- Analyst
Let me wait a minute. Can you hear me better now.
- President & CEO
Yes.
- Analyst
Okay. What I am saying is nothing happens until you make the sale. That's the old story. The truth is that maybe you ought to make a little bit more investment in the selling area. I know it hurts short term. It costs money to make additional sales, but long-term it does happen. And that's one of the weaknesses, probably, that with distributors and so on and so forth. But in the area of selling -- of helping in selling products, maybe that's the area that could help us.
- President & CEO
What's your question?
- Analyst
I have no question. It is just a comment. Is there some thought to possibly spending more money to help sell products?
- President & CEO
Oh, yes, we are expanding our sales force. We're expanding in China, we're hiring new people here and we'll be expanding it in Europe. We are actively hiring new sales people, in order to try to increase that demand, as Larry Raider was talking about.
- Analyst
That's really what is really needed, and even further than what you're doing. It costs a lot of money to make sales, but long-term it pays off. Okay.
- President & CEO
Okay. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is coming from Steven Davis of Alpine Mutual Funds.
- Analyst
Hi, Chris, how are you doing. I just wanted to understand and clarify. Even when the price increases go through in July, does that mean the September quarter on a year-over-year basis will be an improvement because your margins will be higher than the previous year on a cash basis? So even though the whole year isn't going to be great because the first half is not going to be as good as the second half, once we get to (inaudible) September quarter on a year-over-year basis, just on the quarterly basis, it will be up on a cash basis/ Is that correct?
- President & CEO
Well, what you're going to see is when everything basically flushes out, the material price increases and the garment price increases, you're going to have basically flat margins with last year on a gross margin basis. Okay? What we're trying to do is increase the operating margins by reducing selling general administrative expenses.
- CFO
And also production costs.
- Analyst
If the gross will be flat and your operating margin will be improved over year-over-year, so September quarter you start to show things improving on an operating margin basis?
- CFO
On operating margin basis, yes. But that's probably more due to the cost decreases from moving production overseas, than it is from just the relationship between the garment price and our material price.
- Analyst
So the Dupont -- the price increase just keeps you kind of flat?
- President & CEO
Yes, right. It basically puts us in the same position we were last year.
- Analyst
So you just then have to grow your sales to get the benefit of increased earnings?
- President & CEO
But, you know, we may -- we may have opportunities where we can raise garment prices in certain styles and certain areas that give us more margin than we had last year.
- Analyst
On the previous call you talked about taking a big hit for the whole year and now, on this call, you're talking about it's going to get better. That's a big shift.
- President & CEO
It is a big shift, because originally we were looking at having to absorb a 3.7% fabric increase without any garment increases. Now, garments up 6% on average is a pretty big jump, so that really takes -- you know, eats up a lot of the price increases, the two fabric price increases. It immilurates (ph) them, certainly, from what it looks like last year. I mean, if we had to go out through the year with a $1.5 million increase in fabric and no increase in garments, things would have been tough. But basically what's happened now is, it's better. I mean, the 6% garment increase gives us some relief from where we were just a few weeks ago.
- Analyst
Right. So that's a huge improvement. Okay. Thank you very much. Good quarter.
- President & CEO
Okay.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question is coming from Brian Butler.
- Analyst
Chris, just a quick follow-up question. You mentioned acquisitions in the press release. I was wondering if you could provide color on that, just on size and possible timing?
- President & CEO
Okay. That's a tough one to answer. Size would not be very big. Timing would be somewhere in the summer or autumn, and we are looking at more than one company.
- Analyst
Is that international or domestic?
- President & CEO
Both domestic and international.
- Analyst
Okay.
- President & CEO
We've noticed that the Shanghai Exchange is pretty low. I am beginning to start snooping around China again.
- Analyst
Is it more looking now for sales into China?
- President & CEO
No, in other words, right now the Chinese have not let their R&B float, so the dollar has good value in China, assets in China are cheaper than they've ever been. The Shanghai Exchange is down to where it was back in 1997. So this bodes well for, at least , bargains in China if we can find them and really convince people to sell. Certainly, hopefully before they let the R$B float, which will probably happen sometime this autumn.
- Analyst
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. At this time I am showing no further questions. I would now like to turn the floor back over to Chris Ryan for any closing remarks.
- President & CEO
Thanks, everybody for showing up. I am sorry we didn't get the press release out right on time, but it basically was supposed to be out at 4 :10, but it got out there at 4:35, so at least have you it and the market was closed. And that's it, unless there's any other questions. I am always willing to take your calls, also tomorrow, if you want to follow-up with anything else. Thank you. Good bye.
Operator
Thank you. This does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time and have a wonderful day.