梅西百貨 (M) 2009 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good day and welcome to Macy's, Inc.

first-quarter earnings release conference call.

Today's conference is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the call over to your host, Karen Hoguet.

Please go ahead.

Okay.

Thank you and good morning.

Let me begin by reminding you that any transcription or other reproduction of the statements made in this call without our consent is prohibited.

A replay of the call will be available on our web site, www.MacysInc.com, beginning approximately two hours after the call concludes.

Please refer to the Investor Relations section of our web site for discussion and reconciliations of any non-GAAP financial measures discussed this morning.

Keep in mind that all forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause the company's actual results to differ materially from the expectations and assumptions mentioned today due to a variety of factors that affect the company including the risks specified in the most recently filed form 10-K and form 10-Q.

Let me start this morning by giving you a brief update on the MyMacy's rollout and the creation of our new unified structure.

The short answer is that most of the actual transition is now behind us.

Over 95% of the new positions have been filled, and almost all of those people are now in their new positions.

We were able to attract the talent that we wanted.

In fact, approximately 96% of our internal offers were accepted, and we're very excited about the new team.

Last weekend, most of the systems were converted without any major glitches.

A comprehensive training schedule has now begun for both the new MyMacy's District and Regions and for the new central organization.

We feel great about what we've accomplished, although we all know the hard work is still ahead of us.

I have to also say that we were helped a great deal in the transition by people in the divisions that are being consolidated and not going forward with the company.

So now the financial results.

In summary, the sales in the first quarter were as expected for the company with Macy's being a bit stronger and Bloomingdale's weaker.

It does feel good to be able to better forecast sales again after experiencing the sharp declines of last fall.

And we were pleased that our earnings and cash flow were both better than expected.

In the quarter, our sales were just short of $5.2 billion, and on a comp store basis sales were down 9%.

Our average unit retail was roughly flat for the quarter, meaning that our sales decline was due to fewer units being sold which presumably is related to reduced traffic, although it could also be shoppers buying fewer items as they make a trip to the stores as well.

Our performance in the pilot MyMacy's stores continued to outpace the other stores, and in fact the gap widened.

In the fourth quarter, sales and notes MyMacy's pilot stores performed 1.5 points better than the other stores, and in the first quarter that got GAAP widened to 2.1 points.

We remain very confident that our MyMacy's structure with the added people to the field organization, the greater localization of our offering, the reduced span of control, and the greater empowerment of our stores are all altogether going to help us accelerate our comp store sales growth over time.

Another bright spot in our business is the internet.

Our internet businesses for Macy's and Bloomingdale's were up over 16% in the quarter.

We remain very excited by the possibilities for our direct-to-customer strategy and how it is becoming increasingly integrated with our stores.

We know that our best customers at Macy's and at Bloomingdale's shop both in the stores and online.

And in fact, customers who shop online actually buy more in the stores than our customer who buy only in store.

Geographically, our sales were strongest in the midwest and Texas in the first quarter.

And by family of business, our strongest businesses in the quarter were moderate apparel, dresses, suits, cosmetics, young men's, and housewares.

Private brand was very strong in the quarter across categories, demonstrating the importance of affordable fashion.

The weaker businesses in the quarter included better apparel, handbags, luggage and furniture.

The gross margin rate in the first quarter was 38.1%, down 50 basis points from last year.

We anticipated this as a result of the weak apparel business and the need to keep our inventories fresh.

We ended the quarter with comp store inventory down approximately 4.2%.

While this is higher than you might have expected, it was below our plan.

We purposely accelerated the receipt of some May merchandise into April given the systems conversion last weekend.

We brought in big setups of some merchandise like every day value programs, pre--Mother's Day, that would then sell into the second quarter, and we also brought in key Mother's Day gift items.

Also last year at this time, our replenishment stock levels were too low.

We expect inventory at the end of July, however, to be more in line with anticipated sales.

SG&A in the quarter excluding the division consolidation costs was $1.956 billion, down $147 million from last year.

As the percent of sales, it was 37.6%, or up 100 basis points over a year ago.

In addition to the savings expected from last year's consolidations, we achieved savings from this year's division elimination earlier than anticipated.

Operating income or EBIT excluding the division consolidations cost was $24 million, and interest expense in the quarter was $141 million.

The tax benefit excluding one-time costs was $49 million or 42%.

In a year like this with lower than normal income, there will be some unusual tax rates by quarter.

We still expect our effective tax rate for the year to be approximately 37%.

But it will vary greatly quarter to quarter and, in fact, it will be higher than the annual effective rate in the fourth quarter.

EPS on a diluted basis excluding consolidation cost for the first quarter was a loss of $0.16.

This is better than our estimate last week of a loss of $0.19 to $0.21 per share.

Including one-time costs, EPS on diluted basis was a loss of $0.21.

Cash flow in the first quarter was also better than anticipated.

Net cash flow used by operating activities was $35 million versus the $21 million provided last year or a negative spread of $56 million.

Net cash used by investing activities was $31 million favorable this year due to the reduction in our capital budget.

We reduced debt in the quarter by $837 million and expect to reduce debt by an additional $119 million in July when that tranche matures.

As we look to the second quarter, we are anticipating a similar sales trend as seen in the first quarter.

We are assuming less pressure on gross margin rate than in the first quarter, and a drop in SG&A dollars compared to last year, but an increase in SG&A as a percent of sales versus 2008.

For the full year, we are still expecting comp store sales to decline by 6% to 8%, and EPS on a diluted basis of $0.40 to $0.55 per share, excluding consolidation costs.

Should the economy improve in the back half of the year, there is upside potential to this number.

We have had a very busy quarter and accomplished a great deal, and we were pleased with our performance in light of the environment.

And with that I'll now stop and take any questions you may have.

Thank you.

(Operator Instructions) We'll go first to Michelle Clark with Morgan Stanley.

Yes, good morning, Karen.

Good morning.

The first question is you had mentioned that you had realized more than you expected in the first quarter from those announced expenses of $290 million.

Can you give us a sense of specifically what the dollar amount was in the first quarter and what do we expect in terms of quarterly breakout go forward?

I can't give you that level of precision in terms of the first quarter, but we would now expect to save more than the $250 million plus the $40 million than we had anticipated earlier.

Okay.

So it's going to be something north of the $290 then?

Correct.

In the full year.

Okay.

Secondly, had a question in terms of you mentioned second quarter comp looking similar to first quarter.

Can you give a sense of how much you benefited from stimulus in the second quarter of last year?

We didn't think we benefited much at all last year.

Okay.

All right.

Great, thanks, Karen.

You bet.

We'll go next to Charles Grom with JPMorgan.

Thanks, could you just clarify your comments on gross profit margins for the second quarter, you expect them to be up year-over-year or better than they were in the first quarter?

You know, we're not being that precise in terms of guidance.

It should not decline by as much as the first quarter.

Whether it's down a little, flat, I don't know, up a little.

But I don't expect it to be down as much as in the first quarter.

Okay.

And just to that point, you're comparing it against 100 basis points harder sequentially.

Is there something different in the second quarter than in the first quarter that would help that out?

Trying to understand why it would be a little better.

I can't think of anything offhand, Chuck.

I'll look at it later and let you know.

Okay.

Then just second question.

Just trends in the New York City area with Bloomingdale's and Herald Square, any sort of improvement as the quarter progressed relative to fourth quarter?

Yes, there actually was some improvement in New York City as we got through April, but it remains a challenged market.

All right.

Okay, thank, Karen.

We'll go next to Steve Kernkraut with Berman Capital Management.

Hi, Karen.

I just wanted to know if you can elaborate with the MyMacy's program being the linchpin to the success in future.

What should we be looking at as the biggest near-term challenges of the next six, twelve months for success or if you could just kind of elaborate on that?

Honestly, I don't see challenges in the MyMacy's rollout.

The truth is what's the upside.

I mean, there is nothing we're doing in these regions that should cause disruption or any sort of negative impact.

The real question is how fast will we see the potential gain from the added people, the reduced span of control, and the ability to have input into the assortments in the stores.

As you know, that takes time to happen.

And that's why we did not expect the MyMacy's pilots to see benefits until first quarter of 2009.

And as you'll recall, we saw it earlier.

Frankly, Steve, I think the question is how much upside is there as opposed to what risk.

So I mean, you're seeing in the pilots, you're seeing the comp store sales differential accelerate.

You'd be expecting that too keep on accelerating as we go through the year?

Remember, those are the pilot stores, now we're going to have MyMacy's everywhere.

So I'm not sure that this differential will accelerate.

And again, the economy has a big role in what happens this year.

But from what we're doing internally, we do expect to start to see benefits from the MyMacy's districts, you know, in the fourth quarter like we did last year.

And in the ensuing quarters, you'll give us data on the pilot MyMacy's locations so we'll be able to monitor how they're doing?

Yes.

Okay.

The other thing, Steve, that's been encouraging is the smaller doors which as you'll recall when we started with MyMacy's, the improvement in the smaller doors is actually even greater.

So that's another encouraging part of the MyMacy's pilot.

Right.

Those doors have been neglected and ignored for a long time.

So that's probably where there's the greatest potential.

They are doing better.

I'm not sure I would say they were neglected.

Nonetheless, I think that both putting more people in the field so that these smaller doors get more attention and having the district planning function out there understanding what customers who shop in those stores want is making a huge difference.

You know, people have said, you know, why don't you just do all of this with systems?

And the problem is, systems never can tell you what would have sold had you had it.

It only tells you what you sold from what you had.

Right.

So it's these people that are really providing input that we have not had for a long time since our divisions were significantly smaller.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

We'll go next to Liz Dunn with Thomas Weisel.

Hi, thank you.

Just wanted to ask a followup question on the SG&A.

So if it's going to be greater than the $290 million that was originally contemplated, does that mean that it's a pull forward of the $400 million because you're realizing some of the costs earlier?

Or is the total amount that you're realizing greater than you had originally anticipated?

At this point, I would say it's a pull forward, getting some of the savings earlier.

Okay.

And is there any help you can provide on how that should flow in the second quarter versus the balance of the year?

No.

Sorry, Liz.

Okay.

Thank you.

We'll go next to Bob Drbul with Barclays Capital.

Hi, good morning, Karen.

Good morning.

A couple questions.

Can you talk a little bit -- any trend improvement in Florida that you're seeing, and I guess on the private label brands that you said your private brands are doing better, can you give us that penetration rate in the first quarter versus last year?

I don't have that penetration rate for the quarter.

It was up a bit from a year ago.

But I'll try to get that for you, Bob.

But, you know, again last year was about 19%, and including exclusives and limited distribution, a little bit north of 40%.

My suspicion is the first quarter is similar.

And in terms of Florida, you know, doing a little better.

Okay.

And then the other question is can you elaborate a little bit more in the home trend in term of how that's performing for you in anything that you're seeing really right now happening there?

Yes.

What we call soft home, the non-big ticket areas, we have seen some strength as I said particularly in housewares.

I think with the economy as it is, I suspect people are staying home more.

And therefore things like cookware and tableware and things like that are doing better.

I also think our offering is very strong.

Martha Stewart is doing very well.

Again, remember it's exclusive, well priced, great value.

So I think our offering has also improved which is helping.

I don't think it's all external.

And the big ticket arena, mattresses, you know, continues to not be great.

But much stronger than furniture.

And furniture is a tough business right now.

As is luggage.

As we all know, people are traveling less and obviously that has an impact on the luggage business.

Okay.

One final question, Karen.

On the overall business, when you look at the promotions and the events, how is the consumer responding to, you know, what the friends and family from recently or what type of value searching are you seeing from the consumers' perspective in your business today?

We're finding consumers are reacting very well to our big sale events, as you would expect in this environment.

Okay.

Thank you very much, Karen.

Thanks.

We'll go next to Lorraine Hutchinson with Bank of America Securities.

Thank you, good morning, Karen.

Good morning.

We have seen a number of your competitors go bankrupt and I was just curious about any early learnings you're finding from performance in those specific malls or what businesses you think you could go after and try to gain market share.

Well, as you might imagine, when a store closes in a mall or in a market, whether it be a bankrupt competitor or not, we strategize as to what product category should do well.

As that competitor goes out, whether it be a Gottschalks store, Linens and Things, etc.

And interestingly, the district planning function allows us to do that even better mall by mall.

Thank you.

We'll go next to Bernard Sosnick with Gilford Securities.

Good morning.

With regard to the goodwill writedown, mention was made, if I'm correct, that it would be finalized in the first quarter.

Was there anything that showed up in the quarter with regard to the writedown in the fourth quarter?

No.

KPMG is still working on that, if there is an adjustment it will be very small.

We're far enough along in our work, or KPMG is far enough along in their work to say that but at this point nothing else had been booked either way.

Okay.

But with respect to your internal cash flow projections on the stores that are affected, would you say that they were appropriate, correct, and still applied, but the factor with goodwill relates exclusively to the decline in market cap?

Oh, I'm sorry, you're talking about the goodwill calculation?

Yes.

Yes.

I mean, step one is purely based on the market cap differential.

When you get into step two, there's so many details, Bernie, it's a harder question to answer.

Okay.

The initial test was based on the change in market caps.

Now with regard to marketing indunnhumby, I am beginning to see some of the recommendations come into play.

Could you give us any example of that?

And if not, when might you begin to see the benefits.

Yes, no.

We are still working with them on mining all of the data.

And we don't even expect to be testing anything until Fall this year.

Uh-huh.

So we're all trying to be patient.

We remain extremely excited as we've talked to them about some of the things that they're thinking about testing, but it's premature to talk about those.

And obviously, we haven't started the tests to give you any sense of result.

Okay.

With respect to the gross margin in the first quarter, the inventories were down in line with sales expectations.

And you said at the beginning of the quarter that the gross might depend on whether or not additional promotional emphasis was needed to drive sales.

What you said this morning relates more to clearances of slow-moving apparel.

Could you clarify that a bit?

Yes.

The margin is relating to the clearance activity on slow-moving apparel.

Okay.

And finally, are you seeing any change in California where you have the cluster of stores?

Store to store, market to market, we're beginning to see some improvement.

But obviously in the context of a minus nine overall, you know, it's still tough.

Okay.

Thank you very much, Karen.

We'll go next to Mike Shrekgast with Longacre.

Hi, Karen.

Just wondering, you guys had laid out about $400 million of cash restructuring costs and roughly $30 million of pension contributions per quarter for the year.

I was just wondering when I look at the release it seems like the restructuring charges you took of $138 were added back so I assume that those are the cash flow statement, so I assume that's noncash.

So I'm wondering for the year, are you still on track to do, you know, about $30 million of pension contributions and $100 million of cash and $400 million of restructuring for the year, cash restructuring?

Let me start with for from an accounting perspective, the one-time costs do get added back, but then it also gets adjusted in accounts payable and liabilities.

So some of it is cash.

And we are on track for the $400 million of one-time cash costs this year.

In terms of pension contributions, we are doing the $30 million a quarter, but in addition, we are forecasting a contribution in September in the neighborhood of $175 to $250.

Right.

Now, is that $30 million on a quarterly basis?

Is that in SG&A?

No because that's a contribution as opposed to pension expense.

Okay.

That doesn't flow through the P&L.

Okay.

So where does it show up in the cash flow statement?

I don't know exactly but I'll get you the answer.

Okay.

Thank you.

We'll go next to Lance Vitanza with Knighthead Capital.

Hi, thanks for taking the call.

On the SG&A side a couple of questions there.

The $290 million which sounds like now is actually going to be more than $290, but that's relative to the SG&A level in fiscal 2008, is that right?

No.

The $290 was what it would have been had we not unified the divisions.

Okay.

Well putting that aside, what's going on with the rest of your SG&A expenses?

Are you seeing pricing pressure there or are prices coming down, or is it flat?

Well, in SG&A, I mean I guess I'm trying to figure out what prices you're talking about.

Are you talking about like store payroll?

Everything generally speaking from utilities to payrolls.

We aren't seeing a lot of major changes one way or the other.

Okay.

Great.

Then you mentioned earlier that you expect in the second quarter higher in absolute dollars but lower as a percentage of -- I'm sorry.

You said it backwards.

Yes, lower in absolute dollars and higher as a percentage of revenues.

Were you speaking sequentially or is that year over year?

No, versus 2008, we're expecting SG&A dollars to be below 2008 in the second quarter.

And in terms of the increase in the percent of revenues, would you think that the delta is going to be roughly in line with what we saw in the first quarter?

Well, you'll have to project the dollars yourself and see that.

Okay.

Thank you.

We'll go next to Adrianne Shapira with Goldman Sachs.

Thanks.

Karen, just on the inventory, could you give us a sense of just what the inventory decline would have been to adjust for that pull forward?

I don't know specifically.

It obviously would have been a bigger decline than the minus 4.2 comp.

Right.

So perhaps closer to in line with sales?

Yes.

Except that we did bring in more of the replenishment goods because, you know, when we looked at our inventory a year ago, they were light.

Okay.

But as I said, by the end of July, we do expect inventories to be more in line with what we're expecting for the Fall season.

Okay.

Again, the inventories were below plan.

Right.

Adrianne, hold on, Terry just walked in.

I just heard the question and hopefully I'm not repeating something that was asked earlier.

But I just wanted to say that what was important to us, and we're really trying to make sure that we're being responsive particularly to the initial 20 district stores, is that we are not cutting off anything that's being requested by the initial pilots that have the talent there and are close to the customer and that's a little part of it.

And as Karen said, a bigger part of it is bringing in the replenishment product because we had a gigantic systems conversion, of course, going from four divisions to one, which went extremely smoothly.

Big sigh of relief on Sunday of last weekend that all systems were go with this big conversion.

So we did do some of that.

But what we really were focused on is the currency of our inventory and the level of our inventory being at the planned rates and both of those were accomplished.

Great.

That's helpful.

Then just clearance inventory, was that within that number down year over year?

Meaningful?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

And then shifting gears to gross margin, following on those comments, I hear, Karen, you expected the decline in gross margins to be less in the second quarter versus the first quarter, but I think the last comment you had said that the fourth quarter was you don't expect much improvement for gross margin for the year.

But as we think about it in the back half in light of inventory obviously under control and with the MyMacy's rolling out, talk to us about opportunities on the gross margin in the back half?

Well, particularly as you get to the fourth quarter, where last year was so depressed.

You know, given the ability to project sales so much better now than we had, you know, six months ago, will really make a difference as we get to the fourth quarter of 2009.

Okay.

So for the year, would you still expect gross margin to be down, or could there be an opportunity?

We'll have to see.

Yes.

It's hard to predict.

Of course we'd all like to say we're not going to have a promotional environment and, you know, inventories are going to be in line everywhere in the country.

And so we won't have the same challenges that we had last year and that should help margins.

But I'm just not prepared to count on that yet.

You know, we're going to do what we have to do to be competitive and with the way that the consumer's reacted for the last several months, we're not ready to say, you know, mission accomplished and she's back in the stores and ready to buy yet.

So that's why I think we're being cautious and prudently so about our expectations on the margin subject.

Obviously we're going to do everything we can do to get every nickel that we can, but our big mission here is to make sure that we're being responsive to what the stores are asking for and competitively priced against all sets of competitors.

Great.

Then just, Terry, following on that, what you've seen in the first quarter relative to your expectations, you know, how deep do you have to go in terms of how hard do the sale events have to be to stimulate that demand?

Is it kind of in line with what you would have expected and perhaps a little bit better earlier, and perhaps differentiate between Macy's and Bloomingdale's.

Well, for the most part we were similar in terms of the depth of reductions for events with the exception of one which was simply a competitive response.

And that was the friends and family, everybody, you know, from the high-end guys to the more moderate guys went with a little deeper discount.

And we simply matched it at Macy's, and in fact, we did not match it at Bloomingdale's and Macy's did much, much better than Bloomingdale's on those events.

So I think, you've got to make sure you're looking at the competitive landscape, certainly the consumer is.

Judging where the best value is at.

And we're finding that we're able to do just fine on the big events, the more challenging period, of course, is the day in, day out, in-between event activity where the consumer just doesn't have a natural urgency to respond and to be in the stores.

And I suspect that's going to be the case for most retailers, at least nonfood retailers for the next two quarters certainly.

Great.

Thank you.

Best of luck.

Thank you.

We'll go next to Deborah Weinswig with Citi.

Thanks.

We're hearing a lot of positive things in the marketplace in your speed to market technology and Terry, we've heard that you've been a big proponent.

Can you please update us where you are in terms of cycle time reduction and also what we should expect to hear from you on this technology?

Yes.

I think we should set up a call on this eventually, Karen, and talk more specifically when we're ready to get into the details but we're very encouraged by the work.

I mean, a lot of people talk about this subject without a lot of detail about all the activities that are required to call yourself a leader in speed-to-market technology.

And it requires many things.

Cycle time reduction is one, but just starting from the concept meetings until the product is in the stores requires a great deal more thought and technology.

And we've gone to outside services to help us get there, and we're not at this point ready to reveal all the progress that we've made.

But I can tell you we're just thinking very differently about it.

Some cases, you know, we're going to be making the decision to fly goods in.

Obviously, we have to put that into the margin.

And make sure that we can get the full margin response for fast turn time, but where we've seen some of the specialty stores do this and do this very successfully, and we've begun to do it with our own I.N.C.

brand, both in men's and women's with great response and great margin result.

So we need to come back to you and tell you all of the things that we're doing on this subject because it's very important to us, and it will first happen in our private brand world but as we get knowledge and experience and success stories under our belt, it will definitely expand with our vendor collaboration partners.

Very helpful.

And then, why do you think the sales gap in the MyMacy's stores widened from the 1.5 to the 2.1?

You know, I don't want to claim victory here yet.

I just want to keep the margin.

You know, as we keep talking about that, we can't get too excited about the progress here yet.

I'm just not satisfied at all with our minus nine results.

As happy as I am with the pilots and I brought my new senior team out to the Pittsburgh market last week, and we spent a couple of days out there going to stores and listening to one of our early pilot districts who performed so well in what would otherwise be considered a tough market, and completely taking market share in that marketplace and just doing fantastic things with localized adjustments to their inventory, not just in product that they carry but in size and in color and in weight of fabric and all the things that we've talked about, just doing it and living the experience and talking about how they've accomplished that and how responsive the central organization has been.

And I tell you, just come away saying that this is what it's intended to be.

And the excitement of our organization, as of last week, we no longer have 20 districts.

We have 69 districts as of last week up and running with 1,600 people, 1,200 new out into the organization, and learning now their new roles and responsibilities about being locally responsive and when this gets done, Deborah, we haven't really effectively communicated this yet.

There was a little tiny story in the "Wall Street Journal" that began on that today, but they didn't capture it in my opinion either.

When this gets done, there just isn't going to be any competitor who's going to be able to have this ability to be locally responsive the way that we are, and it will not be copied.

It cannot be copied.

Because they will not have the 1,600 job availability that they'll be able to fund, and secondly, even if they did magically have the courage to step up and add 1,600 jobs to their organizations in the stores, they wouldn't have the talent.

And we would not have the talent had we not been able to source it from our own divisions that we were consolidating out of San Francisco, Miami, and Atlanta.

And so it was for us a very unique situation that we've been able to take complete advantage of and I owe you all results.

That's when we'll be able to look back at this and say, you know, hallelujah, this was the right subject.

But it sure feels good to me and to my team who have witnessed the early responses from their pilot 20 districts.

Okay.

And then with the earnings being in the quarter versus your internal expectations, how should we think about 2009 guidance as a bead?

I think you had stated on the April sales release that the down 19 to down 21 was ahead of internal expectations, so obviously down 16 was ahead of that.

Are you being conservative or has something changed with your thought for the rest of the year?

You know, it's really hard to predict a retailer based on the first quarter, Deb.

I think that's really the answer.

That is more the issue.

This year is just barely underway.

It's first inning in a nine-inning game, so obviously we count so much on the fourth quarter and as thing do gradually improve we'll certainly improve.

And then last question.

Terry, can I ask you what may be a tough question?

I mean, if you look at your sales performance in the quarter and you think about your exposure to New York and your exposure to Bloomingdale's, and you look at other competitors, I mean it seems like your sales performance kind of lines up where you think it might based on household income, etc.

What's really kind of driving the disappointment in the sales number?

Well on a two-year basis if you look, we look better.

We were better than just about all of our competitors for several quarters, and on a two-year basis we continue to be better than most that you're probably referring to.

But it's not good enough for me.

I'm definitely not satisfied here.

We have to do better and to me, it's going to be the MyMacy's initiative based on the results of our pilot tests that's going to drive that and take us to the extra level.

Looking at it on a year-over-year basis, you know, which I'm not going to focus on, deeply, but clear where a two-year trend better than most all of our competitors.

Absolutely.

Congratulations and best of luck.

Thank you.

We'll go next to Michael Exstein with Credit Suisse.

Good morning, everyone.

Good morning.

Two quick questions for you.

Terry, can you give us an update on how the unified buying organization is progressing?

Where you are right now in putting that together?

Yes.

It's done.

We feel that the talent from starting with the East organization at the lower levels, the buying and assistant buyer levels, brought in the top highest potential buyers as well to supplement the organization.

And then we recruited with an open playing field for the divisional merchandise manager and general merchandise manager and divisional planning and the general planning management as well as the full senior team from all of the divisions.

And we ended up with a very diverse group of leadership representing all of our divisions, from San Francisco to head of merchandising is Jeff Gennette, he was CEO of our San Francisco division.

The head of merchandise planning, Julie Greiner, CEO of our Florida division.

You know, the head of planning in two categories are from the Atlanta division.

And Ron Klein was the CEO of Macy's East, and he's head of all of the stores.

So we really have a diverse background group of executives in the leadership role and a super strong group at the buyer and planner level.

But that is basically accomplished already, Michael.

And how are they dealing with the commitments to the fourth quarter?

We kept our three divisions that I just referred to, Atlanta, San Francisco, and Miami on until the first of May.

And they were beginning to work through the order process through third quarter complete and the beginning of fourth quarter in the categories that we required that lead time.

But that handoff has now been made.

The system conversion occurred this past weekend.

So all of that is lined up now for our buyers to review with their planners.

We've aligned a planning organization directly with the buying organization which we never had before.

We never had a one-to-one relationship in the four divisions.

We now do have a one planner to one buyer in the new organization.

So all of that detail work and followup has been handed off and is occurring today.

But so far, we feel very good about both the people and the process that's in place to ensure that the fourth quarter purchases are lined up and lined up properly.

That's terrific.

And finally, as the internet keeps growing and the retail as a total of the business doesn't grow as fast or declines a little bit faster, how are you dealing with capital allocation going forward between the two?

Well, first of all, as you know, we just took a significant reduction in capital versus our prior year's spending and we haven't declared what we will do in the out years.

But it's just a subject that we will stay close to and make sure that we're keeping it certainly below historic levels and above what we'll spend this year.

Having said that, the mix may change.

And you know, one of the things I've been very proud of is our investment in technology, in our systems, which have been particularly focused in the last two years on merchandising and marketing initiatives, technology initiatives, and our investment in the dot-com infrastructure.

So building of the fulfillment facilities over the last two years as well as the technology attached to those facilities and to the website itself has been an important investment, and will continue.

I think the base, Michael, has been accomplished now.

And at this point, even with our projected growth in dot-com which is fairly significant, we do not need an immediate addition to our fulfillment capabilities.

But in the future as we project out, more of the capital resources will go in that direction.

And we'll continue to upgrade our stores and take advantage of the best return possibilities in the stores, as well.

I do think over time the new store sites, new mall construction sites are going to take longer to become a reality.

That's great hearing from both of you.

Appreciate the opportunity.

Thank you, Michael.

We'll go next to David Glick with Buckingham Research.

Good morning.

Terry, just a followup on women's apparel.

It sounds like the women's apparel business could be one of the keys for you guys to improve your overall sales and gross margin trends.

And I know you all have commented that moderate is outperforming better, but how does total women's apparel compare to the total store trend?

And are there any, you know, signs of life or prospects for the better business to start turning around here any time soon?

Yes.

We are a fashion retailer so that's what we offer.

We offer brands, we offer fashion retail, which is different from our primary and more moderate competitor.

So that is the reality of our business and we're not going to change that.

That's why customers come to us particularly for the brands.

So the brands themselves have to perform well for the women's apparel business in the better category to work well for us.

And there are brands that are working.

It's not like the customers aren't coming in and finding product that's new and that's fresh and that's got the right value equation attached to it.

And our best performing brands have been our private brands.

I do think there's a value equation there so that's certainly an important of it.

Tommy Hilfiger, you know, continues to perform well in women's apparel.

So there are certain brands out there that consumers are responding to.

It's really a matter of us working closely with our vendors, particularly now that all of our merchants are in New York City, or 95% of our merchants are in New York City.

We've kept a couple in regional areas that's appropriate for the merchandise they buy.

But all of our buyers are where the market is.

And so there is an absolute advantage for us being in the market whether it be the 7th Avenue market or the contemporary market where we have buyers in LA.

The buyers are there in the market and will be working directly with our manufacturers to give them insights about what consumers are saying, feedback from our district merchants about what we need in various stores.

But ultimately that's what has to happen.

The brands have to find strength and trend right merchandise with the right value, equation for the overall better sportswear business to improve.

And just to qualify, is the overall women's when you combine moderate and better, is it kind of in line with the store, a little below?

It's a little below.

Okay.

Thank you.

Karen, just a followup on the pension.

Very helpful in terms of laying out 2009 and I know there are a lot of uncertainties as we look forward.

Obviously in 2010 you don't have those one-time consolidation costs pressuring the free cash flow, but as we model out the pension funding and contributions, how do we think about 2010?

Should we continue to think about a $30 million a quarter police some supplementary contribution, or how do you see that flowing?

David, unfortunately it's really hard to predict because given the consolidations from this year, l don't have an impact on the participants going forward.

So I'm reluctant to actually help with that question.

Okay.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

We'll go next to Jeff Stein on Soleil Security.

Karen, no comments yet on credit.

Can you talk a little bit about one, how with credit deteriorating relative to the fourth quarter?

And then secondly, in terms of looking at some of your competitors that have gone out of business, have you studied the possibility of acquiring some of the credit card files of those competitors such as a Gottschalks or even a Mervyn's?

We have not done that.

We've done that in prior times but did not think that was a good strategy for now.

In terms of our proprietary credit the penetration actually continues to increase.

And was for the first quarter a little over 47% of our sales came from proprietary penetration compared to 46% a year ago.

And there does continue to be pressure, although sequentially less pressure than what we had been seeing in the past, but at some point you would expect that as we year-round on the tougher credit conditions.

Got it.

I will just say, you know what, I think that's actually a good suggestion.

And because we're obviously looking at the product opportunities for all of these businesses.

And I don't know if it will be a good idea or not, but we will certainly at least look at the idea of buying the credit file for some of these similar businesses where we had some similar customers.

By the way, I got to run.

I'm on my way to make a big presentation to the dunnhumby organization in Cincinnati right now.

But I'm going to run and let Karen answer the questions.

Thank you all for your support.

(Operator Instructions) We'll go next to Dana Telsey with Telsey Advisory Group.

Good morning, Karen.

Can you talk about as you think about exclusive brands go forward the opportunities by category, where do you think the opportunities are, and is there more ability to add to margin?

And then just on balancing the costs of awareness through marketing in the current retail sales environment, how you're feeling about that going forward.

Thank you.

I wish Terry had stayed for one more minute for the exclusive question.

I know that we're looking at opportunities throughout the store.

Obviously with Rachel Roy launching this Fall which we're very excited about.

But there are other things we're looking at, as well in other parts of the store.

In terms of your second question on marketing, Dana I'm not sure I really understand it.

What do you thinking about the investment in marketing this year, and how is the marketing going to be different this year compared to last year?

Well, I think the key is we continue to focus on value offerings.

We're also focused more on marketing the everyday value programs that we have.

But we will also continue to do the brand advertising also because we think even in this environment it's very important to driving our business over the long term.

Thank you.

We'll go next to David Schwartzman with Columbia Management.

Hi, good morning.

I was thinking about the sales forecast in line with the weaker retail numbers that were out today.

And I'm trying to understand maybe if we could get a little bit granular into that minus six to eight, how you're considering some of the macro factors, unemployment, GDP.

Yes, I can't be more granular with that.

That is, as we look at all of the factors that you all are looking at, we believe that that's the realistic expectation.

So there's nothing that if it's much different than expected would sort of drive you to change your forecast at least nothing you want to share?

I think it's really going to be how the sales trends are changing.

You know, once we begin to see improvement we'll feel differently.

Oh, okay, thank you.

And there are no other questions at this time.

I would like to turn the conference back to Ms.

Hoguet for any closing remark.

Okay, thank you all very much for your support and we look forward to talking to you as we go forward.