Oxford Industries Inc (OXM) 2009 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to today's Oxford Industries Incorporated fourth quarter 2009 earnings conference call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following the presentation we will conduct a question and answer session. Instructions will be provided at that time for you to queue up for questions. As a reminder, today's conference is being recorded. And now I'd like to turn the conference over to Ms Anne Shoemaker, Treasurer. Please go ahead ma'am.

Thank you, Nancy, and good afternoon, everyone. Before we begin, I would like to remind participants that certain statements made on today's call and in the Q&A session may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Federal Securities laws. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results of operations or our financial condition to differ are discussed in the documents filed by us with the SEC. We undertake no duty to update any forward-looking statements.

Finally, during this call in talking about our results, we will discuss some non-GAAP financial measures. You can find a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures to GAAP financial measures in our earnings release which is posted under the news room tab of our website at www.oxfordinc.com. And now I'd like to introduce today's call participants. With me are Hicks Lanier, Chairman and CEO, Tom Chubb, President, Scott Grassmyer, CFO, Terry Pillow, CEO of Tommy Bahama and Doug Wood, President of Tommy Bahama. Thank you for your attention and now I'd like to turn the call over to Hicks Lanier.

Thank you for joining us this afternoon to discuss our fourth quarter and 2009 fiscal year results. Through focused risk management and effective operating discipline we have weathered this turbulent year in a manner that has preserved the integrity of our brands and positioned us well for 2010. We went into 2009 with sales planned at a lower level but we took actions to improve gross margins, significantly reduce expenses and keep appropriate inventory levels. I'm pleased to say that these initiatives were successful and despite the sales decline, we generated a respectable profit for the year.

In 2010, we are shifting our focus. Now that we've adjusted our business for the market conditions, we will pursue renewed organic growth in our lifestyle brands. With respect to Tommy Bahama, our largest business, we expect to see growth driven by improvements in both our direct-to-consumer and wholesale businesses. In addition to new retail stores, we will continue to develop our eCommerce business which remains a significant opportunity. We are also laying the groundwork for the further development of our international business, another large potential source of future growth. We are excited by the renewed energy in the Tommy Bahama business which will help drive an expansion in our consolidated operating margins. With those comments as a backdrop, I'd like to give you some of the highlights from this afternoon's press release.

Consolidated net sales in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009 were $190.5 million compared to $199.9 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008. On an adjusted basis, earnings per diluted share were $0.21 compared to $0.06 in the same period last year. On a GAAP basis, our earnings were $0.24 a share in the fourth quarter compared to our loss due mainly to non-recurring, non-cash charges of $18.19 in the same period of the prior year. For fiscal 2009, our consolidated net sales were $800.7 million compared to $947.5 million in fiscal 2008. On an adjusted basis, earnings per diluted share were $1.29 per share for 2009 fiscal year compared to $1.41 in the prior year. On a GAAP basis, our earnings of $0.90 a share in fiscal 2009 compared to a loss of $17 in the prior year. I'd like to note that inventories at the end of the fiscal year were $77 million compared to $119.6 million at January 31, 2009. This net reduction of 36% was planned to mitigate inventory markdown risk and promotional pressure across our businesses.

We maintained a strong liquidity position with no borrowings at $112.7 million of availability at fiscal year end under our US revolving credit facility. Total debt at the end of fiscal 2009 was $146 million compared to $199 million at January 31, 2009. This reduction of 27% was primarily a result of positive cash flow from operations. I'll reserve some additional comments for closing. I'd like to now turn the call over to Terry Pillow, the CEO of our Tommy Bahama group. Terry?

Thank you, Hicks, and good afternoon, everyone and thank you for joining us. Tommy Bahama reported net sales of $94.8 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009 compared to $96.7 million in the same period of the prior year. The slight fourth quarter sales increase was due to conservative inventory purchases for holiday 2009 by our key wholesale customers partially offset by increased retail and eCommerce sales. On an adjusted basis operating income for fiscal 2009 fourth quarter was $10.3 million, about flat with last years $10.5 million. At the end of the year, Tommy Bahama operated 84 retail locations, 12 of which include Tommy Bahama restaurants and 15 which were outlet stores.

The momentum we began experiencing in the latter part of fiscal 2009 has continued into 2010. Both the Tommy Bahama retail stores and eCommerce business had a strong holiday selling season and had positive comp increases in the fourth quarter. Our Spring direct-to-consumer results are comping positive as well. While our key wholesale customers bought conservatively for Fall holiday 2009 and Spring 2010, their sell-throughs of our product have been quite robust and their bookings for Fall 2010 are tracking well above last year's booking levels. Our women's line has also continued to perform well in our direct-to-consumer channels. We are making significant progress toward our goal of becoming more balanced between men's and women's retail stores and eCommerce business.

We currently have three new full price stores scheduled to open this year and are actively looking for additional real estate opportunities. We are particularly excited about both the location and format of our Laguna Beach store and restaurant scheduled to open towards the end of this calendar year. We expect to open eight to 10 stores in 2011.

Our eCommerce site is outpacing the recent growth we've seen in our own retail stores and is the engine for our direct-to-consumer strategy. When we have a new delivery, we're able to immediately reach out to our customers and this drives measurable activity on our website and in our retail stores. Now that it appears the economy is strengthening, setting the stage for international expansion has become a top priority for Tommy Bahama. Obviously this will not generate short-term results, but we believe our brand can resonate around the globe and the international strategy will be an integral part of this brands long term growth and development.

I'd add to what Hicks spoke about by saying that our organization is energized to restart the growth engine. We have been especially vigilant in our strategy over the last year and as a result have generated good profitability with clean inventory levels. Most importantly, we have remained a full price business and have done a great job of protecting the brand in a very hazardous environment. This has preserved our growth opportunity and we are ready to resume a positive sales trajectory. Now I'll turn the call over to Tom Chubb for details on our other three operating stores. Thank you.

Thanks, Terry. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Ben Sherman reported fourth quarter sales of $24.6 million versus $26.2 million in the year ago period. The decline was largely the result of our exit from the kids and footwear businesses which we subsequently licensed to firms that specialize in these product categories. The decrease was partially offset by an 8% increase in the average exchange rate of the British pound sterling versus the US dollar, as well as increased retail sales which included a healthy comp store sales increase. Ben Sherman reported an operating loss of $2.7 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009 primarily due to the impact of lower sales and $700,000 in charges related to its exit from the women's business. This compares to an operating loss in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008 of $86.5 million, which included an $83.8 million non-cash impairment charge related to goodwill and intangible assets and $0.5 million of severance charges. On an adjusted basis, the operating loss for the quarter was $2 million compared to an operating loss of $2.2 million in the same period of the prior year.

Early in 2009, the benefits of simplifying this complex business became clear. The peripheral businesses of women's, kids, and footwear were not only unprofitable, but required significant management attention. During 2009 we took decisive action and exited women's and transitioned kids and footwear to a licensing model which will help us create operational focus on our men's sportswear business, provide more productive use of our retail footprints, and improve our profitability. In 2010, we expect a 15% to 20% sales decline primarily due to the businesses exited in 2009, but we also expect a substantial improvement in Ben Sherman's bottom line.

In January of this year, Pan Philippou started as our new CEO at Ben Sherman. Pan's experience successfully running the Diesel brand, first in the UK and then in the US, makes him well qualified to lead the refocused Ben Sherman brand going forward. The Ben Sherman brand is fundamentally strong. Our challenge now is to accelerate the revenue growth in order to push the business past the overhead tipping point and I'm confident that we'll get there. Our organization is very focused on achieving a sustainable run rate for sales with good distribution that will enable us to generate profitability.

Net sales for Lanier Clothes were $22.3 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009 compared to $24.4 million in the same period of the prior year. The decline resulted primarily from exiting certain businesses that did not meet minimum profitability hurdles. This was partially offset by increased sales in the continuing operations. Our refocusing of this business helped us during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009 and Lanier reported operating income of $1.7 million compared to a fourth quarter operating loss in fiscal 2008 of $1.4 million. I will note that the year ago number includes $600,000 of restructuring charges. The impact of lower sales was more than offset by the gross margin improvement we generated and by our efforts to reduce operating expenses. Throughout fiscal 2009, Lanier Clothes performed extremely well in the challenged moderate tailored clothing sector with nearly flawless execution in all aspects of its business.

Oxford Apparel reported net sales of $48.3 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009 compared to $52.3 million in the same period of the prior year. As with Lanier, the decline in Oxford sales was primarily the result of exiting certain businesses partially offset by increased sales in the continuing operations. Our year-over-year progress here was very good. Oxford Apparel reported operating income of $3.7 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009 compared to an operating loss in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008 of $4.8 million, which included a $6.2 million non-cash impairment charge related to goodwill and an investment in a joint venture, and a $900,000 non-cash impairment charge related to fixed assets no longer in use. By delivering a compelling value proposition to its key customers, Oxford Apparel continued to generate a strong cash return on our investment.

Corporate and other reported an operating loss of $2.3 million for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009 compared to an operating loss of $9.7 million in the same period of the prior year primarily due to a charge in the year ago quarter for LIFO accounting. On an adjusted basis, the operating loss increased to $4 million for the fourth quarter of 2009 compared to an operating loss of $3.4 million from the same period of the prior year, primarily due to additional stock compensation expense this year. I'll now hand the call over to Scott Grassmyer to comment on our consolidated financial results.

Thanks, Tom. As Hicks mentioned earlier, consolidated net sales were $190.5 million in the fourth quarter compared to $199.9 million in last year's fourth quarter. For the full year 2009, consolidated net sales were $800.7 million compared to $947.5 million in fiscal 2008. Approximately half of the sales decline for the year or over $77 million resulted from the businesses we exited in Oxford Apparel, Lanier Clothes and Ben Sherman. The remainder of the pressure on the top line was due to the challenging market conditions.

Consolidated gross margins for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009 were 45.2% compare to 39.4% in the same period in the prior year. On an adjusted basis, removing the impact of LIFO accounting and certain restructuring charges, fourth quarter fiscal 2009 gross margins were 44.4% compared to 42% in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008. This 240 basis point increase in gross margins for the quarter was primarily due to increased retail sales which generally have higher gross margins, as well improved gross margins at Lanier Clothes. Consolidated gross margins for the full fiscal year 2009 were 41.7% compared to 40.9% in fiscal 2008.

SG&A for the fourth quarter fiscal 2009 was $79.6 million or 41.8% of net sales compared to $84.8 million or 42.4% of net sales in the same period of the prior year. For the full year, SG&A was $304.3 million or 38% of net sales compared to $358.1 million or 37.8% of net sales in fiscal 2008. We're very pleased to have exceeded our target for cost reduction while maintaining the infrastructure necessary to put the business back on a growth trajectory. The decrease in SG&A for the year reflected reductions in headcount and other overhead costs across all operating groups. Cost reductions associated with our exit from certain businesses, the impact of a 13% reduction in the average value of the British pound versus the United States dollar, and lower restructuring charges. These cost savings were partially offset by expenses associated with the operation of additional retail stores.

For the year, amortization of intangible assets is $1.3 million compared to $2.9 million last year. The decrease resulted from amortization typically being greater in the earlier periods following an acquisition. Royalties and other operating income for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009 were $4.1 million compared to $4.2 million in the same period of the prior year. For fiscal 2009, royalties and other operating income were $13.1 million compared to $17.3 million in fiscal 2008. The decrease for the year was primarily due to the termination of the license agreements of footwear and Tommy Bahama, the challenging economic conditions, and the impact of foreign currency rates on royalty income and Ben Sherman.

Interest expense in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009 increased to $5.2 million from $4.9 million in the same period of the prior year. Interest expense decreased to $21.4 million for fiscal 2009 compared to $23.7 million in fiscal 2008 primarily due to lower debt levels. The effective tax rate for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2009 was $21.1 million and 26 -- excuse me, 21.1% and 26.1% respectively. Both the quarter and the year benefited from favorable permanent book tax differences including differences related to our foreign operations, certain tax credits and other discrete items.

Turning to the balance sheet, receivables were $74.4 million at January 30, 2010, compared to $78.6 million at January 31, 2009. The decrease was primarily due to lower wholesale sales in the last two months of fiscal 2009 compared to the last two months of fiscal 2008. We believe we are properly reserved for these receivables and that the overall quality of the receivables is sound. Inventories at the end of fiscal 2009 were $77 million compared to $119.6 million at January 31, 2009. Inventory levels were reduced in each operating group as we focus on mitigating inventory markdown risk and promotional pressure and have exited certain lines of business.

Cash flow from operations was $81.6 million in fiscal 2009 compared to $90.4 million in the prior year. Fiscal 2009 cash flow from operations was driven by working capital reduction and earnings. Our Board of Directors declared a cash dividend of $0.11 per share payable on April 30, 2010, to shareholders of record as of the close of business on April 15, 2010. This represents a 22% increase from the dividend paid in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009. We have paid dividends every quarter since we became publicly owned in 1960.

For fiscal year 2010, we're expecting $760 million to $775 million in sales compared to the $800.7 million we reported in fiscal 2009. Sales for Tommy Bahama are expected to increase in the mid single digits. We anticipate Ben Sherman sales to be down 15% to 20%, almost exclusively due to lost sales from the businesses we've exited. As you know, forward visibility in our legacy businesses is more limited than in our branded businesses. Our current forecasts incorporate a low double digit sales decline for the legacy businesses. A portion of which is attributable to exited businesses. We believe that we'll continue to see improved profitability at Tommy Bahama and Ben Sherman. This should result in an increased consolidated operating margin for 2010. At present we expect diluted earnings per common share to be between $1.40 and $1.50. In 2010, the anticipated growth in Tommy Bahama is expected to fuel a modest increase in consolidated gross margins.

I'd like to also provide fiscal 2010 guidance on other income statement items. SG&A is expected to remain relatively flat with fiscal 2009 in dollars for the year. Depreciation, amortization of intangible assets are expected to be approximately $20 million in 2010. Royalty income is expected to be relatively flat to fiscal 2009 levels. Interest expense is expected to be approximately $20 million in 2010 and the effective tax rate is expected to be slightly above 30%. With working capital expected to be roughly flat with last year, cash flow from operations is expected to exceed $40 million in fiscal 2010. In fiscal 2009, capital expenditures were $11.3 million. Capital expenditures for fiscal 2010 are planned to be approximately $15 million for additional retail stores as well as continuing information technology enhancements. We expect first quarter sales in the range of $200 million to $210 million compared to sales of $216.7 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2009. First quarter of 2009 sales included approximately $13 million related to businesses that have been exited. Diluted earnings per common share are expected to be between $0.55 and $0.60 compared to adjusted diluted earnings per common share of $0.48 in the first quarter of fiscal 2009. Thanks for your attention and now I'll turn the call back over to Hicks Lanier for some closing comments.

Thank you, Scott. We made it through 2009 in very good shape and I'm certainly glad to have it behind us. I would be remiss if I did not take this opportunity to comment on how proud I am of how our team rose to the occasion under the most difficult of circumstances. Our brands and our balance sheet are well positioned to take advantage of opportunities that will increase returns to our shareholders. Thank you for your time this afternoon and your continued support.

Nancy, we're now ready for questions.

Thank you, sir. (Operator Instructions) We'll take our first question from Edward Yruma from KeyBanc.

Hi, thanks very much and congratulations on a great quarter. Can you give us a little bit more color on the comp progression during the fourth quarter within Tommy Bahama? I know you indicated it was comping positive and that it carried into the Spring season. If you could provide a little bit more color that would be great. Thank you.

Terry, do you want to take that?

Sure. Ed, as I said on the last call, I think you could tell I was pretty optimistic about what we were seeing on that call as we got into the fourth quarter. It continued into Spring and we're seeing right now and we're very happy with the state of our business right now and what we're seeing in the business right now and we are comping up nicely.

Can you talk a little bit about the comfort level you have with your inventory position and if that is enough to support the kind of sales levels you're looking for for the remainder of the year?

I can. Doug Wood is on the call. I'll let Doug handle that one.

Ed, right now, we're positioned very well to take advantage of the sales increases that we're seeing. We looked at our inventories, you have to buy your Spring inventories last Fall and at that time we thought were comfortable taking a little bit more of an aggressive position. So if anything we see the increases that we're experiencing at retail being able to sustain that with our inventory levels.

Great, and I guess my final question, a bigger picture question, it seems like M&A activity has returned in this space. What is your interest in adding another brand to your existing portfolio? Thank you.

Well, I would refer you to our balance sheet and our liquidity position now, which is a lot stronger than it's been at any time in the last couple of years and the fact that we were able to pay down our debt to the extent that we did, and the fact that we refinanced last June with high yield bonds has put us in a position month entertain acquisitions. And we're seeing more activity on that level also. So we are allocating some of our time to the pursuit of that.

Great. Thank you.

Sure.

(Operator Instructions) We'll take our next question from Robin Murchison from SunTrust.

Thanks very much. Good afternoon, everyone. I've got a few questions, I'm going to kind of bounce around here, but first off I want to ask you, on Ben Sherman, can you help us understand better how Ben Sherman improves? Or how you see it unwinding as you take away -- as you license the two pieces of the business and you take away the women's business? Can you give us any comparison metrics just so we have a better appreciation?

Tom, why don't you take that one.

Yes, well I think it helps us in a number of different ways, Robin. As we mentioned in the call script, we do expect sales to be down in the 15% to 20% range and that's fundamentally all due to the lost sales from those three product categories that we're exiting, but what's stepping away from those categories does for us is we exit businesses where we were losing money. Secondly, in the case of footwear and kids, it turns that loss into a royalty stream. We're also able to reduce SG&A expenses significantly going forward because we don't have to support the women's, kids, and footwear businesses in everything from design and sourcing all the way through to things like customer service and accounting. And I think the big thing is that it allows us to focus in the management team over in London to focus on the mens sportswear business which has always been the core of the Ben Sherman business. So the bottom line from that is that we expect a smaller Ben Sherman in 2010, but one in which the bottom line performance improves significantly.

Okay. Also, wanted to ask you about Tommy Bahama International and just how you're thinking about the execution. Are you talking about owned stores licensing? Would it be all products? Just if you can give us a little more color on how you're thinking about that.

Terry do you want to take that one?

Yes, actually, Robin it's a little bit of all of the ones that you mentioned. We currently have a small international presence right now in a few countries and we're doing that through partner arrangements. As we look at the landscape of where we think we can be important in some of those countries we think we can do it ourselves. Other countries we look at and we think we would be better served with a strong partner in that region. So we're just -- at this point, 2010 is sort of an exploratory year for us putting our thoughts together and our plans of getting someone, bringing in someone to help us with this at Tommy Bahama. We're just starting that process right now, but as we look at it, the more conversations we have internally and externally, the feedback that we're getting in these markets to the acceptance of Tommy Bahama is quite strong. So I can't help but believe that this brand can perform very well in some of these countries, so we're very excited about it.

Terry, can you also talk a little bit about, I'm liking the e-mails that I'm seeing, the communication outreach by Tommy and you've got the occasional hook in there for example. I think the recent sun glass, emphasis on sunglasses and I think it was $20 off a pair of sunglasses, every once in a while these e-mails throw out incentives to customer base which I'm sure you don't want to start it up being a high promotion brand or anything like that but ,I think small incentives can be impactful and just tell me how you are thinking about that on a go forward basis? Is this a function of the economy or can we expect to continue to see these promotions?

I'm glad we're enticing you, Robin. I hope your purchases increase, but we have experimented with offers on the website. I'm glad that you're seeing it. It's not something that we're going to turn the website into, and as matter of fact it's a very small percentage of what we do currently on the website when we introduce something or we have a product like sunglasses or footwear, we'll put an incentive out there to entice people and it's become successful. But our strategy on eCommerce is to mirror our strategy of our full price retail stores of being a full price business and we don't really consider those offers to be necessarily a discount just taking a 30% or 40% or 50% off of those product categories. So it's a way in which we can give our guests an opportunity to have access to those products without changing our overall strategy of being a full price business, but I'm glad you like the images and we'll keep sending them out there.

I think all the way around, the outreach, the graphics or the models you're using, everything is looking a little younger, which I think is good and a little more active, and I think appeals to still an aspirational base, but a bit higher, I would think it's bringing in more people.

Robin? This is Doug Wood. There's one other thing I could add to Terry's comments is that you received an e-mail because you're on a mailing list. If you went into our store that offer isn't actually offered in the store and so it's one of the things that we're able to do with our database. And so from a full price brand standpoint and online, we're full price. However, to the group of people that are in our database, they were actually able to get an offer on something that no one else knew about.

Okay, and you're going to open -- the eight to 10 stores that you'll open in 2011, are any of those outlets?

Right now, currently, no. The eight to 10 -- we're very comfortable with the outlets at 15 right now and there's those eight to 10 that we're targeting, we're scratching right now to find those locations and we're coming up with some very good ones. So right now there are no targeted outlets in that number.

Could you also talk about, and this may go for Ben Sherman too, but could you also talk about how some of those key states are doing for you? Florida, that was a call out I think on last quarters conference call. I'd also be interested in how -- are you seeing kind of pick up in your restaurants in terms of traffic?

I can speak for Tommy Bahama, Robin. We are seeing comp increases that I was referring to, we're seeing good news is across all regions. We're seeing regions that we've been talking about over the last few of these calls that have been weak when the economy started faltering, but we're seeing it pretty much spread over all regions which is very positive for us but it's not just coming from certain regions out there. As far as our restaurants, our restaurant business has been good across, again most of the -- weather has been affecting us a little bit in some of the restaurants, but we're very pleased with what we're seeing in our restaurant business as well. So it's pretty broad spread regionally and overall segments of our business.

Scott? I don't know maybe I missed this if you addressed it, the 36% reduction in inventory, are you leaving sales off the table?

I don't think so. I think Doug kind of spoke to it on Tommy Bahama and some of these were due to some of the businesses we exited were a little heavier inventory, which I think exiting some of these businesses really helped free up some working capital.

I'll comment on that, Robin. I don't think there's any question that we probably missed some business in the fourth quarter, but I think the way we managed the inventories throughout the year is exactly what we wanted to do and if we left some people a little hungry, I think we're seeing it now and are working toward it for next Fall.

Okay, good and if I can just squeeze one more in, so SG&A dollars are expected to be flat in 2010 versus 2009 which is pretty impressive considering all that you cut out last year. Any elaboration on that? Thank you.

I'd make a couple of comments there. We began to anniversary some of our reductions in the fourth quarter, so you saw a much lower rate of decrease in the fourth quarter than you saw in the first three quarters. So we are getting to the point of where we've anniversaried most of the declines, there will be some going forward, but we expect to have more incentive compensation in 2010 than we had in 2009. So that's another reason that it will be relatively flat.

But I would almost think that it would build -- that you would have some build due to incentive comp?

Well, everybody has budgeted their businesses and so we didn't just come up with this figure in a vacuum. We think we've got everything out of the business that we want to at this point with a few exceptions at Ben Sherman.

Okay, well thank you very much and good luck and congratulations on a good quarter.

Thank you.

We'll take our next question from Bill Reuter from Banc of America Merrill Lynch.

Good afternoon.

Hi, Bill.

When I plug your guidance into a quick and dirty model, I'm coming up with EBITDA projections for next year and kind of mid 70s. Does that make sense to you?

Yes, that makes sense.

And I think in your prepared remarks, you talked about -- I think you gave an estimate for free cash flow, did I hear $40 million correctly?

A little over $40 million for cash flow from operations, we're not just going to have the working capital decreases that benefited the last two years. That was assuming that working capital remained relatively flat, maybe a tiny bit of working capital, but the last two years we had benefited from significant working capital reductions which helped juice that number.

Right. That was surprising to me that potentially we might not have seen a little bit of increase given the fact that inventories look so lean at this point. Assuming not much of a build would be a safe assumption?

Yes.

And then just the uses of free cash flow, what should we think about things you would see that would use that for?

I think it's like we always do Bill, the first thing we look for is opportunities to invest in our existing businesses and in the course of our discussion we've outlined some of the opportunities that we see there, primarily additional retail stores in international, although we don't expect to see a whole lot of that in 2010, that's more of a out year proposition and then we -- from that, we look at the full range of options that are always available including possibly making moves on the balance sheet. We announced today that we increased the dividend by $0.02 a quarter, those types of things.

And as I said earlier, we're in a position to entertain acquisitions at this point. And on the international Tommy Bahama situation it's quite possible this will be an investment year for that initiative.

Okay, that's very helpful. Appreciate it.

Sure.

We'll go next to Susan Sansbury from Miller Tabak.

Hi, yes, thanks very much. Good quarter.

Thank you, Susan.

I expected you to beat, but you beat by a much wider margin than I expected. I came on late, I apologize, I'm going to ask you a very stupid question. What did you earn for the year as a whole on a non-GAAP adjusted basis?

$1.29 a share versus $1.41 a share the previous year. On a comparable basis.

All right, that helps. That's all I needed. I apologize. I got on very late and I just wanted to have the time to say good job. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

We'll take a follow-up question from Robin Murchison.

That's okay. My question has been answered, thank you.

Okay.

It appears we have no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the call back over to management for any closing comments.

Okay, thanks, Nancy. I guess our closing comments would be that with the exception of the loss in Ben Sherman this past year, I think we would consider that our other three operating groups all performed pretty admirably under the circumstances and with Ben Sherman, we think we took some pretty aggressive steps to right the ship there. And with the improving external climate, we're pretty optimistic about things going forward in every segment that we operate in. So we look forward to talking with you in June when we have our next call and thanks for your interest in Oxford.

That concludes today's presentation. Thank you for your participation.