Signet Jewelers Ltd (SIG) 2016 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by.

Welcome to the Signet Jewelers' fourth quarter and fiscal year results conference call.

(Operator Instructions) Please note that this call is being recorded today March 24, 2016, at 8:30 AM Eastern Time.

I would now like to turn the meeting over to your host for today's call James Grant, VP of Investor Relations.

Please go ahead, James.

Good morning and welcome to our fourth quarter and fiscal 2016 year-end earnings call.

On our call today are Mark Light, CEO, and Michele Santana, CFO.

The presentation deck we will be referencing is available under the Investors section of our website, SignetJewelers.com.

During today's presentation we will in places discuss Signet's business outlook and make certain forward-looking statements.

Any statements that are not historical facts are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially.

We urge you to read the Risk Factors cautionary language and other disclosures in the annual report on Form 10-K that will be filed later today with the SEC.

We also draw your attention to slide number 2 in today's presentation for additional information about forward-looking statements and non-GAAP measures.

And now, I will turn the call over to Mark.

Thanks, James; and good morning, everyone.

Signet Jewelers had an excellent fourth quarter.

Our results demonstrate our solid fundamentals and that we are managing all key operational aspects of the business.

I'll start with a few remarks on our financial highlights, leaving the details for Michele, and then get into the operating highlights.

Our total sales in the fourth quarter increased by 5.1%, which was significantly higher than the jewelry market as a whole.

We not only gained share, we gained profitable market share.

Signet comp sales increased by 4.9%, which was among the fastest growth of any US retailers.

Due to strong top line and prudent management of our expenses, our operating margins expanded by nearly 200 basis points and our earnings per share were up about 20% as well.

Earnings growth was also among the top of the industry.

While delivering a terrific fourth quarter, we also set the table for growth into the future.

Our synergies from the Zale acquisitions are playing out faster than we first expected.

We delivered $60 million of synergies in fiscal 2016, above previous expectations, and we raised our multiyear synergy guidance.

I will get to those details in a couple of minutes.

Next I'd like to discuss the sales drivers of the fourth quarter.

There are a variety of related and overlapping initiatives that drove the fourth-quarter performance, which included innovative merchandising, cross-selling, engaging marketing, and solid store execution with superior customer service.

Results were led by our Ever Us program, which is our much-talked-about new jewelry collection, which is offered across all of our national brands and leverages our scale in the jewelry industry.

We used our customer knowledge and our expertise in jewelry design to develop an innovative two-stone diamond ring collection with marketing that appeals to a broad range of customers, celebrating life and expressing love.

As for the future, the Ever Us collection is now testing line extensions for the Christmas of 2016, and we hope to highlight these innovations as the year progresses.

Earrings as well as bracelets, in many of which innovative fastening systems were attached, were also very successful in the fourth quarter.

And bridal also grew in the fourth quarter.

It is important to note the bridal business is a stable grower and insulates us from some of the volatility that traditional retailers face.

Bridal brands such as Vera Wang Love, Neil Lane, Tolkowsky, and the Forever diamond -- which is exclusively sold in our H. Samuel stores -- led the way.

Marketing initiatives such as our new television creative did very well.

We applied learnings from our customer segmentation study, especially around Zales and Jared, and increased our advertising weights.

This brought our merchandise to life in the form of compelling stories which really resonated with our customers.

A few comments on the drivers of our leading store banners.

Kay Jewelers led the way with a 7.4% comp sales increase and a 9% growth in total sales.

This strong performance on top of last year performance reflects a two-year comp increase of 12%.

Zales delivered very strong results, driven by Ever Us and bridal.

Piercing Pagoda results were driven by gold, diamonds, and religious jewelry.

And Ernest Jones continues its momentum, driven principally by diamond fashion and bridal jewelry as well as prestige watches.

Lastly, the store operation processes that were enhanced at Zales and Jared during the third quarter appeared to help the fourth-quarter results as well.

Our team members have embraced change, and we are very pleased with our store execution.

Our business performance since our holiday sales call resulted in a strong finish to the fourth quarter and the fiscal year.

The momentum continued into the first quarter, giving us confidence in what promises to be a strong fiscal 2017, which is reflected in our quarterly and our annual guidance.

Since the holiday sales call there has been a disconnect between our track record of strong financial results and our strategy for long-term success and the external market perception of our valuation.

As such, we decided to pre-release our fourth-quarter results.

We reiterated our capital allocation strategy, with an aggressive buyback policy that will allow us to take advantage of what we view as a significant buying opportunity.

We also considerably increased our dividend to reflect our strong cash flows and reward our loyal shareholders.

In a demonstration of the long-term commitment that executive management has in Signet's business, the Board approved -- and fully supported by executive management -- an increased level of share ownership requirements.

We raised our synergy guidance due to significant progress of integrating Zale within Signet.

Initiatives are delivering favorable results faster than we first believed, and we have a deep pipeline of workstreams from which we deliver our numbers over the next two years.

Let's take a look at those numbers for a second.

As a result of the Zale acquisition, Signet will realize significant operating profit synergies.

We increased our net synergy target to a range of $225 million to $250 million, which is nearly a 50% increase.

Of the synergies remaining in the next two years, we expect to realize 70% by January-end 2017, driven principally by gross margin and operating expense synergies.

We increased our expectations because we now have been operating Zales through two holiday seasons and much more confidence in the operations.

We have a large pipeline of initiatives, more of them are working, and they are working faster.

Some of the big initiatives that have been going on or will go on this year include product sourcing, indirect material procurement, discount controls, promotions and event coordination, cross-selling, extended service plans, labor scheduling, TV and media efficiency, improved jewelry fairs, and much, much more.

It's very important to know that our synergies are being realized in all of our businesses, in all of our divisions, and multiple lines in our income statement and will favorably affect the financial performance of Signet for years to come.

Let me give you a couple examples.

When you think about our Ever Us collection that was so successful this past quarter, it did largely well because the credibility is built by being sold in each of our national store banners.

Or our repair business, which has been generating incremental profit because of our process changes, our insourcing, our technology upgrades, and other factors.

This is a phased-in approach, so it will favorably impact sales and operating expenses for years to come.

My main message is that we are running Signet as one Company, not a preacquisition entity and a new one.

We are improving Signet results by running our overall business better.

With that, I'd like to talk about last year.

It was an outstanding year for Signet, and I want to take a moment just to review some of the notable accomplishments in fiscal 2016.

We made significant strides in transforming Signet from a Company composed of three divisions with redundant infrastructure into one Company supported by leaders who manage each functional area across the entire Company.

We delivered over $6.5 billion in sales, up over 14%.

We were added to the prestigious S&P 500 Index.

We made important strides in cross-selling our powerful brands, such as Vera Wang Love and Neil Lane Bridal, to increase their profiles.

We introduced Ever Us, arguably one of the most significant innovations in the jewelry industry in years.

Innovation in watches and fitness around the industry essentially activated the wrist as a more high-profile part of the buy to accessorize.

In response, Signet successfully sold bracelets with innovative fastening as well as our core watch brands such as Movado and Citizen.

After researching several ways that we could go about improving Zales' repair business, we committed to a primary method whereby our Jared design and repair service centers will handle the vast majority of the volume.

This change is newly underway and off to a very good start.

We deployed learnings from our customer segmentation study into marketing, store design, and selling techniques.

Several synergy work actions around gross margin contributed, and we have a lot of runway left to go.

We managed brands well and successfully extended merchandise lines, led by Diamonds in Rhythm.

Our store design team had several wins, extending testing new store concepts for Zales, Jared, and Piercing Pagoda.

We elevated the efficiency of the effectiveness of our omnichannel approach to selling, through greater personalization and customization along with targeted digital marketing.

We made significant enhancements to our selling process at Jared and Zales, which we believe improved their guest experiences.

We gained significant market share profitably and expanded our operating margins along the way.

And lastly, we allocated our capital very intelligently: increasing the dividend, repurchasing stock, and maintaining liquidity and balance sheet strength.

Everything that we're doing operationally is meant to maximize earnings per share growth for our shareholders, which we achieved by gaining over 20% this year.

With that I will now turn it over to Michele to take a look at the financials.

Thank you, Mark, and good morning, everyone.

Let's start with our fourth-quarter sales performance.

Signet's comp increased 4.9% on top of a 4.2% comp increase in the prior-year fourth quarter.

Total sales increased 5.1%, and on a constant exchange basis total sales increased 6.4% for the quarter.

Now, looking at total sales and comp performance by operating segment, let me share some additional color.

In Sterling Jewelers, total sales increased 6.9% to $1.45 billion, which included a comp increase of 5%.

Sales increases were driven by particular strength in diamond fashion jewelry, including Ever Us, diamond earrings, and bracelets.

This merchandise mix drove a higher average transaction value of 6%, with a decline in the number of transactions of 2.3%.

Innovative collections typically with higher ATVs, such as our Ever Us, sold faster and gained relative share within our portfolio.

The Zale jewelry operating segment total sales increased by 2.2% to $577 million, and 5.2% on a constant-currency exchange basis.

On a geographic basis, our Zale US sales increased 6.3% and comps increased by 5.4%.

Our Canadian sales declined 15.8%, and 0.4% on a constant-currency basis, with comp sales decline of 0.8%.

Canada sales were impacted primarily by the Western region of Canada, where lower oil and gas prices led to a recession earlier this year.

Across stores, sales were driven primarily by diamond fashion jewelry and bridal.

Now, similar to Sterling, this merchandise drove a higher transaction value of 6.2%, with a decline of 2.1% in the number of transactions.

Piercing Pagoda total sales increased 8.3% to $78 million with comp sales of 6.4%.

Sales increases were driven by gold and diamond jewelry.

This merchandise mix drove a 10% increase in average transaction value, while transaction counts declined 2.7%.

Looking at our UK, in UK our total sales increased 1.7% to $283 million, or 5.9% at constant-currency rates, and included a comp sales increase of 4.7%.

Diamond jewelry and prestige watches were the primary drivers of sales increases, which also drove a higher average transaction value of 3.7%.

The number of transactions increased by 1.1%, driven by diamond jewelry and beads.

Moving on from sales, we'll look at Signet's consolidated Q4 performance before we turn and analyze Signet's adjusted results.

On slide 10, the table provides a reconciliation of Signet's adjusted results to consolidated results.

The difference between adjusted Signet and Signet are in the columns reflecting purchase accounting and transaction costs, which includes our integration-related expenses.

Starting on the right side of the slide, on a GAAP basis EPS was $3.42 per share, representing a 20.4% increase over prior-year EPS of $2.84.

The next column over reflects our transaction and integration costs.

These costs relate to consulting costs for integration; an acceleration of severance costs of $7.1 million in Q4 related to organization changes that will benefit FY17 and beyond; and an acceleration of information technology costs of $3.7 million in Q4, related to implementation costs associated with global systems that will also drive future synergies.

In total, transaction and integration costs were responsible for $0.15 of EPS dilution.

Purchase accounting adjustments, which reflect a reduction to deferred revenue and amortization of unfavorable contracts, were dilutive to EPS by $0.06.

Our effective tax rate for the quarter was 28.6% or 100 basis points lower than prior year.

Our annual effective tax rate was 28.9% or 60 basis points lower than the prior-year rate of 29.5%.

On an adjusted Signet basis, which is the far-most left column, EPS was $3.63, an increase of 18.6% over last year.

Looking below the sales line at Signet's adjusted P&L results, our adjusted gross margin was a little over $1 billion, or 42.6% of adjusted sales.

That rate was up 170 basis points to last year, due primarily to synergies, favorable commodity costs, and leverage on store occupancy costs.

Our rate continues to benefit from synergy-related initiatives that include discount controls, extended service plans, vendor terms, and other gross-margin-enhancing programs.

Sterling Jewelers gross margin increased by 120 basis points, and that was due to improved merchandise margins related to favorable commodity costs and leverage on store occupancy.

The Zale division's adjusted gross margin rate increased 270 basis points due primarily to realization of synergies that favorably impacted merchandise margins, distribution costs, store operating costs, and rent and occupancy.

UK gross margin increased 80 basis points due primarily to store occupancy leverage.

Adjusted SG&A was $666 million or 27.8% of adjusted sales, compared to $629 million or 27.5% of sales in the prior year.

The increase of $37 million in SG&A was driven by higher advertising of $7 million; higher store staff costs of $11 million, associated with higher sales volume; and higher central costs.

The increase in central cost was driven by higher recurring IT expense, higher levels of depreciation, investments in product research and development, and standardization of employee compensation among North America.

From a rate perspective, the higher central costs were partially offset by leverage on advertising and store payroll, resulting in an increase of 30 basis points in our SG&A rate.

Other operating income was $63.7 million.

This increase of $9.6 million was due principally to higher interest income earned from higher outstanding receivable balances.

Adjusted operating income was $418.4 million and increased 15.7% over prior-year fourth quarter.

Our adjusted operating margin rate was 17.4% of sales.

This 160 basis point expansion over prior year was driven primarily by the increase in sales and gross margin.

Adjusted EPS was $3.63 compared to $3.06 last year, an increase of 18.6% driven principally by stronger business performance.

Let's move on to the balance sheet, and we'll start with inventory.

This is the first year-end since the acquisition of Zale that we have an apples-to-apples result.

Our strong year-end inventory position reflects the success of our continued focus on optimization of Zale inventory.

Net inventory ended the year at about $2.5 billion, an increase of just 0.6% compared to our annual sales growth of 14.2%.

This relationship to sales was driven by solid inventory management across virtually all of our product categories, divisions, and locations.

We increased Zale inventory turn by reducing unproductive inventory, rightsizing store-level inventory closer to Kay averages, and improving clearance inventory management.

We also improved inventory turnover through better sourcing terms and the performance of Ever Us.

As we move through Q1, our inventory levels and merchandise assortments for fiscal 2017 are very well positioned.

Moving on, we'll turn our attention to our in-house credit metrics and statistics.

Before we discuss our in-house credit metrics, I wanted to spend a few minutes to speak more holistically on our in-house credit operations.

We have provided and operated in-house credit for 30 years, and it gives us a number of competitive advantages.

Our in-house program is an integral part of our business, which builds customer loyalty and enables incremental profitable sales that would just not occur without a consumer financing program.

In addition, there are several factors inherent in the US jewelry business that support the circumstances through which consumer financing is uniquely positioned to generate profitable incremental sales for Signet.

We know from our deep history of borrower behavior that the emotional connection our customers have to their jewelry purchases supports repayment history.

In addition, due to our scale we are able to administer our credit program very efficiently and effectively.

Credit also complements and supports our Best in Bridal strategy.

Bridal, which is the closest thing in jewelry to a necessity represents, about half of our annual business.

About 75% of our Sterling division bridal sales utilize our credit program.

This provides us with the opportunity to develop long-term customer relationships, market to our customers, and maximize our customers' long-term sales productivity.

With that as a background, there are several points that I want to make sure are very clear to our investors regarding our credit portfolio.

First, our credit program is designed for rapid repayment that minimizes risk and enables the customer to make additional jewelry purchases using their credit facility.

On average, our receivables portfolio turns every nine months, much quicker than a typical credit card provider.

The weighted average minimum monthly payment required is about 9% of outstanding balances, which is nearly double what a typical credit card company would require.

Further, on our monthly repayment terms -- which, unlike most credit card repayment terms, don't decline as a customer repays his or her balance -- which helps to facilitate the quick collection of our loan balances.

Second, there is no long tail associated with our credit book.

We fully take the expense of any loan that is aged 90 days on a recency.

If and when a loan reaches 120 days recency and 240 days contractual, it is charged off against the provision.

Third our underwriting standards are proven and have been consistent over a long period of time.

This consistency in our underwriting also is demonstrated in our weighted average FICO score for the portfolio.

For FY16, our weighted average FICO was 662 and has been in the mid-660s for numerous years.

The FICO scores of the new customers in our portfolio in FY16 at 684 was higher than the average for the total portfolio.

Fourth, to age our portfolio we measure delinquency and establish loan allowances using a form of the recency method.

This form of recency, which we have used since the inception of owning our in-house credit, relies upon qualifying payments determined by management to measure delinquency.

A qualifying payment can be no less than 75% of the scheduled minimum payment and increases with the delinquency level.

Once an account holder is more than three payments behind, the entire past-due amount is required to return to current status.

Of all the payments received in the fiscal year, 97% were equal to or greater than the scheduled monthly payment, which was true in fiscal 2015 as well.

Fifth -- and this is perhaps the most important to understand -- is that, regardless of aging method used over one's portfolio, the balance sheet and income statement will yield the same result, as under US GAAP receivables must be stated at the net realizable value.

In other words, the net charge-off to the balance sheet and the net bad debt expense in the P&L would be the same under both recency and contractual aging.

There is no difference between the two when it comes to our financial statements.

We've an appendix to our presentation that summarizes our qualifying payment rule.

In addition, I refer you to our expanded disclosures in our 10-K that we will file today relating to underwriting, credit monitoring and collection, and our portfolio aging.

We hope that these expanded disclosures are found to be helpful.

So with that behind us, let's look at our financial metrics related to our Sterling division in-house credit.

Our year-end net accounts receivable increased to $1.8 billion compare to $1.6 billion last year, representing a 12% increase, driven by credit penetration rate and higher average purchases.

Our fiscal 2016 credit penetration rate was 61.5%, and that compares to 60.5% last year.

The higher participation rate was driven primarily by growth in bridal and Ever Us, both with higher average transaction values.

The average monthly collection rate for fiscal 2016 was 11.5% compared to 11.9%.

Our monthly collection rate is calculated as cash received divided by accounts receivable.

The change of rate over prior year is due primarily to two reasons.

First, as our mix of bridal increases due to our Best in Bridal strategy, this creates a higher average receivable.

By design, the repayment rate is lower as the price point of merchandise increases.

Bridal has a higher average credit sale, and therefore the repayment is longer.

So this leaves a higher outstanding receivable to be collected.

Second, like other consumer loans, more principal is paid off later in the life of the loan and interest is paid earlier.

So as our portfolio has grown more in the last year, proportionately more of it will be repaid later.

Our allowance as a percent of AR increased 20 basis points, due principally to higher receivable balances and higher bad debt.

Continuing down slide 14, our fiscal 2016 net bad debt was $190.5 million, and that compares to $160 million last year.

The increase of $30.5 million was driven principally by higher penetration and receivable balances.

Interest income for finance charges, which makes up virtually all of our other operating income line item on our income statement, was $252.5 million compared to $217.9 million last year.

The increase of $34.6 million was due primarily to more interest income on a higher outstanding receivables base.

The net impact of bad debt and finance income generated a full-year operating profit of $62 million compared to $57.9 million in the prior year.

As you can see on the slide, similar trends also existed for the fourth quarter between net bad debt and finance income.

In addition, as we have disclosed in our February 29 prerelease, our year-end valuation allowance and nonperforming metrics improved, as management had expected, compared to the third quarter.

This improvement was driven not only by the normal seasonality we customarily see, but also due to excellent credit execution and credit marketing initiatives designed to favorably influence credit receivable mix.

The visibility that we have into our credit portfolio performance, which includes daily collections, weekly roll rates to 30, 60, and 90 days, and other meaningful indicators, leads us to remain highly confident in the strength of our credit portfolio performance.

All of these considerations are factored into our Q1 and annual guidance.

Moving on to capital allocation, I want to reiterate our priorities for capital structure and our capital allocation strategy that we first introduced at this time last year.

We have a strong balance sheet that will allow us to invest in our business, execute our strategic priorities, ensuring adequate liquidity, and returning excess cash to shareholders.

Our investment-grade ratings are important to us because, long term, we may return to the debt market.

Our adjusted leverage ratio target is to be at or below 3.5 times.

We ended fiscal 2016 at 3.7 times.

As our EBITDA grows in fiscal 2017, we anticipate that we will have additional leverage capacity.

We are actively evaluating use of this capacity under the tenets of our capital allocation policy.

We plan to distribute 70% to 80% of annual free cash flow in the form of stock repurchases and/or dividends, assuming no other strategic uses of capital.

In recent years we have grown both dividends and share repurchases.

Our share repurchase authorization is considerably higher now, given the recently announced $750 million buyback authorization, to go along with what was already left on the existing authorization of $136 billion.

Now let's talk about our financial guidance.

Signe's first quarter comparable-store sales are expected to increase 3% to 4%, and first-quarter adjusted EPS is expected to be $1.90 to $1.95, a growth range of 17% to 20%.

We anticipate repurchasing approximately $125 million of Signet stock during the first quarter.

We are also initiating annual earnings guidance along with our customary quarterly guidance.

We are doing this in order to more effectively communicate the effect of the upwardly revised synergies which Mark discussed and the timing of how these synergies will flow.

To foster a more long-term view of its model, Signet intends to continue with annual earnings guidance in lieu of quarterly earnings guidance after fiscal 2017.

For fiscal 2017, we anticipate comps of 3% to 4.5%, and adjusted EPS of $8.25 to $8.55, a growth range of 20% to 25%.

We are planning for this strong earnings flow to come about through both gross margin and SG&A leverage.

We anticipate expanding our gross margin rate through higher sales and realization of synergies.

And the SG&A leverage should flow due to marketing and organizational design efficiencies.

Our annual effective tax rate is anticipated to be about 28%.

Capital expenditure guidance for the full year is $315 million to $365 million, driven by a combination of store remodels, store growth, information technology, and facilities expenditures.

Net selling square footage is projected to grow 3% to 3.5%.

This is greater than what we had previously guided of 2% to 3%.

Most of Signet's new square footage growth is slated for real estate venues other than enclosed malls and is focused on higher-ROI store banners.

In closing, we are extremely pleased with our financial performance and the progress that we have made on our synergies to date.

With that I'll turn the call back over to Mark.

Thank you, Michele.

To sum up, we had a great quarter and a wonderful year.

We accomplished so much, as I discussed in slides 7 and 8. Best of all we grew our adjusted EPS north of 20% for the full year, and we anticipate hitting that mark again in the coming year.

I sincerely want to congratulate and thank all of Signet team members for their hard work and their wonderful accomplishments.

Last year was great, and this year is looking even better.

With that, we will now take your questions.

(Operator Instructions) Scott Krasik, Buckingham Research.

Yes, hi, everyone; thanks.

Congratulations.

I just want to ask about customer acquisition, advertising; obviously you made a bit of a strategy shift around holiday, and I think you've continued it.

So maybe talk about the opportunity there and additional opportunities, if there are.

Sure Scott.

Thank you, again.

When it comes to what we're doing in customer acquisition through our advertising specifically, the learnings that we've gotten from our segmentation study has really helped us out, to focusing on our store brands' primary customer.

For example, in Zales we have a primary customer, and we've adjusted our advertising trade to capture more of the Zales segmented primary customer, which is different than that of Kay's and Jared.

We got wonderful reactions from the consumers and from our store staff just seeing people coming in and really reacting to the ad so well.

We did the same for Jared as well.

Also, Kay was on the mark the most with their customer segmentation, so -- with the guy being the hero in the ads and everything else.

So what we did is not only did we enhance the creative, we also increased our marketing spend.

We increased our spend for Zales this fourth quarter; we increased our spend for Jared in the fourth quarter.

And Kay is at a point where we don't think it's beneficial to increase the spend.

What we did is we spread Kay's advertising to start earlier in October and to talk about the bridal business, which we believe definitely benefited Kay's throughout the fourth quarter.

So it's about increasing our marketing spend thoughtfully and targeted, and it's about enhancing our creative to make sure we're capturing that segmented customer better within our store banners.

Okay.

Then just following up -- thanks -- on the enhanced store operations, maybe specifically to Jared.

Still not seeing some of the trends you're seeing in the other divisions.

So maybe talk about the outlook for Jared specifically over the next six to nine months.

Sure.

You've got to understand Jared is different than the mall -- and that by the way has a different competitive set.

The competitive set of Jared is primarily obviously outside the mall.

If you look at the jewelry industry as a whole -- and I mentioned it earlier -- if you look at Jared for the year, Jared actually captured profitable market share as compared to the overarching jewelry industry.

Again, the majority of Jared customers is outside the mall and the majority of jewelry customers are outside the mall.

So to compare Jared to Kay and Zales is just not really a fair comparative.

That being said, we did have a lot of good learnings through our segmentation study that shared with us that we need to talk to and communicate with those customers differently both from a marketing perspective and from a selling perspective.

We had some enhancements to our selling techniques in our Jared stores.

We think it's doing better, but this is a transitional stage for Jared.

We're actually very excited about Jared opportunity this year.

These transitions don't happen overnight, but we believe come to the fourth quarter that Jared has a lot of wonderful advantages.

We've announced already that we're going to have Pandora shop-in-shops in our stores.

We believe that Pandora is a tremendous partner and will increase our foot traffic coming into our stores.

We now are putting -- Vera Wang is now in our Jared stores.

We have unique advertising for Jared Vera Wang, and we also are going to have some more unique Vera Wang product within our Jared stores.

We also have a very special program that is perfectly targeted to the Jared customers that we call the Chosen diamond.

We'll talk more about this, but it was tested in the fourth quarter, did extremely well.

It's where a customer can literally track their diamond from the point in the mine that it came out of, to our cutting factory in Botswana, and track it all the way to the point where it's on their beautiful spouse's or spouse-to-be's hand.

So we are very excited about what's going to happen for Jared this year, but it takes time to transition the business.

But I want to end with we still believe Jared is capturing profitable market share when you compare it to the overarching jewelry industry.

Okay.

Well, good luck with that.

Thank you.

Lorraine Hutchinson, Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Thank you, good morning everyone.

Your full-year comp guidance implies acceleration from the first quarter, 3% to 4%.

What do you see as the biggest drivers of this, whether from a banner or product perspective?

Thank you, Lorraine.

A lot of it comes from what I've just said to you.

In our business a lot of it's -- and this happened last year -- it's really all targeted to the back half of the year.

A lot of our initiatives, the benefits of the synergies that we're getting, the benefits of the changes I just mentioned to Scott as it relates to what we're doing in Jared, are all really -- we build up.

You'll get a lot of those benefits to the back end of the year in the fourth quarter, and primarily a lot of the synergies that we discussed.

So that's the majority of it.

I don't, Michele, if you have anything to add?

No, I think that's really it, when you think about the seasonality, the back half.

We talked about on the synergy flow-through that that will -- when we did the preannouncement -- flow with the seasonality, more back-half loaded.

So that's why you see the acceleration in the annual guidance from the Q1.

Great.

Then as you model gross margin for this year, what type of bad debt reserve hit are you incorporating into that guidance?

Again we don't guide by particular line item in the P&L.

What I would tell you is we went out -- we've given you the top line, we've given you the bottom line.

To give you a little bit more I guess a directional basis that might help you, is I would say that we probably expect the trends to be broadly similar when you look at a net bad debt expense and finance charge income of what you've seen this past year.

Thank you.

Ike Boruchow, Wells Fargo.

Hi, everyone; good morning.

Congratulations.

I guess, Michele, this is a question for you.

Just going back to your Analyst Day when the synergy number was about $150 million to $175 million, I think you talked about the fiscal 2018 Zale margin being about a 9% margin.

Now that you've commented that the synergies are roughly $75 million higher, how should we think about the Zale margin?

Because I know those synergies are kind of spread around, but the majority is in Zale.

Can you just help us?

Is that 9% still the number we should think about?

Or now should we start thinking low double digits?

A couple things.

When we talked about back in the IR day that 9% margin, that was just looking at flow-through of synergies.

What we said is, when you looked at other growth within the Zale business, that that was really more like a 12% or so number.

So that's in my mind, I think, a bit more as the 12% versus the 9%.

Then we said long-term saw the Zale margin getting to 15%.

So the one thing, Ike, I would say is that -- and Mark had mentioned this in the prepared remarks -- the synergies are flowing across our business divisions.

That's not to say that -- I would just caution you to think that the majority of this is flowing through Zale.

It really is across all of it.

With that said, sure: the higher synergies does imply that there's higher medium- and long-term operating margin expectation.

So I think if you take that upwardly revised synergy guidance and just flow it through, split it and flow it through from the guidance we gave on IR day, you will get the updated.

It will get you to the updated margin number.

Got it.

Then you had commented that medium to longer term you were thinking more of a mid-teens margin.

The follow-up question would be: Are you thinking higher than that now?

Or you just thinking more we can realize that maybe sooner?

What I would tell you is there's always two pieces, right?

Is it more, and is it quicker?

We are seeing the acceleration in part of the synergies.

We upped the synergy guidance; and just by the pure mathematics of that you would have to assume that the margin increases.

Okay, great.

Congratulations.

Simon Bowler, Exane.

Hi, team.

Just a quick question for myself, just with regard to the increase in square footage growth in the year ahead.

Just wondering if not a timing impact is coming through there, or whether you've got a view that actually your square footage potential, when we compare it to what you've previously communicated at Investor Day, is beyond that that we've heard before?

Yes.

Good morning, Simon, and thank you.

No, it is more of the first, Simon.

We believe that now we have a better handle on the Zale operation we believe we have an opportunity to grow our brands faster and farther.

This year the numbers on a gross basis, up to 178 new stores this year.

And Michelle mentioned it: the majority of that is coming from our Kay stores.

We see Kay mall opportunities.

We're also going to open up a good amount of Jared stores this year.

We're going to open a good amount of Zale stores this year, and we'll be opening up some Piercing Pagoda stores this year.

So we have stronger and better confidence in our business models and we are -- so it's an increase of rate, not moving stores' growth up earlier.

It is just a pure increase of growth for our Company going forward.

I know you're not going to want to give multiyear or out-year guidance.

But in terms therefore of when we're thinking about modeling year two, three, four, beyond, we should be thinking of higher rates than the notion perhaps your communication before might have implied?

We're not going to give any specifics, but I will tell you that obviously the more and more confidence we get in the business and the more and more confidence we have in our models -- specifically in Zales -- we will see a potential opportunity of increasing that run rate.

Look, we said this before, Simon: we believe the mid-market in the US -- let's just talk the US -- is a $41 billion market opportunity.

Through Signet Jewelers, through all of our brands last year we did about $5.5 billion.

We see tremendous opportunity to grow within our existing brands, within our segmented customers, within the US and the other markets that we operate in.

But specifically see tremendous opportunity of capturing more profitable market share in the latter years in the US for certain with our existing brands.

Very good; thanks, Mark.

Anne Samuel, JPMorgan.

Hi guys, congrats on a great quarter.

On the quarter-to-date so far you gave a little bit of comment about it in the release; but we've been hearing from a handful of retailers that the domestic consumer is returning to a more normal trend relative to the fourth quarter.

Can you provide any color on if you're seeing a similar improvement in the consumer environment?

Obviously, Anne, if you take a look at our guidance at 3% to 4% we are seeing similar trends of the fourth quarter; not obviously as robust as you saw, but we're seeing similar trends.

I mentioned this on my prepared statements, that we have the benefit that over 50% of our business is in the bridal category.

It is the closest thing that -- Michele said -- that we have as a necessity.

So that is a nice, stabilizing business that we have that I believe other retailers don't have the benefit of that business.

So to answer your question, in our guidance we're saying 3% to 4% in the first quarter.

So those are the type of run rates we believe we're going to experience.

Great, thanks.

Then just one question on the gross margin line.

When you think about the core business outside of the synergy benefits, can you provide any color on what puts and takes you're seeing there?

Are you continuing to see favorable commodity cost benefits?

Thanks so much.

Sure, Anne.

Again Mark had in his remarks mentioned this -- and I just caution anybody from -- we don't operate Signet as a preacquisition company and a new entity.

Our synergies flow across all of our divisions.

So I really don't want to go through and try to break out gross margin expectations based on that.

In the prepared comments we talked about we're really excited about our gross margin expansion that we expect to see in fiscal 2017.

When we think about that expansion it will primarily be driven by synergies as we move forward.

Commodity cost is always a factor in our gross margin.

What I would say, though, think about that we are on the average inventory cost; so changes in gold don't flow through as quick in our P&L.

This is primarily a synergy-driven gross margin expansion on both sides.

Great, thanks so much.

Jeff Stein, Northcoast Research.

Good morning, guys, and again appreciate the detail on the credit.

A question for Michele on the guidance, and this is just back of the envelope.

I'm wondering if perhaps maybe you're being a little bit conservative on your guidance.

Because if you take the $6.85, $6.86 that you earned, and then you tax-effect the synergies -- and let's say we use the midpoint of the synergy savings -- that's about $1.30.

Then you've got the ADS credit benefit this year that you didn't have last year; that's another $0.20.

The way I'm adding it up, it looks to me like you're getting a $1.50 lift from synergies and credit, and that would take you to about an $8.40 number.

So it would seem like you're adding synergies and the credit benefit with no organic growth from the core business.

So I'm wondering if I'm looking at it the right way or perhaps missing something.

Well, here is what I would say, Jeff.

Again, it goes on the heels -- I really, really caution anybody from taking the synergies and trying to look at the synergies and then what's happening in the organic growth.

This is very much integrated; it's not split that way; and it really is not a fair characterization, as we don't operate our business -- as I mentioned before -- in a preacquisition mode and a new one.

Synergies flow across our business.

So for example, and I know Mark also provided this during the prepared remarks, a portion of our revenue includes revenue synergies such as cross-selling.

He gave Ever Us as an example, which it's a permanent part of our business.

So that's in our synergy number; it's mutually benefiting all of our divisions across the board.

So you really can't start parsing out what's core and what's not core.

The other comment I would say, Jeff, is just keep in mind this is the first time that we are issuing annual guidance, and it is early in the year.

So stay tuned; we'll see how the year develops.

Also, just want to remind you that when you look at the annual guidance we did provide, it's an EPS growth range, as I mentioned, of 20% to 25%.

Right, right.

Just one more follow-up question real quick, and that is: Do you have a depreciation and amortization estimate for the current fiscal year?

You know what?

I don't actually have one handy, but that's something we can probably circle back with you on, Jeff.

Great, thank you very much.

Oliver Chen, Cowen and Company.

Congrats on a really strong finish to a great year.

Mark, as you do look forward to the second half of this year, what would you isolate as a key product or marketing initiative?

Just general ideas that will be good for us to prioritize in our mind as catalysts.

And Michele, as investors continue to think about the credit metrics, as we model our thoughts for next year how should that net impact line look?

And allowance as a percentage of ending accounts receivable, expectations for how that should trend?

And I think it's interesting how you have ADS on the Zale Corp side and Sterling is internal.

So how do you think about ROIC when you compare those two businesses and you think about your corporate and financial strategies?

Thanks.

Thank you, Oliver.

I will take the marketing and merchandising question, obviously.

On the marketing front, Oliver, in the second half there's several things.

First of all, we are continuing to refine our creative and to get closer and closer and get continued reads from our segmented customer as it relates to Kay, Zales, Jared's.

By the way we just did a segmented study, segmentation study in the UK for both our H.Samuel brand and our Ernest Jones brand; and we also are conducting and just finished a study of our Peoples brand in the United Kingdom -- excuse me, in Canada.

So we will continue to refine our creative to make sure we're penetrating and connecting more to those segmented customers, appropriate to the appropriate banners.

In addition to that we will continue to invest thoughtfully and strategically in targeted additional marketing spend for all of our brands where appropriate.

So on the marketing side, it's continued refinement of the creative to connect to the segmented customer, and increased investment in TV media, and an increased investment in digital.

We're putting a lot of time, money, and effort behind our omnichannel experiencing and making sure that there's a connectivity from the digital perspective, whether it be online to in-store, and the connectivity.

So we're putting a lot of investment in our -- and in special omnichannel experiences that can only be differentiated by us.

On the merchandising side we have a lot of exciting things.

I mentioned the extensions in Ever Us.

I will tell you that historically in the jewelry industry, when a beacon program is announced -- and a beacon program in the past, for those of you who don't understand or are tied to the jewelry industry, are programs like the Past Present and Future anniversary band, which was 15 years ago, or the Journey necklace.

These are programs that are called beacon programs.

We call our Ever Us program a beacon program, as we focus on and targeting and highlighting one item to expand.

And usually year two is a better year for beacon programs.

Consistently, year two outperforms.

So we're exciting about the year two because the customers are just getting the idea and understanding what Ever Us represents, and it's gaining momentum.

We're just seeing a natural lift, and the more and more customers who understand Ever Us is a huge benefit.

But compounded with that, we're testing extensions: we're testing earrings, we're testing bracelets, we're testing different styles of rings.

So Ever Us is still a very exciting opportunity for the second half of this year.

I mentioned in Jared we have an exciting new diamond program that we're in test mode; that's Chosen.

We're very excited about our shop-in-shop Pandora stores within our Jared stores.

We've got other items that are in innovation laboratory that are being tested as we speak.

As you can see from our guidance we feel very excited about our exciting initiatives when it comes to marketing and merchandising.

Also -- you didn't ask about it, but I will share with you -- the more and more we engage with our field forces, the better they get; the more we train them, the better they can deliver a superior customer experience.

Because after everything is said and done the most important equation is how that customer is served across the counter in delivering those established products.

So that's my answer for that part of the question.

Michele?

All right, so I will take the credit.

Again, what I mentioned in the prepared remarks: We are seeing stability in our credit metrics and very confident in terms of our credit portfolio performance, all of which is factored in our Q1 and our annual guidance.

With that said -- and I think this hit on also the heels of Lorraine's question -- but directionally in Q1, when you see the relationship of our net bad debt expense and finance charge income, we'd expect that to be broadly in line with last year.

I think is a timing of an account sale in last year's numbers, so you have to take that into fact.

And it would be broadly the same.

On a full-year basis as a percentage of sales, that net relationship of bad debt and finance charge will also be broadly in line with fiscal 2016.

And I would make the same comment, when you think about the allowance as a percentage of our receivable.

Getting into ROI in terms and the hybrid approach that we have with ADS and our in-house, which really is a unique case for us, first of all I think, Oliver, it's really important to note that our overall credit portfolio is still highly profitable.

We have successfully managed this portfolio over 30 years in all types of business cycles.

The virtues of having our in-house credit program, given the sales and earnings flow-through, when you think about the interest income, the lifetime value of our credit customers, how it complements our Best in Bridal strategy -- I mean all of these factors really provide a competitive advantage for us to operate this in-house credit program.

Now with that said, and as you mentioned, we have ADS that's providing the credit in Zale; so we do have this optimal test case in front of us.

This hybrid model will allow us to continue to evaluate the pros and cons of an in-house credit program.

This is no different than any other aspect of our business, that we always are continuing to evaluate our business in ways to enhance shareholder value.

Thank you; that's super helpful.

Approval rates on the credit customer and the FICO scores, they've been consistent; is that correct?

We just had investor incoming on this topic, and I wanted you to elaborate there if possible.

Yes, they have.

This is obviously one of the new credit metrics that we have disclosed, and you'll see that in the 10-K that's filed later today.

Again FICO is an element; it is not the only element that we use in terms of our underwriting.

But we have seen a very consistent trend in terms of our FICO scores for a number of years.

Okay.

Mark, just finally, omnichannel comp -- like a really great ongoing initiative.

What are the next chapters here?

I know the customer has a special element of trust, whether it's in-store pickup's a key role; but what do you think are the major strategic efforts over the medium term?

And is mobile a big part of the opportunity ahead?

Thanks.

Thank you, Oliver.

Yes, mobile is huge.

Obviously, as I would think most business but definitely in ours, more and more of our omnichannel experience is starting on mobile, and it's transitioning more and more, going there.

It's just tying the experiences, Oliver.

You will see us -- this year we'll be -- we're working on enhancing our Zales e-commerce platform, and working on making sure we have more connectivity to our e-commerce sites and to the activity going on in stores.

So you will see a lot more of the connectivity of our stores to our online experience and tying everything together.

Now, it's going to take time.

We can't do this all overnight, Oliver.

But we have -- and we'll be sharing more with you, once we have some more of our tests vetted out -- but we see omnichannel being a critical part of the jewelry experience.

I've said this before, but arguably in our business more than any other retail -- because we know that a vast majority of jewelry and diamond customers go online first.

They need to educate themselves online.

So one of the things that we have done is we put together a website called Jewelry Wise, which is an educational website that just answers customers' questions about diamonds or emeralds or gold and questions they have.

Just experiencing -- letting customers experience education about our product is another way, and connecting all of this education in-store and online.

Thank you.

Best regards, and thanks for the details.

It sounds really exciting ahead.

Thanks.

Dorothy Lakner, Topeka Capital Market.

Thanks; good morning, everyone, and congratulations as well.

I wondered if you could provide a little bit more color on your cross-selling efforts.

I know you've spoken a lot about Vera Wang and how well that's done; obviously Ever Us is being sold across all banners.

But where are you in the process?

And what else might we look forward to as you move forward?

Then additionally, just any color you could provide on -- you talked about new store concepts performing well.

I just wondered if you could provide a little bit more color on that.

Thank you.

Sure; thank you, Dorothy.

On cross-sell, first of all, as you mentioned Vera Wang has been a tremendous success, specifically in our Jared stores and is doing very well in our Ernest Jones stores in the United Kingdom.

So we see an opportunity to taking Vera Wang Love and, like I said, in Jared refine it a little more and make it a little bit different for the Jared customer.

We see exciting opportunities for that.

In our UK stores, it's just -- the testing is doing well and we see rolling Vera Wang into all of our UK Ernest Jones stores.

Neil Lane has been doing very well in our stores in Canada.

We have Neil Lane in all of our Peoples stores in Canada.

We have Open Hearts by Jane Seymour in all of our stores in Canada, and we're doing very, very well with both of those brands in our Canadian Peoples stores.

We also see opportunities.

We to continue to test Neil Lane in our Zale stores.

We're not fully rolling it out now, because we've still got to make sure there is no major cannibalization going on.

But to your point, efforts like Ever Us is just critical to the success of our cross-selling.

It just reinforces the importance of making sure that we have the opportunity to show somebody that.

Because there are products in our industry that are just in every brand everywhere -- solitaire rings or solitaire pendants.

And we believe there are certain brands that we can develop and certain designs and trends we can develop, like Ever Us, that will be able to be sold in all of our brands.

And that's critical to the importance of our business.

We've continued -- we continue to test, Dorothy.

We'll be continuing looking and testing all of our different opportunities for cross-selling.

But those are some of the major, major lifts.

As far as the new stores go, our Kay stores, our Kay off-mall stores, our Kay stores continue to do very well.

Our Jared new sales continue to perform well.

We're just now ramping up -- you will see a ramp-up; we're opening about -- projecting to open about 30 new Zale stores this year, and we're feeling pretty good about opening the Zale stores.

We'll see; we didn't open up many last year, but we'll see how they do.

So this year is a good year for us.

We're opening up a lot of Kay off-mall stores which, as Michele said, it gives us our highest return and we see great consistency in the performance.

So Kay off-mall continues to do well and Jared continues to do well; and we're just getting into the Zales and Piercing Pagoda.

We're very excited about the opportunities of new Piercing Pagoda stores, and our new store design behind the Piercing Pagoda brand.

Thank you and good luck.

Brian Tunick, Royal Bank.

Thanks; good morning and, again, thanks for the clarity.

I guess, following up on the credit book again, the question of should you guys own it, should you guys sell it.

Can you maybe talk about -- is that an ongoing conversation?

I'm sure the last five or six months you probably had that conversation more.

But can you maybe talk about the pros and cons of owning the credit book, when you look at customer-centric companies like Nordstrom that has sold theirs?

Can you maybe talk about how you think about that?

Then also on the composition of the comp, the negative transactions: Can you maybe parse out are you seeing any difference in mall versus outlet or strip centers?

Just what's happening within the transaction component?

Thanks very much.

Sure, Brian.

First of all I can't speak to Nordstrom in terms of why they made the decision to do what they did with their credit portfolio.

I can only speak to Signet's in-house credit, which we really do view as competitive advantages for all the reasons that I have covered: how much it really complements our Best in Bridal strategy.

When you look at the scale that we have and the rich history that we have in terms of our borrowers, we believe that it still makes good sense for us it.

It still remains highly profitable for us.

And as we said, we have managed this portfolio in all types of environments.

But with that said -- and it is no different than any other aspect of our business or any -- it's no different than what we have done in the past: We're always continuing to evaluate ways that we enhance our operating income, shareholder value.

So that's where I would leave that discussion in terms of the in-house credit performance.

In terms of your question on the transaction, I mean that's something we're just not going to go down into the details in terms of how those transactions were off-mall, in-mall.

I would leave it at that.

Lindsay Drucker Mann, Goldman Sachs.

Thanks; good morning, guys.

I wanted to just ask -- you touched on a lot of this, but just to get a better perspective on -- in 3Q we saw the net profitability of your credit book weaken year-over-year; and in 4Q it improved.

What exactly happened between 3Q and 4Q that drove that sequential improvement?

Sure.

When we backed up and we had mentioned in Q3 a lot of that was magnified by the size of the quarter.

But with that said, we did see and experience higher bad debt expense.

A component of that was driven by the credit receivable mix.

When we moved to fourth quarter and as we had expected to see improvement in our credit metrics, we did.

But it all didn't happen in Q4.

What we did is we started to pull in credit marketing initiatives in Q3, and really these initiatives were aimed at more of the higher or better quality credit customer, to favorably influence what our credit mix was.

Some of these types of initiatives were -- like in Jared you get a 10% off; it was hey, credit card re-activations reminder, you have open to buy with us, come in and make a purchase.

So a lot of those initiatives just combined with credit execution really drove the favorable results that we saw in Q4 as it related to the metrics.

As I mentioned, we continue to see the stability in our credit metrics and very confident in terms of our credit portfolio performance as we move into fiscal 2017.

I think you had also talked about better collection rates.

Can you touch on that process?

Yes.

In terms of the actual collection rate, the number I provided for the fiscal year in the prepared remarks is down over last year.

But what we have seen in the fourth quarter -- and it's not so much from a rate perspective, but there is always nuances in terms of the effectiveness of customer collection.

So that was just one element I would say in the fourth quarter that did help influence the credit metrics.

Okay.

Then just a quick follow-up.

Could you talk about what your average unit cost outlook is for -- or input cost for fiscal 2017?

Then I think you had also touched on the opportunity to take a bit of pricing selectively across your portfolio, how you're feeling about that.

Thanks.

Sure, sure.

Overall we mentioned that we do expect to have gross margin expansion.

So that would -- obviously encompasses our estimate or views in terms of input costs.

I think we know, and the one I would call out, on gold: gold has been increasing.

But what I would say is, remind everyone, with the average inventory cost method we're on we're not prone to sharp increases or decreases that flow through immediately in the P&L.

So I think we feel good in terms of where we sit on the gross margin.

Diamonds I think we're maybe flat, small increase from that point.

I don't know, Mark, if there is anything you want to add on the diamond side.

No, I think you're right.

I think the info right now in the polished diamond market is small single-digit increases, potentially flattish.

It depends on what the marketplace looks like going into the future.

Yes, and that's an area where in the past we have been successful on the heels of commodity cost increases, pricing that negates any margin impact we would see.

Of which everything is built into our guidance.

Absolutely.

And opportunity for price increases this year?

There's potentially opportunity for price increases, which is -- everything is built into our annual guidance.

But yes, there is opportunity for price increases.

Okay; thanks, guys.

We have no further questions at this time.

I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Light.

With that, I was going to say thank you to all of you for taking part in this call.

Our next scheduled call is on May 26, where we will review our first-quarter earnings results.

Thanks again and goodbye.

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call.

You may now disconnect.