Vera Bradley Inc (VRA) 2020 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you for standing by.

Welcome to the Vera Bradley Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year-End Earnings Conference Call.

(Operator Instructions)

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

I would now like to turn the conference over to Mark Dely, Vera Bradley's Chief Administrative Officer.

Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning.

And welcome, everyone.

We'd like to thank you for joining us for Vera Bradley's earnings call today.

Some of the statements made during our prepared remarks and in response to your questions, may constitute forward-looking statements made pursuant to and within the meaning of the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended.

Such forward-looking statements are subject to both known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those that we expect.

Please refer to today's press release and the company's most recent Form 10-K filed with the SEC for a discussion of known risks and uncertainties.

Investors should not assume that the statements made during the call will remain operative at a later time.

We undertake no obligation to update any information discussed on the call.

I will now turn it over to Vera Bradley's CEO, Rob Wallstrom.

Rob?

Thank you, Mark.

Good morning, everyone.

And thank you for joining us on today's call.

John Enwright, our CFO, also joins me today.

Consolidated revenue and SG&A performance were in line with our guidance for the fourth quarter and the fiscal year, although the gross margin rate fell below our expectations.

Our promotional cadence was in line with last year.

But our customers focus their spend during promotional and clearance periods, which resulted in reduced gross margin across both brands.

In addition, shipping costs were higher than expected.

As a result, our fourth quarter and annual consolidated non-GAAP diluted EPS fell below our guidance.

Although fourth quarter earnings were not as strong as we would have liked, we made significant progress during the year on our path to building a strong foundation for future growth and improve shareholder return.

Over 2 years ago, we embarked on Vision 20/20, our aggressive 3-year plan to restore the Vera Bradley brand and business to a healthy foundation and to return our company to solid growth.

2 years into our plan, we have made meaningful headway, strengthening the Vera Bradley business and acquiring Pura Vida.

We were able to generate a 39% non-GAAP EPS improvement on a 19% growth in revenues for the year.

In fiscal 2019, the first stage of 20/20 was to restore brand and company health.

We reduced clearance revenues and restored full price selling, delivered SG&A and cost of goods reductions, maximize retention of the company's customer base and generated cash from operations.

We continue to build on that progress in fiscal 2020 by once again, improving the quality of sales at our full-line stores and on verabradley.com, through increased comparable full price selling in these 2 channels of approximately 3%, which is on top of the 20% increase in the prior year.

As we completed year 2 of our 3-year journey in fiscal 2020, our commitment to growing our customer base, sales and profitability paid off.

And as a reminder, our 3 key areas of focus for fiscal 2020 were: Number one, growth.

Our main objective was to return to positive comparable sales growth this year, and we generated comp growth of 3.4% at Vera Bradley despite the challenging handbag and accessories environment.

This improvement was driven by innovative products and supported by data-driven marketing and a constant focus on customer engagement and the consumer experience.

The addition of Pura Vida to Vera Bradley Inc.

portfolio was an important element of our fiscal 2020 growth.

Pura Vida is a great strategic fit, and has bolstered our position as a unique lifestyle company.

And number two, operational excellence.

We mitigated the impact of increased tariffs through rapid re-platforming and diversification of our sourcing countries, moving to approximately 25% of our production in China from approximately 54% in 2019 and 70% in fiscal 2018.

Midyear, we also began a 2-year process of re-platforming our ERP and other key information systems to become more streamlined, nimble and efficient in our technology platform and business processes.

And number three, ownership.

We continually reinforced our unique culture as an ownership-based model.

Every associate has the ability to drive significant value creation through both individual and team efforts.

Our 2019 associate engagement survey once again generated best-in-class engagement scores and our fiscal 2020 customer satisfaction score of 88 and our NPS score of 76 were also best-in-class.

Let me talk about some of our other specific fiscal 2020 accomplishments.

For Vera Bradley, in the product area, we continued to build dominance in our key franchise areas of youth campus, travel and every day as well as our top 10 items.

We developed a pipeline for innovative fabrications to drive customer engagement and modernization of the brand.

We launched our first in a series of performance fabrics, call Performance Twill, which is lightweight, durable and water repellent.

Customers love it, and it is especially appealing to 25 to 40-year olds, urban customers and higher income customers.

We also introduced our environmentally friendly Re-Active collection, made of fabric from recycled plastic bags.

In fact, nearly 4 million bottles will be recycled this year for the Re-Active fabric.

Re-Active is generating strong customer engagement and media coverage.

We also drove silhouette innovation.

We introduced the sling, along with our Lay Flat collection, versatile travel pieces that unzip on 3 sides for easy accessibility.

The Accessories Council selected Vera Bradley's Lay Flat Duffel as a winner for its Design Excellence Awards in the Travel/Luggage category.

We successfully introduced collaborations with several iconic brands, including Starbucks, Crocs, Disney and Gillette Venus to create and sell limited edition product collections.

The Vera Bradley + Venus razor collaboration was recognized in People Magazine's Best New Beauty Products of 2019 Awards.

We announced another exciting collaboration with Warner Bros.

Consumer Products to create a Vera Bradley + Harry Potter back-to-campus and dorm line, which will launch in summer of 2020.

These collaborations increase our brand visibility among new customer groups and provide momentum for growth.

We expanded our customization program where customers can design their own bag by mixing patterns and solids along with creating embroidered personalization, both inside and out.

On the Vera Bradley distribution front, we continue to rationalize and strengthen our store base.

We opened 6 new factory stores, relocated and expanded 3 of our top factory stores and closed 11 underperforming full-line stores, ending the fiscal year with 88 full-line stores and 63 factory locations.

Our customer service model and newly-implemented Voice of Customer initiative continued to drive industry-leading customer satisfaction scores.

Our annual outlet sale gathered nearly 43,000 brand loyalists and generated sales of over $6 million during the 5-day event, highlighting our strong customer community.

Our Online Outlet flash sales allowed us to sell merchandise in a more discrete manner, removing over $48 million of clearance activity from our full-line stores in vb.com over the last 2 years.

In the marketing area at Vera Bradley, we completed the insourcing of our customer data science team, added to our business analytics group and completed the rollout of our new customer data platform.

The insights gained from our robust data now allow us to adjust our marketing mix and approach on a real-time basis.

Consequently, we experienced a year-over-year increase in new customers of over 10%.

Our Digital First strategy focused on targeted digital efforts, increased brand awareness with total impressions up more than 170% to over $5 billion for the year.

We increased brand collaborations and influencer engagement show the strength and relevance of our brand and generated tremendous media buzz.

Our influencer programs won several industry awards.

Vera Bradley won the 2019 Outlet Retail Chain Best Marketing Program Award at the International Council of Shopping Center Deal Making Conference.

Vera Bradley was among 84 outlet chains nominated for this prestigious industry award.

Under the umbrella of VB Cares, we reinforced our position as a total stakeholder-focused and socially-conscious organization, and continued to strengthen our community support and charitable initiatives that are meaningful to our customers and that make a significant impact on those in need, particularly women and children.

Efforts, including supporting New Hope Girls, our national Blessings in a Backpack program and raising $2.1 million for the Vera Bradley Foundation for Breast Cancer.

We are proud to have supported nearly 30 different charitable organizations in fiscal 2020.

At Pura Vida, Pura Vida had a terrific revenue year with sales up more than 50% over the prior year.

The team continued to experiment with and introduce new designs and signature cord bracelets and jewelry as well as introducing new trends, including the mood ring and bracelet, enameled daisy collection and semi-precious stone charms and stone hoops.

Charity bracelets continued to be a big draw with Pura Vida reaching over $2 million in lifetime charitable contributions.

Pura Vida social media engagement is strong.

They are one of the most highly engaged brands in the accessory space, surpassing the 1.9 million mark of followers on Instagram, and consistently listed as one of the most, if not the most, engaged jewelry brands on Instagram.

Instagram followers, Facebook likes and monthly club subscribers all rose during the year.

Pura Vida continued to rank at the top of the industry for their net promoter and customer satisfaction scores.

Looking ahead, Vision 20/20, year 3. Last year was an important year filled with both successes and challenges.

In the end, we improved our financial results, strengthened our customer engagement, enhanced our culture and established a growth plan for the future.

Fiscal 2021 promises to be an exciting but challenging year as we complete our 3-year journey.

Our goal is to build upon the progress of the last 2 years.

And as a company, we will focus on 2 key areas: robust growth and sustainable health.

I will talk more in a few minutes about our initiatives for fiscal 2021.

However, the uncertainties in the global environment, particularly surrounding coronavirus and its potential supply chain and revenue implications, make our fiscal 2021 financial performance difficult to predict.

And as a result, we are only providing guidance for the full year, which does not reflect any future ramifications from COVID-19.

We will not be providing quarterly guidance until we have more clarity on the situation.

We do not believe this will affect our long-term strategy and initiatives.

Now let me turn the call over to John to review the financial results and outlook.

Thanks, Rob, and good morning.

As a reminder, financial results have been consolidated to include Pura Vida beginning July 17, 2019, the first full day following the acquisition.

Prior period numbers have not been restated.

The current year non-GAAP fourth quarter and fiscal year income statement numbers referenced below exclude the previously disclosed Pura Vida, IT and other net charges outlined in today's release.

Fourth quarter consolidated net revenues totaled $156.9 million, within our $155 million to $162 million guidance range.

Excluding Pura Vida, Vera Bradley net revenues totaled $121.4 million, a 2.7% increase over $118.2 million in the prior year fourth quarter.

Excluding net charges, consolidated fourth quarter of Vera Bradley Inc.

net income totaled $14.3 million or $0.42 per diluted share, an increase of more than 60% from last year's net income of $8.6 million or $0.25 per share.

The current year number included $0.08 attributable to Pura Vida.

As Rob noted, our fourth quarter results fell below our guidance of $0.49 to $0.53.

Current year fourth quarter Vera Bradley direct segment revenues totaled $103.6 million, a 5.7% increase over $98 million last year.

Comparable sales increased 2.4% for the quarter.

Vera Bradley Indirect segment revenues totaled $17.8 million, an 11.6% decrease from $20.2 million in the prior year fourth quarter.

The decline was primarily related to a reduction in orders and in a number of department store accounts.

Pura Vida segment revenues totaled $35.5 million.

On a non-GAAP basis, excluding the Pura Vida inventory step-up amortization, gross margin totaled $87.2 million or 55.6% of net revenue compared to $67.1 million or 56.8% of net revenues in the prior year fourth quarter.

Pura Vida had no impact on the current year fourth quarter non-GAAP gross margin.

The non-GAAP gross margin was below our guidance range of 57.5% to 57.8%, primarily due to higher customer spending during promotional and clearance periods and incremental shipping costs.

On a non-GAAP basis, excluding net charges, consolidated SG&A expense totaled $67.2 million or 42.8% of net revenues for the quarter compared to $55.6 million or 47.1% of net revenues in the prior year fourth quarter.

These non-GAAP expenses were within the guidance range of $66 million to $67.5 million.

Pura Vida added $14.3 million of SG&A expenses, which excludes the aforementioned intangible asset amortization.

Total SG&A expenses were higher than the prior year, primarily due to these Pura Vida expenses.

On a non-GAAP basis, excluding net charges, fourth quarter consolidated operating income totaled $20.1 million or 12.8% of net revenues compared to $11.7 million or 9.9% of net revenues in the prior year fourth quarter.

Consolidated net revenues totaled $495.2 million for the current fiscal year.

Excluding Pura Vida, Vera Bradley net revenues totaled $429.3 million, a 3.2% increase from $416.1 million in the prior year.

Excluding net charges, Vera Bradley Inc.

consolidated net income for the fiscal year totaled $28.2 million or $0.82 per diluted share.

This performance included $0.16 attributable to Pura Vida.

We posted net income of $20.8 million or $0.59 per diluted share in the prior year.

Vera Bradley Direct segment revenues for current fiscal year totaled $347.5 million, a 5.9% increase from $328 million in the prior year.

Comparable sales increased 3.4% for the year.

Full price selling in the company's full-line stores and on verabradley.com, increased by approximately 3% for the year.

The Vera Bradley Indirect segment revenues for the fiscal year totaled $81.8 million, a 7.1% decrease from $88.1 million in the prior year, reflecting a reduction in orders and in a number of department store accounts.

Pura Vida segment revenues totaled $65.9 million for the partial year.

Excluding inventory step-up amortization, non-GAAP gross margin for the fiscal year totaled $280.1 million or 56.6% of net revenues compared to $238.6 million or 57.3% of net revenues in the prior year.

The inclusion of Pura Vida benefited the current year non-GAAP gross margin by approximately 40 basis points.

The non-GAAP gross margin was below our guidance range of 57.3% to 57.4% due to higher customer spending during promotional and clearance periods and incremental shipping costs.

On a non-GAAP basis, excluding net charges, SG&A expense totaled $242.4 million or 49% of net revenues in the current year compared to $212 million or 50.9% of net revenues in the prior year.

These non-GAAP expenses were within the guidance range of $241 million to $243 million.

Pura Vida added $28.2 million of SG&A expenses, which excludes the aforementioned intangible asset amortization.

Total SG&A expenses were higher than the prior year, primarily due to these Pura Vida expenses.

Excluding net charges, current year consolidated operating income was $38.8 million or 7.8% of net revenues compared to $27.1 million or 6.5% of net revenues in the prior year.

Operating cash flow totaled $20.6 million for the fiscal year.

Now let me turn to the balance sheet.

Net capital spending for the fiscal year totaled $13.3 million, in line with our expectations.

During the fourth quarter, we repurchased approximately $2.3 million of common stock.

At fiscal year-end, we had approximately $35.8 million remaining under our $50 million share repurchase authorization.

Cash, cash equivalents and investments at fiscal year-end totaled $73.8 million compared to $156.6 million last year.

The reduction from the prior year primarily relates to the Pura Vida acquisition.

We continue to have no outstanding debt.

Total fiscal year-end inventory was $123.6 million, which includes $17.1 million of inventory related to Pura Vida.

Inventory was $91.6 million at last fiscal year-end.

Inventory was -- level was modestly lower than our guidance range of $125 million to $135 million.

Now let me take a couple of minutes to review our outlook for fiscal 2021.

As Rob noted, based on the uncertain environment, we are not providing first quarter guidance, only annual guidance.

Our annual guidance does not include any impact from coronavirus.

All forward-looking guidance numbers that I will discuss are non-GAAP and include expected Pura Vida performance.

Prior year numbers include Pura Vida after July 16, 2019, acquisition date.

The prior year gross margin, SG&A and earnings per diluted share numbers exclude the previously disclosed net charges.

Current year guidance excludes any similar charges.

For full year, we expect net sales of $555 million to $585 million.

This includes estimated Pura Vida revenues of $125 million to $135 million for the full year compared to $65.9 million of partial year revenues last year.

Net revenues totaled $495.2 million from last year.

Our full year revenue guidance assumes Vera Bradley Direct segment net sales will increase in the low to mid-single-digit range compared with the prior year.

Total comparable sales, which will include Pura Vida direct-to-consumer results in the back half of the year are expected to be flat to mid-single-digit increase.

We expect the Vera Bradley Indirect net sales will be down in the mid-single-digit range for the full year.

We expect our consolidated gross margin for fiscal 2021 will be 56.7% to 56.9% compared with 56.6% last year.

The rate increase will be driven by sourcing and operational efficiencies as well as the inclusion of Pura Vida.

We expect SG&A expense to total between $269 million and $280 million for the year compared to $242.4 million last year.

This estimate includes $52 million to $56 million of Pura Vida expenses for the full year compared to $28.2 million of SG&A expenses for the partial year last year.

We expect full year diluted EPS will range from $0.93 to $1.08.

This estimate includes $0.33 to $0.37 attributable to Pura Vida for the full year compared to last year's -- partially to Pura Vida EPS accretion of $0.16.

We expect capital expenditures will total between $8 million to $10 million compared to $13.3 million last year, reflecting investments in new factory stores and technology and logistics enhancements.

We expect to generate $60 million to $70 million of consolidated operating cash flow in fiscal 2021.

Rob?

Thanks, John.

Fiscal 2021 promises to be a challenging but exciting year as we complete the third and final phase of our Vision 20/20 journey.

We have a strong plan in place with a robust innovation pipeline across product, marketing and distribution.

On the other hand, there are some internal and external risks, most notably is COVID-19.

Nonetheless, we will focus on building upon the progress of the last 2 years.

For both Vera Bradley and Pura Vida, our fiscal 2021 strategic priorities will center around robust growth and sustainable health.

Let me start with Vera Bradley.

Vera Bradley's growth will be driven by continued product innovation as well as enhanced brand and customer engagement.

Our products will remain authentic and true to our brand, but innovation is becoming more and more critical to our product assortment.

We have developed an ongoing pipeline of fabric innovation to ensure marketing relevance by offering cotton updates and cotton alternatives both to retain existing customers and attract new customers to the brand.

We will continue to grow our newest offerings of Performance Twill and Re-Active, and we'll launch more fabric innovation over the next 12 to 24 months.

We will also continue to bring new styles and differentiated silhouettes to the market to meet all facets of our customers' lifestyles.

Our focus is on building dominance in our key franchise areas of youth campus, travel and every day.

The brand and customer engagement has several facets, including marketing initiatives, collaborations, VB Cares, ESG and store profitability.

In the marketing area, we will capitalize on and build upon the investments we made last year in data science, business analytics and customer data.

Additional engagement will be driven by more advanced use of customer data to further refine medium spend and mix on a real-time basis.

In addition, we will utilize more user-generated content, drive more engagement on social media, extend our brand ambassador program, strengthen our customer journey-centered activations, improved storytelling and amplify our VB Cares messaging.

Our customer segmentation work will fine-tune our product development and go-to-market strategies.

We will also allocate funding to expand customer acquisition efforts to underrepresented customer groups.

We are continuing with our collaborations and strategic alliances that excite and engage existing and new customers.

Expand our brand reach, increase brand awareness, generate media buzz and provide opportunities for Vera Bradley to strategically test and ultimately, enter new product categories.

These partnerships are truly a testament to the strength and wide appeal of our brand.

This year, we will enter into another year of high-profile product collaborations with brands like Gillette Venus, Disney and Crocs.

We are working with several other iconic internationally-known brands and exciting future product collaborations.

Most notably, we are thrilled about our 2020 collaboration with Warner Bros.

Consumer Products to create a Vera Bradley + Harry Potter back-to-campus and dorm line at a Vera Bradley + Harry Potter cozy capsule for holiday gifting.

This collaboration will not only appeal to our Vera Bradley fans, but will also attract new customers to the Vera Bradley brand.

Under the umbrella of VB Cares, we are strengthening our sustainable, purpose-driven company that delivers meaningful social impact and value for all stakeholders, our associates, our customers, our shareholders and our communities.

Although our company has been purpose-driven throughout our history, we are enhancing that focus and increasing the visibility to our activities in this area.

This spring, we will be publishing our comprehensive ESG report with our proxy and posting it to our website, which will outline our accomplishments and initiatives in detail.

We will continue to strengthen our community support and charitable initiatives, identifying areas where we can make a real impact, particularly for women and children.

We want to create positive change and often invite our customers to participate with calls to action.

Just last week, we announced our second annual collaboration with New Hope Girls, a nonprofit organization that provides jobs for vulnerable women and refuge, and education for girls in the Dominican Republic.

The limited edition mini collection features a tote, hobo bag and travel pouch that was designed and sewn by women -- by Dominican Republic artists.

Like last year, the collection launched on March 8 in celebration of international Women's Day and generated enormous media attention.

We couldn't be happier to continue our support of New Hope Girls and bring awareness to their organization with this collection.

In April, we will proudly support autism speaks with a custom plush throw blanket in honor of Autism Awareness Month.

We are looking forward to our third annual back-to-school partnership with Blessings in a Backpack, an organization that mobilizes communities, individuals and resources to provide food for the millions of elementary school children across America who might otherwise go hungry.

And of course, activities supporting the Vera Bradley Foundation for Breast Cancer go on all year.

Our annual Vera Bradley Foundation for Breast Cancer Classic in June, the largest women's amateur golfing event in the country, typically raises over $1 million for breast cancer research.

On the store front, we will focus on strengthening performance in our stores and particularly on restoring our full-line channel to health.

We are improving the profitability of our full-line store portfolio by rebalancing our existing fleet through select closures along with identifying future market opportunities.

We know that improving the top and bottom line performance, the full-line channel will improve the long-term sustainability of the brand portfolio.

We will continue to focus on our highest potential stores, enhancing the customer experience and further localizing our assortments.

We will continue to develop and test new formats.

We expect to close approximately 12 additional full-line stores during the year, which would bring our total full-line closings to 38 since the beginning of fiscal 2018.

This year, we will continue to maximize our factory performance by adding 6 new locations and expanding 1 additional high-performance store in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

We will continue to sustain and strengthen our health through operational excellence and by enhancing our already strong and unique culture.

We are in the midst of implementing project [NOVUS], our new technology platform that will be flexible, streamlined and efficient.

The project should be complete by the end of fiscal 2021 or early in fiscal 2022, and will not only lessen the complexity of our IT systems, but will also reduce ongoing expenses and enable the company to achieve our future objectives, both in the short and long term.

At the same time, we are in the process of enhancing our go-to-market discipline, evaluating the opportunities for efficiency improvements and reduction in time line in calendar.

We are continuing to decrease our reliance on China, with our production in China expected to drop to less than 20% this year.

Our culture is being enhanced by our ownership-based model, which gives every associate the framework to drive significant value creation through their individual and team efforts.

Overall, we are moving to a more innovative, agile, data-obsessed and customer-centric organization.

Now let's talk about Pura Vida's robust growth and sustainable health.

We remain really excited about the future of the Pura Vida business.

It continues to be a rapidly growing brand, driven by expansion of its distribution strategy and product innovation combined with a market-leading customer engagement and marketing program.

Pura Vida continues to experiment with and introduce new designs in their signature core bracelets and jewelry.

And play upon the successes of last year's launches, like the mood ring and bracelet and semi-precious stone charms and jewelry.

Pura Vida's signature cherry bracelets continue to be a big draw.

This year, we will launch charm bracelets to tie back to specific charities, which we believe will be very popular with Pura Vida's cause-minding customers.

This will also enable us to increase price points as well as increase total donations.

Pura Vida will continue to innovate and grow in a signature area of the business.

New product categories for fiscal 2021, including engravables, leaning into the personalization trend, hair accessories, jewelry for the hair and fashion bags, which are distinctly differed to Vera Bradley bags.

Pura Vida will also open its first lab store in San Diego by fall of this year.

This will allow us to showcase existing products as well as new product innovations and to get direct customer feedback.

The store will also create Instagramable moments and host influencer events.

We will evaluate the store's performance for possible future expansion.

On the marketing front, Pura Vida social media engagement is strong, an army of 100,000-plus micro influencers have been onboarded.

And this is a key part of our strategy.

In fiscal 2021, we will continue to build upon this very impactful influencer program, particularly focusing on those with the greatest number of followers.

Co founders, Griffin Thall and Paul Goodman will also invigorate their grassroots, customer outreach events, focusing on their popular meet up events in college tours.

To ensure sustainable health, Pura Vida will focus on profit management, primarily on optimizing marketing spend and generating solid gross margin performance.

We will build scale in the cord bracelet business, carefully review product pricing and introduce new product categories with the potential for higher margins.

On the distribution front, we will target some larger accounts and those that will build the Pura Vida brand.

And as Pura Vida grows, we want to continue to build and retain the talented organization that will drive the ongoing expansion.

In closing, I am so proud of each of our associates throughout the company in both brands.

Their talent, teamwork, tenacity and their accomplishments thus far over the course of Vision 20/20.

We have restored the company to a healthy foundation, returned to revenue and EPS growth and further strengthened our special culture.

We still have significant work ahead, but we are looking forward to completing our Vision 20/20 journey in continuing our momentum into the future.

Operator, we will now open up the call to questions.

(Operator Instructions)

We'll now take our first question from Oliver Chen from Cowen.

The Indirect and Pura Vida revenues were a little bit softer than we had modeled.

I would love your thoughts on how those are trending relative to your expectations and visibility?

And what happened during the quarter?

Also, regarding the gross margin, just would love you to elaborate on shipping costs as well as the promotional response and why?

Yes.

So a couple of things.

I think, one, in terms of Pura Vida, as we were going through the quarter, the business was exceptionally strong through the Black Friday period, so much so that we had shortened the promotional cadence that we had planned, and then actually shortened that promotion.

But as we saw the consumer in December and January, we had some outages in terms of inventory that impacted our availability and impacted our sales volume at the back half of the quarter.

And then there was just some timing and shipments in wholesale.

But overall, we still feel good with the Pura Vida growth rate as we go forward.

In terms of Indirect, we continue to see some pressure in the Indirect space as department stores continue to get tighter, tighter on inventory levels.

It was a shortened holiday period.

So there was a little bit more pressure in the Indirect channel than we had anticipated.

It is worth forecasting, in this year, we still expect some small contraction in the Indirect channel.

On the gross margin line, there were really 2 primary factors.

One, we just saw a lot of customer spend really concentrated on 2 key periods.

One was around the Black Friday time frame, which performed very strong across both brands.

And then very strong in kind of the -- around Christmas period going into January with the real outperformance after Christmas.

So we just have the customer gravitate towards those periods of spend, which happen to be more promotional in nature.

Our promotional cadence overall was very similar to last year, but where the customer chose to spend was a little distorted.

So that was about half of the gross margin challenge.

The other half of it was just due to shipping costs.

And as shipping costs were going up, that was the other half of the gross margin pressure.

Yes.

I'd just add a little bit on the shipping costs.

When you look at both brands, missed a little bit on shipping costs.

And I would say from a Pura Vida perspective, being a little bit more newer to the business, we use our third quarter estimate to estimate fourth quarter and obviously, it distorted a little bit more to -- more expensive.

And then for Vera Bradley, at the end of the day, we estimated based on how we had been trending, and it was just slightly more impactful than we had thought, the increases.

But as we think about next year, we've built those increases into our expectation for gross margin.

And coronavirus is something we're all monitoring on a hourly basis.

What are your thoughts on what you're seeing with the consumer?

And how this may or may not manifest and traffic trends that are -- to a large degree, out of your control?

Another concern we have is thinking about the consumer and the possible recession.

And how your business will -- may fare?

And what kind of strategies you may have within your control, as you look at various scenarios?

Yes.

Thanks, Oliver.

Yes, the coronavirus, obviously, is the big unknown this year.

I think at first as it started to break in China and supply chain, the team reacted very quickly.

And just like last year with the China tariffs, I think the team did really well in navigating the supply chain challenges.

And we've been able to mitigate the vast majority of it so far.

And hopefully, as we're seeing China stabilize, that the supply chain sign will not be a big problem, but we're obviously continuing to watch that, particularly as it relates to logistics and logistics timing because the lack of supply kind of going through the logistics supply chain is disrupting a little bit of that flow, but we think we can manage through that.

The real big question is what happens with U.S. consumer demand?

And with travel, spring breaks come up and all the travel activity, we're just not quite sure how the consumer is going to be responding.

And that's why, to have clarity, we're not totally clear on the impact, but we're watching it.

We have seen some impact to our travel businesses already.

In terms of our Beach categories, which is really purely spring break oriented.

We have seen some early softness in those businesses.

But we will see as consumers make their spring break decisions, will they travel, will they stay home, will they shop locally, we don't know yet.

So we are seeing some traffic, particularly over the last couple of days.

So some impact to the traffic, kind of in line with what I've seen on market -- on numbers out there.

But we're just watching this close.

If we get into, as you mentioned, a more recessionary environment, we've had a history of our brand being able to navigate that fairly well due to our price point.

We've been one of the brands in the past we've seen people trade down into.

So we would hope that we would repeat that type of performance.

But obviously, it's something that we're watching very closely.

The team's focused on, and we're making decisions daily based upon the information that we're given.

From the outlet channel as well as the interplay between digital relative to physical traffic at large, what's your hypothesis for what may happen with customer behavior in the coronavirus?

Well, we do expect to see more of the impact on our physical channels than our digital channel.

So I think that's, again, a lot of what we've heard out in the market and generally what we're seeing.

But again, we're just -- it's going to be time to see how the consumer really responds.

Is it merely a shift?

Or does the consumer just take a more cautious approach to spending in the short term?

I think that we just have to watch how this develops over the next few months.

We will now take our next question from Mark Altschwager from Baird.

Just to start out on the Vera Bradley comp in Q4.

Can you speak to traffic versus AUR in your various channels?

And then along those lines, looking at fiscal 2020 in aggregate, the positive 3.4% comp at Vera Bradley.

Can you speak to how much of that was driven by some of the tactical price increases that you took off of tariffs last year?

Sure.

This is John, Mark.

From a traffic perspective, in the fourth quarter, traffic was relatively flat within our store network.

So ultimately, we saw some increases to AUR that drove the performance.

And as you think about from a full year perspective, our total comp performance, I would say, a good portion of that was driven by our price increase.

Ultimately, we took close to a low single-digit price increase between both channels and that likely drove a proportion of the increase.

We also saw some improvement in customer count.

And so in our overall business as well as online, and we saw some increased ADS on our online business.

Yes, we do think, as you go into this year and you look at our projected comp performance for the Vera Bradley business, there's really a couple of big drivers in that.

One is this customer growth that we've seen this year.

We're getting double-digit customer growth this year.

It gives us a much larger customer file going into next year.

And as we continue to work through the best way of stimulating that customer, that gives us an opportunity as well as just our innovation, our innovation, specifically around product, our innovation around marketing.

And those are really the key drivers as we look to this next year.

That's really helpful.

And maybe just following up there.

Bigger picture on the fiscal 2021 guidance.

If I'm doing the math correctly, it appears to imply operating income ex Pura Vida, that's down slightly year-over-year.

I guess, one, am I looking at that correctly?

And if I am, just maybe help me reconcile that outlook with the commentary of focusing on robust growth, sustainable health and some of the other innovative things that you were just speaking to.

Because I think you -- I mean, understanding there's a lot of uncertainty today, but I think you said COVID-19 is not included in that outlook.

No.

So COVID-19 is not included in that -- the outlook.

The only thing that's included in the outlook is really performance from February.

So if we look at just the Vera Bradley brand, we don't expect Vera Bradley brand from an operating income perspective to be lower than last year.

That might not -- there'll be probably a low single-digit increase from operating profit, but ultimately, we don't expect a decline.

We will now take our next question from Eric Beder from SCC Research.

Can you talk a little bit about -- so you've rolled out in the last -- basically 6 months, you've rolled out Performance Twill and react -- and Re-Active.

How are you seeing is that in terms of changing your customer base and becoming and broadening the customer base a little bit?

Yes.

Eric, a great question.

One thing we definitely are seeing with Performance Twill is really a strengthening of kind of that 25- to 40-year-old customer base, which has been really encouraging to see a little bit more strength in our urban areas.

An area that has not been as strong historically for us.

So those are some great early signs.

We're also getting good feedback from partners that has attracted a new customer into their store.

And with Re-Active, a little bit similar, it's not the same type of attraction to different customers, but the customer who's very environmentally focused.

It's been very excited and reacted very positively to the Re-Active collection.

And we think that long term, that's really an important platform as well as just an important beginning for us as we move more and more of our product to environmental friendly type of design, which will happen over the next few years.

We feel we'll just continue to be able to attract, not only a young customer who's very focused on it, but we're also finding that, that younger customer, we'll call it, that 20-year old customer, is also influencing her Mom.

So we're not only seeing attraction in a young, environmentally-focused customer.

But we're also seeing it in kind of that 40- to 50-year-old customer also is reacting very positively.

So we're having kind of a benefit on both sides.

Are you seeing the same impact with some of your hands-free designs like the sling in the same way that is a younger customer initially and then it is driving customers, older customers to it?

Yes, absolutely.

We are seeing that through the silhouette design also.

And what we found has been great about the sling introduction is that it's really -- also become an incremental purchase, right?

It's a different function.

It's something very different in the line, and it's driving incremental purchasing.

And as we go forward, and we'll continue to look for what are those opportunities in the assortment that we're not meeting until those that.

The flash sales, what has been the response to that?

And is that something that makes a ton of sense for you strategically?

Is that something you're going to continue to expand?

How should we think about the flash sales in terms of clearing out product?

Yes.

The online outlet sales, what we really are trying to do there is just -- we do not see that as a major growth engine for us by any means.

We see it as a liquidation channel.

The number one purpose of the online outlet is to keep our other channels, more pure and clean and focused on full-price business.

And it allows us to clear inventory more discretely.

But we do not see that as a growth driver as we go forward.

We just see it as an important liquidation channel.

(Operator Instructions)

Now we'll take the next from Dana Telsey from Telsey Advisory Group.

As you think about the components of gross margin, merchandise margin, how can you unpack them a little bit for Q4?

And what you're thinking about for 2020?

And then on the Direct (sic) [Indirect] business, which has been a bit more challenging, how do you think of the long-term game plan for the Indirect business?

Yes.

So I'll talk about the margins for Q4 and for full year for next year.

So we saw, in the quarter, based on how our consumers shop, that we saw merchandise margins down year-over-year, given the fact that they were more centered around more promotional and clearance periods.

So at the end of the day, we saw merchandise margins down, and we also saw some -- obviously, our shipping costs will brought it back down.

So you can think about the miss year-over-year and the miss to guidance be -- it was basically being about 50% based on merchandise margins and 50% being on shipping costs.

As we think about next year, at this point, we're not seeing -- we're not expecting to see any significant change in our promotional cadence.

Obviously, depending on how coronavirus plays out, that could change.

But at this point, we're not expecting to see any differences there.

So our merchandise margins, we would expect to be able to be maintained where we saw compared to fiscal 2020.

And then in terms of Indirect.

Indirect is a couple of things.

I think, first of all, we're really focusing in on our strong partners, and how to distort our business and grow our business with our strong partners.

We're seeing that across various elements of the business.

But there's been partners like Amazon who has been a big growth partner for us.

We know that we need to begin to re-platform Indirect and find partners that are more at a growth mode as opposed to on a consolidation mode, and we're in the process of doing that right now.

But we think, definitely next year, we still see some contraction in the Indirect channel.

But we will continue to focus on new points of distribution.

Got it.

And then when you think about supply chain, given what's happened with the disruption in China, where are you on supply chain?

And I know you've been diversifying.

How would you sum it up in terms of opportunities for supply chain this year and the status?

Yes.

From a supply chain perspective, what we believe we'll -- from a finished goods production, we'll be below 20% from outside of China.

And I think everyone -- we should remind everyone, ultimately, a significant portion of our raw materials still travels from China into the other countries, but we believe that we've probably diversified outside China as much as we're probably going to.

In the near term, we don't believe we can get that below 10%.

I would say, we've made significant progress over the last 3 years in using kind of our partners to move into countries where, ultimately, we have a lower cost from a total FOB because we're not paying duty in some of those countries.

So I don't see any significant changes outside of next year going from 25% to call it, between the high teens area for production inside of China.

I just think the only thing I would add is I think that the supply chain, the way that we're viewing the supply chain is that it's definitely continuing to morph and change and develop.

I think the flexibility is one of our strategic assets.

I think we have a talented team here and they're able to react quickly.

And we've seen them react quickly last year to the China tariffs.

We've seen them react quickly to the issues that we faced early in terms of -- with the coronavirus impact in China.

And the team is just continuing to stay nimble to reinvest in our most important partners, but continue to keep an eye on the global market and where are the opportunities to continue to maintain flexibility.

So it's definitely one of our strategic assets.

We will now take the next question from Rick Fearon from Assessive Capital Partners (sic) [Accretive Capital Partners]

Nice job navigating through things and assimilating the Pura Vida acquisition.

It does look like a wonderful contributor to the company.

And it certainly provides diversification with respect to what's going on here with the coronavirus.

I'm assuming that as part of your forecast, you're looking at the Pura Vida side of the business not having -- not being impacted too much by coronavirus.

Is that fair to say?

Yes.

We definitely believe that Pura Vida is less exposed to the impact to coronavirus as compared to the Vera Bradley brand, absolutely.

It does sound also like the forecast, including what -- I'm sure you've kind of modeled out as potential impact from coronavirus.

Nevertheless, you're forecasting a profitable year for Pura Vida -- I'm sorry, for Vera Bradley on its own?

Yes.

Yes.

We're -- so if we look at both brands independent, we are expecting both brands to deliver profitable earnings next year.

Yes.

Excluding the impact of coronavirus because, obviously, right now, the world is rapidly changing.

It's hard to get our hands around what that looks like.

Right.

And some of the potential impact of coronavirus, I'm assuming gets offset by what is a very nicely cash flowing business with Pura Vida, that shouldn't have a similar impact.

Is that fair to say?

Yes, absolutely.

And one of the things that we think really helps us through as the coronavirus environment gets more challenging, we do have a incredibly strong balance sheet, a very strong cash flow position and a lot of resources to get through it.

And as you said, Pura Vida is much less exposed.

It gives us some diversification to hedge against that.

So the -- those 2 assets really help us as we go through this period.

But we're really focused on the long-term execution of our strategy.

And we believe that the coronavirus impact is more of a short, mid-term as opposed to a long-term impact to the business.

Well, I couldn't agree more with you, Rob.

And in fact, I'm imagining the impact is going to be far or less than the dire predictions of some out there.

And your balance sheet, is the cash and cash equivalents and investments is -- did I read that right?

$75 million of cash with no debt?

Yes, at year-end, we were $73.8 million with no debt.

Okay.

So at $6 per share, right now, and the share -- the fully diluted share count, what is that, John?

It's, call, 33.5 million shares.

Okay.

So we're looking at sort of a total enterprise value of around $200 million and less the cash and equity value of about $125 million.

Is that -- do I have those numbers right?

Yes, I believe you do.

So the operating income was $19.5 million last year.

And did that -- was that after some of these bonuses and things that went towards Pura Vida?

And if you kind of -- once you have sort of adjust that for that, is there a number that -- it's somewhat higher than -- I mean, $19.5 million, it's very, very healthy operating income, but it seems like there's even some things that were backed out of that, that related to the Pura Vida acquisition.

Yes.

So ultimately, there are some non-GAAP adjustments.

So we -- it include some incentive comp associated with the Pura Vida acquisition as well as the amortization of some of the purchase accounting that ultimately are noncash events that -- on a go-forward basis that you can add into your model.

And what -- do you have a rough number on that John, that I can kind of look to?

For -- in regards to what?

Last year.

Last year's?

Just the noncash -- yes, last year's.

Just to get that $19.5 million of operating income sort of adjusted up to, but it would be prior to that noncash adjustment.

Yes.

So we took a non-GAAP charges of around $39 million.

Into our operating income.

Operating income, excluding the non-GAAP adjustments of $39 million.

So $39 million of operating income.

And then in addition to $39 million of operating income, is the depreciation, is that $18 million or $19 million -- $18.5 million.

Is that -- do I have that right?

Yes.

It sounds about right.

Ultimately, the depreciation, amortization would be -- it's going to be a little bit higher given kind of the onetime charges that we'll be amortizing out.

I mean, we can -- if you want to call after, we could go through a more detailed call, if you'd like to go through some of this off the call and I'd be happy to...

Yes, I appreciate that, John.

I'm just trying to get a back of the napkin.

I mean, it seems like the operating income and the depreciation together, you're talking about sort of an adjusted EBITDA around $50 million.

And a valuation that the market is ascribing to the business today of $125 million.

So like 2.5x cash flow.

I have -- in 20 years of investing and running Accretive Capital Partners and managing investments in small and micro-cap public companies, I have -- I'm not sure I've run across the business that's being this discounted by the market.

And it's -- I'm encouraged to see the retirement of shares that you've been buying back some shares, the treasury stock has increased.

And there's been, I guess, a 10b5-1 plan that is underway in terms of share buybacks?

Yes.

Well, it's just -- it's such an extraordinary opportunity for shareholders, it would be wonderful to see if the company could somehow capitalize on this opportunity where a market is valuing this business at a discount that's probably $60 million, $70 million maybe $100 million.

The discount to intrinsic value is truly extraordinary.

So a business like this, you can think of it as like an 8 to 10x cash flow multiple that the business ought to enjoy, like given that it's a -- that you're actually growing the business.

You've made a wonderful acquisition, that the margins are very healthy.

Everything is pointing towards a very profitable and positive future, a very short-term blip here, which seems to have created or exacerbated a true anomaly in terms of valuation of the stock.

And there are other ways of going out into the market and buying back stock more aggressively.

But I just can't imagine a better investment opportunity for the company than buying back its own stock with $75 million of cash and equivalents on the balance sheet and growing when the market cap itself is $125 million.

I mean, we, as a company, and I say we because Accretive Capital Partners is now a very substantial shareholder of the company.

There's really a -- just a terrific opportunity here that I think you've seen your stock, it's a very volatile stock.

You've seen it bounce around over the years.

But it's at an all-time low right now.

And it would just be terrific if the board and if management put some serious thought into a very aggressive stock repurchase plan, perhaps something like a tender offer for some stock, Dutch auction tender, modified Dutch auction tender, which allows you to go out and buy very large blocks without being constrained by the 10b5-1 and 10b-18 rules.

And I say this just as some food for thought.

And a real opportunity, which I think probably won't be here too long, but it's something that would really benefit shareholders.

So any way, you care on having any thoughts?

Or...

No, I appreciate your perspective.

And we definitely have those types of conversations with our Board all the time to talk about what would be the best utilization of cash.

And understanding that right now, we're at an all-time low from a stock perspective, we'll continue to have those conversations.

Well, I appreciate that.

And nice job, Rob, I mean, this is -- it's a really difficult retail environment at the mall level.

And the shift over to e-commerce is impressive that is underway here.

I know that there's a larger portion today than there was a year ago through the e-commerce channels.

And certainly the benefit of working with the Pura Vida folks who are very successful at e-commerce.

And utilizing some of those techniques at Vera Bradley is a real opportunity here, but you got a wonderful 30-plus year old brand, a really truly spectacular management team.

We really like what you're doing, you've been very prudent with our capital.

It's a nice, strong balance sheet.

And there's just such a nice opportunity here that we hope you will give us some serious thought in terms of going out in the press and re-buying back stock.

No, we definitely appreciate all your comments and your confidence.

And we definitely -- we'll consider everything that you've said today.

As there are no further questions, I'll turn the call back to Ron (sic) [Rob].

Thank you very much for joining us on today's call.

And thank you for following our journey and the progress we have made since we launched Vision 20/20 over 2 years ago.

We have an exciting future, and are ready to tackle the fiscal -- tackle fiscal 2021 and beyond.

We remain confident of our ability to deliver enterprise growth in revenue, profit and shareholder value in the years ahead.

Thank you for your time, and we hope you could join us for our first quarter call on June 3.

That will conclude today's call.

Thank you for your participation.

You may now disconnect.