Key questions and answers from the third quarter earnings call conducted by Dress Barn Inc. (DBRN: chart) on May 28, 2008.

Mark Montagna (C. L. King and Associates ): Where do you expect inventories to be by the end of the fourth quarter then?

Armand Correia: At this point, it is really very difficult to get any visibility. Given what we have just seen in May, with particularly Dress Barn stores, we would like to be down in the low single digits with Dress Barn stores, but again if we continue to see these types of drops, it’s going to make it very difficult.

Mark Montagna (C. L. King and Associates): Do you have a margin projection for the year end for the divisions?

Armand Correia: Maurices from the operating margin standpoint coming in the range of 12.0 to 12.4 as far as percent of sales. Dress Barn division, is just slightly below 4.5% of sales to slightly above 4.5% of sales.

Steve Kernkraut (Berman Capital): What drove performance at Maurices?

Lisa Rhodes: In addition to plus size, we have introduced approximately wear at work, which is a lifestyle concept that caters more to the working woman, bank teller, etc., and it really complements all her fashion needs for going to work, and that has become a larger percentage.

We also introduced lounge apparel, and that is a combination of both comfort wear as well as this month we will be delivering our first deliveries of Yoga in that shop, and additionally we have revamped our handbag assortment introducing higher priced products, better quality, and merchandising it to complement each of the lifestyles.

Steve Kernkraut (Berman Capital): Comment on how some of the new markets you have opened stores in over the last year are tracking versus your expectation?

David Jaffe: We are very close to our expectations. Some of have been a little slower to get started, and a lot of that is simply due to our name not being known, so it’s a more of an education process.

Unknown Analyst (Raymond James): You had mentioned about the denim inventory expected to be up 50% year over year. What is the timing of that and what kind of rates are looking at?

Keith Fulsher: You are looking at the beginning of August, so versus that timeframe last year, we are going to open up with a much stronger presentation.

Gary Giblen (Goldsmith & Harris): In your overlap competitors, do see specific things that lead you to believe that it is going to be extremely promotional?

David Jaffe: It is already happening. Whether it’s the mailers that we all get or the SSIs or we all shop our competition, and the tenure of the promotions and the depth, the breadth of them throughout the store just feels more intensive as we get further and further into the season than it did last year.

We just realize that to move goods in this market, you have got to make sure that everybody understands you are offering a great value, and so some of the things we talked about speak to that point specifically.

Gary Giblen (Goldsmith & Harris): And is the competitive intensity, has it leveled out or is it seeming to getting more intense?

David Jaffe: It seems like it is leveling off as we approach the end of the season, but you know, we are going to watch it. Just to go back to our May results, a month ago, we thought we had everything under control and then the bottom fell out a little bit, and we dropped from a trend of down five to down twelve.