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Earnings Calls: 
AutoZone Fourth Quarter Earnings Call
Author: Albena Toncheva
123jump.com
Last Update: 9:24 AM EDT September 20 2007


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The leading auto parts retailer of the US recorded 3.3% year over year increase in sales to $2 billion, despite 0.2% decline in the same store sales. During the quarter, AutoZone witnessed improvement in gross margin due to ongoing category management efforts as well as supply chain efficiencies. The company transitioned away from its formal supply chain agreement with Midas Corp and it is working diligently to continue to earn the Hot Shot business from the Midas franchisees.


Investors Question and Answers

 
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Sequential Earnings Growth | Quarterly Earnings by Year | Quarterly Earnings Growth by Year

Source: Company filings    Q1:November  Q2:February  Q3:May  Q4:August
 
Adam Timler (Deutsche Bank): Have you seen any impact per se from the fact that perhaps cars are changing their oil a little less frequently due to improvements in the quality of the oil and how the cars run from a traffic standpoint at all?

Bill Rhodes: Over an extended period of time, the oil drain has been extended. Many of the car manufacturers today will tell you that you can change your oil every 7,500 miles or 10,000 miles, versus 3,000 miles, which is the historical trend. However, you will read further in the owner''s manual it says you can only do that if you''re not considered a severe driver and severe driving is like driving around in Memphis, or driving in dust. The parameters on it are light. We''ve seen some lengthening in that, and certainly that''s been part of our traffic challenges. But you also have things like synthetic oils which also, although they don''t change them at frequently, they cost much more. There is a natural lift in several categories where the average price of the parts is going up, but the change interval is decreasing.

Irene for Danielle Fox (Merrill Lynch): Do you have an idea when inventory increases will be slower than sales increases? Is it fair to say by end of 2008?

Bill Giles: Our inventory overall is flat with last year and slightly lower, so we feel good about some of the improvements that we''ve made on inventory management perspective. We don''t necessarily project out guidance on a go-forward basis. We''ve done a good job as an organization in adding some additional parts coverage, particularly in the hard parts side of the business, and at the same time rationalizing SKUs for slower-turning businesses and maintaining our inventory levels. For us, we''re very much focused on making sure that we''ve got the right parts in order to be able to say yes on a more frequent basis to our customers, and that''s been the primary emphasis. We''ve kept inventory relatively in check and on a net inventory basis we made progress there. If you''re thinking about it from a capital perspective, we''ve utilized less capital in order to do that.

There may be a little bit of confusion on the way we talk about inventory per store, which on a year-over-year basis. Our inventory per store was $500,000 this year, $501,000 last year. However, we have reduced pay on scan inventory over time, so we''ve taken on the inventory ownership and gotten increased terms from our vendors. On the top line if you just look at owned inventory, that number is increasing, but overall deployed inventory is not.

Irene for Danielle Fox (Merrill Lynch): Can you talk a little bit more about why occupancy costs were up this quarter and if you expect that to continue going forward?

Bill Giles: We would always expect to have a little bit of pressure on occupancy costs and we probably need about a 1.5% to 2% same-store sales in order to leverage SG&A, and that''s obviously particularly on our fixed costs. We do see a little bit more increase as we continue to open new stores that we probably have a slightly higher percentage of leased stores versus purchased stores which generates a little bit higher from a rent perspective, but overall, our new stores are opening well and our productivity continues to be good.

Tony Cristello (BB&T Capital Markets): Has there been any further deterioration in demand for the non-discretionary components either in the DIY or the commercial side of the business?

Bill Rhodes: I wouldn''t say there were significant changes that weren''t done by our actions. We''ve gone through product changes and planogram changes, and we''ve changed a few planograms that when we go into those changes sometimes we see deceleration, but that is self-inflicted versus anything macro-oriented.
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