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Earnings Calls: 
Macy’s First Quarter Earnings Call
Author: Rozalina Destanova
123jump.com
Last Update: 4:08 AM EDT May 16 2008


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Sales declined to $5.7 billion from $5.9 billion last year. Operating income included $87 million in division consolidation costs and a $23 million reserve for the potential litigation settlement. The gross margin rate declined by 120 basis points primarily because of a higher level of merchandise clearance. The company repurchased no shares of its common stock. Annual guidance for year-over-year change in comparable store sales remains minus 1% to plus 1.5%.


Investors Question and Answers

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

Source: Company filings    Q1:April  Q2:July  Q3:October  Q4:January
 
Karen M. Hoguet: We have not given guidance on cash flow.

Todd Duvick (Banc of America Securities): Are you planning to tap the debt capital markets or refinance with commercial paper closer to time?

Karen M. Hoguet: The issue on refinancing would be the debt capital markets.

Steve Kernkraut (Berman Capital): You said home textiles were not doing that well. How some of the exclusive brands that you brought in, the Martha Stewart line, the new Tommy Hilfiger line, how those are doing in the stores?

Karen M. Hoguet: Martha Stewart is doing well and we learned through the fall, making it even better for this year and we feel good about that product. And while with Tommy it is still early, it is going well even in the weaker apparel market.

John Patrick Walsh (Wachovia): Historically you used to finance your working capital builds through CP. What your plans are going to be for financing that?

Karen M. Hoguet: There is a short period of time where we will have a higher financing need, as you are alluding to. To the degree there is A3P3 commercial paper, we might access that but we have the working capital facility exactly for this reason, so there is going to be plenty of liquidity and have not sorted out what we will do because we will have to judge market conditions at that time.

John Patrick Walsh (Wachovia): As you are looking at your various stores, you have some that are performing better than average, some below average. in the current environment, is it exacerbating the under-performance of some of your under-performing stores and how that might impact you in terms of thinking about pruning some of the under-performing stores?

Karen M. Hoguet: The key thing is we are constantly looking at our under-performing stores, both for ones that should be closed and others that we think we can improve. There is nothing new with that. We will look at the results as we get through the year and see. We have been disciplined about closing under-performing stores though. There has been a rumor circulating that we are going to announce a major store closing program and I do not envision that.

David Glick (Buckingham Research Group): Could you give color on the division consolidation process?

Karen M. Hoguet: The key thing is the consolidations have gone well. We consolidated the systems for all three divisions last weekend and our systems group working with the divisions did a fabulous job with no glitches. We feel good about that and from a people perspective, the new organizations have been put together and almost all of the jobs are filled already with internal, high quality talent, so we are feeling good about that piece of it as well. The key to mitigating any disruption risk gets to the My Macy''s structure and we are feeling good that we will be able to mitigate any disruption there.

Dana Telsey (Telsey Advisory Group): Can you talk about the private label program?

Karen M. Hoguet: They are doing well and it was 19% of the business last year.

Dana Telsey (Telsey Advisory Group): You just made an announcement last week about international opportunities, what your thoughts are there?

Karen M. Hoguet: We get numerous inbound inquiries about international expansion opportunities and we have taken Dan Edelman, who is an extraordinarily experienced Macy''s executive, to spend full time just studying the opportunities for both Bloomingdale’s and Macy''s. This is so that Kerry, me, others will spend less time on this and allow Dan to learn. It does not mean I expect any significant international announcements soon. Our focus right now is entirely on building the comp store sales in this country but we would be remiss not to take advantage of an opportunity international four, five years down the road.

Dana Telsey (Telsey Advisory Group): How are the store remodels going?

Karen M. Hoguet: The remodels will be an ongoing program forever and ever and ever. We just have to constantly reallocate space to fit trends, make the stores look better, fresher, et cetera. So that will continue forever. And at least through last year, the returns we were getting were consistent with what we had expected when we approved the capital. We tend to do that once a year so I have not looked at it over the last couple of months, but I suspect those stores continue to do just fine.

Wayne Hood (BMO Capital Markets): You mentioned that early May, sales had started off well, which would lead you to be more optimistic but at the same time looking at the circulars and so on, you have got some steep markdowns in entire stocks and collections. Is it better without those promotions?

Karen M. Hoguet: The promotions are comparable to a year ago.

Wayne Hood (BMO Capital Markets): Would you consider doing a bigger deal during the summer and pulling forward some of the maturities that are coming due next year in light of that rates may be higher next year, or will you just do the refinancing piece that you have got due this year and not pull any forward?

Karen M. Hoguet: We are cognizant of the future refinancing needs too and so we will look at market opportunities and decide what to do.

Wayne Hood (BMO Capital Markets): To what extent Citigroup’s possible tightening in Florida and California markets would slow sales growth for you for those accounts?
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