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Earnings Calls: 
The Dress Barn Second Quarter Earnings Call
Author: Maclintosh Kuhlengisa
123jump.com
Last Update: 4:53 PM EST March 04 2008

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The apparel retailer reported a 56.5% decrease in earnings to $7.4 million or 12 cents per share from $17 million or 24 cents in 2006, reflective of the highly promotional retail environment. Aggressive promotions resulted in a lower average unit price, with the corresponding effect on margin. The firm continues to search for strategic acquisitions and has a Board approval for $100 million stock buy back though no purchases have been made yet it is building cash for potential acquisitions.


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David R. Jaffe: Not quite like that, but we are seeing opportunities in two ways. There are a fair number of either closing a lot of stores or going bankrupt and liquidating and so we are seeing that type of fire sale on locations that in some cases are of interest to us.

Christopher Kim (J.P. Morgan Securities, Inc.): Comment about some costing pressures on sourcing partners?

Keith Fulcher: Yes, we are definitely seeing some upward pressure in prices especially out of China and what our focus has been to make sure that that product is special and there is details on our merchandise.

Shaun Smolarz (Sidoti &Company, LLC): What are some of the ways that you are controlling costs?

David R. Jaffe: The big variable cost we have is our store payroll. Unfortunately most of our 95% plus of our rents are fixed so once you get past your cost of goods sold, your occupancy expense, the next biggest expense you have is your payroll. We have this new campaign internally we call Faster Better Cheaper trying to come up with new ideas to cut costs.

Shaun Smolarz (Sidoti &Company, LLC): What do you think has contributed to the business showing some recent improvement?

David R. Jaffe: We were able to transition well, we took our lumps back in December and January so as we came into February the inventories were very good so we were able to bring out spring merchandise.

Shaun Smolarz (Sidoti &Company, LLC): Does the current expansionary economic fiscal monetary policies give you any more optimism over the short term?

David R. Jaffe: Over the short term, no. Over the long term, even if you look at the rebates that they are promising everybody later this spring, it takes a while for those to filter out and anything done on a national basis.

Erin Moloney (Merriman Curhan Ford): Any more thought on possibly launching e-commerce business for either of the chains?

David R. Jaffe: It is something we are looking into. There is some great tools out there now, there is some great third party firms that we have been in contact with and it is something that we are looking into.
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