In consideration of these revised earnings estimates, and assuming the receipt of approximately $24 million in net proceeds upon the sale of the Anaheim distribution center, we currently expect to end fiscal 2008 with approximately $20 million in cash and no direct borrowings outstanding under our $150 million credit facility. We now expect to end fiscal 2008 with inventories down at least high-single-digits on a square foot basis versus the prior year. We also expect to end the year with total capital expenditures of approximately $80 million and with 931 total stores.
Please recognize that the current unfavorable economic conditions and reduced consumer spending make it very difficult to forecast sales and our same-store sales during the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008 may be lower than expected, which of course would negatively affect our financial results.
Finally, although we are not prepared to discuss any specific earnings expectations for fiscal 2009, we currently expect next year’s capital expenditures to be approximately $30 million versus this year’s total of $80 million. We expect depreciation to be approximately $75 million.
Consequently, before consideration of any operating income assumptions, we would expect to generate $45 million of cash flow in 2009 solely based on our CapEx and depreciation expectations.
Operator, we will now take questions.
Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press “*1” on your telephone keypad now. We’ll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Adrienne Tennant of FBR.
Adrienne Tennant - Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co.
Good afternoon. I’m just wondering why if you are running in this negative low double-digit range, why would we see, given that the shift is coming in front of us and we lose some days, etc., in the weekend, why we would think to see an improvement in the overall absolute trend rate for the comp.
Michael L. Henry
It’s because of the shift in November, Adrienne, with Thanksgiving moving from the third week to the fourth week, we do expect November to be negative mid-teens probably by the time it’s all said and done but then we do expect to return to kind of a negative mid-single comp, negative high-single comp in December and January.
Adrienne Tennant - Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co.
Okay, because I was trying to figure out because like each week is obviously more proportional or more of an impact on November, I was thinking that maybe the shift back into December on a comp basis would be less than the shift out of November.
Michael L. Henry
Well, we’ll see how it plays out. Everyone can make their own assumptions. Our planning guys have taken a hard look at it on a category-by-category basis and looked at it week-to-week builds and month-to-month builds and historical trends and all those sorts of things, and we’ve put together the plan that we’ve communicated to you and we will see how it plays out.
Adrienne Tennant - Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co.
Okay, and then can you just -- are there -- how many of the stores are four-wall, non-profitable?
Michael L. Henry
Four-wall non-profitable we have approximately 100 stores. When you take back out depreciation, cash flow there are only about two dozen that are negative cash flow. |