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Jump Analysis: 
Limited Brands Earnings Call, Second Quarter 2008
Author: Maclintosh Kuhlengisa
123jump.com
Last Update: 3:17 PM ET August 24 2008


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Steve Kernkraut (Berman Capital): With Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works, do you still think that you will be able meet the long term delivery consistent results in spite of economic or fashion cycles?

Martyn Redgrave: Core to the strategy that we have been driving against over the last two years has been to focus on BBW and Victoria Secrete as two brands that we think can be world winning brands and are in fact US winning brands today.

Both the characteristic of the products, the assortments, the basics that are part of the lines that give us more resiliency as well as the kind of a fashion that is part of the core brands, the emotional kind of functional and technical continent of these brands we think are the right way to focus.

Steve Kernkraut (Berman Capital): Do you think this strategy will work when you go on offense when the economy improves and you could win with those two brands?

Martyn Redgrave :Yes absolutely. There is a lot of growth left in these brands and as evidence by our real estate initiatives in both brands in the way that the new stores at BBW as well as the expanded stores at VS are performing.

Brian Tunick (J.P. Morgan): Can you talk about the VS Beauty business?

Sharen Turney: In the beauty business we just did not have many things in the pipe line as we came into this spring season and we were down in the high double digit decreases in beauty as well as last year we went up against the restage of our Secrete Garden program.

We have some new fragrance launches, color, fast products, we actually are doing some home fragrance as well, so we feel very optimistic about it and the whole objective is to really raise the level of sophistication within our beauty to be more aligned with the total brand.

Brian Tunick (J.P. Morgan): Can you talk about the plans for the cash flow now that the current by back is completed?

Stuart Burgdoerfer: We have a record of returning excess cash to shareholders over time and it’s been a very significant activity in that area over the years and then the board periodically looks at capital structure alternatives and that process is ongoing.

We do not target a specific debt-to-cap ratio. We obviously understand the ratios and look at them, but we are not overly focused on a particular number as the guiding principle and that’s kind of where we are.

Jeff Stein (Soleil Securities): On the earnings range of $1.45 to $1.60 that you are providing, what are you counting on to get to the high end of the range versus the lower end?

Stuart Burgdoerfer: We will be at the low end of the range to the high end of that range and the most important driver is sales and that will be the function of the environment of promotional activity by our competitors and others, our reactions to that how and compelling our assortments are with the consumers.

Those are the key drivers which will affect sales and can also affect merchandise margin rates, obviously based on the level of promotions that we ultimately execute in the business.

Then, the leverage of the expenses falls in there and the management of expenses within the seasons in the time period will obviously be actively managed as well but the key driver of the range is sales.

Lorraine Maikis (Merrill Lynch): When you look at the Bath & Body sales decline in recent quarters, do you think the customer is trading down here?

Diane Neal: We have been doing a lot of testing and pricing this spring season. Our overall signature brand has been if you buy three you get one free, so have been trying a lot of different things to lower the overall buy and to generate more business and actually we have been seeing some success in some of the areas as well as they do not have to spend $3 to get our signature collections that in itself has been working.

In all of these fragrance launches that we have been putting into place we have put out at the higher retails because it is a tough deal accessory consumer have not seen any resistance at this point.

Sharen Turney: We have four bra launches this year compared to really the four bra launches last year and we kind of classified bra launches; A launches and B launches and obviously this year as we look at the bra launches that we have four ‘A’ launches versus last year’s two ‘A’ and two ‘B’.

We added sizes and we added colors and new fashion colors looked very well very and so we are pleased with that. In September we come out with our new Ipacks; new and improved against last year’s the reversible slip bra which was not successful. We come back in October with a like offering and then we have in November a brand new uplift bra which we''re calling the New Miracle.
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