The TJX Companies, Inc. (TJX)
Q3 2011 Earnings Call Transcript
November 16, 2010 11:00 a.m. ET

Executives

Carol M. Meyrowitz – President and Chief Executive Officer
Sherry Lang – Senior Vice President, Investor Relations
Jeffrey G. Naylor – Senior Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Administrative Officer
Ernie L. Herrman – Senior Executive Vice President and Group President

Analysts

Adrianne Shapira – Goldman Sachs
Paul Lejuez – Nomura Securities
Brian Tunick – J.P. Morgan
Evren Kopelman – Wells Fargo Securities
Jeffery Stein – KeyBanc Capital Markets
Laura Champine – Cowen & Co.
Richard Jaffe – Stifel Nicolaus
Daniel Hofkin – William Blair & Company
Jennifer Davis – Lazard Capital Markets
David Glick – Buckingham Research
Howard Tubin – RBC Capital Markets
Marni Shapiro – The Retail Tracker
Dana Telsey – Telsey Advisory Group
John Morris – BMO Capital Markets

Presentation

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the TJX Companies'' Third Quarter Fiscal 2011 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. And later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. At that time, if you have a question, you will need to press star one. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded, Tuesday, November 16, 2010. I would like to turn the conference call over to Ms. Carol Meyrowitz, President and CEO for the TJX Companies, Inc. Please go ahead, ma''am.

Carol M. Meyrowitz

Thank you. Good morning, everyone and before we get started, Sherry has a few comments.

Sherry Lang

Good morning. The forward-looking statements we make today about the company''s results and plans are subject to risks and uncertainties that can cause the actual results and the implementation of the company''s plans to vary materially. These risks are discussed in the company''s SEC filings, including, without limitation, the Form 10-K filed March 30, 2010.

Further, these comments and the Q&A that follows are copyrighted today by the TJX Companies. Any recording, retransmission, rebroadcast, reproduction or other use of the same for profit or otherwise without prior consent of TJX is prohibited and in violation of United States copyright and other laws. Additionally, while we have approved the publishing of a transcript of this call by a third party, we take no responsibility for inaccuracies that may appear in that transcript.

Please note that the financial results and expectations we discuss today are on a continuing operations basis. Also, we have detailed the impacts of foreign exchange on our consolidated results and our international divisions in today''s press release and the Investor Information section of our website, www.tjx.com. As a reminder, the comparable store sales numbers that we talk about today are on a constant currency basis.

With respect to the non-GAAP measures we discuss today, reconciliations to GAAP measures are included in today''s press release and posted on our website, www.tjx.com, in the Investor Information section. Thank you.

And now, I''ll turn it over to Carol.

Carol M. Meyrowitz

Thanks, Sherry and good morning again and joining me on the call today with Sherry are Jeff Naylor and Ernie Herrman.

Let me begin by saying that I’m very pleased with our 14% EPS growth in the third quarter on top of 40% EPS growth last year. We drove this growth on a 1% comp increase over a 7% increase last year, demonstrating the power of our business model to deliver sustainable margins, even at a lower level of comp.

Our customer traffic was up over huge increases last year. And we achieved these results despite average ticket still being slightly down. We continue to run the business with lower levels of inventory, which is driving faster inventory turns and stronger merchandise margins.