Earnings Labs

G-III Apparel Group, Ltd. (GIII)

Q4 2012 Earnings Call· Thu, Mar 22, 2012

$31.55

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the G-III Apparel Group Fourth Quarter of Fiscal 2012 Earnings Call. Today's call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Neal Nackman, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Neal Nackman

Analyst

Thank you. Before we begin, I would like to remind participants that certain statements made on today's call and in the Q&A session may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Federal Securities laws. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees, and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results of operations or the financial condition of the company to differ are discussed in the documents filed by the company with the SEC. The company undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statements. In addition, during the call we will refer to EBITDA, which is a non-GAAP number. We have provided a reconciliation of EBITDA to our net income according to GAAP in our press release and on our website. I will now turn the call over to our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Morris Goldfarb.

Morris Goldfarb

Analyst

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. With me today are Sammy Aaron, our Vice Chairman; Wayne Miller, our Chief Operating Officer; and Neal Nackman, our Chief Financial Officer. I'd like to start by saying this is the second-best year in the history of the company. Unfortunately, we didn't reach our expectations. This was caused by primarily by unseasonably warm weather during our peak selling period. We made a lot of progress through the year, and our financial results are certainly respectable. We did what was needed to move product during the season, and importantly, we positioned the company for the year ahead. We have some powerful opportunities in several areas of the business that we're really focused on. First, let me take you through the financial highlights from the fourth quarter and the year end. Consolidated net sales for the quarter were $294 million. This lower-than-planned net sales reflects higher markdowns and allowances dilution compared to prior years. We work with our customers to help them achieve adequate sell-throughs. Gross margin was down 400 basis points compared to last year. As a result, we had net income per share of $0.25 in our fourth quarter. For the full year, we had $1,230,000,000 in net sales and net income of $49.6 million and $2.46 per share. Our balance sheet remain strong. We had a $5 million net debt position at year end compared to cash of $10 million at the end of last year. We're planning conservatively on the revenue lines for our outerwear business next fall as a result of this year's holiday sale, but we expect to see better margins. This should result both from better inventory control and from lower sourcing costs. Even in a tough season, there are some bright spots in our outerwear business…

Neal Nackman

Analyst

Thanks, Morris. For the full fiscal year, we reported net sales of $1.23 billion, an increase of approximately 16% compared to last year's net sales of $1.06 billion. Net sales of wholesale licensed product increased 17% to $840.7 million, from $718.5 million. Our net sales of wholesale non-licensed product increased 13.8% for $277.6 million from $244 million in the previous year. Net sales in our retail segment increased 15.5% to $164.3 million from $142.3 million in the prior year. Sales of our wholesale licensed product were favorably impacted by the introduction of 3 new Calvin Klein product lines as well as an increase in sales from most of our established Calvin Klein product lines. We also had increases in Jessica Simpson dresses and licensed sports apparel. Increased sales of non-licensed products were primarily attributable to increases in sales of private label programs and, to a lesser extent, increases from Andrew Marc products. The retail segment increases were from a combination of a higher store count, as well as same-store sales increases of 6.6%. Although we achieved record sales for the year, our net income for the year decreased to $49.6 million or $2.46 per diluted share, compared to $56.7 million or $2.88 per diluted share in the prior year. The main reason for this decrease was a decline in our achieved gross margin. The overall gross margin percentage for the year was 30.1%, compared to 33% in the prior year. Gross margin for the wholesale licensed product segment was 26.5% this year, compared to 29.7% last year. For the wholesale non-licensed product segment, was 26% this year, compared to 28.9% last year and for the retail segment, was 46% this year compared to 47.1% last year. The gross margins in all 3 segments were impacted by promotional activity throughout the…

Morris Goldfarb

Analyst

Thank you, Neal. Over the last few years, our progress, our diversification and our growth has been rapid. We're in a position to continue this trend and drive superior value to our shareholders, our customers, our partners and our consumers. While this past year was not, perhaps, what it might have been with a normal winter season and a little better economic picture, all things considered, it was the second-best year in our history. Next year should be a good year. We certainly have the pieces in place to make that happen. We at G-III never take success for granted. We know that we need to continue to work hard, drive to execute better and search out more opportunities. We've chosen our growth initiatives and our investments carefully. Not only did this enable us to have a good year in a tough market, but those choices were made to support long-term growth. As we look to the year ahead, we're dedicated to capturing the full range of growth in front of us by brand, by category, by tier of distribution and by market. Thank you. And now, we're ready to take your questions. Operator?

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] And we'll take our first question from Edward Yruma with KeyBanc.

Edward Yruma

Analyst

Can you talk a little bit about the inventory and the channel? Do you feel like retailers have packed away outerwear, and has that been contemplated in your guidance?

Morris Goldfarb

Analyst

No, surprisingly. One might think that there's significant amount of packaway to support next year's needs, but fortunately for us, that's really not the case. There's been a good deal of sell-through on inventory, which is the result of some our depletion in margin. And the other point is some of the product that we're dealing with on the department store level is being re-bought for next year by our stores. Now we're utilizing some of the brands that we had inventory in for our own outlet stores. Our own outlet stores have developed a model where 60% or 65% of the business is done through private label to support their business. This year's formula will change. The year that we're in will utilize existing inventory to support the sales of Wilsons by brand rather than -- by national brands that we have, rather than the private label that they've done historically.

Edward Yruma

Analyst

Great. I wanted to draw on a little bit on 1Q guidance. I know that you added some SG&A as you've grown the business. We had a significant design staff. How should we think about that addition on a year-over-year basis, think about that flows through the P&L on an annual basis?

Neal Nackman

Analyst

Yes, I think that we really are looking at the next year SG&A expansion, really. We have -- we've made investments in people, we've made investments in design, and we've still got a number of businesses that are growing, so I think we'll have warehousing and advertising cost increases. And I think that for us, next year is not one that we're anticipating our SG&A leverage on. I think what you'll see is and what you can anticipate is some gross margin improvements and probably not on the SG&A side. And you've seen that in the first quarter.

Operator

Operator

We'll take our next question from Diana Katz with Lazard Capital Markets.

Diana Katz

Analyst · Lazard Capital Markets.

Neal, I'm wondering if you can just extend the part about you just not anticipating SG&A leverage but some gross margin improvement. I guess, any way to quantify at all either of those lines for our modeling purposes?

Neal Nackman

Analyst · Lazard Capital Markets.

I don't think we're ready to quantify it, but we stepped into a number of new businesses. The Kensie business is a new business for us, the handbags and luggage is in the second year of rollout. We're launching a number of new dress businesses. So we've got a number of business units that are growing. We're still feeding some of the growth in our pre-existing businesses. So I think that that's really what's driving the SG&A increases for next year.

Morris Goldfarb

Analyst · Lazard Capital Markets.

On the SG&A side for overseas offices, we're utilizing the strength of outsourcing to become sourcing agents for both European and American customers, which will bring down the cost of that office, and the net effect will be a savings on the SG&A side. And we will be significant number on the sourcing development side in our overseas offices.

Diana Katz

Analyst · Lazard Capital Markets.

That's great. I'm wondering if you could let us know for last year what percentage of your business ended up being outerwear versus dresses and sportswear?

Neal Nackman

Analyst · Lazard Capital Markets.

Yes. The outerwear was 64%, and the dresses were right around 25%. And that should move slightly down going into next year.

Morris Goldfarb

Analyst · Lazard Capital Markets.

Total number...

Diana Katz

Analyst · Lazard Capital Markets.

Yes, the outerwear, too. Okay. And then for the portion of the inventory that isn't being bought from new businesses? Can you describe if that inventory is clean?

Morris Goldfarb

Analyst · Lazard Capital Markets.

Our inventory is clean. We've been dealing with moving what we would classify as dated inventory from November on. We've done a pretty good job of it. Some of it appears to be more dated than we're accustomed to, but that's a product of being in the fulfillment business, in both the shoe business and in the sportswear business. So we need to have a level of inventory to support maintaining stock levels at the retail stores. But beyond that, our inventory is clean.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We'll take our next question from Eric Beder with Brean Murray.

Eric Beder

Analyst · Brean Murray.

Could you talk a little bit about the leather business and how you see a change -- are leather prices -- you believe leather prices are going to go -- where are leather prices are going to go this year, and how are you looking at that?

Morris Goldfarb

Analyst · Brean Murray.

We -- our leather businesses come down to well below 10% of our total business. That would be -- not a question that you asked, but -- so the impact of price change is less important to our company today than ever before. The -- taking it divisionally, Andrew Marc was impacted by increased leather prices for calendar 2011. The cost had gone up as much as 25% to 30% on the material side, and we needed to pass along a good deal of the increase to the retailer, and we absorbed some of it internally. This year, we see that prices are coming down. It will impact again Andrew Marc and a little bit of our private label business. But overall, it's a negligible impact on our business, although we anticipate leather prices coming down.

Eric Beder

Analyst · Brean Murray.

Okay. How are the initial results from Tommy Hilfiger luggage? And the Calvin Klein handbag business, last year you kind of -- you had a number of issues in how the prices rolled out and how quickly you could start to monetized. But how should we think about the opportunity at Calvin Klein handbags going forward now that you can flow it much better?

Morris Goldfarb

Analyst · Brean Murray.

Our business in Calvin Klein handbags and luggages was actually quite good this year. We beat our plan. The product is well-positioned at retail. We're getting additional space at retail. What impacted us negatively was a mixed start [ph]. We sourced it, we sourced the handbags in 2 factories that were not right for Calvin Klein. We stopped production and moved on to 2 new factories right out of the box. So what occurred was we got the right product in, but we paid to air the product in, and we worked on a shorter margin to get it placed appropriately and began to garner space in the retail venues that were supporting us. So all said, we had a good year, if you pull out the margin side that were more influenced on the airfreight costs and placing product in factories at the last minute without an appropriate plan. So we did great damage control, and we're looking at a much better margins on the handbag business as well as additional door count and greater penetration. The Tommy Hilfiger luggage piece of our business is distributed into 400 Macy's stores, doing quite well, and we're pleased with that business. We have a seasoned professional in the luggage business that's been creating wonderful product, and we're managing through that business as well. We're getting better on freight costs, we're getting better on warehouse costs, and we're going to see margin improvements in that area as well for 2013. We have a small initiative that we're launching in Major League Baseball luggage we're getting good attention for. We don't know the scale of it. And the other piece that would be of interest is we have an opportunity for Kensie handbags that we've not focused on yet. We're working on our Calvin Klein area very hard, and we're leaving Kensie for a little bit later. I'm not sure we get to it in next quarter, but certainly, by the end of the year, we'll begin to concentrate on a rollout of Kensie. We've taken Andrew Marc in house. We weren't satisfied with the licensees of that handbags, and the collection is being shown right now. I don't have responses for you, but I will tell you that it will be an improvement over last year.

Eric Beder

Analyst · Brean Murray.

Great. And when you look at the guidance for this year, what are you assuming in terms of the outerwear business? Are you assuming something we had this year, are you assuming something from your [indiscernible], how should we think about your guidance, how you're looking at the outerwear business for the second half?

Morris Goldfarb

Analyst · Brean Murray.

Our guidance, basically, is an anniversary of this -- the year that we're in. We believe -- we believe that it's possibly a conservative number. We believe there's some opportunity in the coat business. We're planning it down to flat. And we believe that there's -- based on what I've been getting in the last couple of weeks, it appears to be a little better than that.

Operator

Operator

And we'll take our next question from Eric Alexander with Stifel, Nicolaus.

Eric Alexander

Analyst · Stifel, Nicolaus.

Sitting in for Jim Duffy. I just had a few questions. We're thinking about normalized gross margin levels. Any sort of parameters that we should be maybe thinking about? Obviously, last year is difficult with weather-related things and maybe some prices, pricing issues. Help me out here thinking about that.

Neal Nackman

Analyst · Stifel, Nicolaus.

Yes. I think at this point, the best that we can give you is that we're definitely looking for gross margin improvement, probably throughout each quarter of next year.

Eric Alexander

Analyst · Stifel, Nicolaus.

Okay. And then beyond that, just kind of -- you guys obviously did, what, a 33% your prior ---- I mean, should we be expecting to see some sort of improvement to that maybe past this year thinking out longer term?

Neal Nackman

Analyst · Stifel, Nicolaus.

No. Well, I think longer-term, it's certainly possible that we can get back into that. I think that from an operating margin standpoint, we've still got our eye set on double-digit operating margin. So I think next year is a little bit of a soft year for us, it's in reaction to -- with the way we come through this year, at least that's our initial view on it. We've only got 44% of our year booked for this year, which is comparable to where we've been in the past, but that doesn't give us a tremendous amount of guidance for the current year. But I think our business will definitely bounce back to a stronger operating margin after this first year, and then, again, we'll start to see some more SG&A leverage also as we move forward.

Eric Alexander

Analyst · Stifel, Nicolaus.

Okay. And then just talking about for fiscal year '13, thinking about you had indicated gross margin improvement. Are you guys -- where do you see greater improvements? In your wholesale licensed business or in your non-licensed business? Just help me out directionally kind of for modeling that out.

Neal Nackman

Analyst · Stifel, Nicolaus.

Yes. I think it could be a little bit of both. If I was to lean on one, I would say that the licensed side has more opportunity than the non-licensed side. But they both have got some room for improvement. We really had decreases in all areas in the business this past year.

Eric Alexander

Analyst · Stifel, Nicolaus.

Okay, that's great. And then last question for retail, thinking total store count, I apologize if I missed it, total door count increase for fiscal '13 that you guys are maybe thinking, and then maybe directionally, low single-digits, mid-single-digit, flat type of comps should we be thinking about?

Neal Nackman

Analyst · Stifel, Nicolaus.

Yes. So we closed the year with about 144 doors. We're opening up about 15. There'll be some closes, I would expect it at the end of next year. We're around 150, maybe just north of there. In terms of like-for-like plan, were in really, mid- to high single-digits as far as a like-for-like plan for next year.

Operator

Operator

And it appears we have no other questioners at this time. I'd like to turn the conference back to Mr. Goldfarb for any additional or closing remarks.

Morris Goldfarb

Analyst

Thank you very much for participating this morning, and have a good day.

Operator

Operator

And that does conclude today's conference. Again, thank you for your participation today.