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NIKE, Inc. (NKE)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Mar 19, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to NIKE's fiscal 2015 third quarter conference call. For those who need to reference today's press release, you'll find it at investors.nike.com. Leading today's call is Kelley Hall, Vice President, Corporate Finance and Treasurer. Before I turn the call over to Ms. Hall, let me remind you that participants on this call will make forward-looking statements based on current expectations and those statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. These risks and uncertainties are detailed in the reports filed with the SEC, including Forms 8-K, 10-K and 10-Q. Some forward-looking statements concern future orders that are not necessarily indicative of changes in total revenues for subsequent periods due to mix of futures and at-once orders, exchange rate fluctuations, order cancellations, changes in the timing of shipments, discounts and returns which may vary significantly from quarter-to-quarter. In addition, it is important to remember that significant portion of NIKE, Inc.'s continuing operations including equipment, NIKE Golf, Converse and Hurley, are not included in these futures numbers. Finally, participants may discuss non-GAAP financial measures, including references to wholesale equivalent sales. References to wholesale equivalent sales are only intended to provide context as to the overall current market footprint of the brands owned by NIKE, Inc. and should not be relied upon as a financial measure of actual results. Participants may also make references to other non-public financial and statistical information and non-GAAP financial measures. Discussion of non-public financial and statistical information and presentations of comparable GAAP measures and quantitative reconciliations can be found at NIKE's website, investors.nike.com. Now I would like to turn the call over to Kelley Hall, Vice President, Corporate Finance and Treasurer. Kelley Hall - Vice President-Treasury & Investor Relations: Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and thank you…

Trevor A. Edwards - President-Brand

Management

Thanks, Mark. Q3 is a great example of how the strength of the NIKE Brand drives growth around the world even in a more challenging macro environment. As Mark mentioned, the impact of foreign exchange has intensified, and Don will talk more about our work to mitigate those impacts. As I normally do, I'll speak to our results on a constant currency basis. While we consider the impact of foreign exchange as part of the overall management of our business, currency-neutral results provide a clearer view of the underlying operational performance. So let's take a look at the numbers. The NIKE Brand revenue grew 11% with strong growth in Western Europe, Greater China and the emerging markets, as well as in our sportswear and basketball categories. NIKE Brand DTC revenue increased 29% driven by all concepts in all geographies. And as Mark mentioned, we also saw continued strong growth in nike.com. And global futures are up 11%, reflecting a strong growth despite comparisons to the prior year, which included strong World Cup demand. Excluding the impact of the World Cup, we estimate future orders would have grown in the mid-teens. Our Q3 growth is a result of the deep relationships we've built with consumers through the Category Offense. Our laser focus on individual consumers strengthens those connections, whether they're online, at retail or at live experiences. NIKE's consistent focus on serving the consumer through the lens of their chosen sports helps enable continued profitable growth. What's more, only NIKE has the global scale to execute this consumer-focused strategy in markets around the world. As we further drive the Category Offense globally, we continue to prove our ability to connect our brands to consumers and build compelling retail destinations that elevate, segment and differentiate the markets around the globe. To see…

Operator

Operator

The first question is from Kate McShane with Citi.

Katharine McShane - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Hi. Thank you. Good afternoon. Kelley Hall - Vice President-Treasury & Investor Relations: Hey, Kate.

Katharine McShane - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

And, Don, I just want to say congratulations to you on your announcement. Donald W. Blair - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thank you.

Katharine McShane - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

I have two questions today. One was, there was a very big article this week or late last week from Adidas talking about the NBA sponsorship and walking away from that. How would you view that opportunity? And can you just walk us through just sponsorship in general, and how you're thinking about it for the future? Mark G. Parker - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, with regard to the NBA, there is really nothing further to share at this time. We are, as you would imagine, always talking to the leagues, clubs and federations, but really nothing more to report on any specific conversations with the NBA sponsorship. But as you know, the relationships that we have with the leagues, clubs, federations and of course the athletes are key. We gain the insights from the athletes that really ultimately drive the innovation that fuels NIKE's brand strength and our growth as a company. So that's always been the case that I can't imagine it wouldn't be going forward. We're selective in the choices that we make in terms of where we think we have the greatest opportunities, and we look at those opportunities in a very complete sort of holistic way. Very, very happy with where we are in basketball and feel like there's tremendous potential going forward. Trevor talked about Jordan and NIKE basketball. Incredible performance in the quarter, and really strong outlook going forward. So we expect that our relationships with athletes at the collegiate level and the professional level continue to be really an important part of that.

Katharine McShane - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Oka, great. Thank you. And then my second question is on the supply chain. As we see faster speed to market from other apparel companies, can you talk about how you view this opportunity, how quickly the supply chain can be refined to address this? Kelley Hall - Vice President-Treasury & Investor Relations: Kate, are you talking about the congestion at the West Coast ports?

Katharine McShane - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

I'm sorry, no, more of a longer-term strategy. I think a couple of retailers have indicated that they're looking for more freshness in the market. As you see a lot more speed to market from other manufacturers, I wondered if that was something that NIKE talked about and if there was any opportunity within the supply chain to address that. Mark G. Parker - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Absolutely, Kate. We have made a number of different investments over time, and we continue to do that both in terms of how we operate our supply chain and more closely tie the timing of production and shipping all the way through to the final consumer. So certainly on that front. We've also, as you know, done a lot of work in the innovation space around how we manufacture product and how we design and develop it. For example, on the NFL, we've had to do some very different approaches to make sure that we're able to respond very quickly to changes in demand, whether it be for specific teams or specific athletes. And that goes all the way to the manufacturing revolution type of investments we've made around technologies like Flyknit. So we are putting a lot of money and a lot of resources against how our supply chain evolves to increase speed and make sure we deliver to consumers as quickly and as innovatively as we can.

Katharine McShane - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Matthew Boss with JPMorgan.

Matthew Robert Boss - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Hey, good afternoon, guys, and great quarter. So there's a lot of talk about Flyknit marquee basketball price points, but can you touch on the mid-tier channel, the segmentation strategy you guys have, particularly any product innovation for us to watch and just kind of how you think about pricing power in that channel?

Trevor A. Edwards - President-Brand

Management

Obviously, we continue to make sure that we continue to focus our pricing strategy, certainly around ensuring that we give great value to our consumers. So it's always a balance of price to value with the consumer. Our ability to bring new innovation allows us the ability to command certainly a premium price, and certainly our brand strength does that too. So obviously, one area that we talked about, which was in the running business, we talked certainly about the core and our ability to make sure we continue to stay focused on bringing more innovation there. Our basketball business is very strong at the moment. And we feel it will continue to be strong because we have an incredible pipeline of new innovations that we keep bringing into the marketplace. So obviously, as you saw when we brought the Kyrie shoe into the marketplace, we're just seeing tremendous response to those products. So we continue to feel, again, very confident about our ability to keep the excitement in the basketball category while continuing to serve all the various segments, whether you're coming through the House of Hoops like at Foot Locker or you're working certainly more of a mid-tier account. Mark G. Parker - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: And I just want to quickly add. Our innovation agenda is really about bringing a complete offense, which means across the categories, across the product types, and up and down the price point spectrum. So that's really important to us. We have a major focus on elevating the state of innovation in our core product, and I think you'll see that coming through the pipeline here in the quarters ahead. I'm very excited about that part of NIKE. But certainly innovation is not reserved for the upper price point premium product. It runs up and down the price spectrum, and that's a very, very important part of our growth strategy going forward.

Matthew Robert Boss - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Great. So we've seen a clear top line and bottom line inflection really over the last 12 to 18 months. Mark, I'm curious. When you take a step back, what do you think has been the largest enabler in the organization here as we've seen this inflection? And as we think about the Category Offense, what's the best way to think about the potential next leg of opportunity? Mark G. Parker - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: In terms of the Category Offense?

Matthew Robert Boss - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Just largely I'd be curious as you think about what's really changed in the organization to drive both the top and bottom line inflection that we've seen over really the last year to two years here. Mark G. Parker - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: The Category Offense, just touching on that for a second, is really driving deeper insights into the marketplace, which really, as you know, drive innovation, which creates product, which drives growth for us. But it's not just the product innovation, it's also the insights into the consumer and consumer cultures, making sure the brand is resonating, we're relevant, we're connected. I think it's not so much a difference from where we've been. We're refining our ability to be highly creative and innovative, but also really disciplined and operating at a much higher level across the various dimensions of the business. We have a management team here that is very much aligned, very experienced. We never take our success for granted. We're always looking for ways that we can improve, which is really important to me and I think NIKE's success to date, but we are probably our own biggest critic. But I think our ability to innovate and our ability to drive operational excellence at the same time is just – it's never been at the level it is today, and I'm actually quite proud of that.

Matthew Robert Boss - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Great, best of luck.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Omar Saad with Evercore ISI.

Omar Saad - Evercore ISI

Analyst

Thanks, good afternoon. I actually wanted to ask my first question about the manufacturing revolution in the context of currency. You and the industry largely have been producing in Asia in markets where the currencies are tied to the dollar. As you said, the dollar has seen unprecedented strength against all other major currencies. Is now the time to accelerate the process of maybe pulling manufacturing out of some of these markets and taking manufacturing to the end markets and using some of the automated technologies to allow yourselves to produce in the end markets where the costs will be aligned, at least from a currency perspective, where the sales are, just your thoughts around that if that changes the equation there? Donald W. Blair - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: One of the things that I made a reference to this in the prepared remarks, Omar, is that when we implemented our trading company four or five years ago, one of the things that we did is we started deconstructing our payments to the factories into a basket of currencies as opposed to one currency, which lets us get natural offsets to some of the currency exposure. So we're getting some of the benefit that you're talking about here matching sourcing currencies and selling currencies even within our existing structure. The second thing is that we've adjusted or we do adjust payments to the factories on the basis of how those currencies move. So we are getting some offsetting sourcing benefits right now from the fact that currencies in a lot of our sourcing countries are weakening. So that helps us also net down our foreign exchange exposure. With respect to your overall premise of trying to make sure that our manufacturing is closer both in the proximity and time to where the product is sold, that is absolutely part of the strategy from a consumer standpoint. So I think when you look at the financial side of it, we're getting some of the benefits that you're describing through the way we've set up our trading company. And that's not stopping us from keeping the pedal down on driving manufacturing evolution, as we think there's a huge consumer benefit to doing that as well. Mark G. Parker - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: We definitely see the opportunity. The innovation agenda is really helping to create some efficiencies and opportunities to automate the manufacturing process, which ultimately will allow us to source more broadly down the road. As Don said, that's a big part of our agenda.

Omar Saad - Evercore ISI

Analyst

Right, that's really helpful. Thank you. And then a follow-up, Don, as you head into retirement, there's a lot of complex things going on in the global markets and currencies and the trading companies you set up. Mark, also, how do you feel about the transition? Can you talk a little bit about the transition? Don's been there a really long time, obviously knows the business extremely well. Help us understand why we shouldn't be concerned about the transition going on in the CFO position. Thanks. Donald W. Blair - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Let me take the first cut at that. First of all, rumors of my departure are premature here because I will still be in this role through the end of July. So you're not quite rid of me yet. I am tremendously excited about the next chapter in my life, but I'm also extraordinarily excited about the prospects for NIKE and have tremendous confidence in both the management team as well as my successor, Andy Campion. Certainly, Mark can speak for himself on that, but you're not quite rid of me yet, and I feel really excited about it. Mark G. Parker - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Since you brought it up, I'll just say that Don's impact here has been absolutely tremendous through the years. I personally have nothing but incredible respect for Don and the impact that he's made at NIKE. I wasn't going to go here. It's a little premature, as Don said, but I will say that I'm also incredibly confident in Don's successor. Early into fiscal 2016, Andy Campion is really a seasoned NIKE veteran. And he's been under the tutelage of Don and the incredible financial leadership team here at NIKE. And I have tremendous confidence in Andy's ability to take the reins and continue the momentum that Don's helped create for us going forward. More on that as we move forward.

Omar Saad - Evercore ISI

Analyst

Thanks, guys. Congratulations. Great quarter. And Don, congratulations on your retirement. Donald W. Blair - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thanks, Omar.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Robby Ohmes with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Robert F. Ohmes - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Thanks. Good afternoon, guys. Kelley Hall - Vice President-Treasury & Investor Relations: Hey, Robby. Mark G. Parker - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good afternoon, Robby.

Robert F. Ohmes - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Hey, so my two questions. First, Trevor, you mentioned in your comments the core footwear and running in North America not performing quite as well as you guys would like. I was wondering if you might share with us sort of more what is going on there. Is it a fashion shift? Is it a product presentation, or what are some of the things that we should be looking for that could get that going again? And then the second question is just, as you look over the next year or so in Europe, the sort of need and inability to raise prices over there to offset all the FX changes and how you guys are thinking about that? Thanks. Mark G. Parker - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. Certainly, Robby. I think the first thing I want to just maybe communicate is that running – our brand continues to really resonate with runners in North America. And one of the things I want to do is maybe unpack a little bit about how we view the business. And we always talk about what we say is the amplified offense, which really gives you a greater view of the marketplace. And so when you take a look at it, you have the performance segment, you have the core segment and you have the running inspired segment. And so if you break those down, in the performance segment, we're seeing tremendous success of the new products that we've been bringing to marketplace. So whether you take the Air Pegasus 31 or the Max 2015, or any of those products, they're doing really, really well. And so we feel obviously very, very confident about that. As I mentioned in the core footwear, we think there's opportunity for us to do…

Robert F. Ohmes - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Great. And then... Mark G. Parker - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Your second question – go ahead, Robby.

Robert F. Ohmes - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Europe. Yeah, Europe, just pricing increases and how much of that is maybe Don, in some of the guidance, the preliminary guidance you gave us? Thanks. Donald W. Blair - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Just the first piece would be the way we approach these things, which is we think about managing the business on a long-term and how we move all the levers in the business. So just because the euro has gone down dramatically, doesn't mean we're going to try to get all of that back with pricing in Europe. And we're going to pull all the levers to deliver against our goals. We do have in our expectations for FY 2016 that we will continue to migrate consumers to premium. We're continuing to manage mix. And if you look at the way our business has performed over the last few years, I think we've been very successful in moving average price points higher and we would expect to do that. What I wouldn't look for is trying to get all of a very big move in currency back in the near term with huge price increases in any one piece of geography. We play for the long-term.

Robert F. Ohmes - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst

Got it. Thanks very much, and great work guys. Donald W. Blair - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thank you. Mark G. Parker - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Bob Drbul with Nomura.

Bob S. Drbul - Nomura Securities International, Inc.

Analyst

Hi. Good afternoon. Mark G. Parker - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hi, Bob.

Bob S. Drbul - Nomura Securities International, Inc.

Analyst

Don, congratulations. Best of luck. Thanks for everything. Donald W. Blair - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thank you.

Bob S. Drbul - Nomura Securities International, Inc.

Analyst

And, maybe, I guess the two questions that I have is, the first one is, with the U.S. business like with some of the challenges, I didn't call out the running pieces of it. But would you attribute any of the challenges in the U.S. business this quarter to cannibalization or potential cannibalization given the big increase that you generated on the direct-to-consumer piece? Mark G. Parker - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: No, I wouldn't. We continue to see great momentum in North America. And as I mentioned earlier, the 15% futures growth continues to give us confidence about the business in North America. Obviously, we do have our DTC business is growing, but we're also growing very well. We have a great relationship with our wholesale partners. So we feel very confident about the way the business is growing and how the brand continues to resonate with consumer. The demand for the brand is really high in North America and actually around the world.

Bob S. Drbul - Nomura Securities International, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And then a question on the futures, with the reported period, can you just talk about like the first half of the order period versus the second half? And was it stronger in the second half or in the first half, like how can we think about that?

Trevor A. Edwards - President-Brand

Management

Futures are a little stronger in the second half of the window.

Bob S. Drbul - Nomura Securities International, Inc.

Analyst

Got it, okay. And then just the last question is, which of you guys had UAB in your brackets? Mark G. Parker - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I'm not going to go there, not now.

Bob S. Drbul - Nomura Securities International, Inc.

Analyst

All right, thanks very much.

Trevor A. Edwards - President-Brand

Management

Thanks, Bob. Kelley Hall - Vice President-Treasury & Investor Relations: Thanks, Bob.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Lindsay Drucker Mann with Goldman Sachs. Lindsay B. Drucker Mann - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Thanks. Good evening, everyone. Mark G. Parker - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good evening. Lindsay B. Drucker Mann - Goldman Sachs & Co.: I wanted to ask about your women's apparel or just the women's business. In North America, you had a couple of very high profile initiatives, some shifts on sponsorship and marketing. And then also, we've seen a number of the Training Club shop-in-shops in Macy's. Can you give us an update on your progress in women's apparel and maybe some of the specific things you have in the pipeline for the next few quarters? Mark G. Parker - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay, yes. Our women's business I'm very excited about the products in our women's business. Our women's business really across not only in North America, but really around the world continues to grow at a really rapid pace. In fact, it's outpacing our men's business. And our strategy to really focus on the run, train and live components of the business, every dimension is actually growing, both footwear and apparel as well as some of the things that we've done certainly around the community work with the services that we're providing. They're also doing really well. So it really is a case of every dimension of this is actually working really well. So we're really excited. Some of the things to really point to whether it's the Epic Lux tights, the bras that we've just recently launched, some of the great footwear, all of those things are doing really, really well both in our doors, in dotcom as well as with our wholesale partners. So we feel really, really pleased about the progress. Lindsay B. Drucker Mann - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Great. And just a quick maybe housekeeping item. I'm sorry if you answered this already, but beyond the port delays, were there any other factors that drove the disconnect between your North America sales versus what futures orders suggested they might be in the quarter? Donald W. Blair - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: We also had some weather-related delays in the south. There were some ice storms down there, so we lost some shipping and so on. So there's quite a bit of supply chain noise in Q3, which, as we said on the prepared remarks, we do expect that's going to sort out over the next few quarters. But as Trevor said, demand extraordinarily strong in North America, futures up 15%. So feeling really good about the underlying strength of the business. Lindsay B. Drucker Mann - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Great, thanks so much. Kelley Hall - Vice President-Treasury & Investor Relations: Operator, we have time for one more question.

Operator

Operator

The last question is from Jim Duffy with Stifel. Jim V. Duffy - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Thanks. Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. First, Don, congratulations on the well-deserved pending retirement. Donald W. Blair - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thank you, Jim. Jim V. Duffy - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Couple other questions. E-commerce growth has been a standout. I know it's also been a big area for investment. As we look into fiscal 2016, is that business at a point where we can lever some of those investments? Or do you expect the investments there to continue to drag on the profitability?

Trevor A. Edwards - President-Brand

Management

Well, first thing I would say is, the profitability is growing faster than the revenue. So we're continuing to drive both top line and bottom line on e-commerce. So, number one is, this has been a winner both from a growth and a profitability standpoint. The second thing is, we are going to continue invest in digital. We believe that's where the consumer is and is going. And that's where our brand is and is going. So we're going to continue invest there. But from an economic standpoint, it's been a very positive driver for business both top line and bottom line. Jim V. Duffy - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Great to hear. And then, next question on China. Sales turning nicely but the profit growth in the quarter lagged. Is that simply a function of timing of investments? Or is there some broader influence of the repositioning in the market? Mark G. Parker - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: No. I think from the China perspective, obviously we're very pleased with the continued growth. No. It's probably more just at this point in time, but it's not something that we would envision over the long-term. Jim V. Duffy - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Very good. Thanks for that. Donald W. Blair - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thank you. Kelley Hall - Vice President-Treasury & Investor Relations: Well, thank you, everyone for joining us, and we'll look forward to talking to you on our Q4 call.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.