Good day everyone and welcome to today’s Phillips-Van Heusen Corporation’s second quarter 2008 earnings release conference call. This webcast and conference call is being recorded on behalf of PVH and consists of copyright material. It may not be recorded, reproduced, retransmitted, rebroadcast, downloaded or otherwise used without PVH’s express written permission. Your participation in the question-and-answer session constitutes your consent to having any comments or statements you make appear on any transcripts or broadcast of this call. The information made available on this webcast and conference call contain certain forward-looking statements which reflect PVH’s view of future events and financial performance as of August 21, 2008. Any such forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties indicated from time to time in the company’s SEC filings. Therefore the company’s future results of operations could differ materially from historical results or current expectations as more fully discussed in our SEC filings. The company does not undertake any obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statement, including without limitation, any estimate regarding revenues or earnings. The information made available also contains certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined under SEC rules. A reconciliation of these measures is indicated in the company’s earnings release which can be found on the company’s website, www.pvh.com and in the company’s current report on Form 8-K furnished to the SEC in advance of this webcast and call. At this time I would like to turn the call over to Emanuel Chirico.

Good morning everyone and thanks for joining us on the call. On the call with me this morning is Allen Sirkin our President and Chief Operating Officer, Mike Shaffer our Chief Financial Officer and Pam Hootkin our Treasurer and Director of Investor Relations. We were quite pleased with our second quarter earnings release and results particularly in light of the difficult retail environment that we’re dealing with. Let me start with Calvin Klein licensing business, our Calvin Klein licensing business had an extraordinarily strong second quarter. Royalty revenues increased 28% in the second quarter and operating earnings grew over 47%. Results were very strong across all geographic regions and virtually all product categories. Royalty revenues grew internationally about 35% while domestic business was up about 15%. Michael Shaffer our CFO is going to quantify the details of the quarter, what I’d like to do for the licensing segment of Calvin Klein is focus on the first half results to give you a perspective of the business. When you look at the first half overall royalty revenues grew about 23% and our operating earnings for the first half were up about 32%. Overall our operating margins for the first half of the year increased by about 300 basis points to over 53%. Looking at our large businesses, I’m going to start with the Warnaco businesses, our jeans royalties for the first half were ahead a little bit more than 25%. Our international jeans business was up 40% while the US business was ahead slightly more than 10% for the first half of the year. The US growth was driven by the women’s jeans business as well as the newly launched plus size department store business. Our international business was driven by strong performance throughout Europe, Asia and throughout the Americas. Strong…

Thanks Emanuel, the comments I’m about to make include non-GAAP comparisons related to the Geoffrey Beene outlet store shutdown and are reconciled in our press release. Let me begin by reviewing our results for the second quarter, our revenues for the quarter were up 2% to approximately $561 million. Strong performance in our Calvin Klein licensing business which was 30% ahead of last year more then offset shortfalls in our combined wholesale and retail businesses. Our combined wholesale and retail business revenues were down $11 million or 2% for the prior year as a result of the difficult economic climate, bankruptcies, and negative heritage outlet comp store sales. Our gross margin on sales for the combined wholesale and retail businesses was approximately flat to the prior year as a result of our tight inventory controls. On a total company basis gross margin was up 190 basis points to the prior year reflecting the benefit of the strong Calvin Klein licensing performance. Operating expenses for the second quarter for the combined wholesale and retail businesses increased 250 basis points from the prior year and include start-up costs of $5 million as well as the de-leveraging of expenses as a result of sales declines. Operating expenses for the total company increased 240 basis points from the prior year as a decrease in the Calvin Klein operating expenses margins in the quarter helped offset a portion of the increase in the wholesale and retail businesses. Earnings for the quarter were $0.66 at the top end of our guidance. From a segment point of view, the Calvin Klein licensing business delivered very strong operating income growth of 47% while our combined wholesale and retail businesses posted operating profit declines to the prior year of 30%; the net affect of this being a decline in…

Thanks Michael, what I’d like to do is just put the business and the guidance into some type of perspective to really just talk about the risks and opportunity associated with the guidance. When we look at the Calvin Klein licensing business revenues for the first half of the year, royalty revenues were up about 23%. We’re planning the second half at a rate of 10% growth overall. Given the trend of the business, there’s clearly opportunity to do better then our current estimate that’s out there. We believe it’s a conservative estimate. We believe in the first half there are a number of things that won’t anniversary and that we are up with some of our licensing partners against much stronger business and some product launches last year. But on balance, there’s clearly upside against the royalty revenues. Somewhere I think, rather then 10% we could be closer to 15% when you take it all in and I think that clearly gives us upside against any risk that we might have in our heritage businesses. And to talk about that, let me just speak about our dress furnishing business, I mentioned how strong the business is at retail. We continue to feel good about how that business is performing. Our platform and our operating platform there works very well. Our sales projections in the second half is the wholesale shipments will grow 25 to 4%; that’s totally inline with our retail partners’ projections of what they see for sales for back to school and the holiday selling season. So we really see minimal risk when we look at the dress furnishing business. On the wholesale sportswear side of the business our new launches, both Timberland and IZOD women’s are having strong reception at retail. The IZOD women’s business is…

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from the line of Jennifer Black - Jennifer Black & Associates Jennifer Black - Jennifer Black & Associates: Can you talk about White Label; you have not spoken about the White Label stores?

We have 10 stores open as of today that was our plan to open 10 Calvin Klein specialty stores. This year the openings this year have outperformed our prior year openings. The five stores we opened this year, three of those stores on the West Coast, one store is in Miami, and one store is in Las Vegas. We believe the quality of the real estate on the second tier of stores is better, positioning in the mall is better. This year’s stores are slightly smaller. They average close to 8,500 square feet which we believe is more or less the right size for the stores. We’ve seen some improvement in the stores particularly in the second quarter of this year. They are averaging close to all in the 10 stores about $400; they’re trending towards $400 in sales per square foot. We’re still underperforming our original pro forma but we’re learning a lot. We think the stores are really presenting the White Label merchandise and really providing us with a showcase for the brand and we believe as we go forward that we’ll see continued comp store ramp up. So at this point we’re feeling good about those stores. Our plan calls for us to potentially open five stores next year. We’re being very cautious about that in this environment. And we will look only at some of the best real estate in America before we do that. I would think that we’re probably more inline that we will open one to three stores next year and continue experimenting and understanding that format. We think it’s a format that long-term will work for us and we think it’s terrific for the brand to have that presence at regular retail. Jennifer Black - Jennifer Black & Associates: How long will it take for you to do the conversion of the Geoffrey Beene stores to Calvin Klein, what’s realistic and are there other stores in the heritage businesses that you could do the same thing with?

We will be converting the 25 stores all in the fourth quarter, about four of those stores will convert early fourth quarter, balance will convert in the end of January in order to efficiently move through Geoffrey Beene inventory and get the most value for the liquidation. It’s best to be in a position with the stores through the Christmas holiday selling season. So we’re right on target, right on plan but from a profit opportunity you really have to look at those stores as a 2009 event as we go forward. When you look at our other three legacy businesses, Bass, Van Heusen and IZOD, those are proven retail strategies for us. We don’t believe we see any opportunity to convert or downsize those stores to create opportunity for Calvin Klein. By the end of this year we’ll be operating about 110 Calvin Klein outlet stores. We believe there’s an opportunity to get close to 140 and I think we’ll get there over the next three years. I believe that will be by expanding real estate as opposed to converting our existing store base.

Your next question comes from the line of Robert Ohmes – Merrill Lynch Robert Ohmes – Merrill Lynch: Can you tell us how big the Timberland men’s launch was or is expected to be for this year and also can you update us on the women’s launch, is it still on track for spring 2009 and then if you could remind us on share repurchase versus acquisitions, where the priorities look right now for you?

The Timberland launch this year, we originally talked about $30 million to $35 million, it will be closer to $40 million this year on launch. We are able to recoup some additional doors with Macy’s and some of our other retail partners. So we’re really happy about how that’s proceeding. The Timberland women’s business continues to be a concept for us and continues to be a focus for spring 2010. It’s always been 2010 and that’s our goal right now is to launch 2010. The share repurchase, we’re going to generate somewhere around $80 million to $90 million in cash this year and that’s after making some significant investments in our infrastructure and doing a small acquisition in the neckwear area. I believe what we would like to do with our cash is to really focus on strategic acquisitions that will continue to be our first priority but I’ve been pretty consistent in saying we’re not going to be a bank and just hold cash as a stockpile. So we will look at our capital structure as the year progresses particularly into the second half, first half of next year, we’ll look at what the M&A pipeline looks like at that time and if we see opportunities and then along with our Board, we’ll make a decision about a share repurchase plan. We completed a $200 million share repurchase plan in the first quarter of last year and we would look at that same opportunity given the timeframe this year to see what would be appropriate given the environment.

Your next question comes from the line of Emily Shanks - Lehman Brothers

Can you tell us what G&A was for the quarter?

For the second quarter G&A was approximately $14 million.

In terms of the EBIT hit from exiting Geoffrey Beene, the $8.687 million, can you give us a sense of what portion was cash versus non-cash?

For this quarter we took a significant charge on the write-off of the assets so for this quarter so I would say approximately $2 million to $3 million was cash for the quarter.

Can you comment around what your sense is of international tourism, and potentially influencing either the CK outlet as well as the retail stores?

In certain parts of the country, New York, Florida, and Las Vegas to a degree, tourism seems to be strong and from an international point of view, and more importantly with the dollar, Euro and some of the other currencies differential, you can clearly see that international tourists are shopping and their shopping with their bags open and their wallets open. In certain markets it’s significant, less so for our specialty stores, more so for our outlet stores which tend to be located in tourist destinations areas like Orlando and Vegas, so I would say we see it there and we also see it in our collection business in New York on Madison Avenue. That business continues to be very strong for us in our Madison Avenue store and tourists come in and we think a substantial portion of that business is driving our sales as well.

Would you say though that there’s still an underlying demand away from international tourism?

I’m just not close; I don’t want to sound like an expert when it comes to that. I can only talk about how it’s impacting our business. I really can’t speak to tourism statistics in general. I can tell you that traffic is down in the outlet centers and it’s down most specialty retailers. I believe that’s probably driven, the vast, vast majority of that is being driven by US tourism being down, people not getting in their cars and travelling as frequently and just the demands that people have on them with the price of gas or whatever. So I think we’re clearly seeing in our outlet stores in our legacy business our comp store trend at negative 5%, our traffic is about the same level, at about negative 5%. We have counters in a fair number of our stores and based on that I just say footsteps coming into the stores are less.

Your next question comes from the line of Kate McShane – Citigroup Kate McShane – Citigroup: Could you give us more detail behind the monthly comps for Calvin Klein because I think you stated last conference call that the Calvin Klein retail comps started the quarter up 11% but they ended up around 9%? On the balance sheet receivables were up around 14% during the quarter and I think we’ve seen receivables picking up now for the last several quarter, can you give some detail behind that as well?

Getting pretty granular on Calvin Klein, the trend I guess through the first three weeks of May was plus 11% and we did some see some softness in July overall, when I say softness in all of our retail businesses, it continued to be positive, I think Calvin Klein was probably about plus 8%, but then for the first three weeks of August its been closer to plus 12%. So you have to be careful about school return dates and that impacts, and vacation scheduling so there’s a number of issues, but on balance, the trend in Calvin Klein has been between 8% and 12%, pretty consistently month to month for the first half of the year.

On the receivables, we do see an increase in receivables, about 14%. I can tell you we took a charge in the quarter for two customers who declared bankruptcy, Chapter 11. Our receivables are very clean. We don’t see a delay in payments. The balance increase is primarily driven by the timing of shipments.

Your next question comes from the line of Ben Rowbotham – Goldman Sachs Ben Rowbotham – Goldman Sachs: Can you talk a little about traffic, I know you noted that your stores do have counters in them and that you were saying it was slightly down in the last quarter, when you look at the ease in comparisons coming up do you expect those to pick up more from traffic or more on the ticket side?

I think our traffic in our stores is down about negative 4% overall our comps are down about negative 5% so and again we don’t have counters in every store so I think the conclusions we’ve been drawing pretty consistently is comp store declines are being driven predominantly by lack of traffic in the outlet centers. I think that’s been pretty consistently stated by most other retailers in that channel. As we go forward it’s clear that when you look at last year’s comp store performance it was also driven by traffic. The plus 2.5% comp store trend that we saw in the first half of the year was driven by better traffic in the centers and the negative 2.5% that we saw last year was driven by less traffic in the centers so we are expecting the softness at retail that we experienced last year’s second half that was basically traffic driven to just be an easier comparison to where we were. So we think its very much inline, traffic is what’s driving the comp store performance. Ben Rowbotham – Goldman Sachs: Can we get some color on where the inventories are at within that channel, given that gross margins are expected to pick up and your certainty around that number, I think it was cited at 60 to 80 basis points?

Our inventories when you take out the new businesses overall, are down about 5% and our retail inventories relating to the outlet business are down closer to 8%. So we are much cleaner, we are really managing the gross margin dollars and not only are we cleaner on dollars and units, we’re cleaner from the seasonality point of view, less of percentage goods carrying over by beginning of month September our spring inventories will be significantly below where they were at that time last year. So from the quality, quantity of inventory in the outlet channel is much better and that gives us a confidence that there’s an opportunity on the gross margin line to even do better in that channel of distribution as we go forward particularly if we hit our sales plan, that there’s opportunity on the gross margin line. Ben Rowbotham – Goldman Sachs: With regard to Mervyn’s and Boscov’s, there are no other charges left to be had there in terms of reserving for anything on a go forward basis, correct?

No, we took our best estimate of what we thought the collection on against those receivables would be and we’re in good position there.

Your next question comes from the line of Robert Drbul - Lehman Brothers

On the IZOD business with America Living and JCPenney, have you seen any major impact on that business within that particular store?

When we planned the business with Penney’s, Penney’s was very strategic with us to make sure we didn’t lose open to buy position or position on the floor. The IZOD brand was one brand that was clearly focused on to continue. I would say the JCPenney’s business has been tough in general and the American Living business, I don’t like to talk about my competition, but that business has been tough and its manifested itself from a competitive point of view of that there’s a significant liquidation throughout the second quarter of inventory going on at JCPenney at significantly reduced price points. So the American Living goods are going out the door at a lower retail then was being planned and I think that’s putting pressure on the competitive set but the IZOD AURs continue to be above last year’s. Our performance at Penney’s continues to be very strong in all categories; women’s and on our men’s sportswear side of the business and in the licensing products including kid’s. And we compete with American Living on every side. So I don’t want to say we haven’t felt anything, we’re clearly dealing with it and it has been disruptive from a promotional cadence point of view but our AURs are up, and we’re right on plan with Penney’s from a maintain margin and a sales plan. It’s a competitor that we clearly watch and monitor.

On markdown support, when you look at the first half of this year versus the first half of last year and your assumptions for the second half of this year versus the second half of last year, has it changed dramatically in terms of what you expected the markdown support to need to be and when you think about it in the back half of the year, do you think that you’ve allocated enough dollars from that perspective or is there risk or you’ve been very conservative with that as well?

I think we reacted pretty quickly to the sales trends that we saw in the second half of last year and beginning in the third quarter of last year. So I think where we took it on the chin to put it bluntly, was on the sales line. I think we looked at plans, we worked with our retail partners and we made sure we got the inventories in line with the sales expectation and if we had any pain associated with that it was in the wholesale shipments and its been reflected, it reflected itself on the sales line as we go forward. Our gross margin and our allowance performance and maintain margins at retail have been very good because we’ve kept our inventories clean and haven’t been put into that situation. I would say to you as we got our inventories in line the support was heavier in the first quarter then in the second quarter because the inventories came in line as we came out of the holiday season and with inventories being significantly in better position that retail, our inventories in department stores are down somewhere between depending on the brand, 5% to 12%. Inventory levels are significantly cleaner then last year so we are rightfully planning for some improvement in the margin support from last year because we had a much higher sales plan last year at retail that just didn’t materialize for anyone and we’re expecting higher AURs and somewhat less promotional selling going on the second half of the year and I think we’ve been seeing that for now the last four months at department stores.

On the marketing spend, as you go into the fourth quarter how much discretion are you wiling to use in terms of the marketing dollar investments that you make if the environment remains this difficult as it is today?

If you’re asking me do we have levers, you always have levers on managing expenses. If things were to get tougher then you anticipated to potentially play if business goes forward. I think that there’s $2 million to $3 million just in the fourth quarter alone just with our heritage brand that if we chose, if things got very tough we could chose not to spend. But at this point in time we’re committed to spend those dollars and we’ll continue to support the brand.

Your next question comes from the line of Omar Saad – Credit Suisse Omar Saad – Credit Suisse: On the US dollar, it looks like its starting to stabilize and strengthen here, and something probably we’ve haven’t done as good a job of in the past understanding the foreign currency impact on your business, I know from the Calvin Klein piece a big chunk of the royalty revenues are coming from overseas. Could you help us understand what that impact has been over the last year or two and how it could look going forward if the dollar strengthens further?

The net impact to us because we have licensing income and we also international expenses, for the first half of the year there was a $3 million to $4 million and in the second half we’re projecting $2 million to $3 million of benefit that we received this year going forward. The focus on currencies tends to be the Euro and I think when the Euro is going up, it was to some degree it was definitely impacting our business, I’m not saying that, but there was an over emphasis on it because we do have a number of currencies we’re dealing with and some of those currencies all moved and were appreciated but not to the level of the Euro. That’s the impact of it. I think on balance we’d like to see the dollar stabilize and appreciate further because I think it was benefit us from a [softening] point of view because I think the flip side which is very hard to quantify is that obviously the weakness of the dollar has had impacts throughout the supply chain and we will really start to see that with product costs beginning in the fourth quarter but more dramatically spring 2009. So as the dollar strengthens I think its softening some of that but clearly that’s an area where we’re starting to look at. Omar Saad – Credit Suisse: On inflation on input costs, I know for a lot of the apparel guys, the weaker dollar has hurt the input costs, it sounds like that’s been the case for you as well.

I think we’re all dealing with an increase in product sourcing costs driven by you can put them in points, the currency strength of foreign currencies against the dollar, the commodity costs starting with oil and moving to raw materials and piece goods which are all being impacted and dealing with all of the social issues and what’s going on in China from a factory point of view with the number of factories that have closed and the pressures that are all going on around the world. So clearly we are seeing product cost increases for spring 2009. I would characterize them that on average that it’ll be in the 3% to 6% range for product costs. Our goal, depending on the product category and depending on the brand, to take our MSRPs up and to try to promote off of a higher MSRP and to increase our average unit retails out the door. That could be a challenge in this environment so clearly next year we might see some gross margin pressure. But I think it’s manageable in light of where we are, our diverse sourcing mix and how we would, and the ability particularly in some of our brands, particularly Calvin Klein to really pass along the price increases. Omar Saad – Credit Suisse: On the acquisition front, what are your views there now, heard your name come up a couple of different times out there in the marketplace. Do you think now is a good time to be buying some of these brands that might be for sale out there, you still looking for strategic bolt-on acquisitions or given the environment are you going to take the pedal off the gas and stay focused on your business?

I think, again, if you could find the right acquisition and the right brand, this is a great time to make an acquisition. If you have a balance sheet that’s strong and you have cash and you clearly have debt capacity to make acquisitions, we continue to be active in looking. We’re not taking the foot off the gas but we’re also being disciplined in valuations and what people believe their businesses are worth have not come inline with where valuations are today. So that’s an ongoing challenge. I think the market is more active in looking and seeing more opportunities but you really haven’t seen a whole lot of acquisitions announced either. So there’s a lot of disciplined approach going on. We’re being very disciplined at the things we do look at and it has to make strategic sense and it has to be a strong brand that fits into our portfolio.

Your next question comes from the line of Sean Naughton – Piper Jaffray Sean Naughton – Piper Jaffray: On the sourcing, you were discussing possibly 3% to 6% on product costs overall depending on which particular product, is it possible to breakout, are you seeing higher inflation costs on the footwear versus the apparel for next year?

Leather is a major challenge and there’s a good portion of our line in footwear that’s totally leather based and that’s probably one of the areas where there’s the greatest inflation going on. Our exposure in the footwear area, Bass represents just about 10% of our volume, about 40% of that is done in apparel and accessories. So on an overall basis for us as a company; it’s a challenge for the Bass brand it’s not that significant an issue for us overall. Sean Naughton – Piper Jaffray: On the outlet business, from a regional standpoint have you seen any new areas coming under stress domestically, clearly people have talked about Florida, California and some of the housing impact in the States, but are there new areas that you’re seeing some additional challenges on the heritage businesses?

No, the toughest markets continue to be Florida and Southern California and that continues. We’ve actually seen some improvement in those markets in the last 45 days but I think part of that [inaudible]. Sean Naughton – Piper Jaffray: And the CK license for the women’s Better sportswear, you said that could be a potentially a $200 million wholesale brand, where is that currently today and what type of growth rate could potentially be in that?

That business today is about a $40 million business. It’s very underdeveloped and I think it’s possible to get to $150 million to $200 million over the next five years.

Your final question comes from the line of Brad Stephens – Morgan, Keegan Brad Stephens – Morgan, Keegan: Could you give some color on the merchandise margin assumptions for Q3 and Q4 and then just within the channels of wholesale and retail and the puts and takes year-over-year and then on your dress shirts and dress furnishing segment, what you’re seeing going on there given the softening employment picture, are you seeing trading down?

On the margins, we were planning our gross margins on a business by business basis up about 10 to 30 basis points. I think we’re being pretty conservative there given the cleanliness of the inventory. That’s about where it’s being planned. Brad Stephens – Morgan, Keegan: On the dress shirts and dress furnishings, you have a variety of price points, are you seeing people trade down, what are you seeing in that channel?

We’re seeing strength across all channels and all customers. Our three largest accounts, Macy’s, JCPenney and Kohl’s are enjoying significant increases in business and that does span the spectrum of moderate price brands to the better price brands, so we’re seeing actually in the dress furnishings category outperformance to the store and to the men’s category. Brad Stephens – Morgan, Keegan: Is there any trading down within that?

We don’t see it. We see our core brands performing well and we see our better brands performing well; Calvin Klein, Kenneth Cole, the new launch of DKNY, everywhere you go in our inventory of brands, we’re seeing positive performance.

That is all the questions we have today; Mr. Chirico I’ll turn the conference back to you for any additional or closing remarks.

Thank you all for joining us and we look forward to speaking to you on our third quarter press release. Have a great day.