Good day and welcome to the PVH Q3 2021 earnings call. Today’s conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Dana Perlman. Please go ahead, ma’am.

Thank you Operator. Good morning everyone and welcome to the PVH Corp. third quarter 2021 earnings conference call. Leading the call today will be Stefan Larsson PVH’s Chief Executive Officer, Jim Holmes, EVP, interim Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Controller. This webcast and conference call is being recorded on behalf of PVH and consists of copyrighted material. It may not be recorded, rebroadcast or otherwise transmitted without PVH’s written permission. Your participation in the question and answer session constitutes your consent to having anything you say appear in any transcript or replay of this call. The information to be discussed includes forward-looking statements that reflect PVH’s view as of December 1, 2021 of future events and financial performance. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties indicated in the company’s SEC filings and the Safe Harbor statement included in the press release that is the subject of this call. These risks and uncertainties include PVH’s right to change its strategies, objectives, expectations and intentions, and its need to use significant cash flow to service its debt obligations. Significantly at this time, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to have a significant impact on the company’s business, financial condition, cash flow and results of operations. There is significant uncertainty about the duration and extent of the impact of the pandemic. The dynamic nature of these circumstance means what is said on this call could change materially at any time, therefore the operation of the company’s business and its future results of operations could differ materially from historical practices and results or current descriptions, estimates and suggestions. PVH does not undertake any obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statement, including without limitation any estimates or suggestions regarding revenue or earnings. Generally, the financial information and projections to be discussed will be on a non-GAAP basis as defined under SEC rules. Reconciliations to GAAP amounts are included in PVH’s third quarter 2021 earnings release, which can be found on www.pvh.com and in the company’s current report on Form 8-K furnished to the SEC in connection with the release. At this time, I’m pleased to turn the conference over to Stefan Larsson.

Thank you Dana. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining our call today. For the third quarter, we delivered another strong quarter of high quality growth driven by the disciplined execution of our accelerated recovery priorities across both Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, driving brand and product strength with increased pricing power, supercharging ecommerce to win in the digitally-led marketplace where we are on track for a 25% digital penetration of our total business for the full year, double pre-pandemic levels, all while increasing our discipline in driving cost efficiencies and investing in growth. All this has resulted in much better than expected EBIT margins and EPS. We significantly exceeded our guidance with EBIT margins for the quarter above pre-pandemic levels and our gross margin rates up 300 basis points versus 2019. Our international businesses continued to execute very well across brands with increased product strength and strong consumer engagement, both online and in stores. This resulted in strong sales growth, significantly increased pricing power, and margin expansion compared to both last year and to pre-pandemic levels. In North America, despite worsening logistics disruptions including U.S. port delays towards the very end of the quarter, which shifted revenues from the third to the fourth quarter, the region is still on track to deliver against the full year plans. Without this shift of revenues to Q4, we would have exceeded our overall revenue guidance for the quarter. Looking ahead at the full year, despite the COVID-related disruptions we are all currently navigating, based on the strength of our underlying performance trends and most recently through early positive reads of the start of our holiday season, we are affirming the upper end of our revenue guidance and are increasing our earnings guidance for the full year. We are raising our EBIT…

Thanks Stefan. The comments I’m about to make are based on non-GAAP results and are reconciled in our press release. Overall, revenues for the third quarter were up 10% compared to the prior year but below our previous guidance due to worsening logistics disruptions in October, including significant U.S. port delays which resulted in a 4% negative impact from an unplanned shift in the timing of U.S. wholesale shipments from the third quarter into the fourth quarter. Absent this shift, our revenues for the third quarter would have exceeded our guidance. Third quarter revenue also reflects a 4% reduction from the sale of the heritage brands business, which closed on the first day of the third quarter, and also the exit from the heritage brands retail business that was substantially completed in the second quarter of 2021. Our retail stores faced continued pressure during the third quarter with a majority of stores temporarily closed in Australia for most of this year’s quarter. Owned and operated digital commerce increased 21% and our overall revenue through our digital channels grew approximately 15% on top of exceptionally strong growth in the prior year. The impact of foreign currency translation on our revenues was immaterial for the quarter. Looking at our segments, Tommy Hilfiger revenues were up 12% with international up 11% and North America up 13% versus third quarter of 2020. Calvin Klein revenue was up 22% with international up 19% and North America up 27%. Our heritage revenues were down 36%, which included a 40% decline from the heritage brands transaction and the exit from the heritage brands retail business. Gross margin was very strong at 57.7% for the quarter as compared to 52% in the prior year, and an increase of over 300 basis points compared to 2019 pre-pandemic levels, which…

[Operator instructions] We will take our first question from Bob Drbul of Guggenheim. Please go ahead, sir. Your line is open.

Hi, good morning. Two questions from me, if I could. The first one is--I don’t know if this is for Jim or Stefan, but can you talk a little bit about--you know, you mentioned price increases, really what you’ve seen so far from consumer receptivity or your wholesale partners on either prices that you have taken higher at this point, or plans that you have in the coming months and quarters? Thanks.

Yes, good morning Bob. We definitely are moving into an inflationary period, and coming back to our accelerated recovery priorities where we have leaned in since the beginning of the pandemic on brand relevance, product strength, and we really see the result of that coming through in pricing power, so we see increased AURs, we see increased gross margin rate, so looking forward, Jim can give you a little bit more of the details of what we expect in terms of AUC increases, but we are confident from a product strength perspective that we will continue to drive AUR increases. Then overall, looking at the inflationary environment we’re moving into, we are looking at both pricing power, sourcing mitigation, and we are looking at cost efficiencies overall. Jim?

Yes Bob, just to add to what Stefan alluded to, as we head into spring 2022, some of the cost increases we’re starting to see is about mid single digits, but we do see great strength in our product, so we’ll be looking to mitigate that through different supply chain initiatives, but also through increasing pricing, particularly in key categories where we see a lot of strength in the business.

Great, thank you. The other question I have is can you talk a little bit about denim trends that you’re seeing within the brands and how you feel you’re positioned in some of the denim cycle commentary that we see out there?

Yes, definitely. We see denim trending up in the market with the consumer. We are excited by that because we have strength in denim in both Tommy and Calvin. It’s in the DNA of the brand. It’s one of those power categories that we are leaning into, so it’s an exciting consumer trend that we are leaning into and you will see that increasingly going forward.

Thank you very much.

Thanks Bob.

We will now move onto our next question from Michael Binetti of Credit Suisse. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Good morning guys, thanks for all the detail here, and thanks for taking our questions. Just a quick one on the near term. I think we had a--you know, before coming into today, we had a fourth quarter implied guidance, and you had talked about stepping up marketing in the back half, so we knew about that. But then excluding the wholesale shift and the FX changes, it looked like the underlying sales for fourth quarter were pretty much where you thought they’d be, but the SG&A looks like it stepped up a little bit more for fourth quarter. Maybe you could help us think about if that’s right and what might have stepped up. Then Stefan, as we spoke through this year, we talked a little bit about how much opportunity you see to realign work streams and accelerate product lead times with different brands. As the shift moves away from just navigating COVID here globally, maybe you could just help us think about the size of the opportunity you see there, where the company’s at on some of those processes, and what are the biggest initiatives that you think we’ll see as we talk over the next year or so that you’ll start working on as far as the biggest opportunity for the financials, as you start to put some of those changes into play. Thanks.

Yes Michael, I’ll start. I’ll take your Q4 question and then turn it over to Stefan. Really in Q4, just start with the revenues. The first thing we did is we narrowed the revenue guidance, and really we increased the bottom end of the range and we reaffirmed at the top end. In Q4 with revenues, the underlying business pretty much held and we were able to cover some weakening of the euro. The euro did weaken against the U.S. dollar, particularly we saw that in the last month. As far as when you get below revenue, really the main change is we had to incur an additional $0.10 - $10 million, $0.10 of air freight costs in Q4, but really everything underlying, we’re still generating very strong gross margins just like in Q3, continuing to gain expense efficiencies. The marketing that I alluded to was always planned to always be very heavily weighted to the second half of the year, and particularly to Q4. We really wanted to connect that spending to some of the consumer moments that we have, particularly Black Friday and Singles Day.

Thanks Jim. Michael, when it comes to your product question, there are multiple components that we drive, coming back to our accelerated recovery priorities which will lead into our long term strategy, which is about focusing in on the key categories where we have the right to play to win with the consumer. Within that, then, develop an increased focus on hero products, the most essential products in the consumers’ wardrobe. Every single product has to have an intent, then cutting the assortment tail. We have done a good first job on that. We will--looking ahead, coming back to your question, we see opportunities to continue to cut the unproductive assortment tail, and then there is a big value unlock over time in planning and buyer closer to demand.

Okay, thanks. Appreciate it, guys.

We will now move onto our next question from Erin Murphy of Piper Sandler. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Great, thank you. Good morning. My first question is for Stefan. I would love if you could share a little bit more about your outlook for China, and then specifically what’s the current dynamic on the ground there between global versus national brands?

Yes, good morning Erin, and thanks for your question. When it comes to Asia, we had another strong quarter in Asia. We see it more than what you see, because of the COVID resurgences that we keep going in and out of in different countries in Asia. When it comes to China, this quarter we outperformed our plan. It’s very much driven by leaning into Calvin and Tommy and connecting them even closer to the consumer, and digital is a key part there. When we look at 11/11 as an example, the Singles Day that’s now way beyond a day, we performed really, really strongly, and then--so digital is an important component, leaning into the different consumer moments like 11/11, and then it’s the product focus on making sure that we play into the right big categories that matter the most, and then we see that the hero products that we have been developing over the last year is really resonating in China with the Chinese consumer and leading to higher sell throughs and higher AURs.

That’s great to hear. Then maybe just one for Jim and following up on Binetti’s question, if you were to see upside in the fourth quarter relative to your plan, would that come more from sales or the margin front? Thank you so much.

Yes Erin, we see great strength right now in the gross margins. We started the fourth quarter pretty strong. We’re very pleased with our performance on Singles Day and Black Friday on the top line, but our inventories are leaner than we would ultimately like, so we’re seeing real continued strength in AURs, that pricing power that we’re seeing flow through in gross margins. I think the opportunity is even more so on gross margin than it has been in the past.

Great, thank you so much, and happy holidays to you all.

You too, Erin. Thank you.

We will now move onto our next question from Jay Sole of UBS. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Great, thank you so much. I guess I just want to follow up on the gross margin. Within the guidance, do you have a sense of how you feel like the gross margin should land in 4Q, and within that, with the changes in the heritage business in Q3, can you just talk about what impact that had on gross margin and SG&A? Thank you.

Yes, so Jay, in my notes I alluded to our gross margin percent in Q2 was 57.7%, our gross margin in Q3 was 57.7%. Right now, we’re anticipating Q4 to be about the same, so really about three quarters of that sustainable, pretty high gross margin, so we feel pretty good about that. If we talk about heritage, yes, it has helped the gross margins somewhat. The heritage business was a much smaller base, so it’s not moving the PVH needle that much, but it is a slight improvement. But also, just maybe some of the offsets to that improvement in Q3, and particularly in Q4 is the air freight cost, so recall that about $45 million of additional air freight cost, which is all hitting in the second half, so we’ve been able to cover that as well, which would be more impactful than any benefit that we’d get from heritage.

And Jay, what’s exciting from my perspective, from a strategy perspective, is that when we lean into Calvin and Tommy and into product strength and hero products, we see that we are able to drive higher AURs, and that’s a sustainable path. That drives a sustainable path towards increased gross margin rates, so that’s very exciting from my standpoint.

Got it, thank you for that. If I could ask one more, paying down some debt, buying back some stock. What’s the plan for the balance sheet going forward, because the long term debt levels are back down to near pre-pandemic levels, and there’s still a lot of cash on the balance sheet. What’s the outlook for that?

Yes Jay, we’re really pleased with our liquidity position and the strength of our balance sheet. First and foremost, we’re going to use our cash to invest in ourselves. That’s always going to be our priority. Absent that, our debt pay downs so far are more than the debt we took out during the pandemic, so now we’re able to also we want to continue to pay down debt, but also we reinstated our share repurchases, so we’re pulling out about--we’ll have about $350 million of share repurchases for the year. We’ve also reinstated our cash dividend, so we feel really, really good about the strength of our balance sheet and how we’re really turning inventories and using our working capital and turning it into cash.

Got it, thanks so much.

We will now move onto our next question from Brooke Roach of Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Great, thank you and good morning. PVH has seen particularly strong profitability in both brands internationally. I was wondering if you could perhaps talk to the drivers of the increases that you’ve seen this year and your outlook for those margins in a perhaps somewhat more inflationary environment where demand and supply are in better alignment going forward.

Yes, thanks Brooke, absolutely. This quarter, I spent a lot of time on the road. I saw over 40 stores in four different countries in Europe, as I mentioned in my remarks, and what’s so exciting there is to see the consumer focus, the brand focus continuously elevating the brand position, driving very strong product execution and AUR coming out of that, and then having a multi-channel, omnichannel approach to winning with the consumer. When we see European markets resurgence in COVID, we see that we have been better than most in the market to pivot to where the consumer then--how the consumer acts, because the consumer is resilient and the consumer is strong, so even though we have a fourth wave now, we see that in countries where we have COVID restrictions coming in, we start to see a pattern from having navigated successfully through a number of waves, so we brick and mortar foot traffic slightly come down but we see conversion go up in brick and mortar, and then we see the consumer immediately pivot to digital. When I look at the consumer in Europe and overall, the consumer is starting to get back to life as we knew it, so we are a year and a half, almost two years into COVID, and so we see the consumer continue to shop. In Europe, we are very good at meeting that consumer where the consumer shops, so those are some of the key drivers we see. Those are also the key drivers for our accelerated recovery priorities across the regions.

Thank you. It sounds like there’s a lot of momentum and confidence in the gross margin and AUR momentum of the brands, driven by your hero product strategy. Perhaps we could pivot a little bit to the SG&A cost structure as you look forward. Can you talk to the puts and takes of this as you look ahead? Where do you see the most leverage on your cost base, and where are the opportunities to optimize that expense structure as you continue to roll out this strategy?

Yes Brooke, cost efficiencies and finding continued cost efficiencies is one of the key priorities on our accelerated recovery priorities that Stefan had alluded to. Really, we see opportunities everywhere, particularly as our international revenues really are sort of--we’re seeing outsized growth, and we may start to see some real leverage there to go along with those revenues. But the expense, actually efficiencies and be optimal and really point our investments to the growth vehicles are really across the board, across both brands and across all regions.

I mean, to build on what Jim said, Brooke, it’s about the way we drive cost efficiencies. We start with what it takes to win with the consumer, and the consumer has moved over the last few years, so we need to make sure that we invest in where the consumer is going and driving our accelerated recovery priorities, and then we have to divest to invest. We are increasingly going to lean into cost efficiencies to make sure that we invest enough in where the consumer is going, and that we free up cost efficiencies to do that, and that we flow through some of that to the bottom line.

Thank you so much. I’ll pass it on.

Thank you.

We will now move onto our next question from Kimberly Greenberger of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Great, thank you so much. Good morning. Stefan, I wanted to ask you about the ways in which you’re changing how you work with your wholesale accounts to improve the full price sell through of Calvin and Tommy. Can you just remind us how you’re augmenting your wholesale strategy, both domestically and internationally to help your profit improvement initiatives? Thanks so much.

Yes, thank you Kimberly, definitely. It starts with assortment strength, and it starts with inviting our wholesale partners on the journey for Calvin and Tommy and saying, here are the key categories, here are the hero products, and here is how we bring those to life and the experience. Ecommerce is an increasingly important component, that we bring our brands to life through our wholesale partners increasingly well in ecommerce, and then that we do it as well in brick and mortar, just like we look through continuously to cut the unproductive assortment tail. We also look at the productivity, the door productivity in wholesale partners, but overall it’s a partnership that builds on our core strength and focus areas around assortment and product and pricing power, and then it’s tapping into their strengths. We have deep experience of doing this over time, and it’s just great to see. The digital opportunity for us is big in terms of owned and operated, and it’s equally big when it comes to our wholesale commerce opportunity.

Okay, great. Thanks so much. Just one follow-up on the gross margin, if I could. Could you just quantify for us, Jim, the amount of total air freight in basis points or dollars in gross margin here in the third quarter, and I know that the fourth quarter is coming in $0.10 more freight impact, but if you could just give us that total air freight impact also, either in basis points or dollars, for the fourth quarter that’s embedded in your plan, that would be helpful.

Yes Kimberly, we were pulling out in total this year, and really all in the second half, an additional $45 million of air freight, and then how you think about it by quarter, it’s almost evenly split, 50/50, which is--also just to add--

Great, thank you.

Just one thing just to add, during the last quarter, we had called out 35, so we have an additional $10 million now than we thought we would have last quarter.

Very clear. Thanks so much, and good luck.

Thank you.

We will now move onto our next question from Omar Saad of Evercore. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Good morning, happy holidays. I wanted to ask a question on the inventory situation. You mentioned plus-50 in transit, that obviously is an elevated number. Do you have visibility into the timing of the shipments and the receipts and when these goods are going to flow through to the retail, to the consumer, or is there any chance that they are going to come too late and may need markdowns to deal with after the season? Help us understand your visibility into the receipts and the timing of inventory as well.

Yes Omar, so some of the challenges that we saw worsen in October, particularly due to the U.S. port delays which caused a shift of shipments from Q3 into Q4, those goods are out now. We got back in line with them - they went out in November, so we feel pretty good. Inventories are still generally pretty lean, but as we work through the year, it will start to get a little better, still challenged, but as we move through, we should get in better position. We don’t see things where we would have to have heavy markdowns, because generally we’re lean to begin with and we feel pretty good. Also, that’s why we are deploying so much air freight, we’re pretty much ensuring that the goods are getting here in time for the holidays.

Great, that’s super helpful. Then maybe Stefan, could you talk a little bit about this demand for denim and fashion and broader apparel? Are we at peak levels here, do you think? Do you have any early thoughts on demand levels into 2022? Is there room for your consumers to spend more on Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein?

Thank you Omar. Yes, we are confident in the strength of the consumer and the strength of our brands with that consumer, so. Back to the denim trend, we see that as starting to grow, and denim has always been important to the consumer and we see that trend continuing into 2022.

Thanks, good luck. Look forward to the investor day.

Thank you very much, Omar.

Once again, if you would like to ask a question, that is star followed by one - star, one. We’ll move to our next question from Matthew Boss of JP Morgan. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Great, thanks. Stefan, by region, you mentioned work remaining in North America and you mentioned leaning into this with full force. Could you just elaborate on the unlock opportunity you see in the region, maybe across each brand, and how best to think about the timeline from here?

Yes, so when we look at North America, first and foremost we have the 30, 40% of the business that used to be tourism, that for the last year and a half we haven’t seen much of that tourism. Over time that will come back, and this quarter we were also hit by the shift from the U.S. port situation from Q3 to Q4. That’s macro. We are focusing on what we can impact, which is to win more with the domestic consumer. The green shoots that I mentioned that I’m excited about is that we are leaning into product strength, hero product strength. Pricing power is up, so we see pricing power--we see North America right now driving up pricing power and discounts down, and we see increasing strength in our focus categories and hero product execution. Then, we are driving in--we are leaning into to drive high quality ecommerce growth as well, so that’s--it’s the same accelerated recovery priorities, it’s just a tougher macro given the tourism, and in Q3 given the port situation.

Great, and then Jim, just multi-year on sustainability of gross margin as we think about next year, are there any give-backs at all to consider, or should we think about this year’s gross margin as a new foundation to build on from here?

Yes Matt, we’re projecting even with Q4, we’re going to have three quarters in a row of sustainable gross margins at that very high 57% range, so we’re not necessarily giving guidance going out to next year, but we feel pretty good about so far the sustainability of our gross margins.

And the reason, just to build on what Jim just said, Matt, the reason why we feel good about the sustainability of the gross margin is how we execute product strength and pricing power. We see that across both brands and across all regions. Operator, we’ll have to ask for the next question to be the last question for this call. Thank you.

Our final question comes from Paul Lejuez of Citigroup. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Thanks, it’s Tracy Kogan filling in for Paul. I had a follow-up on the wholesale business. I was wondering how your partners are reacting to the delays. Have you seen any material increase in cancellations, or are partners really just taking basically whatever inventory they can get at this point? Then I do have one follow-up, thanks.

Yes, I’ll take that, Tracy. We are not seeing any cancels, and one of the things with the delays we had and the shift of our shipments is it was really season-less goods, that we would not deploy air freight in lower margin goods. It got hung up in the ports, but since it’s season-less, it’s out already. We are not seeing cancels.

And we are really in a situation, Tracy, where demand outpaced supply, which is a good place to be.

Mm-hmm. Then my second question was just looking at your business, or your customers internationally versus the U.S., just wondering what the demographics are like of your customers internationally versus in the U.S. - you know, the local customer, obviously, not the tourist.

We have a similar consumer base for Tommy and Calvin across the world, and it’s the strength--so when I was out in all these markets and saw all these stores in Europe and all these stores in North America, I just get so encouraged because having two of the most iconic brands in our sector and seeing the consumer we have, it’s all in our hands when it comes to executing, making sure that we execute those brands to the highest possible relevance through the product strength, through the consumer engagement, collaborations, and through the disciplined channel execution.

Great. Thanks very much.

Well thank you very much, Tracy, and thank you everyone for joining us for this call this morning. I want to wish you all, and we want to wish you all a happy, healthy and safe holiday. Looking forward to catching up again in 2022. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.