Troy Alstead
Analyst · Goldman Sachs
Thanks, Jeff, and good afternoon, everyone. The financial results this quarter speak to the power of our business model and the organization capabilities we now have that were not present only a few years ago. In the second quarter, we were able to invest for future growth and absorb significant cost pressures, all while maintaining momentum in growth and profitability throughout the business. Before I go into the financials, I wanted to mention, there has been a change this quarter in how we categorize revenue, facilitated by the changes in our CPG business and the associated revenue streams. As noted in our press release, prior periods have been reclassified to reflect the change, and we will be posting financial statements for the prior 3 years on starbucks.com to reflect these changes. There was no impact to consolidated or segment net revenues from this change in presentation. Second quarter consolidated revenues were $2.8 billion, up 10% from $2.5 billion a year ago. The revenue increase was primarily driven by a 7% increase in comparable store sales, attributable to a 6% increase in traffic and a 1% increase in average ticket. Higher CPG revenues and foreign currency translation also contributed to the revenue increase. We reported consolidated operating income of $376 million in the second quarter, an 11% increase compared to second quarter of fiscal 2010 operating income of $340 million and an 8% increase compared to last year's non-GAAP operating income. Consolidated operating margin was 13.5%, a slight improvement compared to the 13.4% GAAP operating margin in the second quarter last year and about 20 basis points less than last year's non-GAAP margin of 13.7%. Strong top line results drove increased sales leverage throughout much of the P&L. Those increases were offset by higher commodity costs, increased salaries and benefits in the U.S., higher marketing expenses to support future growth and charges related to asset write-downs in our Seattle's Best Coffee business due to the Borders bankruptcy. The charges related to Borders accounted for roughly $0.01 per share in earnings within the quarter in addition to the approximate $0.01 charge we took in our fiscal first quarter. Also of note, the transition of our Packaged Coffee business was roughly neutral to the bottom line this quarter, somewhat better than expected, driven in part by a shift of expenses into the third quarter. Earnings per share was $0.34 for the second quarter compared to $0.28 per share on a GAAP basis and $0.29 per share on a non-GAAP basis in last year's fiscal second quarter. We absorbed $0.04 per share in the quarter equivalent to 200 basis points of operating margin due to higher commodity costs compared to last year. Most of the commodity pressures related to coffee, with dairy, cocoa and sugar and fuel accounting for the rest. Our U.S. International store operations continue to perform well, driven by strong comparable store sales and operational leverage. Meanwhile, we continue to spend in support of future growth in our CPG business as we position ourselves to pursue the abundant growth opportunities that Jeff just laid out. I will now move to the results of our operating segments, which will be compared to last year's non-GAAP results. Total U.S. net revenues for the quarter were $1.9 billion, a 6% increase over the same period last year. Company-operated store revenues increased 7% to $1.8 billion in the quarter, primarily due to a 7% increase in comparable store sales. The comp increase was composed of a 6% increase in customer traffic and a 1% increase in average ticket. Pricing and the expansion of our warming program contributed to the ticket increase this quarter, partially offset by increased discounts to support loyalty and other promotional activities. Also, the launch of our petit food platform resonated well with customers and helped drive better traffic in the afternoon and evening day parts. Of note, 2-year comps continued their steady improvement, reaching levels not seen in more than 4 years with traffic growth, the primary contributor. We continued to make improvements to the customer experience, including faster speed of service as a result of our new point-of-sale system, additional quality improvements in beverage production routine and an improved training module focused on overall customer service. Another initiative, our new mobile payment platform, launched nationally in January, has helped drive faster transaction speed, which is another example of our focus on adding efficiency and utility to the Starbucks Experience for our customers. As a result of these customer-facing initiatives I just mentioned plus our popular rewards program and continued efforts around lean operations that improve the experience for both our customers and our partners, overall customer satisfaction scores continued to march higher this quarter, reaching an all-time record. U.S. cost of sales, including occupancy, was 38.7% of total net revenues in Q2, an improvement of 10 basis points over the same period last year. Sales leverage on occupancy cost was mostly offset by higher commodity costs in the quarter, primarily from coffee, which had a roughly 150-basis-point impact on the U.S. segment operating margin. Store operating expenses were 36.4% of total net revenues, in line with the same period last year. Sales leverage was offset by increased salaries and benefits. Investments in our partners is a key focus area this year, and one example of this is the overwhelmingly positive response we've had to an enhanced 401(k) program. Operating income for the U.S. segment was $357 million, an increase of 10% compared to the same quarter of last year. Operating margin improved 60 basis points from last year to a second quarter record of 18.5%. The margin improvement was driven mostly by sales leverage, partially offset by higher commodity costs. The U.S. business continues to set new highs despite the economic headwinds that we continue to face. Customers are enthusiastically embracing initiatives, such as loyalty, mobile payments and the new food items, while operationally, our partners have adopted lean processes and tools, allowing them to focus more time on customer service. With some key tools just recently rolled out and not yet fully optimized, such as our new point-of-sale system and our inventory management system, there is still an opportunity to further improve our store operations and bring an even higher level of service to our customers while also improving our store margins. In addition, new stores are performing exceptionally well, and when combined with the work we're doing around store segmentation and new store design concepts, supports our belief that there remains significant, profitable new store growth opportunities ahead in the U.S. The U.S. business is healthy and thriving and provides a foundational road map to help influence and guide our International business while also serving as the core asset that will allow us to pursue our aspirations in the CPG space. Moving now to results from our International segment. International total net revenues increased 15% to $610 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2011, primarily driven by foreign currency translation, comparable store sales growth of 4% and higher revenue from licensed stores. The comp growth was driven by an increase in traffic. Similar to last quarter, exceptionally strong performance in China contributed a significant portion of the overall comp growth. Comps in China continue to trend in the mid-20s, driven largely by increased traffic as more and more Chinese consumers are adopting the Starbucks Third Place Experience. Comps in Canada, our largest company-operated market, softened a bit this quarter compared to recent trends, as that market dealt with significant weather issues and faced a difficult comparison in lapping over last year's Olympics. International operating income was $72 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2011, a 52% increase from $47 million last year. Operating margin improved by 290 basis points to 11.8%, driven primarily by sales leverage, partially offset by higher commodity costs. Increased commodity costs in the quarter impacted International operating margin by approximately 150 basis points. This is the highest second quarter operating margin on record for the International segment and marks the fourth straight quarter of double-digit operating margin, further strengthening our confidence that International is now a consistent profit contributor and is poised to be one of the primary growth engines for the company. I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the recent events in Japan and update you on our operations there. First, it's with great pride that I recognize the efforts of our partners in Japan and their ability to deal with an incredibly difficult situation. Of our more than 900 stores in Japan, over 200 stores were either closed or had limited hours for a period of time. Some stores are still operating on reduced hours, and we continue to experience rolling blackouts in parts of the country. Of the stores that were damaged, 9 stores will be permanently closed, and we did take a small charge this quarter related to those damages. As a reminder, we own roughly 40% of the Japan market, and it is one of our 3 largest markets currently outside of the U.S. The majority of the ongoing financial impact from the disruptions will be recognized in the third quarter and will be embedded in the balance of the year outlook I'll provide later. The recent progress in the International business is extremely rewarding on many fronts. And while the rate of improvement has exceeded our expectations, we're not at all surprised to see International finally start to deliver on the vision that we have long had for this segment. We have a clear plan in place to strengthen and expand the business in the future by fueling innovation and local relevance; by expanding our store footprint and leveraging our support structure; and by driving operational efficiencies across the store portfolio. We are in the early days on our path to unlock the potential of this business, and I'm actually confident that we have the right plan and the right partners in place to achieve this vision. I'll now move on to results from the Global Consumer Products Group building on Jeff's earlier comments. The second quarter provided solid evidence of the opportunity ahead for our Consumer Products business to become an even more significant contributor to the overall business. During the quarter, we successfully transitioned our Packaged Coffee and Tea businesses in-house, taking a direct control of our relationship with the trade, which will allow us to improve our brand's positioning within the grocery channel. Under this model, Starbucks now sells directly to the trade, taking in all the associated revenues from those sales compared to just a portion of the revenues under the previous outsourced model. On an annualized basis, we expect to pick up roughly $150 million in incremental revenue and between $60 million and $70 million in incremental operating income. These numbers represent simply the structural change of bringing the business in-house and do not factor in any transition costs or additional growth, which we're confident we will be able to drive now that we are directly controlling the business. Most of this will be recorded in the CPG business unit as a result of the Starbucks-Branded Packaged Coffee and Tazo-Branded Tea businesses, with the remainder recorded in Seattle's Best Coffee segment with another. In the fiscal second quarter, total net revenues for CPG were $205 million, an increase of 30% over last year. The increase was due to higher revenues resulting from the Packaged Coffee and Tea transition and to the expanded distribution of VIA into grocery. With the transition of Packaged Coffee taking effect on March 1, we only realize one month of the associated revenue impact in the quarter, while the transition of the Tea business was effected at the beginning of January and contributed to the full quarter. Operating income for the quarter was $64 million and operating margin was 31.1%, a decline of 920 basis points compared to the same period last year. This expected year-over-year decline in operating margin was due to higher coffee costs, which were approximately 800 basis points of the decline, and marketing spend to support the continued expression of VIA. In regard to the arbitration proceedings of Kraft associated with our Packaged Coffee business, we have little to report at this time. As I previously disclosed, there will likely be a long time frame to reach resolution through the arbitration process. This was a landmark quarter for the CPG business in terms of building for the future, the transition of our Packaged Coffee and Tea businesses in-house, the agreements we announced in the single-serve space and the continued expansion and adoption of our VIA platform now provide us with a suite of products that is unmatched down the coffee aisle. Combined with our deep coffee and beverage expertise, the over 3,000 licensed stores that we have in grocery that allow us to drive sampling and the exceptional affinity that people have to the Starbucks brand, we offer a unique value to the trade that we believe we can now optimize with these assets under our control. Fiscal 2011 is an investment year for the CPG business and will require time to fully take advantage of the opportunities that exist. But I do expect the CPG business to one day rival the size of our retail store business. As we are now halfway through our fiscal 2011, I'd like to provide an updated outlook for the year as well as a few key related targets. We now expect high single-digit revenue growth for the year on a comparable 52-week basis, driven by mid- single-digit comp growth. Excluding the impact from the Borders store closures, we still plan to add approximately 500 net new stores globally with roughly 100 in the U.S. and roughly 400 in International markets. The majority of the new additions in both segments this year are expected to be licensed stores. We now expect to absorb approximately $0.22 in additional commodity costs for fiscal 2011 compared to last year, a slight increase from the $0.20 communicated on last quarter's call. The $0.02 increase is primarily due to higher dairy and fuel prices. Of the full year $0.22 impact, roughly $0.07 has been absorbed year-to-date, leaving roughly $0.15 for the balance of the year, split evenly between Q3 and Q4. Regarding coffee costs as I have indicated previously, we have fully locked our coffee costs for 2011 and are price protected for a couple of months into fiscal 2012. We watch the market very closely, and our buying office is deeply engaged in the industry. As we progress through the balance of 2011, we will progressively take actions to secure our coffee needs and lock coffee costs for additional months into 2012. While we expect that the cost we pay for coffee may be higher in '12 than they are in '11, we remain confident that we can offset those increased costs and preserve a long-term earnings growth targets. Our outlook for operating margins and our tax rate remain unchanged from the guidance provided last quarter. We now expect fiscal 2011 earnings per share to be $1.46 to $1.48 or on the high end of our previously communicated 15% to 20% growth on fiscal 2010 non-GAAP earnings per share, excluding the benefits in 2010 from the 53rd week. We continue to expect earnings per share to be in the range of $0.32 to $0.33 for the third quarter and $0.35 to $0.36 for the fourth quarter. Embedded in this outlook is the impact of the Packaged Coffee transition. We now expect the impact of the transition to be roughly neutral to EPS for the year, including roughly 7 months of the operating income pick up I noted earlier, offset by increased investments this year to support the transition. In closing, we faced stiff headwinds this quarter on several fronts, and some of those headwinds, such as commodity pricing pressure, are showing no signs of abating soon. However, our business has remained resilient in the face of these pressures, maintaining the momentum of the last 2 years and cementing a solid foundation from which to profitably grow. This resiliency is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our partners over the last few years in transforming Starbucks into a more disciplined company with deepened capabilities that allow us to be more agile and more effective in managing the business. As we progressed on our journey to build a different kind of company, leveraging our unique set of assets, I believe these attributes will play a key role in our long-term success. We understand the opportunity. We have clear and ambitious goals. And we now have the ability to effectively navigate the challenges that will undoubtedly arise as we pursue the vision that we've articulated. I firmly believe the future holds tremendous promise for Starbucks. With that, now let me turn the call back over to the operator to begin Q&A. Luisa?