Earnings Labs

V.F. Corporation (VFC)

Q2 2025 Earnings Call· Mon, Oct 28, 2024

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. My name is Abby and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the VF Corporation Second Quarter Fiscal Year 2025 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Thank you. And I would now like to turn the conference over to Allegra Perry, Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin.

Allegra Perry

Analyst

Hello and welcome to VF Corporation's second quarter fiscal 2025 conference call. Participants on today's call will make forward-looking statements. These statements are based on current expectations and are subject to uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. These uncertainties are detailed in documents filed regularly with the SEC. Unless otherwise noted, amounts referred to on today's call will be on an adjusted constant dollar and continuing operations basis, which we've defined in the press release that was issued this afternoon. And which we use as lead numbers in our discussion, because we believe they more accurately represent the true operational performance and underlying results of our business. You may also hear us refer to reported amounts, which are in accordance with U.S. GAAP. Reconciliations of GAAP measures to adjusted amounts can be found in the supplemental financial tables included in the press release, which identify and quantify all excluded items and provide management's view of why this information is useful to investors. Joining me on the call will be VF's President and Chief Executive Officer, Bracken Darrell; and EVP and Chief Financial Officer, Paul Vogel. Following our prepared remarks, we'll open the call for questions. I'll now hand over to Bracken.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst

Thank you, Allegra, and thanks all of you for joining us. This is a fun week for us. Today, we'll update you on Q2 and get all the discussions of it and Q3 behind us. Then day after tomorrow, we'll give you a deeper look at what our game plans are ahead. I'm putting in a plug now for the event, which will be broadcast live and you'll get to meet a few more people from our team. Q2 was another quarter of really good progress. We delivered on our expectations, consistent with the guardrails we provided last quarter. And VF transformation continues and within that, we're making strong strides in advancing our priorities. While Q2 revenue was still down as we expected, we had our third straight quarter of sequential improvement in the decline rate with moderating declines at Vans in the Americas and really almost everywhere else too. We expanded gross margins and we did a little better on SG&A relative to our own expectations. Paul, will talk you through the financial results later in the call. Moving on to Reinvent. As we pass the one year of anniversary when we introduced you to the program, my confidence and excitement about the transformation taking place at VF only continues to grow. I'll save a lot of the detail and future plans for later this week at the investor event, but today, I'll give you a high level update on the further progress we made in Q2, on our four stated priorities. The first priority was to lower our cost base. We generated another $65 million in cost savings during Q2. And as guided, we've now fully executed all actions to deliver $300 million of cost savings by the end of this fiscal year. We fully intend to go…

Paul Vogel

Analyst

Thanks, Bracken. Good afternoon, everyone. It's been a great first four months and I'm looking forward to unveiling more information about our long-term financial potential at our Investor Day on Wednesday. Moving on to Q2, as Bracken mentioned, we continue to advance transformation and continue to move forward as we made progress in reducing costs, strengthening the balance sheet, fixing the Americas and turning around Vans. Recapping the quarter, Q2 was largely in line with expectations with sequential improvement in revenue and a positive inflection in gross margin. Total Q2 revenue was down 6% year-over-year, which marks an improvement from down 10% in Q1. By brand, Vans was down 11% versus last year, improving from Q1 of down 21%. We are seeing the benefits from the inventory cleanup actions taken over the past few quarters, particularly on profitability as we rightsize the brand's cost structure. The North Face revenue was down 4%, in line with the guardrails we gave you last quarter, given the strong prior year Q2 comp of up 17% from shipping timing normalization. Greater China continued its strong momentum, but this was offset by ongoing Americas pressure. Timberland was down 3% in the quarter versus Q1 down 9% as we saw strong growth in premium boots and rounding out our top four brands, Dickies was down 11% in Q2, an improvement from Q1's decline of 14% and the third sequential quarter of improvement. By region, the Americas was down 9% in Q2 compared to down 13% in Q1. In EMEA, we were down 5% in the quarter, but September marked the biggest month ever for the region. The wholesale trends weighed on performance. The APAC region was up 5% in Q2, led by strength in the North Face and China. By China, we saw sequential improvement in…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And we'll now begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] And your first question comes from the line of Adrienne Yih with Barclays. Your line is open.

Adrienne Yih

Analyst

Yes, good afternoon. It's great to see the progress. Bracken, you talked about sort of increasingly being able to kind of predict the business. I'm really curious what are the drivers of the business that are becoming more predictable? And I really wanted to hear about specifically those that drive the top line and then obviously, particularly Vans followed by TNF. And then, Paul, what are the incremental investments that you will -- that you're contemplating? Is it brand building, demand creation, on outside of the incentive comp. Thank you very much.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst

Thank you, Adrian. Thanks a lot for the comment. Yes, so this is 10 consecutive quarters in a row in the Americas, which was our most difficult thing to predict before. And we're really focused on -- I'll focus really on the P&L, it's really not only revenue, but also our gross margins and our SG&A. We're -- we're really able to predict across the board underneath that to be able to predict that. You've got to have -- and I'll stay with revenue for a second, you got a pretty good sense for every part of the world what they're going to do. And so it's obviously been true in the Americas, but it's also been true in EMEA and APAC. So I just feel really good about our ability to roll up a forecast and have it be pretty accurate.

Paul Vogel

Analyst

Yeah. And on the investment side, it's really two things. It's really on product and marketing. We'll continue to make sure that we can invest in those areas as we reinvest the savings from Reinvent.

Adrienne Yih

Analyst

Great. Thank you very much.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst

Thanks, Adrienne.

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from Laurent Vasilescu with BNP Paribas. Your line is open.

Laurent Vasilescu

Analyst · BNP Paribas. Your line is open.

Hello, good afternoon. Thank you very much for taking my question and congrats, Bracken and Paul, for the progress you're making. Bracken, I was curious to know how is the health of your overall wholesale business and what do you -- what do you see your inventory levels look like going into the holidays? And then maybe, Paul, just on the free -- on the cash flow guide, can you kind of just maybe if you could give us some guardrails around the free cash flow for the second half, I think it's about $700 million. How do we think about it between 3Q and 4Q?

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · BNP Paribas. Your line is open.

Thank you, Laurent. And on the overall wholesale business, I feel good about it. I think we're really on the right trajectory. We're really on the comeback trail here across the board. And in the Americas, the creation of this Americas region has really had a strong impact, especially with our key accounts there where we're starting to see good strong momentum. In terms of channel inventories, I feel good about our channel inventories around the world. I mean, there are a few puts and takes, I would say. We're a little short in some places where the winter came late last year. So people are probably a little slow to take some of the inventory in for the North Basin things in those parts of the world, but overall, I feel really good about the channel inventory there. And then I'd say we're probably a little high in places like China where it's been honestly, in a turnaround, you've got -- you've usually got a few places that are slow to turn. I think Vans is one of the slowest to turn there in China, where it's kind of two steps about forward and two steps back. But overall, I feel really good about the Vans turnaround. I feel really good about the channel inventory.

Paul Vogel

Analyst · BNP Paribas. Your line is open.

Yes. And on the free cash flow side, we're not going to guide quarters out. There's always so much variability in terms of free cash flow what happens in each quarter. But I will say just kind of reiterate -- reiterate what I said on my prepared remarks, which is I think we feel really good about where free cash flow is coming in on the year relative to what we had given us as guidance starting to year -- the year. And particularly, we're right in line with expectations, even maybe slightly little bit better. And the change in this quarter, in particular in terms of the full-year is really about taking that and using that $50 million to reinvest in the business for the benefit of '26. So again, in line on the overall core fundamentals on free cash flow and feel really, really good about the trajectory and where it's headed.

Laurent Vasilescu

Analyst · BNP Paribas. Your line is open.

Great to hear. Look forward to Wednesday.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · BNP Paribas. Your line is open.

Thanks, Laurent.

Paul Vogel

Analyst · BNP Paribas. Your line is open.

Thank you.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · BNP Paribas. Your line is open.

Look forward to seeing you.

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from Simeon Siegel with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Simeon Siegel

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Thanks. Hey, good afternoon, everyone. So I was curious just how to think about your fixed risk variable costs at this point. As you just as you march closer to the revenue and profit improvement, just think about the puts and takes, really great gross margin, you're working your way through cost savings, the adjusted operating margin is narrowing its gap, still down. So just trying to think about how to think about ongoing deleverage impacts, maybe the reinvestment priorities and any other expense pressure points as we walk towards that sales return? Thanks, guys.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Simeon, such a good question. We're going to answer it on Wednesday. It is a great question. Thanks for it. We'll try -- we'll give you a good glimpse at that on Wednesday.

Simeon Siegel

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Fair enough. All right. I look forward to it. Thanks, guys.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Okay. Thank you. But by the way, thank you for the comments on the improvement and we feel the same way. We really do feel like we've got good momentum across the P&L.

Simeon Siegel

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Bracken, since we did that, can I throw in and maybe if this is for this well, just curious AUR versus units, maybe the past quarter and which made you more comfortable and then how you're thinking about as you elevate brand? Excuse me, how you're just thinking about that discrepancies?

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Yeah. We usually don't give that level of tail, so I won't now, but -- and we don't plan to do it Wednesday either. But I would say overall, I feel good about the brand elevation program we've got internally. I think we're really on the right track. It's going to take time to play out. And I mentioned some of the things about OTW and Vans, which is the top end of that, the real tip of the spear. But I think we're on the right path. It's going to take a few years to really get into a full scale elevation game, but that's where we're headed.

Paul Vogel

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Yeah. I would just add one minor thing, which is we are definitely seeing more full price selling in the last quarter, which is encouraging.

Simeon Siegel

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Perfect. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Thank you, Simeon. See you Wednesday.

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from Michael Binetti with Evercore. Your line is open.

Michael Binetti

Analyst · Evercore. Your line is open.

Hey, guys. Congrats on a lot of progress. Glad to see it. So I guess since Vans and Vans America specifically is a big focus, could you help us understand just sort of best that you're willing to share the channels in America? I know in the past, you've said B2C would be where we would see the turn for Vans, first. I think a lot of the POS data that people look at through the quarter was certainly worse than down 9 that you reported. So I'm just curious if we're getting close to positive on the wholesale side. Is that actually leading B2C at this point or maybe just how to think about that? And then I guess stepping back a little more broadly, any examples of how -- and maybe you're willing to share on the evolving conversations with some of your wholesale partners now that you're starting to see some green shoots with the new product?

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · Evercore. Your line is open.

Yeah. First of all, we did not say that we thought B2C would turn first to Vans. We actually said they were reverse. I thought it would probably be -- it's a little counterintuitive. I said it would probably turn in wholesale first. Wholesale is outperforming B2C right now, which isn't -- isn't too big a shock when you consider the traffic issue. They -- wholesalers continue to have plenty of traffic. We're dependent on generating our own. So it's going to take a little longer to get there as the products improve and the pipelines improve, you've got a really clean -- a clean set of products in the wholesale channel that people are coming in and discovering. And to answer the second part of your question, I think wholesalers overall have given us really positive feedback on the path we're on with Vans and I think we'll continue to see improvement. So I feel good about it.

Michael Binetti

Analyst · Evercore. Your line is open.

If I could throw in one more, any early examples of how the regional platform is starting to benefit on the day-to-day go-to-market process at the Vans?

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · Evercore. Your line is open.

Yeah, I just -- I'll repeat the one I gave earlier, but there are others. The -- our key accounts really in that regional platform, one of the things that we've done historically very well in EMEA, under Martino and in APAC and under -- under Martino is we've consistently done a good job of really, really deeply understanding the biggest accounts and making sure we're bringing all we can to help them grow and help ourselves grow. And we're starting to see that in our top accounts in the Americas. And I think you'll see more and more. They'll benefit every account we have, every wholesale account, but in the beginning, it's going to especially benefit the big ones. And it is.

Michael Binetti

Analyst · Evercore. Your line is open.

Okay. Thanks a lot.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · Evercore. Your line is open.

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from Brooke Roach with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Brooke Roach

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Good afternoon and thank you for taking our question. I was hoping we could dive a bit deeper into your expectations for the puts and takes on gross margin as we go forward, especially given your cleaner wholesale path, the better full price selling comment that you just gave, but also some of the benefits from product costs. Can you help us understand the magnitude and relative strength of each one of those benefits that we should expect over the course of the next couple of quarters? And what your outlook is for recapturing that gross profit margin? Thank you.

Paul Vogel

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Yeah. I mean we're not getting too much detail on that, I would say we as I mentioned, we expect gross margin to be up in Q3 and up again in Q4. Keep in mind, we are -- we do have some benefit from the actions that were taken last year in Q3 and Q4. So that will also help in terms of kind of where we're headed. But in general, it's a lot of things we've laid out and we'll get into a little bit more detail on Wednesday, as well on some of this. So not to keep with that same answer, but there's a little more detail we'll share on Wednesday.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Wednesday, we'll say Friday, so. Thank you, Brooke. Sorry, about that.

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from Lorraine Hutchinson with Bank of America. Your line is open.

Lorraine Hutchinson

Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is open.

Thanks. Good afternoon. I was hoping to get a little more detail on your view on the North Face, North America. Any comments by channel or any reactions you've had from your wholesale partners about how the winter season is progressing?

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is open.

Yeah. It's a little too early to say. I'm less from our wholesalers, or the trade partners and more from ourselves. I'd say it can't be any worse than last year. It seems like winter really came last late last year and it seems like it's already kind of here in some parts of the U.S. now. We're sitting here in New York today as you are and it feels a little chillier here than it did before. I just came from Canada where it's definitely getting chilly, but it always does. So I don't know, I'm optimistic. Look, I think we're going to have our guidance kind of independent of how severe the weather is, or isn't. We've got so many things internally we can fix and to including our go-to-market structure that I'm confident in what we're guiding here, whether without a good winter, or a terrible winter, depending on how you decide to interpret those two words. But yes, so let's just see how it goes. But I think our -- we've got enough in our control right now that we're going to deliver what we're telling you.

Lorraine Hutchinson

Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is open.

Thank you.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is open.

Thanks, Lorraine.

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from Matthew Boss with J.P. Morgan. Your line is open.

Matthew Boss

Analyst · J.P. Morgan. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks. So Bracken maybe just to dig in a bit more on Vans. So maybe just where you stand on some of the reset actions that you had outlined? And then as we think about maybe top priorities over the balance of this year and into next year, how best to measure sequential revenue growth improvements and just the timeline as we think about maybe some of the earlier wins relative to Sun's potential influence on product assortment and multi-year growth?

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · J.P. Morgan. Your line is open.

Yeah. Thank you. Thanks, Matthew. I think overall in terms of the reset actions, we described the reset actions we took in the end of last year, we're coming up to lapping those as Paul mentioned. So they're in the rear view mirror. I mean, that's probably as good a summary as I could give you. In terms of top priorities going forward for Vans, I think if you really laid them out, we've already started a program of introducing new products that obviously came before Sun got here, but she's already touching everything and she'll continue to touch everything, every new product, every marketing campaign, she's in the middle of the action and those of you who know her know she would be. So she definitely is. In terms of the timeline for and a level of improvement, you could expect quarter-over-quarter. We're not really going to provide that, but I'm really excited about it. And I think we're on the right path and you can kind of see it and I mentioned it in the opening, you see some excitement coming in search interest in some of the biggest markets around the world now, that's really a change. And so look, it's early days, but I feel really good about Vans. I'm excited about the brand. I'm excited about Sun and the reset stuff is in the rear view mirror.

Matthew Boss

Analyst · J.P. Morgan. Your line is open.

Great. Best of luck.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · J.P. Morgan. Your line is open.

Thank you, Matthew.

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from Jay Sole with UBS. Your line is open.

Jay Sole

Analyst · UBS. Your line is open.

Great. Thank you so much. Bracken, I just want to make sure I understand the message of introducing guidance here because I think when the guidance was removed the message is we're not going to give guidance until we know we can give you guidance that we know we can deliver. I think the expectation at the time would be full-year guidance. This is quarterly guidance. So is -- are you saying that like the we're sort of at the bottom here, we're inflection like big picture like from here, it's and upward kind of like it happened at Logitech, or is it more like, look, we're giving you a little bit of taste because we have our visibility into quarters, but there's still more work to do. I'm just sort of curious like why this quarterly guide, not the full-year guidance sort of explain how you're thinking through when to introduce the full-year guide?

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · UBS. Your line is open.

Yeah. Let me do. I'm going to -- I'm so glad you asked that question. Yeah, when we remove guidance, you described exactly what I said. I said, it's hard to guide when you don't have real confidence in the numbers that you're looking at internally. I do now. So what -- and so you're asking the question, why are we guiding just one quarter out instead of a year out. This is something Paul and I talked about after he got here and Paul had an immediate impact on me. He connected to my common sense, which is, I don't really think it makes sense. And Paul kind of referenced it when you described it, for us to try to guide a year when there's nothing magical about a year. A year is just four quarters out. We could guide five quarters out, seven quarters out, nine quarters out, no quarters out. So I think at the end of the day, the most important thing for us is to make sure we're delivering quarter-in and quarter-out. And that's exactly what we're going to do. So yes, so that's our game plan. And we'll talk a little more about this on Wednesday.

Jay Sole

Analyst · UBS. Your line is open.

Got it. Okay. Bracken, thank you so much. Looking forward to Wednesday.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · UBS. Your line is open.

Thank you. Thanks for the question.

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from Paul Lejuez with Citi. Your line is open.

Tracy Kogan

Analyst · Citi. Your line is open.

Thanks. It's Tracy Kogan filling in for Paul. I know you guys have mentioned that you expected additional savings beyond the $300 million. And I was wondering if maybe you could frame the magnitude of the savings you see and where these efficiencies might be? And then will you be in reinvesting a similar proportion like you did with the first round? Thanks.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · Citi. Your line is open.

Tracy, I hate to say this, but we're going to have to wait on that -- the answer to that question until Wednesday. What I would say is, I'm really excited about -- I'm really excited about the first round of savings we did. I think we did a good job of really level setting and removing some of the most -- some of the gross inefficiencies and taking some of the lowest hanging fruit. Anything we do from here is going to be really about a little deeper and more focused on reengineering to deliver more growth. So we will talk about that Wednesday.

Tracy Kogan

Analyst · Citi. Your line is open.

Got it. Can I just sneak one in about the North Face in North America. I was wondering if you saw anything kind of by month as the quarter progressed that might indicate why you saw the pressure, whether it was weather or something else?

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · Citi. Your line is open.

No, I wouldn't really say that. I'd say, I guess, look, this is my second year here, so it's hard to and it's -- and it's Paul's first. So I don't think we looked at anything by month and said, we see a signal one way or the other. I think things were -- things are probably about like we expected them to and we'll see. Now we're in the -- now we're sitting in New York and luckily, it feels a little cold to me. So I had to go out and buy jackie yesterday from the North Face, so.

Paul Vogel

Analyst · Citi. Your line is open.

Yeah, I would just add, we said on last quarter that given the tough comp on North Face from last year that we expected to be just slightly down sequentially from where it was in Q2 and that's exactly where we came in. So not getting into specifics of regions, but just holistically, the North Face came in right in line with expected and basically what we had previewed in the guardrails after last quarter.

Tracy Kogan

Analyst · Citi. Your line is open.

Got it. Thanks very much, guys.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · Citi. Your line is open.

Thank you. Thanks, Tracy.

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from Ike Boruchow with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Ike Boruchow

Analyst · Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Hey, guys, let me add my congrats. Two questions, which I don't know if you'll answer, but I'm going to try. On the non-core asset sales, I know it was never a specific number, but I feel like $50 million to $100 million was kind of the thought before. Is there just to kind of round out that the $425, any way you can kind of just give us the number to help us get there? And then I guess, Bracken, the second one is for you, just on the portfolio review that you've talked about at length since you started, are we officially done with that review? Should we no longer be asking about asset divestitures or anything? And are we just running the business or is there still potential for something to happen in the foreseeable future? Thanks.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Yeah, I'll answer the last one real quickly and I'll let Paul answer the first one. We're officially done for now. How is that? Because I think you're never really done. So we'll always be reexamining the portfolio and deciding if things fit or not based on their not only their strategic fit, but their performance and expected performance. So I'd say, yeah, we're done for now, but we'll keep looking at it. Paul?

Paul Vogel

Analyst · Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Yeah. And I think what we had said was we expected about $60 million or so on the asset sales and we did better than that by about $50 million.

Ike Boruchow

Analyst · Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Got it. Thanks.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · Wells Fargo. Your line is open.

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from Jonathan Komp with Baird. Your line is open.

Jonathan Komp

Analyst · Baird. Your line is open.

Yeah, hi, thanks. Good afternoon. Bracken, I just want to ask, as you think about third quarter and fourth quarter, any more detail on sort of the continued sequential improvement or lessening of the declines? And then as you look at the business broadly, are there parts that are running ahead of what you hoped or does anything come to mind when you think about areas that might be outperforming what you had expected? Thanks.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · Baird. Your line is open.

Thank you. Thanks for the question, Jonathan. I don't really have anything meaningful to say to you except that I think there's always things are a little bit better, a little bit worse. But overall, things have kind of gone along surprisingly consistent with what we expected. And so I think it's very, very consistent. And while we're not going to dimensionalize kind of what the rate of improvement as we go forward, I'm excited about the path we're on and I think it's going to continue.

Jonathan Komp

Analyst · Baird. Your line is open.

Great. Looking forward to Wednesday. Thanks.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · Baird. Your line is open.

Thanks. Me too. Thanks, Jonathan.

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from Jim Duffy with Stifel. Your line is open.

Jim Duffy

Analyst · Stifel. Your line is open.

Thanks. Good afternoon. Perhaps an area that deserves more attention. Timberland, it sounds like some enthusiasm around the premium boots. I'm curious, is that global commentary? And does that go beyond your collaborations? Are you seeing good elevated interest in the yellow boot franchise?

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · Stifel. Your line is open.

Yeah, thanks for the question. I just bought yet another pair of yellow boots. Maybe that was showing up in the numbers. I keep buying more and more probably will show up again in Q3. But yeah, the yellow boots' doing well. I mean we had -- we had this Louis Vuitton collaboration, which was great about a quarter and a half ago now and we continue to see good solid strength and it is around the world. So far, so good, but we'll stay-tuned. It's still down, right? So less down is better than more down, but it's still not up. So let's keep watching this and see where it goes from here.

Jim Duffy

Analyst · Stifel. Your line is open.

Okay. And then another brand where there wasn't a lot of discussion, Dickies. Just your thoughts there on where you are with respect to stabilization of that business? Thanks.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · Stifel. Your line is open.

I just love Dickies. I have to say, I love all our brands, but I really love Dickies because it's just a special brand. It's -- like they are. It's such a cool deep history and it's so old as a brand, you've got 16-year-old kids wearing them to go surfing right off the beach anyway. And I just -- so it's such a cool brand. I'd say where are we in the stabilization. I think we're right in the middle of it. We've really reset our strategy and we've got the right level of focus on making sure we're winning at work and then eventually going beyond that. I do -- I am really excited that we've -- I temporarily took over down there like I did at Vans before Sun came and I've now relinquished my job because Chris Gobel has come over from the Gap and Chris is a -- was a star over there. He'll be a star over here. He's -- he's done -- he did a terrific job as a General Manager of the Gap in North Americas and he was part of the big turnaround over there and I think he'll be -- he'll leave the turnaround here on Dickies. So I'm excited about him. But we'll see. It's really early. We're definitely at just the stabilization period within Dickies getting it back to growth is a different story and that's really going to be led by Chris.

Jim Duffy

Analyst · Stifel. Your line is open.

Very good. Look forward to hearing more Wednesday. Thanks.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · Stifel. Your line is open.

Thank you. You won't hear too much about Dickies on Wednesday because we're going to -- remember, we're going to do all the brand stuff later in the year. So this is going to be very much focused on --

Jim Duffy

Analyst · Stifel. Your line is open.

Understood. I had a lot of questions I figured you wouldn't answer till Wednesday anyway, so.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · Stifel. Your line is open.

Okay. Okay. Well, you can feel free to wear it. If you wear Dickies, it may answer more questions.

Jim Duffy

Analyst · Stifel. Your line is open.

All right. Good.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · Stifel. Your line is open.

Okay.

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from Bob Drbul with Guggenheim. Your line is open.

Bob Drbul

Analyst · Guggenheim. Your line is open.

Hi, Bracken. Hey, Paul. I just got two questions. The first one is, can you expand some more just on what you're seeing by brand in China, sort of last quarter, sort of current trends in China? And then the second question is just on inventory sort of down 13% against the minus 1% to minus 3% looking forward. Is that how we should expect -- like when you look at where your inventory levels are sort of across the company, is that how you plan to run inventories going forward? Or is there more add max that you need as you sort of resume towards revenue growth? Thanks.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · Guggenheim. Your line is open.

Well, let me come back to -- let me answer that last one first and then we'll take the China question. Yeah, overall, I would say, yeah, in the last call, I think I said we're like at -- we're like at 100 -- what was 155 days of inventory or something. And we -- and I said, I think we still have room down from there, but that's actually not -- that's not a bad number. It's a pretty good number. But I think we can bring it down further from there over time, but we'll have to -- we'll have to change the way we operate to get there. So there's internal work that's going to be required to get us down further than that. But over time, I bet that we'll end up lower than that. On -- and so I don't think there's some reason why we'd have our inventory suddenly go back up. I don't think that's going to happen. If anything, it will come down. On China, overall, I think you're reading the same things we are in China. It's -- we're not -- we're so much in our control that I'm not too worried about macro environments, but it is true that the macro in China is a little softer than it has been. The North Face is really the highlight. It continues to be strong and the -- that long-term secular trend seems to be in here for the long-term and secular. So that's exciting and we're excited about it and it's by far the biggest business in China now. So it's probably not worth talking too much about the rest of the businesses there. They're in various -- Vans is in a -- is really in the turnaround mode there and the rest of the brands are falling to different places. But I'd probably focus on North Face for now until we really bring you more info.

Bob Drbul

Analyst · Guggenheim. Your line is open.

Thank you.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · Guggenheim. Your line is open.

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from Dana Telsey with Telsey Advisory Group. Your line is open.

Dana Telsey

Analyst · Telsey Advisory Group. Your line is open.

Hi, good afternoon, Bracken and Paul. As you think about the free cash flow guidance that was provided, any expansion in terms of what's changed within the guidance either by brand, channel or geography? And then with the improvement that you've seen in the brand's performance, how much of it do you think was specific product that helped drive that? How much of it was the easy comparisons or what you're seeing in any of the industry segments? Thank you.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · Telsey Advisory Group. Your line is open.

I'll try and-answer the last one first and I'll let Paul not answer, the first one, which is because it's kind of a hard one to answer. I -- I think in terms of that, the various brands and where they are, I think it's a combination of things. I do think we've got a better and better and it will get progressively better set of products coming out over time. In some cases, the compares are easier. They're going to -- particularly be easy as we get in three and four in a couple of places like Vans. But overall, I'd say it's -- it's an integrated thing. We've got channel changes where we've reduced the amount of value channel. For example, in Vans, we've got this that took us in the wrong direction. There are quarter about two quarters ago, three quarters ago. And I would say in each element of the -- of the business, if you went through the five piece of marketing, each element has changes and those changes will progressively work their way through the total business over the next year or two. I apologize to you who are particularly short term trying to figure out how to gauge each one of those and their impact on a quarter. What I can tell you is when they're synchronized, they have a bigger impact. And we're getting more and more synchronized across each of these brands with a real either growth plan, transformation plan or something. So we'll talk a little bit more about that on Wednesday, but I feel good about the overall path we're on, although I don't think I could really parse out exactly what contribution each one of those is making to the current numbers.

Paul Vogel

Analyst · Telsey Advisory Group. Your line is open.

Yeah. I think Bracken, we would never get to that level of detail on free cash flow, but --

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · Telsey Advisory Group. Your line is open.

Okay.

Dana Telsey

Analyst · Telsey Advisory Group. Your line is open.

Thank you.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · Telsey Advisory Group. Your line is open.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Dana.

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from Janine Stichter with BTIG. Your line is open.

Ethan Siavosh Saghi

Analyst · BTIG. Your line is open.

Hey, you've got Ethan Saghi on for Janine. Thanks for taking my question. I was just wondering what are you seeing in terms of the promotional environment at both Vans and the North Face as well in the overall industry just heading into the holiday season? Thanks.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · BTIG. Your line is open.

Well, I mean, I don't have too much to say except it looks better than last year, which is great. And we're sitting on a lot of inventory last year and we're sitting on less this year. So that's good. And our retail partner -- wholesale partners are too. Other than that, I wouldn't have much to say about it. I mean we're -- as Paul alluded to, we're doing more full price selling, which we like. Doesn't mean we're without promotion, we're not but it is better.

Ethan Siavosh Saghi

Analyst · BTIG. Your line is open.

Got it. Thank you.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst · BTIG. Your line is open.

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And your final question comes from John Kernan with TD Cowen. Your line is open.

John Kernan

Analyst

All right. Thanks for squeezing me in.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst

John, this is so important.

John Kernan

Analyst

Bracken, how you characterize --

John Kernan

Analyst

I know, It's going to be a good one, right?

Bracken Darrell

Analyst

For sure. Yeah.

John Kernan

Analyst

How would you characterize Vans internationally versus domestic, obviously? Business for VF is now larger and it's comfortably larger than the domestic business as a consolidated company. I'm just curious when you look at Vans, how Vans is trending in certain geographies versus the United States?

Bracken Darrell

Analyst

Well, I probably won't go that deep, but which is not that deep by the way. But what I would say Vans is I think Vans is underdeveloped internationally. I think -- I felt that before I got here. I feel that now than I am here. But that's an easy thing to say and a much harder thing to unlock. So this is part of the opportunity I think we really have as a company. How do we -- how do we get really strong growth around the world? But I would not underestimate how much opportunity we have within the U.S. I mean that might be our single biggest upside right now. If we can really get ourselves in a position where we're back to where we ought to be in the Americas, we have a lot of growth opportunity there. So we've got opportunity in both side, on both the international businesses, parts of our business and particularly U.S. business. So I'm really excited about. It's one of the things that excites me about the company. John, it was a great question.

John Kernan

Analyst

Looking forward to more color on that.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst

Okay, good.

John Kernan

Analyst

On Wednesday.

Bracken Darrell

Analyst

Well, I will bring this to a close because it does sound like we're kind of at the end of our program. I want to thank all of you for attending this call, but I especially want to thank you in advance for listening to the next one or attending the next one. This will be the first Investor Day that Paul and I have had together and actually all of our leadership teams had together and we're excited to share with you kind of what our game plan is. And I think our transformation is on track. We've made a lot of progress against the stated priorities we've had and we'll have some new info for you on Wednesday too. So don't miss it.

Operator

Operator

And ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call and we thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.