Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (BBBY) Q3 2011 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Welcome to Bed Bath & Beyond's Third Quarter of Fiscal 2011 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] This conference is being recorded. A rebroadcast of the conference will be available beginning on Wednesday, December 21, 2011 at 6:30 p.m. Eastern time through 6:30 p.m. Eastern time on Friday, December 23, 2011. To access the rebroadcast, you may dial (888) 203-1112 with the passcode ID of 6140235. At this time, it's my pleasure to turn the conference over to Mr. Gene Castagna, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of Bed Bath & Beyond. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good afternoon. Welcome to Bed Bath & Beyond's Third Quarter of Fiscal 2011 Conference Call. Within the past hour, we issued a press release announcing Bed Bath & Beyond's results for the 3- and 9-month periods ended November 26, 2011. During this call, we will comment on some of the third quarter highlights, update our fiscal fourth quarter and full year planning assumptions and provide some preliminary fiscal 2012 planning assumptions. Before proceeding, I will read the following statement, and I quote, "Bed Bath & Beyond's fiscal third quarter press release and comments made during this call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities & Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. Many of these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as may, will, expect, anticipate, approximate, estimate, assume, continue, model, project, plan and similar words and phrases. The company's actual results or future financial condition may differ materially from those expressed in any such forward-looking statements as a result of many factors that may be outside the company's control. Please refer to Bed Bath & Beyond's SEC filings, including its Form 10-K for the year ended February 26, 2011. The company does not undertake any obligation to update its forward-looking statements." Joining me on today's call are Warren Eisenberg, Co-Chairman of Bed Bath & Beyond; and Steven Temares, Chief Executive Officer and Member of the Board of Directors. I'm now very pleased to introduce Warren Eisenberg. Warren?

Thanks, Gene. Good afternoon. I'm pleased to report that our company's net earnings per diluted share increased approximately 28% in the fiscal third quarter to $0.95. We're pleased that we've been able to continue our strong performance in terms of earnings growth, cash flow generation and overall financial strength as we continue to challenge ourselves to improve in every aspect of our operation. Our unique decentralized corporate culture continues to produce positive results, and we remain confident that our business will continue to grow successfully in the years ahead. Our entire organization is dedicated to providing our customers with the best possible shopping experience. During the third quarter, we opened 7 Bed Bath & Beyond stores, 7 buybuy BABY stores, one Christmas Tree Shop store and one Harmon Face Values store. Additionally, we continue to relocate and renovate Bed Bath & Beyond stores. Consolidated store space at November 26, 2011 was approximately 36 million square feet, an increase of approximately 4% over last year's third quarter. Since the beginning of the fiscal fourth quarter of 2011, we have opened an additional buybuy BABY store and closed 1 Harmon store. Including this activity, we currently operate 1,171 stores, consisting of: 993 Bed Bath & Beyond stores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Canada; 71 Christmas Tree Shops stores; 62 buybuy BABY stores; and 45 stores under the names Harmon or Harmon Face Values. In addition, we are a partner in a joint venture which operates 2 stores in the Mexico City market under the name Home & More. During fiscal 2011, including the 36 stores we've opened to date, we anticipate that the total number of new store openings will be 39 stores across all our concepts. As always, we apply our stringent standards to growth…

Thank you, Warren. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for participating in this conference call. As Warren said, we are pleased that have been able to continue our strong performance in terms of earnings growth, cash flow generation and overall financial strength. We believe the dedication and talents of our associates and their constant focus on improving the overall customer shopping experience, while at the same time creating a more productive and efficient company, are the keys to producing the continued strong results we have experienced. While consumer confidence and spending is impacted by the continuing economic challenges, our fundamental business strategy remains unchanged: to offer a broad assortment of merchandise at everyday low prices with superior customer service. As always, we will continue to invest in all aspects of our company and work to enhance our customer's overall experience in-store, online and through social media and mobile devices. We remain committed to being our customer's first choice for the merchandise categories we offer domestically, interactively and over the longer term, internationally. We are confident that our company is well positioned to grow profitably, compete for and increase our market share and over the long term, continue to grow shareholder value. In taking this long-term approach to the growth and development of our business and through the ongoing efforts to cross-merchandise and leverage our best practices throughout our organization, we expect, over time, to do more for and with our customers. As we announced in our last conference call in September, we will be relocating our offices in Farmingdale and Garden City, New York to our corporate headquarters here in Union, New Jersey. This transition is being made to further improve the communication, coordination and execution across all our concepts, activities and platforms and to better leverage the internal and…

Thanks, Steve. As you heard from Steve, we earned $0.95 per diluted share in our fiscal third quarter and $2.60 per diluted share for the 9 months of fiscal 2011. We were encouraged by our positive fiscal third quarter results and continue to be cautiously optimistic about the remainder of fiscal 2011. The following are our major planning assumptions for the remainder of fiscal 2011: one, including the 36 stores opened so far this year, we anticipate that the total number of new store openings will be 39 stores across all of our concepts. As always, we remain flexible to take advantage of real estate opportunities that may arise. Two, we expect to continue our program of expanding, renovating and/or relocating a number of our stores in fiscal 2011. Three, we are modeling a 2 to 4 percentage increase in comparable store sales for the fourth quarter and approximately 5% for all of fiscal 2011. Four, based on these comparable store sales assumptions, we are modeling consolidated net sales to increase by 4% to 6% in the fourth quarter and between 7% and 8% for the full year. Five, assuming these sales levels, in addition to planning the continuation of the shift in the mix of merchandise sold to lower margin categories, we are modeling our operating profit margin to leverage for the fiscal fourth quarter and full year. Six, the fourth quarter and full year tax provisions are estimated in the mid- to high-30s percentage range, with expected variability as distinct tax events occur. Seven, capital expenditures for fiscal 2011 are planned at approximately $275 million which, of course, depends on the composition and ultimate timing of projects. Our capital expenditures are principally for new stores, existing store refurbishment, information technology enhancements including increased spending on our interactive platforms…

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for listening. You may now disconnect.