Jeffrey J. Lasher
Analyst · Stifel
Thank you, Andrew. Today, I will cover our fourth quarter 2014 results and then briefly review the full year financials, including the impact from changes in foreign currency. I will also spend a few minutes talking about our China business. Finally, I'll walk through some perspectives on 2015. Revenue in the fourth quarter was in line with our expectations at $206.5 million, down 5% from a year ago on a constant currency basis. We sold 10.6 million pairs in the quarter, a slight reduction from prior year. The average selling price of our footwear in the fourth quarter was $18.87, an 8% reduction from the prior year, primarily the result of currency and China. Americas revenue was $103.8 million for the quarter, down 1% in constant currency, caused mostly by a continuation of the slowdown in Latin American volume as discussed earlier in the year. Retail sales in the Americas increased 3% for the quarter, while e-commerce declined 1% in constant currency. In Europe, revenues were $36.1 million for the quarter, down 12%, but flat on a constant currency basis. Growth in Europe was driven by wholesale volume increases and higher retail sales, partially offset by a reduction in e-commerce revenue, which was down as a result of lower traffic. Asia revenues for the quarter were $48.8 million. With the exception of China, our Asia business was flat to prior year on a constant currency basis. While we saw strong growth in e-commerce volume in China up double digits compared to last year, our China wholesale business was down $16 million. In China, the core issue that we've been addressing is that our distributor partners collectively overestimated sales demand, purchasing too much product from us in the first half of 2014. In the second half of 2014, we worked closely with our partners to address excess inventory in the marketplace. In addition, we reviewed our distributor partner network and the number of stores they operate to ensure their long-term fit and viability. We expect revenue declines of $25 million in Q1, moderating declines in Q2 in the range of $5 million and we expect to see growth in the second half in comparison to 2014. Japan revenues were $17.7 million for the quarter, in line with prior year on a constant currency basis. With the hiring of David Thomson, Japan results will be consolidated into the Asia region going forward. Turning to our retail operations. During the fourth quarter, we reduced our global store count by 25 stores. In total for 2014, we closed 104 stores and reduced our global store count by 34. We ended the year with 585 locations. The stores that we closed in 2014 generated $19 million of revenue on an annual basis, but did not contribute significantly to operating income. We plan on closing 65 more locations in 2015, while opening only 30. We expect this will further reduce 2015 revenue by $8 million. This will reduce our global store count by an additional 35 for a year-end 2015 total of 550 locations. During the quarter, we have made significant progress in our strategic objectives announced in 2014. The major onetime items associated with these changes include: inventory write-off of discontinued product lines, including our Golf, Ocean Minded and apparel; cost associated with the development and launch of our new SAP system that Andrew discussed earlier; asset impairments for retail stores that were closed in the quarter or will be closed in the future; specific cost of closing Brazil direct-to-consumer channels; and finally, restructuring charges associated with staff eliminations and store closures. As a result, the company took several nonrecurring or special charges that are included in the results for the quarter totaling $26.8 million. Excluding these items, non-GAAP adjusted gross margin for the quarter was 42.6%, down 390 basis points from prior year. The gross margin decline was driven by 2 key issues. Approximately 1/3 of our decline or 190 basis points was driven by the impact of the stronger U.S. dollar. And roughly 220 basis points of the decline was related to our issues in China. In our core adjusted selling and administrative structure, expenses were $124 million, down from $127 million in the prior year, including a 2% reduction in direct channel SG&A, representing the positive impact to the store closures. Excluding China, we reduced our quarterly expense structure by $5 million in the quarter on a constant currency basis. Consistent with our initiative to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our global operations. For the full year 2014, we experienced revenue growth of approximately 1%, unfavorable exchange rates driven by a stronger U.S. dollar reduced revenue by $16 million. Revenue growth on a constant currency basis was 2%. Overall, strategic changes to our distribution models as we transitioned to new partners in key countries impacted wholesale revenue by $15 million, including decreases of $10 million in Latin America and $5 million in Southeast Asia. Turning to the balance sheet at the end of the year. While the company had an operating loss in the quarter, the improvements in the balance sheet resulted in only a modest use of cash in global operational activities. Global cash ended the year at $267.5 million. While the company had nonrecurring or special charges of $26.8 million in the quarter, cash was impacted by approximately $11.5 million as the remainder of these charges were for noncash items. We used $55.7 million of cash to repurchase 4.5 million shares in the quarter, bringing the total shares repurchased in 2014 to 10.6 million. Inventory at the end of the year was $171 million, slightly higher than 2013, but down substantially from Q3, ending inventory of $203 million. Accounts payable were lower than the prior year at $42.9 million, as we prepared for the conversion to SAP in Q1. Accounts receivable of $101 million decreased from prior quarter and was flat to last year. One final note on the financials. The weighted average share count used to calculate the loss per share attributable to common stockholders disclosed in the earnings release was 80.9 million. As a reminder, basic and diluted share counts are the same in a quarter that generates a net loss. As we enter 2015, while we continue to make great progress on our strategic initiatives, there are 3 external factors that will impact our global results. First, currency. Our cost for footwear products are primarily denominated in U.S. dollars. We expect the revenue impact of currency in the first half to be about 7%. As a side note, about 70% of our expense structure is denominated in U.S. dollars, while only 35% of revenue is generated in U.S. dollars. While lower oil prices will impact our product cost in the future, much of it will offset price increases in our factory. We do expect to see some margin benefit in the back half of the year in our molded footwear. The near-term benefits of lower oil surcharges will mitigate global shipping inflationary pressures driven by capacity constraints. Finally, uncertainty around the speed of resolution of the labor issues at the West Coast ports, the delays it has created, has the potential to shift some revenue from Q1 to Q2 and causes extra shipping costs. In addition, revenue in Q1 will be impacted by several strategic decisions we have made to improve the long-term financial performance of the business. First, our retail footprint is lower by 34 stores and we plan on closing an additional 35 stores. Second, we exited several non-core product lines. Third, as we mentioned, we anticipate that our China business will be down in the first quarter, $25 million. We expect first quarter revenue to be between $260 million and $265 million, down 12% to 14% on a constant currency basis, but essentially flat to last year excluding China, exited product lines and store closings. We continue to be very confident in our future and expect to show material progress in our results in the coming quarters. Now, I'll turn it back to Gregg for closing thoughts.