Morris Goldfarb
Analyst · KeyBanc
Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us to discuss our first quarter. With me today are Sammy Aaron, our Vice Chairman; Wayne Miller, our Chief Operating Officer; Neal Nackman, our Chief Financial Officer; and Jeff Goldfarb, our Director of Business Development. We had a very good first quarter. We shipped well, sold through well, built our order book and pushed forward on our growth initiatives. As a result, we remain confident in our plan, both operational and financial, for the full year. Here are the financial highlights from the first quarter. We grew sales by 19% to $273 million compared to last year's $229 million. A substantial majority of this growth was organic, highlighted by increased sales of Calvin Klein Better Sportswear, Performance wear, Women's Suits, handbags and Kensie sportswear, as well as a double-digit increase in comparable store sales by Wilsons. A portion of our growth in net sales resulted from the inclusion of sales by Vilebrequin, which was acquired last August. We continue to be very excited about the prospects of Vilebrequin, which I will discuss in a few moments. Operating profit increased to $3.4 million from $23,000 last year. Our gross margins were healthy. We saw gross margin improvements in our non-outerwear wholesale businesses and our Wilsons' retail operations. Our expenses were in line with our plan. And in general, we've continued to be mindful to control spending in some areas, while making the investments necessary to support growth in others. Our per share net income per diluted share for the first quarter was $0.05 compared to a net loss per share of $0.04 in the same quarter of last year. This is a good performance for the first quarter. This is the first time in at least 15 years that we've had a profitable first quarter. This speaks to the diversification we've achieved in the business. It also represents a strong start to the year. And our performance in the quarter gives us confidence in our full year guidance for earnings, which we've increased to a range between $3.20 to $3.30 of a net income per share -- net income per diluted share. In general, this was a very solid quarter with strength in our business across the board. We saw sales increases in nearly every major category. I'll now provide you with an overview with respect to each of our major categories. Let's begin with outerwear. As you know, the first quarter is essentially a clean-up quarter for outerwear. We finish the season, take whatever markdowns are necessary and do our best to make sure our retailers are satisfied with their performance for the season. We were successful in each of these areas. Our customers are positioned well in the coat classification. The cool weather from January to March helped sales of outerwear. The weather also had a positive impact on our Wilsons business. Our dress business had a good quarter despite the challenges posed by cool weather throughout the spring season. Our dress assortment continues to be led by Calvin Klein, the anchor brand for department stores, which is now in over 1,200 doors. Next month, we'll be opening department store shops for Jessica Simpson Dresses. Our Eliza J dress line was a standout with a strong performance, especially at Nordstrom's, where we're in all doors. We're looking forward to the launch of Ivanka Trump dresses in time for fall holiday season. We're also pleased to be seeing strength in Guess? dresses, as we look to build a significant presence with this brand. We believe that we will again have a very good year in our dress business, a classification we dominate in department stores. Sportswear, also anchored by Calvin Klein, had a strong first quarter. We experienced good results for our assortment in major department stores across the country. Calvin Klein Better Sportswear, which grew by more than 50% compared to last year, was especially strong. This growth, driven by great design and merchandising, has enabled us to capture both door expansion and deeper department penetration. Our Calvin Klein Better Sportswear collection is now in 800 doors compared to 600 at this time last year. Calvin Klein Performance, which is now in 800 doors compared to 400 at this time last year, continues to be a major growth opportunity. We believe offering Calvin Klein branded product in the active lifestyle category addresses an underserved segment for our department store customers. We plan on having, at least, 300 Calvin Klein Performance shops opened by the end of the year. Kensie contemporary sportswear got off to a good start with strong sales increases. This product is now in over 900 doors. Our Calvin Klein Women's Suit business continued its strong trend in the quarter, with suit separates leading the way. For some time, our Calvin Klein assortment has been one of the bright spots in the suit category. Consumer response to the suit separates category is strong, which will drive continued growth. We are the leader in the women's suits separates business with the Calvin Klein brand. Calvin Klein handbags posted sales gains for the quarter. We will have 10 to 12 Calvin Klein handbag shops opened by the end of the year. Overall, for our Calvin Klein business, we expect to have 750 fixtured shops and department stores by the end of the year. We are pleased with what we saw in the first quarter for each of our major wholesale businesses. We're also pleased with what we've experienced in our specialty retail operations. Wilsons posted a comparable store sale increase for the quarter of 12.4%. This is a strong performance, particularly, as it comes on top of last year's 6% comp increase. In addition to this growth in store level of productivity, we're continuing to open new stores. We expect to open at least 20 new locations over the course of the year with most of these leases already signed. These additions will include some full price Wilsons retail stores in addition to additional outlet stores. We're excited for our first full-price Wilsons stores. Wilsons was once a very successful national retail chain with a presence in malls across the country. If our new Wilsons full-price stores are successful, this could become a meaningful growth opportunity for us. When we acquired Wilsons in 2008, it was losing money and generating sales of $250 a square foot. The chain is significantly profitable with sales around $350 a square foot and still growing. I'd like to close by providing you with an update on Vilebrequin, our most recent acquisition, which we closed in August of last year. The business is performing well, and our integration has gone smoothly. We're confident that the business is capable of significant growth, both within their core categories of men's and boy's swim, but also in other resort-oriented categories. In particular, while it will start small, we're excited for our new women's swim collection, which will be in stores later this month. We believe this brand could be as strong with women as it is with men. We have new stores opening this year in the United States and overseas. We're working hard with our distribution partners, opening new Vilebrequin shops with our retail partners and are relaunching the Vilebrequin e-commerce site in the United States this summer. We're very pleased with the management team and the progress they're making and believe our strategy is going to yield good results and returns, particularly, next year as we start hitting our strides with respect to a variety of growth initiatives. I'll reserve some comments for closing, but I'll now turn the call over to Neal Nackman, our Chief Financial Officer.