Russell Greenberg
Analyst · last year and what's incremental for the brand that you didn't have for the full year of last year, the Shanghai Tang brand, Agent Provocateur, Oscar de la Renta, obviously, the Lagerfeld incremental sales this quarter and Alfred Dunhill. I'm just trying to get a sense for what the like-for-like sales growth we should expect this year versus last year
Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to our 2014 First Quarter Conference Call. Following the financial review, I will turn the call over to Jean Madar, our Chairman and CEO, for a business overview, and then we will move on to your questions. Before proceeding further, I want to remind listeners that this conference call may contain forward-looking statements, which involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from projected results. These factors include, but are not limited to the risks and uncertainties discussed under the headings Forward-looking Statements and Risk Factors in our Annual Report on Form 10-K and the reports we file from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We do not intend to and undertake no duty to update the information discussed. In addition, Regulation G, clarifications for the use of non-GAAP financial measures prescribes the conditions for the use of non-GAAP financial information in public disclosures. We believe that the presentation of the non-GAAP financial information included in this presentation is important supplemental measures of operating performance to investors because it provides readers with a more complete disclosure, and facilitates a more accurate comparison of current results to historic results. The information required to be disclosed for the presentation of non-GAAP financial measures is disclosed in our quarterly report on Form 10-Q, which has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The information is available on our website at www.interparfumsinc.com. Once again, when we refer to European-based operations, we are primarily talking about sales of Prestige fragrances that is conducted through our 73% owned French subsidiary, Inter Parfums SA. When we discuss our United States operations, we are primarily referring to sales of Prestige and specialty retail products, as well as travel amenities, all conducted through our wholly-owned domestic subsidiaries. I must preface this financial overview with a bit of history. In the 2012 fourth quarter, our Burberry license terminated, and Burberry paid us a $239 million early termination fee. We also entered into a transition agreement with Burberry to operate certain aspects of the business during the first quarter of 2013. The important point for the discussion of comparative first quarter sales and profitability is that during the transition period, there were negligible advertising requirements associated with the sale of Burberry products. As a result, our 2013 first quarter reported sales, gross margin, operating margin and net margin were unusually high. Therefore, in our discussion of first quarter results, when I speak about ongoing brand sales, I am excluding Burberry brand sales from the 2013 period. However, when I discuss quarterly margins, selling, general and administrative expenses and net income figures, keep in mind that last year's first quarter was atypical. So moving onto first quarter results. Net sales of ongoing brands increased 17% to $121.7 million from $104.1 million. At comparable foreign currency exchange rates, net sales of ongoing brands increased 16%. European-based operations generated sales of ongoing brands of $102.3 million, up 20% from $85.4 million. Sales by U.S.-based operations were $19.4 million, up 4% from $18.7 million. Gross margin was 56.9% of net sales compared to 63%. SG&A expense, as a percentage of net sales, was 42.6% compared to 31.6%. Operating margin was 14.3% of net sales compared to 31.3% of net sales in the prior year. Net income attributable to Inter Parfums Inc. was $12.2 million compared to $42.9 million, and basic and diluted earnings per share came in at $0.29 in 2014 compared to $1.03 in 2013. We have covered the subject of sales drivers in our Q1 news release. So I will move on to other P&L points. Our blended gross profit margin was 56.9% of net sales, which was in line with our expectations. The gross margin for our European-based product sales was 59.6%, and for U.S.-based product sales, gross margin was 42.5%, down from 45.9% in 2013, primarily due to a shift in product mix during the period. Selling, general and administrative expense as a percentage of sales was 42.6% in the first quarter of 2014, slightly below the more normalized levels for this reporting period due primarily to the decrease in royalty expense. SG&A at 31.6% of last year's first quarter sales was clearly an anomaly. To put this in perspective, in the first quarters of the 3 prior years, selling, general and administrative expenses as a percentage of net sales was 45.3% in 2012, 45.8% in 2011 and 46.7% in 2010. One more P&L point worth mentioning, there was a negligible foreign currency gain in this current first quarter versus $1.4 million foreign currency loss in last year's first quarter. Cash flow from operating activities was a use of $27.3 million in the first quarter of 2014. This primarily resulted from an increase in accounts receivable, which was due to sales growth, and decreases in accounts payable and accrued expenses, reflecting payment of 2013 advertising liabilities. Our financial position remains very strong. We closed the quarter with $409 million in working capital, including approximately $273 million in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments and no long-term debt. At this time, we are maintaining our 2014 guidance call for net sales of approximately $495 million, which represents nearly 15% growth and sales of our ongoing brands. Our current expectations for net income attributable to Inter Parfums Inc. are in the range of $0.93 to $0.98 per diluted share. Guidance assumes the dollar remains at current levels. Jean, please continue.