Kurt Darrow
Analyst · Stifel. Please proceed with your question
Thank you, Kathy and good morning everyone. Yesterday afternoon, we reported our results for the fiscal 2018 second quarter. We are pleased with our performance particularly in light of the headwinds we face from raw material pressures and the hurricanes. For the quarter, we posted a 4.4% sales increase, written same store sales for the La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries network increased for the third consecutive quarter and we generated $32 million in cash from operating activities an increase of 73% over the prior year quarter. Also, we've returned $25 million to shareholders through dividends and share purchases, buying back almost 730,000 shares over the course of the quarter. And yesterday, our Board of Directors voted to increase our quarterly dividend to shareholders to $0.12 per share representing a 9% increase. I feel positive about where and how our company is positioned in the marketplace as we move into the back half of our fiscal year, which is typically our strongest in terms of sales and earnings. Now let me take you through our review of our three operating segments for the quarter. First, Upholstery, for the quarter sales in the Upholstery segment increased 3% to $305 million and the segment’s operating margin declined to 11% from 12.9% in last year's second quarter, primarily stemming from increases in raw material prices that negatively impact our gross margin by 0.7 percentage points. For the past six months or so, this industry has been facing cost input pressures. For us, we have seen a lot of drawn-ups in three of our key components; steel, poly and lumber. We passed through the additional costs with an across the board price increase that we announced to customers at the October high point market. The price increase goes into effect on incoming orders tomorrow December 1st, but generally speaking means it will be effective on deliveries beginning around the 1st of the calendar year. For the second quarter, however, this meant we had to absorb the raw material cost due to the gap in timing. On the product side, we continue to be pleased with dealer response to our new Duo collection which is now canvas retail floors across North America. To support the product, earlier this month, we launched an integrated multi-channel marketing campaign that’s been television, print and digital media. While it’s still too early to determine exactly how meaningful the Duo collection will be, early indications are very positive and we will provide an update in February once we have moved through the holiday period and have more data. We have spoken about the importance of innovation to La-Z-Boy which is part of our heritage. Duo is a testament to the innovative spirit that continues to run through our company and our drive to continuingly bring quality, innovative products to the market is one of the many attributes that I believe differentiates La-Z-Boy from the competition. Written same-store sales for the La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries network increased 1.9% for the quarter. Again, this is the third consecutive quarterly increase and our team is working hard through merchandising, marketing and price development strategies to keep this momentum going. With respect to our 4-4-5 store buildup program, for fiscal ‘18, we anticipate executing approximately 25 store projects across the network between the company and our independent dealers. We expect to end fiscal ‘18 with 354 stores which would include seven net new stores this year. During the second quarter across the network, three new stores were opened, two were relocated, four stores were remodeled and one was closed. We ended the period with 350 La-Z-Boy Furniture Gallery stores, of which 125 are in the new design concept format. That 350-store opening was a milestone for the company and was also particularly warming because it was a company-owned La-Z-Boy Furniture Gallery store that we opened in Rockford, Illinois in October. We now have 16 stores in the Greater Chicago area and look forward to continuing to update and expand our presence in this vibrant and growing market. Before turning to Casegoods, I want to provide a brief update on the initiatives we are executing to position La-Z-Boy solidly for the future including the e-commerce strategy that I outlined for you in August as well as four capital projects that we have underway. First, a brief recap on what we are doing to build an Internet business. La-Z-Boy has a dual strategy to reach two distinct groups of consumers. The first, our core customer, it seems to prefer to shop either in the La-Z-Boy Furniture Gallery store or had another retail store carrying the La-Z-Boy brand. And the second a younger customer who seem to preferred to shop online for furniture. We believe, we can grow sales to both of these consumer groups simultaneously. Our three-pronged ecommerce strategy addresses both the younger market, while providing a wealth of information, access and buying opportunity for the La-Z-Boy brand to all consumers. Now to provide a quick synopsis of our internet strategy for those of you who maybe new to our story. Our three ecommerce opportunities are as follows. The first is the increased online sales of La-Z-Boy furniture through la-z-boy.com and other digital companies such as Wayfair, we’ve been selling for a few years and Amazon is when we are in discussions and expect to be selling the La-Z-Boy branded product on their side in the spring. The second is deliveries the strength of our world class supply chain to support other ecommerce brands which we are already doing. And the third is to invest the new online company and as of today, we’ve invested almost $9 million into start-up companies. Remains to be seen how this initiative will evolve, but we are committed to diversifying our go-to-market strategy through different avenues to capture new consumer and new consumer based for La-Z-Boy Incorporated. We are excited with the comprehensive strategy we have developed and the opportunity that have been presented to us due to the strength of our supply chain. We will continue to provide periodic updates to you as things progress. With respect to capital projects, we are making investments to strength in our domestic of both remanufacturing operations. Ongoing investment across our plan is essential as we continue enhance plan productivity and efficiencies. Ensuring, we have state-of-the-art facilities and processes, will enable us to continue to bring exciting products to consumers and maintain our competitive advantage of mass customization with unparalleled speed to market. Construction on a new 70,000 square foot innovation center in Dayton, Tennessee is well underway and will house a model shop, technology center, test lab and three-dimensional printing labs. As we seek to enable our business with new state-of-the-art innovation center will enable us to attract the best talent to our team. We are also making a number of improvements to our Dayton campus, all of our largest manufacturing facility, which total more than 1.2 million square feet. It is also the only La-Z-Boy branded plan that manufactures furniture and all of our three major categories recliners, motion sofas and stationary upholstery making nearly 90% of the various frame styles in our manufactured La-Z-Boy product line. Additionally, with our England subsidiary exhibiting steady growth in the spring will be given expansion of its manufacturing operation adding some 85,000 square feet to meet the demand England is enjoying as it continues to grow its footprint across the United States. And finally, we also plan to breakdown at about the same time on a new corporate office building for England to replace the building we lost this spring due to fire. Once completed these investments will not only strengthen our manufacturing operations, but will provide the great flexibility in the future, which is necessary in today's dynamic marketplace. We are applying the strength approximately $22 million on these four projects in fiscal '18, representing about 45% of our CapEx for this fiscal year. Now let me turn to Casegoods. Sales in the Casegoods segment for fiscal '18 were $28 million, an increase of 8.4% from last year's second quarter, and the operating margin for the segment increased to 11.8% from 11% in the comparable period of fiscal 2017. I cannot say enough about the excellent work the Casegoods team has done to turn around this business. With a revamped portfolio marked by a more transition of product mix, the product collections are resonating better with today's consumer. On the supply chain side, we are flowing [project] better and are in stock 95% of the time with our bestsellers and are in a high stock position on most items allowing us to service our customers very, very well. In fact, the team has been improved every service metric dramatically over the past couple of years. The combination of improved product offerings and excellent service has allowed us to expand our floor space with many key retailers. While our operating performance had improved significant once we became a pure importer, we are pleased to see that we are now growing sales in this business. And we proud of the team and with today's operating structure combined with the number of well received collections introduced at the past couple of furniture markets, I believe this business is well positioned moving forward. Now moving on to retail. Sales for the 2018 second quarter increased 8.7% to $117 million and the operating margin increased to 3.3% from 2.8% in the prior year period. On the core base of 130 stores included in last year's second quarter delivered sales declined 1.3% versus the prior year mainly due to a decrease in traffic which was somewhat offset by an improvement in average ticket driven by increased designed services, custom orders and higher convergence. Now during the quarter, the company opened two new La-Z-Boy Furniture Gallery stores one in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and the Rockford, Illinois store that I referred to earlier, bringing the company owned store count to 147 of the 350 stores in our North American network. I will now turn over the call to Mike to review the numbers for the quarter in much more detail.