Kurt Darrow
Analyst · Raymond James
Thank you, Kathy, and good morning. Yesterday afternoon we reported our results for the fiscal 2019 second quarter. We posted a double-digit consolidated sales increase of 12% fueled by solid base business growth and the consolidation of our recent acquisitions. Sales in our Upholstery business grew 4%, the La-Z-Boy furniture galleries network posted it's 7th consecutive increase for written same-store sales, and the company's owned retail segment turned in a solid 4% positive comp for delivered same-store sales. Beyond this solid base we are pleased with the early performance of our two recent acquisitions; Joybird, an e-commerce retailer and manufacture of upholstered furniture, and the Arizona based La-Z-Boy furniture gallery stores. I will speak in more detail about both of them in a few minutes. We are presenting our results on both a GAAP and non-GAAP basis to better help you understand the underlying business trends excluding purchase accounting adjustments on the acquisitions which Melinda will go into great detail later on. As such, our GAAP operating margin was 6.5% for the quarter, and 7.3% on a non-GAAP basis. Importantly, we are delivering top quartile operating margins for the wholesale furniture industry with our results exhibiting the power of our brands, world-class supply chain, and our integrated retail model even as we weather high input costs and tariff uncertainty. Additionally, we continue to make strategic investments across the business to strengthen our operations and drive long-term results. Finally, over the past 12 months we generated $111 million in cash from operating activities and returned $60 million to shareholders through dividends and share purchases. And yesterday our Board of Directors voted to increase our quarterly dividend to shareholders to $0.13 per share, representing an 8% increase. We are proud of what we have accomplished to-date and believe we are well positioned for continued long-term success. For the quarter, the upholstery segment posted a 4% sales increase over the prior period driven by favorable changes in product mix, higher selling prices, and the additional price increase related to raw materials. GAAP operating margin was 10.1% and 10.2% on a non-GAAP basis up from last year's non-GAAP -- last quarter's non-GAAP 8.2% margin but slightly down from last year's second quarter. As expected, we exited the second quarter with our increased pricing to cover raw materials inflation fully executed, but pricing benefits were offset by changes in product mix and other inflationary pressures and our supply chain including procurement, manufacturing operations, and logistics, as well as some costs associated with the relocation of one of our major retail distribution centers. And importantly, for the La-Z-Boy branded wholesale business, in the quarter sales grew across all channels throughout North America. This includes the La-Z-Boy furniture gallery network which represents approximately 40% of the sales in the upholstery segment, our comfort studio partners who have a store within a store format, major accounts and our general dealers. On the marketing side, we recently announced Kristen Bell will serve as our new brand ambassador for the La-Z-Boy Live Life Comfortably campaign beginning this spring. The campaign features a mix of celebrity-style, humor and unexpected La-Z-Boy furniture, and aims to educate consumers that we make far more than the iconic recliner invented more than 90 years ago. Spanning television, print and online, the campaign has driven significant sales growth for La-Z-Boy across a wide range of product categories, including stationary sofas, sectionals, occasional chairs and home accents. With an authentic personality, engaging sense of humor, huge focus on family, and the fact that she already has La-Z-Boy furniture in her home, Kristen will be a great fit for us and we expect her to continue to elevate the brand. And other exciting news for the La-Z-Boy business; last week Newsweek magazine named La-Z-Boy America's number one best customer service provider in the furniture retail category. Newsweek notes more Americans are employed in the retail sector than any other, highlighting the importance for companies to nurture their relationships with consumers. We are proud of our comfort care team, as well as our partnership with a vast array of dealers who take great care of the consumer, and have been recognized for their dedication and consistent focus on customer service. On the product side, Duo continues to sell extremely well as does the new reimagine Urban Attitudes collection launched last April. We've produced two commercial to support this launch which features curated mix of iClean fabrics. As we head into the upcoming busy holiday period, the first Urban Attitudes commercial was launched earlier this month through a coordinated multi-channel strategy, the second will launch in February. Now moving on to our retail segment; our retail segment turned in another strong quarter as the team continues to fine tune it's execution strategies. For the quarter, sales increased 19.7% and delivered same-store sales increased 4%. GAAP accounting margin improved to 4.7% and non-GAAP operating margin increased to 5.4% from 3.6% in last year's quarter. And excluding all of the Arizona results, purchase accounting and operating profit, core retail business operating margin increased; the performance was driven by better conversion, increased design sales and custom orders which led to an average ticket that exceeds $2000. Performance for the period was also driven by the Arizona stores which contributed the lion share of the $16.8 million incremental sales from acquired stores. The 9 La-Z-Boy furniture gallery stores are the highest performing stores in the network that have not missed a beat since we acquired them. Our retail leadership team is working alongside the Arizona team to better understand their approach to the business which has led to excellent results so that we may leverage some of these learning's across the rest of our network. Written same-store sales for the 353 La-Z-Boy furniture galleries network increased 4.4% for the quarter, the 7th consecutive quarterly increase. Total written sales including new stores, existing stores and relocated stores operating for a 12 full month calendar -- for 12 full calendar months increased 5.6% during the quarter. We continue to see the core La-Z-Boy consumer demonstrating her preference to shop in-store, providing us with the opportunity to increase the average ticket through design services, custom orders, and the sale of complete room groups. We are focused on elevating the quality of our store program, and for fiscal '19 we have 22 total projects planned. Now let us turn to our Casegoods business. Sales for the 2019 second quarter were $331.4 million, up 11.8% from the prior period and the operating margin increased to 12% versus 11.8% last year. For each of the last four quarters this segment has delivered double-digit sales growth with an average operating margin above 10%. New product collections are on point and resonating with consumers. Early indications are that Kinkaid’s [Trails] [ph] collection and American Drew's Vista collection, both of which were introduced last April have recently reached retail floors and are meeting with early success. On a supply chain side, we have 95% in-stock position across all SKUs which is allowing us to provide excellent service to the customer and garnering additional floor space with our retail partners. Now let's turn to Joybird, our recently acquired e-commerce business. We are very pleased with our early days of owning this exciting company. Joybird with a direct-to-consumer model is the key pillar of our e-commerce strategy, and has it's slum [ph] on the pulse of the e-commerce consumer which will allow us to pivot to the younger group they are servicing made up of mostly millennials and GenX-er's [ph] through a different channel while leveraging the La-Z-Boy supply chain. Joybird has had amazing success in four years' time going to $55 million in sales in the trailing 12 months pre-acquisition. And for the second quarter of this fiscal year, they contributed $18.5 million in sales to our results. We have already seen significant improvements in the capacity and cost structure of Joybird's Tijuana plant to support from La-Z-Boy supply chain team and new equipment repurpose through other La-Z-Boy facilities. In addition, as we further integrate Joybird and begin manufacturing it's upholstered furniture at existing La-Z-Boy plants, Joybird's production capacity will increase and it will more easily meet the strong and growing demand it is generating leveraging the fixed cost structure of those plants. We are still working through our growth strategy for Joybird including how high it's up and on what timing and what investment will be needed to fuel that growth. But we do believe overtime Joybird can be a several $100 million revenue business for us. We are very excited about it's potential and the many synergies and which to capitalize. And last but not least, before turning over the call to Melinda, I will take a few minutes to address tariffs. For La-Z-Boy, we believe we have a strong strategic advantage in the marketplace based on our U.S. upholstered manufacturing footprint, and the structure of our global supply chain with respect to procurement. Thus far we have experienced the additional cost of a tariff implemented beginning in June on actuators, a component used in all of our power product followed by the 10% tariff on goods coming from China that was implemented in September which impacts the upholstery component of our products, both fabric and leather. The majority of fabric and leather production is now based in China with little infrastructure left in the U.S. to support furniture manufacturing, and therefore highly susceptible to tariffs without many sourcing alternatives. However, for the La-Z-Boy upholstered business, about two-thirds of our upholstery fabric travels to our facility in Mexico where it is cut and sewn into kits ready for assembly in our U.S. based factories. Given our manufacturing structure, these materials are not subject to the Chinese tariffs. So how does this translate to our customers? In short, tariffs will push up the cost of furniture but we are well positioned within the industry. We are passing the combined tariffs through a surcharge that increased our prices roughly 2% on our upholstered La-Z-Boy business, and about 3% on our upholstered units that contain the power features. Additionally, for Casegoods, we have an all-import model with the majority of our wood furniture sourced from Vietnam, though these goods also will not be subject to tariffs. Of course the saga could continue with the 10% tariff potentially going to 25% come January. We are mindful of the potential impact to demand elasticity or possible shift in mix, and are working through various strategies to mitigate those potential scenarios to the extent possible. I will now turn over the call to Melinda to review our current financials.