Kurt Darrow
Analyst · Stifel
Thank you, Kathy, and good morning, everyone. After yesterday's market close, we released solid fiscal 2020 first quarter results, demonstrating the strength of the La-Z-Boy brand within today's challenging home furnishings environment as well as the power of our global supply chain. Our Retail segment delivered strong sales momentum and also nearly doubled operating profit. The broader La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries network posted increases in the first quarter written same-store sales on a one, two and three year basis. Within wholesale Upholstery, while sales were flat, we still delivered GAAP operating margin of 9% and a non-GAAP operating margin of 9.5%. Additionally, we generated $19 million in cash from operating activities and returned $18 million to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends. But before getting into a discussion of each operating segment, I would like to take a few minutes to share some of the highlights of our La-Z-Boy branded business. With respect to the brand platform, the launch of our advertising campaign featuring new brand ambassador, Kristen Bell, is on track. While early in the process, market research reveals that once customers have seen the campaign, they are more interested in and more likely to consider La-Z-Boy. Additionally, the research highlights an uptick in those indicating the La-Z-Boy brand is relevant to them and fits their style. During the quarter, we increased our marketing spend on the campaign launch and are confident the campaign will deliver strong results over time as we continue to invest in the strong brand equity of La-Z-Boy. In other marketing news, we launched an augmented reality app for Apple mobile devices to deepen engagement with consumers as usage of the mobile channel increases in popularity. And we are also testing a virtual reality experience as part of the design program in select stores to better help consumers visualize the potential for their various rooms. On the product and innovation side, the wireless hand remote option for power motion furniture introduced in April has placed on retail floors above our expectations. Additionally, our eco-friendly conserve fabric, which contains at least 30% of recycled plastic bottles spun into yarn and averages 110 bottles per sofa, was met with great consumer response at the retail level. And our previously launched iClean stain-resistant fabrics are pacing at almost 25% of our total unit sales. These are great examples of our team working to bring innovative products to the market while addressing a customer need and preferences. I will now turn to our operating segments. First, our wholesale business. In the Upholstery segment, on flat sales due principally to lower sales for our England subsidiary and our international business, GAAP operating margin improved to a solid 9% and non-GAAP operating margin increased to 9.5% primarily due to lower raw material costs and supply chain efficiencies, which were offset by other increased costs. The non-GAAP margin primarily excludes charges for our supply chain optimization initiative announced two weeks ago and which I will review in a few minutes. In the Casegoods segment, on a 4.4% decline in sales, operating margin was 9.6%. Although we do source a majority of cases from Vietnam, orders from retailers are down in response to consumer reluctance to make purchases of bedroom and dining room furniture in this volatile tariff environment. Additionally, due to a fire at one of our major suppliers' plants, we have experienced some inventory delays in some product resulting in lower shipments for the quarter. This plant is back up and running. And while product is in the queue for production, we expect delays to last for another quarter or so. Now moving on to our Retail segment. Our Retail segment continues to deliver excellent results, driven by strong execution at the store level. Sales for this segment increased 19.9% and operating margin increased about 90%. On a GAAP basis, operating margin improved to 5.9% from 3.7% and non-GAAP operating margin increased to 6% from 3.8% in last year's first quarter. Delivered same-store sales increased 3.5% and margin performance was driven by improved leverage of fixed cost on the higher same-store sales. In addition to the core stores contributing to sales and operating margin improvement, performance for the period were driven by $19 million in sales from the 10 stores we acquired last August, nine of which are in Arizona. And as a note, these stores are not included in the delivered same-store sales number but will begin to be next quarter. Across the broader La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries network, which include both company-owned and dealer-owned stores, written same-store sales for the 352 La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries stores increased 4.7% in the first quarter. I am also pleased to report that since Canadian retaliatory tariff has unfinished goods coming into the U.S. was lifted in May, sales have begun to rebound. And for the first time since fiscal '18 Q3, the Canadian La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries posted a written same-store sales increase in line with the U.S.-based stores. Investing in our La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries store system remains of paramount importance as our core customer demonstrates the preference to shop in store. Additionally, the stores provide the best opportunity to showcase our entire product line, provide comprehensive service and excellent shopping experience. For the first quarter across the network, one new La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries store was opened, four were remodeled and two were closed. Projected activity for the full year include more than 20 products -- projects. And we plan to end the year with 358 stores, including five net new. Now let me spend a few minutes on Joybird, the e-commerce business we acquired last fiscal August. Joybird continues to exhibit fast-paced top line growth. And for La-Z-Boy, it targets a new consumer through a new channel. For the quarter, Joybird delivered $17 million in sales, finishing out our first 12 months of ownership at about $76 million, up from the $55 million when we acquired the company last summer. Based on Joybird's growth trajectory to date, we see it tracking in the range of $95 million to $100 million in delivered sales for fiscal 2020. Sequentially for the first quarter, Joybird sales were lower due to seasonality as expected. But marketing investments related to customer acquisition are fairly consistent quarter-to-quarter. And we were not able to leverage the spend with the sales decline in the quarter. However, written orders for the period were solid and in line with the pace of seasonality that we have seen in the prior quarters, indicating we should see a seasonal uptick in delivered sales in Q2. On the integration side, we are slightly behind on synergy realization with respect to cost savings although our supply chain teams have made a lot of progress, increasing the Tijuana plant capacity, delivering Tijuana-built product to our regional distribution centers and manufacturing some Joybird product in our Dayton, Tennessee plant, all of which shorten lead times and lower costs. All of this translated to Joybird posting a larger operating loss for the first quarter than each of the prior three quarters of ownership. We still expect Joybird to be profit-positive by the back half of the fiscal year, excluding purchase accounting adjustments. And we will continue to focus on striking the right balance between profits and reinvesting in the business to fuel growth. Now let me shift gears a little to address the supply chain optimization announcement made earlier this month. Over the past decade, we have done extensive work across our supply chain to improve efficiencies and productivity, which has increased our production capacity. With available capacity at our existing North American plants, we made the decision to close our smallest La-Z-Boy branded facility in Redlands, California, and transition its production into two larger U.S. facilities. We also announced we would transition our leather cut-and-sewing operation from our Newton, Mississippi plant to our large cut-and-sew center in Mexico, which was opened 10 years ago and where we employ 1,500 people to make approximately 25,000 kits per week. These moves are expected to cost $5 million to $7 million pretax in fiscal 2020 and will be excluded in our non-GAAP results. We then anticipate ongoing annual savings of $4 million to $6 million pretax beginning in fiscal '21. We do regret the impact to those employees impacted. We greatly appreciate your contributions and thank each of them for their years of dedicated service. We will provide outplacement assistance to them during this transition period. While these decisions are not easy to make, they are the right moves for the company for the long term as we further optimize operations and strengthen our competitive positioning in the marketplace. Our commitment to service remains strong. And our dealers and their consumers will continue to receive excellent service with quick and on-time deliveries as we transfer these operations. With 3.7 million square feet of North American manufacturing space for the La-Z-Boy branded product and about 5,000 employees in those facilities, we do have the capacity to not only service an existing business but expand our volume as we execute our growth strategies. And finally, before turning the call over to Melinda, I'll address tariffs because it seems that we can't have a quarter without a word on tariffs. As mentioned earlier, the 10% retaliatory tariff on finished goods going into Canada was lifted in May, and we are already seeing that business begin to rebound. Regarding tariffs on materials coming from China. On June 1, we increased our pass-through charge on product to account for the increase in tariff on these goods from 10% to 25%. As discussed in prior quarters, this tariff impacts several items we source, including most of our cover for our upholstered product. As a reminder, for La-Z-Boy, approximately 2/3 of our cover is converted into cut-and-sew kits in our Mexican-based facility and is therefore not subject to the Chinese tariff, leaving just 1/3 of the kits subject to the tariff. While the current tariff is at 25%, due to supply -- due to our supply chain strategy, our pass-through charge to customers is roughly only 3.5% on nonpowered upholstery and about 4% on powered products, positioning us well from a competitive standpoint. Thus far, although it's still fairly early, we have not seen any material impact to demand elasticity. The news for 10% tariff has got some going effect on September 1. It includes a small amount of component that we import. And we do not expect a material impact from this new tariff. And finally for our Casegoods business, we have an all-import model with a majority of our wood furniture sourced from Vietnam. So those goods are not subject to tariffs auditor. We do however source some smaller occasional tables from China, which are subject to the 25% tariff. As mentioned earlier, we are seeing a dampening of demand for case goods across the industry as a result of tariff rhetoric in the marketplace and its effect on the consumers' inclination to purchase bedroom and dining room furniture. I will now turn the call over to Melinda to review our financials.