Earnings Labs

NIKE, Inc. (NKE)

Q4 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Jun 25, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to NIKE's fiscal 2015 fourth quarter conference call. For those who need to reference today's press release, you'll find it at investors.nike.com. Leading today's call is Kelley Hall, Vice President, Corporate Finance and Treasurer. Before I turn the call over to Ms. Hall, let me remind you that participants on this call will make forward-looking statements based on current expectations and those statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. These risks and uncertainties are detailed in the reports filed with the SEC, including Forms 8-K, 10-K and 10-Q. Some forward-looking statements concern future orders that are not necessarily indicative of changes in total revenues for subsequent periods due to mix of futures and at-once orders, exchange rate fluctuations, order cancellations, changes in the timing of shipments, discounts and returns which may vary significantly from quarter-to-quarter. In addition, it is important to remember that significant portion of NIKE, Inc.'s continuing operations including equipment, NIKE Golf, Converse and Hurley, are not included in these futures numbers. Finally, participants may discuss non-GAAP financial measures, including references to wholesale equivalent sales. References to wholesale equivalent sales are only intended to provide context as to the overall current market footprint of the brands owned by NIKE, Inc. and should not be relied upon as a financial measure of actual results. Participants may also make references to other non-public financial and statistical information and non-GAAP financial measures. Discussion of non-public financial and statistical information and presentations of comparable GAAP measures and quantitative reconciliations can be found at NIKE's website, investors.nike.com. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Kelley Hall, Vice President, Corporate Finance and Treasurer.

Kelley Hall

Management

Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss NIKE's fiscal 2015 fourth quarter results. As the operator indicated, participants on today's call may discuss non-GAAP financial measures. You'll find the appropriate reconciliations in our press release, which was issued about an hour ago, and at our website, investors.nike.com. Joining us on today's call will be NIKE, Inc. President and CEO, Mark Parker; followed by Trevor Edwards, President of the NIKE Brand; and finally Don Blair, in his final earnings call as our Chief Financial Officer, will give you an overview of our financial results. Following their prepared remarks, we will take your questions. We would like to allow as many of you to ask questions as possible in our allotted time. So we would appreciate you limiting your initial questions to two. In the event you have an additional question that was not covered by others, please feel free to re-queue and we will do our best to come back to you. Thank you for your cooperation on this. I'll now turn the call over to NIKE, Inc. President and CEO, Mark Parker.

Mark Parker

Management

Thank you, Kelley, and hello, everyone. Fiscal year ’15 was an outstanding year for NIKE, Inc. We’ve shown once again that NIKE is a growth company. Here are the fiscal ’15 highlights. NIKE, Inc. revenues grew 10% to $30.6 billion, despite significant FX headwinds. On a currency neutral basis, NIKE, Inc. revenues grew 14%. Gross margin increased 120 basis points to 46%. Earnings per share rose 25% to $3.70 and we delivered ROIC of 28%. These are the quality results that our shareholders have come to expect from us and that we demand from ourselves. One of the reasons we are able to deliver results like these are the talented people who work at NIKE around the world. So before going on into the detail on our results, I'd like to thank one of those talented leaders and that's Don Blair. As you all know, this is would be Don's last earnings call with NIKE and if you're keeping track, it’s 63 calls. During my tenure as CEO and before that as Co-President, Don has served as a trusted advisor and a valued business partner. He has helped lead the Company through great times and challenging times, always with a calm focus and level of discipline that creates confidence and ensures we continue to move forward. Don will always be remembered as the creator of our long-term financial model, which guides our financial planning to this day. But more than that, Don will be remembered for the talented leaders he has developed over the years, both within finance and across the Company. I want to thank Don for his leadership and dedication to NIKE over the last 15 years and wish him the very best in his future endeavors. Don's successor, Andy Campion is a testament to Don's commitment to…

Trevor Edwards

Management

Thanks, Mark. The NIKE Brand closed the year with a strong finish, demonstrating yet again the power of the Category Offense to drive growth. On a constant currency basis, NIKE Brand revenue grew 13% for the quarter. For the year, revenue was up 14% with double digit growth in North America, both European geographies and China. NIKE Brand DTC revenue was up 27% for the quarter. For the year, DTC revenue was up 29%, driven by comp store growth of 16%, online growth of 59% and new stores. And finally, global futures accelerated to 13%, reflecting continued strong demand. The success in our business is a natural outcome of putting the consumer at the center of everything we do, our connection with consumers strengthens our brand every day from our own retail to wholesale partners, from in store to online, from digital experiences to unforgettable live events. It’s those deep and authentic connections that power the NIKE Brand around the world. Within our Category Offense, we often talk about our amplify strategy to compete, train and express. Sportswear represents the express portion of that equation, where consumers express their love and passion for the game with premium sports inspired products. Sportswear is a key complement to the product assortment for our performance categories, offering an opportunity to elevate the design and technical innovation in traditional sportswear styles, while also created new ones. This drove tremendous growth for the sportswear in fiscal year ’15, which was up 20% for the year. Now, let’s turn to a few of our performance categories. First, I’ll start with running. By serving our consumers through product innovation and consumer engagement, we drove growth in this important category with revenue up 9% for the year to nearly $5 billion. Our premium performance footwear continued to resonate…

Don Blair

Management

Thank you, Trevor. FY15’s results demonstrated our ability to deliver profitable growth even in a challenging macro environment. We did it by focusing on the fundamentals, building deep connections with consumers and delivering innovative products through compelling retail experiences. At the same time, we leveraged our global portfolio to manage risk, while continuing to invest for future growth and profitability. Our ability to use all the levers in our business to drive growth and manage risk is one of our greatest advantages and it’s why we’re confident in our ability to continue to deliver shareholder value on in to the future. So on to the details for Q4 and FY15. Q4 revenue for NIKE Inc. increased 5%, up 13% on a currency neutral basis. For the full year, NIKE Inc. revenue increased 10% to $30.6 billion. On a currency neutral basis, both NIKE Inc. and the NIKE Brand grew 14%, while Converse grew 21%. Growth in the NIKE Brand was broad based across categories and driven by continued strong performance in three of our largest geographies, North America, Western Europe and China. Also on a currency neutral basis, NIKE Brand futures orders grew 13%, driven by a 5% increase in average selling price and an 8% increase in units. The growth reflects continued strong demand across the NIKE Brand portfolio led by double digit growth in North America, Western Europe and China. On a reported basis, futures grew 2%, reflecting weaker international currencies, particularly the euro, ruble, reais and yen. Fourth quarter diluted EPS increased 26% to $0.98 and full year diluted EPS rose 25% to $3.70, driven by revenue growth, gross margin expansion and a lower tax rate, partially offset by higher SG&A investments. The effects of FX on the quarter and the year were fairly modest as the…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Bob Drbul with Nomura.

Bob Drbul

Analyst

Hi, good evening.

Kelley Hall

Management

Hi Bob.

Mark Parker

Management

Hi Bob.

Bob Drbul

Analyst

Don, congratulations, thanks for everything, best of luck.

Don Blair

Management

Thanks Bob.

Bob Drbul

Analyst

I guess the question that I have is on the running category. I just wondered if we could just have a little bit more of a discussion around, the core I think has gotten better but just an update on the competitive set and sort of how you guys are feeling about that category as we look forward.

Trevor Edwards

Management

Yes, Bob. I actually I feel really good about the running category. For the year, the running category actually grew 9% and what we saw certainly in the fourth quarter, we saw actually strong double-digit growth in most of our geographies from North America to Europe to China. And what we are doing very well is we are connecting very well with runners in the marketplace. So we continue to feel very confident about the business and at the same time, what we have seen is the strengthening of the core as we described, which is really about the mid-priced tier zone. And what we've done there is certainly we've gone in and zoned in, and we always talk about diving in deeper, that's a great example, we gone in deeper and focused on that. At the same time, I feel very confident about the innovation that is coming and will -- that is been delivered and continues to be in the pipeline for running. So, overall I'm very confident about the running business. There is always room for opportunity and more growth and obviously for us to continue to excite our consumers but I certainly feel positive about it.

Mark Parker

Management

I'm just going to jump into and I want to shout out Nike Running apparel is well, which has had an incredible run this past year and that momentum continues in to fiscal 2016. And as I said before, I was sitting through the innovation -- category based innovation meetings recently and our innovation pipeline for running leading up to Rio is incredibly strong. So very bullish on that core category for NIKE.

Bob Drbul

Analyst

Great. I guess could you elaborate a little bit -- my question would be on the NBA, the deal that you struck with NBA, and I was wondering, maybe we can just put Don on the spot and he could give us his pick for the number one spot tonight.

Don Blair

Management

Well, it's not going to be my hometown Sixers, I don't think.

Mark Parker

Management

Well first of all, I'm going to jump in on the NBA, very, very excited about our partnership with the NBA. As you now, there is great energy in the sport globally; you know we have very progressive league leadership under Adam Silver, really strong leadership there. Adam and his team, the owners have an appetite to really innovate and advance the game, which is perfect for us. We’re thrilled to be a part of that. We have three incredible brands that can play in this space, of course, NIKE, Jordan and Converse. We have on court brand exposure head to toe for the first time and that’s across the NBA, the WNBA, the All-Star Game, the D-League, it’s going to be a great opportunity to showcase our leadership in this critical category for us, not just here in the US, but globally.

Bob Drbul

Analyst

Great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Kate McShane with Citi.

Kate McShane

Analyst

Hi. Thanks. Good afternoon. My question – my first question is on gross margins. In fiscal year ’16, the guidance that you gave today, can you give us an idea on just overall manufacturing costs and how they’re coming in to play in to cost of goods sold, just given all the initiatives you have with automation and Flyknit and everything else?

Don Blair

Management

Sure. Well, we are starting to see some benefits out of that program and as you know, we’ve been on a long journey of working with our factory partners to improve costs in the factory systems and maintain the innovation and the quality of our products. So we’ve been doing things that are more evolutionary like lean manufacturing and just factory efficiency types of initiatives, working all the way to breakthrough things like Flyknit. So we’ve been getting benefits for quite some time. We’re starting to see some of the newer technologies coming on stream now and so that’s a part of the equation for FY16. At this stage, there are lots of other factors. There are some headwinds out there of course with labor inflation and FX, but on the flipside, we’ve done a pretty consistent job of raising average gross selling prices, our DTC business of course is accretive. So overall on margin, we’re pretty confident we can keep moving margin forward.

Kate McShane

Analyst

That’s great. Thank you. And then my second question is on SG&A, going again on your guidance, they had mid-single digit growth for fiscal year ’16 . I know fiscal year ’16 has at least one quarter of Olympic spend or more, because we’re entering in to an Olympic year, so can you help us understand better how we should think about demand creation and corporate overhead and the breakdown of that for fiscal year ‘16?

Don Blair

Management

Well, I don’t want to get in to too much granularity here, because we don’t normally provide that level of granularity and as we’ve talked about on the last couple of calls Kate, there’s really been an evolution of how we think about consumer engagement and in today’s world, where so much of our marketing is digital, we’re investing quite a bit in digital consumer engagement and a lot of those costs fall in to our operating overhead lines. So there’s been a little bit of a blurring of the nature of those costs. Obviously from an accounting stand point, there is still clarity of it, but from a business standpoint, a lot of the things that we use to drive our business and consumer engagement is actually falling in to the operating overhead lines.

Kate McShane

Analyst

Okay. Thank you and Don, best of luck.

Don Blair

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Omar Saad with Evercore ISI.

Omar Saad

Analyst

Thanks. Great job guys this quarter.

Don Blair

Management

Thanks, Omar.

Mark Parker

Management

Thank you.

Omar Saad

Analyst

Wanted to ask a question about kind of on the topic of the geographic evolution of the supply chain, there was a pretty important vote through the senate yesterday and I know you guys have made some comments publicly, maybe about some manufacturing eventually coming back, but how do you think about some of these recent developments, legislative developments and your overall supply chain as you looked out in the coming years and the potential to even bring -- to put some production in to the US and North America?

Mark Parker

Management

Yeah. Well, first of all, the passing of the TPA was obviously an important step toward what we hope is a final approval of TPP and as we’ve said before as you know, this will help us to accelerate the work that we’re doing with advanced manufacturing, will help us expand our business overall, I think certainly give us an opportunity to build local manufacturing here in the United States, can put us closer to market events, some of the innovation particularly in the area of customization. We are in the middle – Don had mentioned this briefly, but scaling our advanced manufacturing initiatives, which we’ve really been working on over the past three to four years, so you’re going to start see those scale, but opportunity to get some – translate some duty relief into investing in our advanced manufacturing supply chain efforts here in the United States is going to be significant we hope, I mean, that’s our goal. So that the idea is that we will accelerate and we will see some real benefits from that. I think you’re going to see the overall supply chain geographically shift a bit here and there with the advancements of new manufacturing innovation. That is a major priority for NIKE. It will give us the flexibility to create more localized manufacturing over time, and that will put us closer to market and again allow us to advance products, particularly in the customization area and to meet more local demand as well.

Don Blair

Management

The point I would make too Omar is, we are really encouraged by the passage of TPA. We still have a little bit of ways to go from a timing standpoint to see TPP taken up by the Congress and then of course once it were implemented, it would take some time for those duty changes to be phased in.

Omar Saad

Analyst

Absolutely. And the right way to think about is any sort of potential duty savings kind of being reinvested back into the supply chain or other areas of the business or is this – is it more of a sustainable kind of opportunity on the margin line?

Don Blair

Management

I think it’s a way too early to say on that.

Omar Saad

Analyst

Don, congratulations, best wishes. Thanks, guys.

Don Blair

Management

Thanks, Omar.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Matthew Boss with JPMorgan.

Matthew Boss

Analyst

Hey, congrats on a great quarter guys. So just to kind of look ahead and put things together, if topline growth remains at least high-single digits? And then you take the combination of Europe and China margin recapture and some increased scale with both e-commerce and FlyKnit, is there anything structurally -- I guess my question, is there anything structurally preventing a high-teens operating margins longer term at NIKE?

Don Blair

Management

Well, as you know, our model has said that we believe we can grow our topline at a high-single digit rate that we will expand our profit margins and overtime, we aim to deliver mid-teens EPS growth, so that is our goal, and what that would imply is that we are going to be expanding margins over time. The speed at which that happens is always a function of lots of different variables. We are really excited about the strength of our business at this point and think we are delivering some fantastic results as you can see from what we reported today. We obviously have a macroeconomic environment we are dealing with. So we believe we can expand the profitability of this business over the long haul, how that plays out over given fiscal years and quarters is a subject of a lot of different variables.

Matthew Boss

Analyst

That’s great. And then could you just speak to the composition of the order book in terms of the front-end versus back-end and also the breakdown between pricing and unit growth?

Don Blair

Management

Well, the front half, back half is slightly stronger in the second quarter than in the first quarter on the futures and that’s both a function of a slight acceleration in the back half of the window as well as slightly easier foreign exchange comparisons in the second quarter. So on a reported basis, a little faster in the second half of the window.

Kelley Hall

Management

Matthew, the average selling price is up 5% and average increase in units is 8% that gets you to the 13% currency-neutral futures orders.

Matthew Boss

Analyst

That’s great. Best of luck guys.

Mark Parker

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from Lindsay Drucker Mann with Goldman Sachs.

Lindsay Drucker Mann

Analyst

Thanks, good afternoon everyone. One the North – I wanted to ask couple of questions on North America. First, I was hoping you could give a little bit more detail on your women’s business in North America, maybe an update on some of the moves you made in distribution, I think you had nice Training Club shop-in-shops in Macy's and perhaps at some of your other retail partners, can you – and then also some of the stores. Can you just tell us, where you are with that and what we should be expecting for the next fiscal year and maybe quantify any metrics around how well those openings are doing? Thanks.

Mark Parker

Management

Okay, I will maybe just kick it off this way and maybe just start at the top and just continue to reinforce what we certainly are seeing in our women's business is just tremendous growth. And so we saw obviously 20% growth for the year and which bring us to about $6 billion. So one of the reasons we think we were able to drive the growth is, because we are putting the pieces together. This aspect of being able to communicate very well with her at the same time making sure the products that we're bringing to the market are really, really strong. And so I think I've talked a few times about this aspect of brining innovation and style together which is really working for us. And then certainly as you sort of step down into the distribution, we are certainly working with our partners to continue to rollout shop-in-shops in many of the locations that you mentioned, but NIKE.com has certainly been one of the really great hallmarks for us, because we’ve seen our ability to really invite the consumer into our communications, importantly engage her, certainly with the N+TC app and things that we are doing there and then serve her very specifically online. And that business is growing at a much faster rate, faster than our men's business online and faster than the total brand online. So we believe that that really is providing a great window of opportunity for what we think is just going to continue to be great growth era.

Lindsay Drucker Mann

Analyst

Great. The next thing I wanted to ask was on, North American margins were really solid in the quarter even though you were dealing with some inventory backup from the West Coast port congestions. I was wondering if we should be expecting deteriorating margin performance across – you already worked some of that inventory or – and Trevor, you sounded pretty optimistic about how unhealthy the market was, so maybe it will be a non-issue, just some clarification around that. Thank you.

Don Blair

Management

Well, as I said in the prepared remarks and Trevor said this as well that we feel very confident that we're going to be working through that inventory in a way that's brand accretive and is not going to be problematic from a profitability standpoint. Again, not trying to get to any specific prediction of a percentage on one of the geographies, North America has done a phenomenal job over the last years of building profitability. They have a very well developed network of factory stores, they manage that marketplace very well. So, we are confident that we are going to work our way through that inventory in a constructive way.

Lindsay Drucker Mann

Analyst

Great. Thanks so much.

Kelley Hall

Management

Operator, we have time for one more question.

Operator

Operator

The last question is from Robbie Ohmes with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Robbie Ohmes

Analyst

Thanks for taking my question. And Don, best of luck in your next endeavors.

Don Blair

Management

Thank you.

Robbie Ohmes

Analyst

Two questions, Just first on Western Europe, but I guess maybe Europe overall, how much further do you think the category offense has to go and I think D-to-C, I think you guys said it was up 39% in Europe? How much of that is driven by new store openings versus dot-com, just how are you getting that great growth in Europe?

Don Blair

Management

Yeah. As we've talked about before, one of the things that we did really feel confident about is that the category offense is really providing us the opportunity to continue to uncover and unlock more growth in the marketplace. And certainly what we've seen take place is the brand is very, very strong in Western Europe. We are seeing really growth across the different territories. Obviously we spoke about AGS as well as in the U.K. and Ireland. And our partnership that we're doing with our wholesale partners whether it's JD Sports, Foot Locker and Intersport continue to drive that. Out dot-com business in Western Europe is also growing at an accelerated pace. So what is driving the numbers in the DTC primarily would be the dot-com growth, that's certainly a faster rate than the overall business. But our ability to drive more conversion in the stores where we currently exist still is taking place. So we've been able to increase the sell-through within our own doors. As we've always talked about, that learning, we then take that to our whole partners and that's really helping to drive the overall growth in the marketplace. So we continue to feel very confident about the growth. Again, I won't say that it will go on forever, but certainly we see a lot of runway for quite some time.

Mark Parker

Management

I just want to add that, the growth and the strength of NIKE in Western Europe is sort of smaller example of what we often refer to as our complete offense. So we’re seeing really strong broad-based growth across the various countries, across Europe, across the categories, across both DTC and wholesale. So it's a very healthy broad-based complete offense from brand strength and a growth standpoint. The brand by the way based on recent surveys is seemed to be the number one favorite sports band in ten of the key Western European cities, so that's all good news for us.

Robbie Ohmes

Analyst

That sounds great. And just my last question, I guess for Trevor. Trevor, when you think about the success of shoes like the Downshifter and Windflow in the mid-tier, how do you think about how successful those shoes can become without cannibalizing some of the higher price points, sneaker styles that you guys are already hugely successful in?

Trevor Edwards

Management

I would say that obviously Mark always talks about the complete offense and that is really what we're insuring that we're doing. We're making sure that we look at certainly running business or the opportunity certainly from the premium segment, making sure that we're driving that, the important opportunity about what we described as core which is the mid-tier price zones but also our sportswear business provides another opportunity for us to continue to really come at the market from a holistic perspective. So we believe that there is still more growth in the marketplace and we're able to continue to take share but by growing the market altogether. So, we feel very confident about that strategy and we continue to bring innovation amongst all those dimensions.

Robbie Ohmes

Analyst

Great, thanks very much guys.

Kelley Hall

Management

Thanks Robbie. Before we end the call today, I'd also on behalf of the finance function like to thank Don for his leadership over the years and his mentorship to me personally, and to welcome Andy as the new leader of our function. So thank you Don. With that, we'll go ahead and end the call, thank you all for joining us and we'll talk to you in Q1.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference call, you may now disconnect.