Scott Grassmyer
Analyst · Noah Zatzkin with KeyBanc. Please proceed with your question
Thank you, Tom. As Tom mentioned, we are pleased to report another strong quarter that is within our guidance range. In an uncertain microeconomic environment where the consumer has become more cautious, our operating groups executed very well going against direct consumer costs of 14% in the second quarter of 2022. Consolidated net sales for the second quarter of fiscal 2023 were $420 million, which included $52 million of sales for Johnny Was and increases in each operating group, growing 16% above last year's second quarter net sales of $363 million. In the aggregate, Tommy Bahama, Lilly Pulitzer, and Emerging Brands had decreases of 3% in full-price brick and mortar, 4% in full-price e-commerce, and 7% in wholesale sales. These declines were offset by 8% growth in our food and beverage business and 16 million of sales from the Lilly Pulitzer e-commerce flash sale that we did not hold in the second quarter last year. Adjusted gross margin was 64.3% compared to 64.6% last year. This slight decline was driven by increased e-commerce flash sales at Lilly Pulitzer and a greater proportion of sales during Tommy Bahama's loyalty award card flip side and in the season clearance events, partially offset by the higher gross margin of Johnny Was and reduced freight expense. Adjusted SG&A expenses were $202 million compared to $163 million last year. This quarter included $29 million of SG&A associated with the Johnny Was business, which we did not own in the prior year period. There were also additional SG&A increases in our other businesses for employment costs, advertising costs, variable expenses, and other expenses that we continue to invest in our businesses to fuel and support anticipated future growth. The result of all this yielded $73 million of adjusted operating income or a 17% operating margin compared to $78 million in 2022. The $73 million of operating income included $7 million of operating income for Johnny Was. The decrease in operating income reflects our planned SG&A deleveraging and the $2 million in impact of lower royalty income from our licensing partners, notably in the furniture and home categories, which saw a surge during the pandemic and subsequent recovery period. Moving beyond operating income, we incurred more interest expense after having no debt in the second quarter last year and benefited from a lower effective tax rate due to the favorable tax impact of stock awards vesting during the quarter. With all this, we achieved $3.45 of adjusted EPS, towards the top end of our guidance range. I'll now move on to our balance sheet beginning with inventory. Our inventories increased 14% or 28% year-over-year on a FIFO basis, including $18 million of Johnny Was inventory. The 14% increase in inventory is in line with our low double-digit plan. Planned sales increase for 2023. So we believe our inventory levels are appropriate to allow us to deliver on our forecast for the remainder of the year. We used our cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments on our balance sheet last year, as well as some borrowings under our revolving credit agreement to fund our acquisition at Johnny Was. We finished the quarter with 48 million of borrowings under our revolving credit facility after having 119 million of borrowings at the beginning of the year, $153 million of cash flow from operations in the first half of fiscal 2023, compared to $91 million in the first half last year. That allowed us to significantly reduce outstanding debt by $71 million during the first half, while also funding $31 million of capital expenditures, $21 million in dividends, and $19 million of share repurchases. We have spread strong cash flows for the back half of the year and anticipate repaying additional debt in the fourth quarter. I will now spend some time on our outlook for 2023. As Tom mentioned, we are moderating our full-year view to reflect the impact of the Maui wildfires, and a bit more cautious caution being shown by the consumer early in the third quarter. For the full year, we now expect net sales to be between $1.57 billion and $1.6 billion. Growth of 11% to 13% compared to sales of $1.41 billion in 2022. The plan to increase in sales in the 53-week 2023 includes the benefit of the full-year of Johnny Was, as well as growth in our existing brands in the low-single-digit range driven by a direct consumer businesses, while wholesale sales in our existing businesses are expected to be comparable to 2022. We still anticipate modest gross margin as expansion for the full-year of 2023 with much of that improvement in the first and fourth quarters. The higher sales and modestly higher gross margins are expected to be offset by increased SG&A, which is expected to grow at a rate higher than sales in each quarter of 2023. As we continue to invest in our businesses as Tom outlined earlier. While we don't want to back off on expense investments that help build for the future, we are redeveloping our efforts to scrub the income statement, and prudently trim expenses where appropriate. We also expect royalty income for the year to be lower with the second half being comparable to the prior year. Considering all of these items, we expected operating margin will decrease from 22 levels to a percentage of between 14% and 14.5% of sales. Additionally, we anticipate higher interest expense at $5 million for the year, after incurring almost $4 million of interest expense in the first half. This compares to $3 million of interest expense in the full-year of 2022, when we had no debt outstanding until the third quarter. We also expect a higher effect of tax rate of approximately 24% compared to 23% in 2022. After considering these items, 2023 adjusted EPS is now expected to be between $10.30 and $10.60 versus adjusted EPS of $10.88 last year with inclusion of a full-year profit from Johnny Was being offset by lower operating income in existing businesses, the increased effect of tax rate and higher interest expense. Further, we expect pressure on our second half performance as we rehabilitate our business on Maui, where our brands generated nearly 30 million of sales in 2022. Of our six locations on the island, only the wild layer [Ph] Tommy Bahamas store and restaurant and Johnny Was store remained open, but with significantly reduced traffic. Our Lahaina Marlin Bar location was a total loss. While the reopening path to results after reopening for our three stores in the Whaler Village Center remains uncertain. We expected net effect of this is a negative impact of approximately $0.10 per share on both the third and fourth quarter or $0.20 for the second half. In the third quarter of 2023, we expect sales of $320 million to $335 million compared to sales of $313 million in the third quarter of 2022. In the third quarter of 2023, we expect higher sales as this year includes a full quarter of Johnny Was after Q3 last year only included half a quarter of operations after the September 2022 acquisition, partly offset by lower respective sales in our other businesses after we generated 12% comps in the third quarter last year. We also anticipate comparable gross margin to last year's third quarter and continued SG&A deleveraging. We expect this to result in third quarter adjusted EPS of between $0.90 and $1.10 compared to $1.46 in the third quarter of 2022. The lower year-over-year EPS expectation in the quarter is apparently driven by increased SG&A investments. It has a larger impact on our operating income and our smaller sales quarter of the year and by the impact of the situation in Maui. In the fourth quarter, we expect increased sales due in part to the additional week in the quarter with otherwise comparable sales year-over-year after generating 9% comps in Q4 of 2022. Modestly higher gross margins as the fourth quarter 2022 included certain inventory markdowns and emerging brand businesses and modest SG&A deleveraging as SG&A increases at a higher rate themselves. Also, we expect interest expenses in the fourth quarter to be lower than interest expense in the fourth quarter last year due to our significant reduction in debt during 2023 and a higher effective tax rate as the fourth quarter 2022 included certain favorable items that are not expected to repeat in the fourth quarter of the current year. Capital expenditures in 2023 are expected to be approximately $90 million compared to $47 million in 2022 as we mentioned last quarter the planned CapEx increases include spend associated with brick-and-mortar locations including build out associated with approximately 35 locations across all brands including 3 Marlin Bars and about 10 new Johnny Was locations, a number of these are relocations and remodels, which along with a few store closures should result in a net increase of full-price stores of about 25 by the end of the year, with approximately 9 net new locations in both the third and fourth quarters. This spend associated with these brick-and-mortar locations represent about one-half of the planned capital expenditure amount for 2023. Additionally, we will also continue with our investments in our various technology system initiatives Finally we anticipate initial spend associated with a multiyear project across or fulfillment network in the Southeastern U.S. to enhance direct consumer throughput capabilities for our brands. We continue to have a very positive outlook on our cash and liquidity position as well after generating cash flow from operations of $126 million in 2022, which included a working capital increase of $85 million. We expect to increase our cash flow from operations significantly to a level in excess of $200 million in 2023. This level of positive cash flow from operations provides ample cash flow to fund our plans 2023 capital expenditures. Payment of dividends at the current rate 20 million of recently completed share repurchases and the continued reduction of our outstanding debt during the year. Although, SG&A investments will put pressure on 2023 margins, these actions set the table well for mid-to-upper single digit top one growth and long-term operating margin target at or above 15%. Thank you for your time today and now we return the call over for questions. Doug?