Brendan Hoffman
Analyst · Telsey Advisory Group. Your line is open
Thanks, Amy. Let me begin by sharing how excited we are to have recently completed the acquisition of Rebecca Taylor and Parker. With this transaction, we are bringing together three highly recognized distinct brands to create a global contemporary fashion group. We look forward to working with the Rebecca Taylor and Parker management team to grow these brands by employing similar strategies that continue to drive the success we’ve accomplished at Vince. Turning briefly to third quarter performance, which closed prior to the acquisition. We delivered another quarter of strong top and bottom line results at Vince. Our net sales for the quarter grew 3.4% and gross margin expanded 150 basis points to 50.4%. Adjusted net income, despite higher tariff costs increased 28% to $8.7 million or $0.73 per diluted share, compared to net income of $6.8 million or $0.57 per diluted share in the same period last year. In our direct-to-consumer segment, revenue increased 16% led by a 10% comp increase and four net new store openings since the end of the third quarter last year. We saw strong comps across all channels with continued strength in our e-commerce business, driven largely by an increase in transactions. We attribute our performance to strong response to our product, as well as marketing and segmentation strategies that we’ve been executing to drive customer traffic. As we continue to expand offerings within key classifications and test new product categories, as well as build on our marketing initiatives, we expect this strong momentum to continue. For the fourth quarter-to-date, we are pleased with the overall performance in our direct-to-consumer business led by continued strength in e-commerce. Our wholesale channel revenue decreased 3.6% in the third quarter. This decrease was a result of lower shipments to the off-price channel, the acceleration of seasonal wholesale deliveries into the second quarter and seasonal timing of returns. We continue to see robust growth in our sales at the register, which in turn has enabled us to secure more floor space in our key wholesale partner doors. We are excited to have the larger space as it gives us the opportunity to further showcase the essence of the Vince brand. With more impactful visual merchandising, we see potential of build on our momentum as we continue to deliver exceptional products in addition to creative marketing collaborations and events. Sales for fourth quarter-to-date tell us of the traction we are gaining continues. Looking ahead, we remain focused on advancing our strategic initiatives, which include driving growth through our direct-to-consumer business, as we continue to expand our store base in the U.S. and strategically enter international markets, increased market share within the wholesale channel, test new product categories, and define our customer journey, while refining our marketing efforts to drive traffic and conversion in our stores and on our website. Our retail expansion strategy continued to progress with store openings in the U.S. as well as international markets. Our new Fifth Avenue store, which opened in September, is located in a heavily trafficked area of Midtown. This is another example of our opportunistic leasing strategy, and we believe this location serves as an opportunity to further expand brand awareness. At the end of November, we opened in the Mall of Millennia, located in Orlando, further expanding our presence in Florida. We plan to continue to expand our U.S. retail base next year and have identified premier locations, where we can negotiate opportunistic leases that enable us to achieve strong economic returns. In addition, we continue to renegotiate existing store leases upon expiration or kick-out periods, as we leverage our brand strength. We are also exploring relocations to larger footprints or more optimal nearby locations. In terms of global expansion, we saw a strong store opening in South Kensington, London in September and continue our efforts to drive brand awareness in this market, as we expand our presence through additional strategic store openings. We are particularly excited to see evidence that our California essence and vision is translating well in Europe. We also recently mentioned that we have been exploring entrance into the China market alongside our contemporary peers. I’m pleased to announce that we selected a highly experienced partner to help us launch in this market and we are progressing towards solidifying an agreement. The search for premier locations is already underway, and our intention is to launch in fall of 2020. As we expand, our store base globally, our in-store experience that embodies the California vibe will be consistent across retail locations from Melrose to Europe and China. As I mentioned earlier, our e-commerce channel performed exceptionally well in the quarter. This represents another way in which we share our narrative through visual and creative content, that enables us to connect with our guests. Our product expansion strategies are also progressing well. We are building out our sourcing design and production capabilities to support distribution of handbags in extended sizes to enhance sourcing and expansion of our teams. We expect to initiate distribution of our handbag from the wholesale channel in 2021, we plan to initially launch sizes 18 to 24 on our e-commerce in fall 2020, followed by distribution into the wholesale channel. Turning to our marketing strategies. We are focused on both increased engagement with existing customers and driving customers to the brand. These initiatives are all centered around customer connectivity. In addition to utilizing social media ads each season we work with media partners with a similar demographic to share our campaign, drive impressions in click store site. For the fall season, we worked with ShopBAZAAR, the New York Times and GQ to advertise and help build brand awareness. Looking ahead to the fourth quarter and beyond, we have a lot of exciting digital advertising campaigns to come. Furthermore, we continue to create buzz and engage with local communities through influencer partnerships as well as branded and customer-facing events. Our recent partnership with a New York City influencer florist allowed us to create an exclusive custom shoe for Nordstrom as part of their Perfect Pair muse campaign. This partnership included store displays, site experience and e-mail placements to drive awareness. We also continue to work with our influencer agency in Europe. All influencers will be posting fall and holiday product and using the campaign #VinceWomen to measure activities on Instagram. Over the next few quarters, we will continue to develop collaborations and brand partnerships as well as leverage micro and macro brand influences. Turning to our subscription business. We anniversaried the launch of Vince Unfold in November. As a growing number of brands launched online subscription services, we continue to see a steady growth in new sign-ups. We remain pleased with the growth in our subscription base as we believe this model has extended the reach of the brand, and we’ve started to discuss expanding this service to include the men’s category. In summary, we continue to see significant growth opportunity for the Vince brand as we expand our global presence. Based on our strong momentum, we are increasing our strategic investments in fiscal 2019 as we advance our growth strategies, particularly our expansion in China and the acceleration of our CRM initiatives. Now I’d like to spend a moment discussing Rebecca Taylor and Parker. We believe there is meaningful opportunity to grow these brands as we apply the strategic playbook that led to the significantly improved performance we’ve been delivering for the Vince brand. One of the initiatives that we are excited about leveraging from our acquisition is Rebecca Taylor’s new ReCollect program, which launched this fall. This program enables customers to repurpose their Rebecca Taylor clothing in stores or online for a credit towards the next purchase. This is part of the emerging trend of resale clothing designed to drive forward the circular economy and decrease the carbon footprint. Longer term, we will explore expanding this program across brands as part of our effort to heighten our focus on sustainability. Overall, we are pleased to see the enthusiasm for these brands among department and specialty store partners and landlords. I recently met with the team, and we are all very excited to work together to develop these brands over the next few years. Our next step is to reengage our strategic consultants as we work to integrate and develop our strategies with these brands in collaboration with the brand teams. Before turning the call over to Dave, I just want to provide you with a quick update on our outlook. We now expect to provide updated fiscal 2019 guidance by the end of January, which will incorporate the impact of the acquisition as well as our updated outlook for the impact of higher tariffs post September 1, and the incremental strategic investments I mentioned earlier. Note that our outlook for the underlying Vince business excluding these factors remains the same. Dave will discuss this in more detail following his review of our third quarter financial performance. In summary, we now have a diversified portfolio of contemporary brands with high brand recognition and strong growth potential. Over time, I’m confident that we have the potential to double our total company revenue from Vince’s last fiscal 2019 guidance of $295 million to $305 million. We look forward to implementing our strategic initiatives across these brands to drive long-term profitable growth. With that, I’ll turn it over to Dave.