Good morning and welcome to Wolverine World Wide's First Quarter 2016 Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode until the question-and-answer session of the conference call. This call is being recorded at the request of Wolverine World Wide. If anyone has any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I would now like to introduce Mr. Chris Hufnagel, Vice President of Strategy, Investor Relations and Communications for Wolverine World Wide. Mr. Hufnagel, you may proceed. Christopher E. Hufnagel - VP-Strategy, Communications & Investor Relations: Thank you, Keith. Good morning and welcome to our first quarter 2016 conference call. On the call today are Blake Krueger, our Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President, and Mike Stornant, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Earlier this morning, we announced our financial results for the first quarter of 2016. The release is available on many news sites or it can be viewed from our corporate website at wolverineworldwide.com. If you'd prefer to have a copy of the news release sent to you directly, please call Tyler Deur at 616-233-0500. This morning's press release included non-GAAP disclosures and these disclosures were reconciled with attached tables within the body of the release. Comments during today's earnings call will include some additional non-GAAP disclosures. There is a document posted on our corporate website entitled, WWW Q1 2016 Conference Call Supplemental Tables that will reconcile these non-GAAP disclosures to GAAP. The document is accessible under the Investor Relations tab at our corporate website, wolverineworldwide.com by clicking on the webcast link at the top of the page. Before turning the call over to Blake to comment on our results I want to provide some additional context and information. When speaking to revenue, Blake and Mike will primarily refer to underlying revenue, which adjusts for the…

Thank you. And the first question comes from Jessica Schmidt with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. Can you talk a little bit about what you're seeing in the wholesale channel, if you think that inventories have gotten better, and it does sound like the wholesale customers are still cautious with pre buys, but can you talk a little bit about – more about your reorder business and do you expect more of the business to permanently shift towards open to buy purchasing and I guess how are you positioning I guess your own inventory for this? Blake W. Krueger - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, let me take a stab at that, the wholesale channel obviously remains cautious retailers. We have been through this I have seen this cycle many times following a pretty mediocre holiday season; we have seen the overhang continue into the first – certainly the first quarter first half of this year. I would say that in the U.S. the cold weather we had in the first couple of months January and February helped to clear out some insulated and cold weather apparel and footwear. So that's good but retailers are still taking a more cautious approach to this year when placing orders. I will say though that the pace of incoming orders in the second quarter for us which is just five weeks old has picked up considerably from the pace in Q1, so maybe we're starting to see a more normalized futures orders approach by some of the retailers. As far as whether there is any permanent shift in inventory risk back to brand owners and wholesalers that's something that's probably been, that's a trend that's been going on for 10 or 15 years especially in times like these when retailers have a little bit too much inventory in whatever category and it's just again something we've lived with for the last decade and we've got to be attentive to having the right -- we need to be narrow and deep in the right inventory so we are there to service at-once needs. We've also seen a number of our brands have a tick-up in at-once orders as we've entered the second quarter here.

Great. Thank you. I will pass it along. Blake W. Krueger - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks Jessica.

Thank you. And the next question comes from Jim Duffy with Stifel. Jim Duffy - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Thanks good morning guys. Blake W. Krueger - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning Jim. Michael D. Stornant - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Senior VP: Hi Jim. Jim Duffy - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: You guys have an awful lot in the works. I am particularly interested in the comments about exploring strategic alternatives across the portfolio. Blake can you maybe speak thematically about the key ingredients for the brands that are strategic to the ongoing portfolio and from a financials perspective how strategic alternatives could contribute to shareholder value? Blake W. Krueger - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, I mean -- certainly Jim as you know we've done this periodically in the past and have shed some businesses that didn't meet our operating margin or future growth goals. We are taking another strategic look at our top to bottom, at our portfolio. We currently operate a number of businesses and 12 brands. Some of which as you know have been underperforming here for a period of several years. And we are going to just take a longer term view and strategic kick the tires approach to whether we should keep some of those brands or businesses or whether we'd be better off shedding them and using the cash to fuel growth in other brands or initiatives. But we don't really have anything specific to report today, but we felt a heads up on this initiative was deserved. Jim Duffy - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Fair enough. And then a follow up question. So you are starting from a hole in the first half. What is it that you're seeing in the business or the order book or product line that suggests underlying revenue approaching flat for the year is in the realm of possibility? Blake W. Krueger - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah first of all I think our second half our comparisons in the second half are going to be easier as we roll forward into Q3 and especially Q4 of last year. In addition in some brands specifically like Sperry in the boot category we are seeing pretty substantial advance future orders that is very encouraging and we've also seen that for some classifications in new product introductions for Merrell and some of our other brands as well. Jim Duffy - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: That's helpful. Thanks I'll let... Blake W. Krueger - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: And Jim I think retailers have had pretty good weather to clear out some of the excess inventory that carried over from the holiday season so eventually we and some other folks will be the beneficiaries of that. Jim Duffy - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Very good. Thanks guys. Michael D. Stornant - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Senior VP: Thanks, Jim.

Thank you. And the next question comes from Taposh Bari of Goldman Sachs. Taposh Bari - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Hey guys good morning. Blake W. Krueger - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Good morning. Taposh Bari - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Chris, just a quick housekeeping when can we expect to see the segment sales for both the quarter on the history you might have mentioned it but I might have missed it? Michael D. Stornant - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Senior VP: Segment sales although the history was filed a week ago and then the segment reporting sales there is a supplemental table on our web site that you can find the breakout for the quarter. Christopher E. Hufnagel - VP-Strategy, Communications & Investor Relations: Okay, great. Blake for you on Saucony. I was surprised see that brand down for the quarter. Can you give us some more commentary on what happened there? Blake W. Krueger - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, there is really nothing unusual there. I think Saucony, in Q1 anyway, was affected a little bit by some of the bankruptcies we've read about in the sports sector here domestically. We had a transition to a new Canadian warehouse that did not go as smoothly as planned. That affected some of their shipments in Q1. And I think when they introduced EVERUN they had a pull forward into Q4 by some of the – by a number of retailers of the – especially the combined ISOFIT and EVERUN cushioning technology. And then probably I would say lastly, at the beginning of this quarter, January and February, frankly it was a wet, cold spring. As you know, substantial amount of their business is in the run specialty channel and that channel was…

Thank you. And the next question comes from Steve Marotta with C.L. King and Associates. Steven L. Marotta - C.L. King & Associates, Inc.: Good morning, everybody. Mike, I might have missed it, you mentioned that Q2 expectation sales were in line with Street consensus; did you imply EPS as well? Michael D. Stornant - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Senior VP: When you look at EPS right now I would say Street expectations for EPS might be a little rich, based on what we are seeing; we have a couple of things moving against us in Q2. A little bit of the timing of some of the advertising spend that I alluded to in my comments for Merrell shifting into Q2, that's a smaller component. Also some of these bankruptcies and some of the impact on not just revenue, but on our bad debt exposure in the quarter, we will provide a little bit more coverage for that. So given those two main factors I would say from an EPS standpoint the current consensus is a slight bit high, but overall comfortable sort of with the general trends on the consensus estimates. Steven L. Marotta - C.L. King & Associates, Inc.: That's great. Actually that dovetails into the next question and that is has there been any permanent change in your annual marketing budget? Michael D. Stornant - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Senior VP: No. We have some puts and takes across the portfolio, but overall really we talked about an incremental investment plan this year, which is still completely intact and on track, Merrell being the biggest beneficiary of that. But I guess as we look at how that's being implemented on a quarter-to-quarter basis, how it's being phased in this year it's going to really start…

Thank you. And the next question comes from Erinn Murphy with Piper Jaffray. Erinn E. Murphy - Piper Jaffray & Co (Broker): Great thanks good morning. Just a couple of questions. First on Sperry I think you talked about in the prepared remarks that retailers are making early commitments to the Saltwater collection the boot collection. Is that a specific comment just for that product line because that does seem contradictory to how you are talking about generally kind of the lack of visibility you see out there in the second half from retailers. So just curious on that specific nuance? Blake W. Krueger - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yes, I think you are right there. It was a pretty specific spike related to not just the Saltwater collection, but an expanded Sperry Boot collection. Erinn E. Murphy - Piper Jaffray & Co (Broker): Okay. So you are not necessarily seeing that with Merrell and some of the other boot collections just this early in the season yet? Blake W. Krueger - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Erinn, I would say, the Sperry Saltwater program was such a huge success it's kind of a proven item right now and the reaction to that and the appetite for it from our customers is kind of proven out based on that early success from 2015. We are starting to see some momentum and some traction with new product introductions for other brands like Merrell, but this will be their first introduction. So we don't have the benefit of being able to anniversary such a strong performance in Q4 of 2015 like we did with Sperry. So I think that's why we have more certainty and more clarity and frankly more demand from our retail partners on that program. Erinn…

Thank you. And the next question comes from Mitch Kummetz with B. Riley. Mitch Kummetz - B. Riley & Co. LLC: Yeah, thanks for taking my questions. So Mike, you mentioned the inventory – you expect that to be down significantly by year-end. Do you have any projections for either free cash flow or cash flow from operations for the year? Michael D. Stornant - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Senior VP: Yeah we do. I mean I think a lot of puts and takes in there, but I think right in that $170 million to $180 million range is what we're targeting for free cash flow for the year. Mitch Kummetz - B. Riley & Co. LLC: Okay. And then either Blake or Mike, you mentioned that – a couple of things, you mentioned that both Merrell and Sperry outperformed in the quarter. Blake, I think you said that your Sperry outlook has improved for the year. I am also curious to know if your Merrell outlook has improved for the year, and is there any way you could say what those outlooks are? Blake W. Krueger - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah it's hard for me to say obviously Mitch say what those specifically what those outlooks are. I would say we have a little more clarity on Sperry given the performance of its boot programs last year and the future orders that have flowed in for Sperry for boots and other fall programs this year. So we have a little more clarity right now than we do for Merrell. Having said that we see we're very positive about the flow of product for Merrell as the year unfolds. The Arctic Grip technology, the Moab FST, the Capra Bolt, the Siren, new Siren collection. We expect…

Thank you. And the next question comes from Christian Buss of Credit Suisse. Christian Roland Buss - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Hello, thank you so much. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the launch plans for Arctic Grip and whether you are going to do a tiered launch there across the brands? Blake W. Krueger - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. We are going to do obviously Arctic Grip will be this fall season. So we have six brands that are participating. The technology in the footwear has won all kinds of awards in Europe and here in the United States. If you've ever – if you had the opportunity to try it I can't recall at the Outdoor Retailers Show or one of the other shows it's pretty incredible stuff three times the normal traction on ice and wet surfaces. So we are pretty excited about that. I think we may have some limitations here on the inventory that we can get in time for the launch – but we'll be launching that across six brands pretty much all at the same time. I would say the brand with probably the most style offerings at the moment is Merrell. Christian Roland Buss - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Could you talk a little bit about how long you have the exclusive for that, what happens once it becomes more broadly available? Blake W. Krueger - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: I think we have the exclusive on the compound for a year or a year and a half maybe as a practical matter that's four seasons and then Vibram is open to market that through other brands and other folks but certainly with a year to two year head start we think that's highly beneficial to our brand. Christian Roland Buss - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Great. Thank you so much and best of luck. Michael D. Stornant - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Senior VP: Thanks.

Thank you. And the next question comes from Jon Komp with Robert W. Baird. Jonathan R. Komp - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Hi, thanks. If I could first just clarify on Merrill. I think in the prepared remarks there was mentioned it's not clear, if there was a change in the apparel distribution for Merrell or that was just a change in where the business is being managed and similarly on the China joint-venture comment? Blake W. Krueger - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, I mean there is a couple of things that are going to negatively impact Merrell's topline this year. One is certainly a decision to focus on our 300 to 310 Merrell stores around world for Merrell apparel and accessories. So we have elected to opt out of a frankly a smaller and unprofitable wholesale business and focus first on driving results in our own stores and in the owned-stores by our distributor partners. So that will effect Merrell's growth this year maybe by a couple of percentage points that decision. But it was the right decision for the brand and the program. And then in the China JV, we have a bit of a gap year where we ramped down from a distributor relationship we've had for a period of time and ramp up for a JV where we are going to have a controlling interest in Merrell for China. And so unfortunately that presents a bit of a gap on a fairly large international program for Merrell and that will be a little bit of a negative pressure on topline revenue for the year. But obviously the right thing for the brand in the long-term. Jonathan R. Komp - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Got it. And just…

Thank you. And the next question comes from Chris Svezia with Susquehanna Financial.

Good morning everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Hi, so Mike, just for you, pension expense, or pension income, I guess. Just what was it in the quarter and what is the expectation for 2016? Michael D. Stornant - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Senior VP: I wish it was pension income, but it was just lower pension expense year-over-year. It was about a $4 million benefit in the quarter. It's a little, $17.5 million for the year I think, but that hasn't changed obviously since we guided that back in February.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. And then I guess one overarching question is when you guys talk about the business better than plan on Sperry, Merrell looks like it was slightly better than you expected, getting some reorders, backlog or futures improving for the Sperry on the boot side retail comps better or improving. Yet, you are keeping your outlook to way it is – which is fine and that's fair. What are the offsets to your thought process right now? Are they only sort of incremental feeling better, or was it just the fact that maybe you guided overly conservative for the first quarter relative to this plan and sort of getting it back more in line? Just maybe flesh that out a little bit for us. Blake W. Krueger - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Chris, I would just say, look, we certainly wanted to highlight where we saw some positive momentum and some maybe some green shoots in the business. There are so many variables still out there that are unresolved and I think our international business still sorting through and working through a tough currency environment, tough commodity environment and everything else, and so we have our conference coming up in May with all of our international distributors, and we'll learn a lot more about the health of their business and their outlook for the last part of this year, so a lot of the spring business that we book in the third and fourth quarter for our international business. We don't know about that yet; we don't have that firmed up. So, plenty of other headwinds out there that we talked a lot about when we gave our guidance are still out there. And I think our overall tone is, continue to keep that same attitude of cautiousness until we absolutely have quite a bit more clarity and visibility to make a change to the guidance.

And on Sperry, I am just curious, just an update on the boat shoe category, if you could: just sort of where we are, what inventory in the channel looks like, when do you anticipate to see some stability, any breakout between women's or men's, if you can talk to that. It looks like you had growth internationally, it looks like domestic must have been tougher, so I am just – maybe just flesh that out ex sort of what you are seeing in boots for the Sperry brand? Blake W. Krueger - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: I mean as expected the boat shoe silhouette from a fashion standpoint continued to soften. We expect it to soften in the first half of this year. Right now, we are anticipating that it's going to overall in the U.S. it's going to stabilize this year, but we are certainly taking some significant hits in that category in the first half. Women's, probably men's for a quarter or so has gotten a little bit weaker than women's; maybe women's weakened a little bit earlier than men, but we see it stabilizing over the rest of the year. The good news is the consumer and the retailers want and need a big business from Sperry, and there is absolutely no brand or category impediment to the offerings and what the brand can do. I would say we're, we like the fact that the non boat business of Sperry has grown to about 47% in the quarter. That's a significant improvement from when we acquired the brand several years ago. So overall we think this is a year where we believe boat is going to stabilize for us and we continue to work diligently to build the non boat business.

Okay. Thank you and if I can just sneak one last one here just the 12% operating margin Blake that you threw out and I know you talked to this as a 2018 target in the past. But any sense about when the likelihood you said the mix for medium term that's a realistic target you can hit that, if you can narrow me down a little bit on that? Blake W. Krueger - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. For medium-term I would like to think for me I'd like to think in terms of two years.

Okay, okay thank you. I appreciate it, all the best.

Thank you. We have time for one more question and the last question comes from Scott Krasik with Buckingham Research.

Hi. Thanks for squeezing me in here. Just a follow-up on your comment that the orders in 2Q are picking up was that specifically related to the Sperry Boot piece of it? Or is that for sort of in-season demand. More clarification there would be great please? Blake W. Krueger - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: I think it was a couple of different factors. Certainly some of it was Sperry Boot orders for fall, but some of it was increased at-once especially in the latter part of Q1 and the beginning of Q2 for some our boot brands. And it was really across the board. I would say overall the pace of incoming orders is still a little soft compared to historical norms, but a substantial improvement over Q1.

Okay, and then – thank you. And then just clarification, where are we on finding a permanent candidate to run Merrell and then just lastly, the euro has gotten stronger, but the pound has got a little weaker, the yen is getting stronger relative to the dollar. So how do we balance all of the various currency moves versus when you guided originally? Michael D. Stornant - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Senior VP: I'll go ahead and cover that last part and then Blake can talk a little bit about Merrell. Yes, you are right. I mean we've been watching a little bit of volatility obviously in the currency markets. We've kind of kept our full year assumptions intact just because it has been a little volatile. We're still obviously interested to see what the Brexit scenario is going to play out to be and everything else. So we've remained a little bit conservative in our currency assumptions. Also from an earnings – and that would mostly impact topline Scott because it would impact our translation rates, but really from an earnings standpoint, we've got at this point nearly all of our product cost covered with contracts and that's the real biggest driver of currency exposure for us, and so we have a pretty certain sense of that and really wouldn't change our guidance from what's out there right now relative to earnings or product cost impact. Blake W. Krueger - Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer: With respect to the Merrell search, the Merrell search is ongoing. We have seen some excellent candidates – as you can imagine its one of the plumb jobs in the industry. I would say frankly we've had a couple of missteps in the past several years for this very important position and we're being extremely diligent in our search. So I can't really give you anything else right now as far as timing but we're in the midst of that process right now.

I guess just to follow that up as do you think any of the issues on the lifestyle part of the business has been because of the lack of direction or misdirection and can that be addressed until you find new leadership? Michael D. Stornant - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Senior VP: We are addressing those now. But was it a partial cause for some of the Merrell leveling off over the last several years I believe certainly, so I think it's being addressed right now with a reorganized team and Jim Zwiers involvement but we are not waiting until we hire a new president for Merrell to take advantage of that opportunity.

Okay good luck. Thanks. Michael D. Stornant - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & Senior VP: Thanks Scott.

Thank you. The question and answer session has now ended. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Christ Hufnagel. Mr. Hufnagel, you may proceed. Christopher E. Hufnagel - VP-Strategy, Communications & Investor Relations: On behalf of Wolverine World Wide I would like to thank you for joining us today. As a reminder, our conference call replay is available on our website at wolverineworldwide.com. The replay will be available until May 17, 2016. Thank you and good day.

Thank you. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.