Oxford Industries, Inc.
Q1 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 10 Jun 2020

[Operator:]

Greetings, and welcome to Oxford Industries First Quarter Fiscal 2020 Earnings Conference Call. . Please note, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Anne Shoemaker, Treasurer. Thank you. You may begin.

[Anne Shoemaker:]

Thank you, and good afternoon. Before we begin, I would like to remind participants that certain statements made on today's call and in the Q&A session may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results of our operations or our financial condition to differ are discussed in our press release issued earlier today and in documents filed by us with the SEC, including the risk factors contained in our Form 10-K. We undertake no duty to update any forward-looking statements.

[Thomas Chubb:]

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us. Before providing you with an update on our response to COVID-19 and our first quarter financial and operating results, I'm going to spend a few minutes on recent events. What has happened across the country over the last few weeks has brought into sharp focus that we, as a country, are still falling well short of our national aspiration of racial equality and equal economic opportunity for all. It is time for us all to listen, learn and act. We can feel heartbroken, fearful or uncomfortable, but we must get busy and take action to change things for the future. With this in mind, Oxford is making a $1 million commitment of additional support over the next 4 years to help our local communities address economic and racial inequality through education. Every child, regardless of race or economic circumstance, deserves the chance to learn and be successful. The likelihood of success increases exponentially when a child has access to a quality education. All too frequently, particularly in economically disadvantaged communities and communities of color, that access does not exist. Our commitment builds on Oxford's long history of supporting education programs that improve access to quality education for economically disadvantaged use in predominantly African-American communities. Now let's talk about what's going on in our business. It goes without saying that this year is a very unusual year. In any other year, our key objective is always delivering the sustained profitable growth that drives long-term shareholder value. With the shutdown of the economy in response to the COVID pandemic, this is a year that given the nature of our business, makes it almost impossible for us to achieve this objective. That said, we believe this situation is temporary and that by focusing on our people, our brands and our liquidity, we will emerge from this year positioned well to thrive in the new and very different post-COVID marketplace. With respect to these three objectives, people, brands and liquidity, I am very pleased with what we have accomplished since March and the track we are on for the rest of the year. With respect to people, the COVID pandemic and the resulting shutdown have been incredibly disruptive for people at both a personal and professional level. To navigate through this difficult situation, we have had to take a number of painful, but necessary actions that have added to the disruption in people's lives. These have included layoffs, furloughs, pay reductions and other actions, including work from the home that have added to the challenges that people face. We do not take these actions lightly at all, and I am deeply appreciative of how our teams have rallied. Their commitment, resourcefulness and focus has far exceeded what I could have possibly hoped for.

[Scott Grassmyer:]

Thank you, Tom. Our first quarter of 2020 began strongly. In February, we were very excited to open 2 new Tommy Bahama Marlin bars, both in the Fort Lauderdale area. Our retail and e-commerce businesses were posting positive comps and we were on track to add to a multiyear positive comp trend. As we approach mid-March, the spread of COVID-19 started to accelerate and began impacting the retail marketplace. From March 17th, to protect the health of our employees and customers, we temporarily closed all of our North American stores and restaurants. Our corporate offices successfully adopted work-from-home strategies and with appropriate safety measures in place, we have been able to keep all of our distribution centers open. The impact to Oxford from the COVID-19 crisis is exacerbated by the seasonality of our business. Our Tommy Bahama, Lilly Pulitzer and Southern Tide brands are oriented primarily to spring/summer, with March through June being 4 of our strongest months of the year. Our stores and restaurants, which make up 47% of our overall sales in 2019 just began to reopen in early May, and we expect to have almost all of our locations opened by the end of June. As our stores open, however, they are operating with many restrictions in place and consumer traffic that is rebuilding slowly. The stores that are open are operating at about half prior year levels on average with significant regional variations. While we don't expect revenue from stores to reach prior year levels at any time during 2020, we do anticipate steady improvement as restrictions ease and consumers' comfort level increases around travel and shopping. Turning to our wholesale channel. It appears that the pandemic is likely to accelerate the closure of a number of department and specialty stores. Over the last several years, we have very carefully managed our exposure to these accounts as it become increasingly difficult to find partners with whom we can maintain a mutually beneficial business. In 2019, wholesale sales at Tommy Bahama decreased to 20% of revenue, and at Lilly Pulitzer, 21% of revenue. Most of our wholesale partners have excess inventory, and we believe it will take them a while to work through what they have on hand. We believe the demand for new product will be softened 2020, and therefore, we expect wholesale revenue to be significantly lower than 2019. Throughout this challenging period, we were able to successfully use our digital platforms to stay connected with our customers. E-commerce, which was 23% of our revenue in 2019, grew by 12% in the first quarter, and the positive momentum has continued into the second quarter as we reap the benefits of the long-term investments we have made in digital and e-commerce, such as upgrades and redesigns of websites, enhanced search engine, optimization and new enterprise order management systems.

[Operator:]

. Our first question comes from the line of Rick Patel with Needham & Company.

[Rakesh Patel:]

You touched on stores not reaching the same level of productivity as last year during 2020. Can you provide some additional color by channel? I'm assuming you still expect e-com sales to be higher, but I'd love to get any color you may have on store-level sales versus wholesale as we think about the next few quarters?

[Thomas Chubb:]

Yes. So I think in -- with respect to e-com, it's been strong. It was strong in the first quarter. Second quarter actually is going really, really well so far, and we expect it. I frankly remain strong throughout the year. I don't really see that taking a turn for the worse at all. On stores, what we're seeing is that as we reopen our gas emotional connection with our brands is stronger than ever. But you're still acting in a very restricted environment. You've got kind of a couple of considerations going on.

[Rakesh Patel:]

Tom, on the last point on wholesale. We've heard from some other brands that they're planning their fault order books down 30% or even more, just given the inventory issue that you're touching on. Are you approaching it the same way from a planning perspective? Or do you not expect it to be that severe?

[Thomas Chubb:]

We certainly are not -- we're not planning to try to force goods on people where they're not ready for them. And our forward-order-wise, we approached it with something we're buying 25% less on a forward order basis with the idea that wholesale will be down and our own channels won't be all the way back up. But we have seen -- it has been a very slow start back up to wholesale. So -- and I think it will take some time for the inventory to correct itself.

[Rakesh Patel:]

Got it. I was going to ask about the gross margin. So down 220 basis points. It's -- yes, it's down, but like it's not nearly as severe as what we've seen from a lot of other companies where it's down north of 1,000 basis points. So just curious, your thoughts on the ability to kind of limit gross margin deterioration? And is it safe to assume that 1Q is the most severe in terms of the gross margin decline and we should see it getting less bad going forward?

[Scott Grassmyer:]

As we get into season clearance periods, there are probably more goods clearing. So I think -- so those quarters could have a little bit more pressure. Hopefully, when we get into the fourth quarter, it will maybe be a little bit less pressure. But we did by deferring some of the inventory canceling inventory groups got on it early, and we're able to go in there with current bus, reduce them. We're able to remerchandise and delay some goods that were scheduled for summer, push them out to the resort season. That has taken a little bit of pressure off. And I think right now, being only 8% up, with over 40% sales reduction. We're really pleased with actions our groups have taken.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Edward Yruma with KeyBanc.

[Edward Yruma:]

I guess first on the store footprint, given some of the changes that may occur, any thoughts around the current size of the footprint? And are you taking the opportunity to close stores permanently and then as a housekeeping question, I know you mentioned you're in kind of negotiations for rent? Have you expensed the full amount of rent in the first quarter? Or do you catch some of that up in later quarters?

[Thomas Chubb:]

Yes. So Ed, thank you very much for being on the call today, and I'll answer the first -- or the last one first because it's got the most straightforward answer, and that's that we are fully account -- expensing the rent during the first quarter. So unless we had a signed deal with the landlord, giving us some kind of break, we ran the full rent expense through the income statement. So there's no surprise coming later on, on rent. Secondly, on the store footprint, I think we're thinking a lot about what the store looks like in the future. And I don't know that we've got all the conclusions less. I think that we probably, over time, are going to see less people in stores. But when they get there, they're going to be more committed to buying. They're going to have done their research in advance. They're going to be looking for the expertise in the service of our great staff in the stores. And it may end up physically changing the way that we want to layout those stores and the size of them. But I don't know that we've drawn any hard conclusions about that. And then in terms of store count, one of the things that I think was a strength going into this shutdown is that we were not overstored. We didn't have a lot of stores that were marginal. So while this situation has definitely put pressure on things, I don't expect to close down a lot of stores as a result of this, I can't say that there won't be a small handful, but that won't reopen, but I don't think we'll close down a lot of stores in the short term.

[Edward Yruma:]

Just one other follow-up, if I may. You guys have historically been a very disciplined buyer, I know it's probably tough to talk about during this time of pressured macro, but you bought Lilly at a fantastic, very opportunistic time. Are you starting to see potential target get more reasonable valuation? Is there something you would entertain at this point?

[Thomas Chubb:]

I think that's right. We did buy Lilly at the end of 2010 and that was kind of when the recovery was underway after the financial crisis. And we think there might be an opportunity like that again. What we're seeing right now is a little bit more of sort of distressed situations where the businesses were probably not in the best shape going into the crisis and just have had further strain on them. But I think hopefully, and we're -- our eyes are open to it over the coming months as things start to rebound, there could be some good opportunities, and we will definitely be looking for them.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Susan Anderson with B. Riley FBR.

[Susan Anderson:]

I guess, maybe to start out, can you talk about, I guess, the differences that you're seeing? I think you said that some stores were opening or maybe it was an average down 15% and then improving, I guess, one, is that the average across the base? And maybe just talk about the differences that you're seeing in the regions that are performing better versus the regions that are maybe opening up a little bit slower? And then if you could comment on just how Hawaii and California is doing?

[Thomas Chubb:]

Yes. Sure. Thanks for the question. The stores that are doing best are really the ones that are in locations that people are driving to, to kind of get away from it all and that are in a sunny place that has something to do with Beach. So for example, we've got stores in Destin, the Sandestin Resort area in Florida that are doing very, very well. We've got a couple of outlet stores in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and Hilton Head that are doing very well right now, and we think that's all about people driving down to those places from a variety of locations around the country to get away from things and to have a little break and a little vacation. We've got one on Kiawah, a couple on Kiawah that are doing quite well. So those are the types of locations that our Naples stores are doing well. Palm Beach is doing well. Those are the types of places that are doing well, where it's harder is the stores that are in enclosed malls, in sort of more the interior of the country, those are a little slower coming back. And frankly, those are the ones that were tending to open a little bit later, too. Then with respect to Hawaii, as you know, Hawaii is still completely shut down. If you were to fly there today, you would have to go in the quarantine for 14 days. So there's fundamentally no tourist business at this point. We're doing a little bit of business in Hawaii, but it's going to be hard for us to get back to our normal levels without the tourist business. We're looking forward to when it reopens. We think it will. The COVID case level is very low at this point. So we're hoping that, that will come reasonably soon. And then Hawaii has a little bit of an echo effect on California because a good bit of our California business is people who are West Coast based that are headed Hawaii on vacation and they stock up before they leave. On the other hand, we have some California locations that I think as things begin to open up out there are going to do really well. Palm Desert in Palm Springs, even though they're very hot during the summer, I still think a lot of people during -- from Southern California will want to drive over there on the weekend, just to have a break and that should benefit us in those markets. So definitely a mixed bag by location, warm, sunny, outdoor and drivable are all big pluses right now.

[Susan Anderson:]

Great. That's very helpful. And then I'm not sure if I missed it, but can you talk about maybe the online business by brand in the first quarter? And then I think you said, in general, online accelerate in second quarter. Did you see that across all of the brands also?

[Thomas Chubb:]

So in Lilly, in across the board, we were up 12% for the quarter, which was good. We had a good start to the quarter. Than the earlier parts of the quarantine, it was a lot choppier. And then as we got later into it and even up till now, it's picked up a lot. I would say that Lilly has been the strongest, but I think we've been pleased really with what we've seen across the board. And in terms of second quarter-to-date, I think it looks really good so far. Again, Lilly's leading the pack, but I would say that I would point out that for Tommy, you've got a big calendar shift going on and that Father's Day this year is the latest, it can be versus the earliest, it can be last year. So you're really not quite comp yet because that's such a big event for us. We anticipate we're going to have a big next couple of weeks in Tommy Bahama with Father's Day coming and that will be good. We're actually pleased with how we're tracking there months to date, and it sets up for good Father's Day there, which should lead to a pretty good quarter there in e-com.

[Susan Anderson:]

Great. And I guess one last question. I think you had said that you're planning order down 25 in the back half. I'm assuming that -- because I think you save maybe some product that you were originally going to launching in first half or back half that offsets that a little bit? And then I guess, if demand is stronger than that, I guess, what -- is there any ability at all to chase?

[Thomas Chubb:]

Well, I think what we're doing -- you're doing a couple of things, Susan, with the inventory. You're planning for a business that, for the year is going to be significantly smaller. So you just need less inventory. That's one thing you're trying to adjust for. And the second is you have all this inventory that's kind of been in quarantine too that you need to still use at some point. So you reduce forward orders, you cancel forward orders. You buy less forward. And then you take what's already in the pipeline, and you delay it and remerchandise it for later quarters. But there -- again, there are a couple of things that you're trying to do. But we've effectively planned in to a smaller business for the year. I think it would be a high-class problem if we ended up short of inventory in the first quarter, there's some ability to chase if things really start to take off in the third quarter. And even with everything we've done in the -- on the inventory front, I'm still not really worried about being short of product.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Steve Marotta with CLK Associates.

[Steven Marotta:]

Could you mention if any Marlin bars have reopened? And if there's any material variance in the performance of those locations versus the average store opening?

[Thomas Chubb:]

Yes. We've got a couple of Marlin bars open and they're doing really well. We -- I'm glad you asked that question because we actually think the Marlin Bar is perfect for the situation that we're in. People are a lot more comfortable outside, for good reason, all that health experts will tell you that the risk of spread is a lot lower outdoors, especially in a hot humid climate. So that sets up really well for our Marlin bars. And then the second thing, and this is a great sort of byproduct of the quarantine is that we build a much, much more robust takeout business than we ever had before. We really didn't fundamentally work really in that business before. And right now, I think last we heard it's running about 15% to 20% of the total in those places in the Marlin bars and their menu items are very, very well suited to take out. So that's been kind of -- people talk about how crisis creates innovation and results in new business models that live on forever. I don't think we'll go backwards on takeout. I think we'll keep doing takeout. And I think we -- in a short amount of time, our team has been very focused on doing that in a very Tommy Bahama way. Very proud of what they've accomplished there, and that's going to be a nice little legacy of this situation.

[Steven Marotta:]

That's very helpful. And also, Tom, in your opening remarks, you mentioned that there is some accelerated efforts to become truly omni-channel. Can you talk a little bit about any of those mile markers that you may have reached in the first quarter or since the quarter is closed?

[Thomas Chubb:]

Yes. So, I think a couple of things that we've done are -- as we've reopened, we had done buy online pickup in-store is sort of the first step in the reopening, not everywhere, but in a lot of cases. So that's been a step in that direction. We have also been doing a lot of shipping from store, even as the stores were not really open to the public. We've done, in some cases, where we weren't really fully open yet, we've done by appointment-only, and that's a scenario where people are maybe booking the appointment and communicating with the store associates digitally, and then they're coming in for their appointment. That is also something that I think we'll live on beyond this. So there are a lot of different things like that, that I think have made it such that the digital and e-commerce presence is becoming even more and more important and then the store is part of supporting that overall effort.

[Operator:]

Our final question comes from the line of Dana Telsey, Telsey Advisory Group.

[Dana Telsey:]

As you think about inventory levels, did you take any reserves? Where do you see inventory lining up as we move forward? And how much did it impact the gross margin? And are you packing and holding any for next year?

[Scott Grassmyer:]

We took about $4 million of additional inventory markdown reserves in the first quarter. So, it did weigh on our margin some. Depending on where the sales land, we probably end the year with higher year-over-year inventories. Hopefully, not a whole lot higher than Q1. However, the marketplace accelerates better than we've kind of baked in, that could be different. We did really work with vendors on delaying inventory and a lot of the goods would held in Asia by the vendors and not billed to us or shipped to us, so not only from a brand protection standpoint, not having way too much spring/summer inventory, but from a cash standpoint, deferring a lot of those inventory payments, both of those things happened. So overall, we're pleased where we are now, and we're just really happy the way our groups got on this immediately. As soon as this situation was arising, it was really priority. Safety was priority one, priority two was inventory, what can we do because the quicker we acted, the more opportunity we had.

[Dana Telsey:]

And Scott, you talked about more SG&A reduction coming where is that coming from? Where does marketing fit in this? And how do you look at that?

[Scott Grassmyer:]

Yes. A lot of the actions capping during Q1. So we'll get the full benefit in Q2 of a lot of actions that happened sometime during Q1. And marketing, we are reshuffling some marketing dollars. We'll probably spend a little less, but we are spending more in digital. Maybe a little less than some catalogs right now. So there is some shifting. We've left a majority of the marketing in the budget, but are being very thoughtful before it's spent. So it's an opportunity. If it's not working, we might spend less than we have planned. And if it's working, we might spend those dollars, but rechannel them.

[Dana Telsey:]

And how do you think about CapEx for the year?

[Scott Grassmyer:]

We should be around $30 million, and I believe we originally were planning $50-ish million or maybe a little more. This was going to be a pretty high CapEx year. We've deferred some things, but we still have Marlin bars. We have the one in Fashion Valley in San Diego. We're still going forward. We had Jacksonville as well under work. So we've got down Marlin Bar about finished up, Lahaina in Hawaii. That one's under construction. So those were ones that we just had to move forward with. Systems project wise, there's some things we are deferring to next year, but there's some things that we really believe we can get a good revenue boost for it's worth going forward with. So we're not being -- we've tightened up on and we deferred what we could, but at the same time, we're trying to be smart about and things that can really help drive revenue in the near-term, we've gone forward with.

[Dana Telsey:]

When you think of the complexion of the second quarter, could the sales decline in the second quarter be as great as the first and then the SG&A reduction helped to make up for it? And my last question is, what permanent changes in how you run the business is coming out of this?

[Scott Grassmyer:]

I'll take that on the SG&A, that's correct. One thing I remember, first quarter, we shipped in most -- a lot of wholesale in the first quarter early. Now wholesales really -- we don't expect a whole lot of life second quarter in wholesale. So we -- the sales decline, it could be as big as first quarter. I mean, it's obviously very difficult to project. And -- but we do see a significant decrease in sales. And as you said, the SG&A helping offset that.

[Thomas Chubb:]

Yes. In terms of the way that the business will permanently change, Dana, I think it's really -- that wholesale probably is going to continue to decline and it's important to us. E-comm is going to continue its rise to sort of the center of our world and stores will be a very important -- our own stores will be a very important part of that. I think we are making great progress towards being truly omni-channel with sort of a single view of the customer and single view of the inventory, the ability to fulfill demand from anywhere with inventory from anywhere, we're making great progress on those things. Most of that was in works already. It's just that the quarantine, the shutdown have really just accelerated trends that were already happening.

[Operator:]

We have reached the end of our question-and-answer session and I would like to turn the call back over to Mr. Tom Chubb for any closing remarks.

[Thomas Chubb:]

Okay, Devin. Thank you very much to all of you for being on the call today. We very much appreciate your interest. We wish you a safe and enjoyable summer, and we'll look forward to talking to you again in a couple of months.

[Operator:]

This concludes today's teleconference. You may now disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation, and have a wonderful day.