Greetings, and welcome to the Columbia Sportswear Company Second Quarter 2013 Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Ron Parham, who is the Senior Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications with Columbia Sportswear.
Thank you, Mr. Parham. You may begin.
All right. Thanks, Bob. Good afternoon, and thanks for joining us. Earlier this afternoon, we announced 2nd quarter financial results and our revised outlook for 2013. In keeping with our standard practice, we also furnished an 8 ks containing a detailed CFO commentary on the results and posted that commentary on our Investor Relations website to review prior to this conference call.
With me today on the call are our President and CEO, Tim Boyle Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Tom Cusick Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Brian Timm and Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Peter Bragdon. And I'll ask Chairman, Gert Boyle, to cover the Safe Harbor language.
Good afternoon. This conference call will contain forward looking statements regarding Columbia's business opportunities and anticipated results of operations. Please bear in mind that forward looking information is subject to many risks and uncertainties and actual results may differ materially from what is projected. Many of these risks and uncertainties are described in Columbia's Annual Report on Form 10 ks for the year ending December 31, 2012 and subsequent filing with the SEC. Forward looking statements in this conference call are based on our current expectations and beliefs and we do not undertake any duty to update any of the forward looking statements after the date of this conference call to conform the forward looking statements to actual results or to change in our expectations.
All right. Thanks, Kurt. And now I'll turn the call over to Tim.
Thanks, Ron. Welcome, everyone, and thanks for joining us this afternoon. As you've seen from our press release and CFO's commentary, our Q2 results came in slightly better than last year's Q2, primarily due to improved gross margins and lower spending, which combined to offset a 3% sales decline. Although the cool wet weather across the U. S.
And Europe during the early part of the quarter depressed our sandal business, it drove strong sell through of our fleece and rainwear products in all channels. During the quarter, we successfully launched Omni Freeze 0 and Cool Q 0 in the Columbia and Mountain Hardwear brands supported by the largest spring marketing campaign in our history. In its 1st season on the market, Omni Freeze 0 performed best at specialty outdoor and marine chains and at our own branded retail stores where the core outdoor consumers shop for the latest innovations. Omni Freeze 0 contributed to the continued success of our performance fishing gear or PFG line in the fishing and water sports market where PFG has always been strong. We believe we laid a good foundation for future expansion of Omnifreeze and look forward to building on that in spring 2014 with more products at accessible price points across all of our collections to drive volume and improve gross margins.
We believe Omni Freeze 0 has great long term potential because it's effective wherever and whenever a person sweats. It could be outdoors in July or inside a gym in December. We view Omni Freeze 0 as an important new franchise to add to our existing portfolio of franchise innovations like Omni Heat Reflective and OutDrive. We'll
continue to
focus our seasonal marketing efforts around these differentiating innovative technologies to drive greater consumer adoption and market penetration. As you're aware, the 2nd quarter is always our smallest revenue quarter typically accounting for roughly 15% of annual sales, while almost 2 thirds of our annual sales and most of our annual profit is generated in the second half. Our inventory balance at June 30, 2013 is 19% lower than it was a year ago. The magnitude of this decline is due primarily to improved flow of fall inventory and in response to a cautious approach to advance orders for winter products by our wholesale customers. In addition, our focus on inventory management resulted in lower ending spring 2013 inventories compared to the same time last year.
Improving our inventory turns and gross margin are key priorities for us. Part of that effort involves flowing our inventory receipts to correlate more closely with customers' requested delivery dates, especially in August, September October, during which we shipped the majority of our fall wholesale advance orders. I'm pleased to report that we're making good progress on these objectives and have more opportunities to improve going forward. In addition, this fall our North American wholesale customers requested slightly later delivery dates, particularly with regard to outerwear and boots in response to 2 consecutive warm or late winters. As a result, we anticipate a mid single digit shift in fall North American wholesale shipments out of the Q3 into the Q4 compared with our historical cadence.
Concurrent with this shift, it's important to note that retailers have been more cautious with advance orders for the fall winter 2013 season and we have bought less inventory in response. Our fall 2013 marketing plans for the Columbia brand center around our Omni Heat Reflective platform. In addition to digital and print campaigns blanketing North America and key European countries, we will also layer in television, radio and out of home execution in our top 10 U. S. Markets.
We're also proud of our ongoing sponsorships of the U. S, Canadian and Russian freestyle ski teams, which have been dominating world competitions for many years and will be very visible during the competitions leading up to and including the 2014 Winter Olympics. For SOREL, which is highly weather sensitive, we are focused on expanding the seasonal reach of the brand with a larger early fall collection. To drive awareness and demand, we're continuing to connect with fashionable young female consumers by engaging with leading fashion editors, bloggers, global style influencers, leveraging social media channels and connecting with celebrities at North American Film Festivals. My personal primary focus over the last year has been on working with our development, merchandising and sourcing teams to make sure our future Columbia brand products are positioned and segmented across channels to drive volume and profitable growth for us and for our retail partners.
We spent a great deal of time listening to our wholesale customers in North America and in Europe to gain clarity and alignment on regional preferences and key price points within each category and classification. We expect these efforts to begin having an impact in 2014 and even more in 2015. Before we open the call to your questions, I want to emphasize 3 important senior management additions we announced during the Q2. In May, Sean Cox joined us as Senior Vice President of Retail focusing on our North American and European brick and mortar and e commerce businesses. We've incubated a successful direct to consumer platform that is now a significant part of our business that will benefit from strategic perspective of Sean's extensive global retail experience.
I've asked Sean to thoroughly evaluate our current retail operations looking for opportunities to improve profitability and to chart a strategic course that will ensure we continue to build a direct to consumer platform that complements our wholesale partners' businesses and drives profitable growth for all of us. The better we understand retail, the better partner we will be to our wholesale customers who will continue to be the primary focus of our business. Russ Hopkis, a 28 year industry veteran will join the company next week as Senior Vice President of North American Sales. Russ will lead our apparel and footwear sales teams to drive growth in the Columbia and SOREL brands. He'll be joining us in time to contribute to our fall 2014 go to market process and I look forward to the contributions he will make as we seek to put our North American wholesale business on a path for growth in 2014 and beyond.
Finally, Samson Wong will become President of our joint venture with Swire Resources Limited in China, which we expect to commence on January 1, 2014. China is a critical long term growth market for the company. Sampson brings 29 years of experience with Swire including the past decade during which he and the Swire team launched the Columbia brand and built it to be the number one outdoor brand in China. In addition, we're actively recruiting for a new GM to lead our EMEA region. In the meantime, that region is in the capable hands of Doug Morris, a longtime Columbia Senior Manager who has held numerous leadership positions in the U.
S. And most recently served as our Canadian GM. Macroeconomic conditions continue to be very difficult in Europe, but we're focusing on the things that we can control to improve product assortment and marketing communications in key European markets. In closing, we have a strong balance sheet, a powerful portfolio of global outdoor brands, a talented team and we are in the process as you know of implementing a new global ERP platform. Together, we believe these assets have the potential to deliver top line growth, improved profitability and increased shareholder value over the long term.
If you have not already done so, I strongly encourage you to read the CFO commentary, which we furnished to the SEC on an 8 ks earlier this afternoon and also posted on our Investor Relations website at columbia.com/investor. That concludes my prepared remarks. Operator, can you help us field some questions?
Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. Our first question comes from the line of Lindsey Druckerman. Please proceed with your question.
Good afternoon, everyone.
Good afternoon.
Can you just talk about the U. S. Business? I know it's a small quarter, but performance is a little bit better than I believe it was at the top upper end of your guidance. What was the key delta versus your expectation?
Well, in total, the business as you know, this is a very small quarter. So almost any aberration or lack of such by comparison to prior periods can throw the business off. I don't think in terms of the USA business that there were any surprises. We're pleased with the launch of our Omni Freeze 0 and Cool Q 0. So those were good positives.
I would just I would say, Lindsey, this is Tom, a couple additional points. We shipped a low double or single digit 1,000,000 of dollars of fall 'thirteen slightly earlier than planned and we performed a little bit better on the e commerce side of the business.
Okay, great. And the modest delta in your expectation for the full year where you were looking for down slightly and now you're looking for down up to 2.5%, I guess. Should we read that as it's a little bit worse and what's the is the reason for that mostly currency or?
Yes, currency is a part, but I would say there's really I would say 4 primary factors. One would be and comprises a little less than half the total. A couple of our Latin American countries are facing all kinds of geopolitical issues and we're having difficulty importing and importing into those countries and converting their currencies into dollars and that's predominantly Argentina and Venezuela. And then we've got small declines in the U. S.
Wholesale and retail business related to our prior outlook. And then I would say currency in the yen is the balance of the delta.
Okay, great. And then just one last one. Can you give us an update from a
if for
the Swire JV, how we should think about the earnings accretion from that move?
Yes. So what we've talked about historically that business did about 100 and a little over $150,000,000 in 2012 double digit EBITDA and we own 60 percent we will own 60% of that business. So those earnings will accrete to us. So you can basically layer on that component to our base business.
Okay. And there's been no change in how we should think about that versus the last update in terms of those trends or otherwise? No. Okay.
Not really, no.
Thanks very much.
Thanks.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Bob Drbul with Barclays. Please proceed with your question.
Hi, good afternoon.
Hey, Bob. Hi, Bob.
I guess the first was it down 19% I think. Is there a is it that's a pretty interesting number for you guys. Is there a target really for the year? I mean I think you talked a little bit you put some stuff in there, but like how low can this go, Tim? And sort of when you think about what's going on, I guess maybe like the clearance pieces of it or the inventory levels at your outlets.
I don't know if you can maybe just elaborate on that issue that you want.
So Bob, let me just say that there's a keen focus on operating the business with less cash tied up in inventory. And I think that's not the primary cause of this quarter's delta. I'll ask Tom to control it, but to give you the specifics. But frankly, it's been an area where we've had focus and I think there's an opportunity to continue to improve.
Yes. With that Bob, clearly our inventory turns aren't where we want them to be. We believe they're suboptimal. And when you look at where inventory landed coming out of June, it's a little bit of an anomaly given the timing of receipts. When you look at that coupled with our inventory, our lower inventory buy for fall 2013, the combination of those, the timing and the lower buy comprise about 70% of that 19% decline and the balance is really the lower spring 'thirteen inventory levels were much cleaner coming out of spring 'thirteen than we were spring 'twelve.
And then our prior our fall 'twelve and prior inventory levels are down significantly related to the prior year as well. So the categorical composition is really in line between footwear and apparel with our outlook for the rest of the year. We would expect inventory to comp down mid double digits in Q3 and then exiting the year we're probably in the high single digit range before we account for bringing on the $25,000,000 ish in inventory for the China joint venture. Ultimately, our year end inventory will be based on fall 2013 sell through and timing of spring 2014 receipts, but our expectation today would be that inventory would be down high single digits.
Got it. Okay. And Tim, you now have a new head of retail that's been in the seat for a few weeks now. And I just wondered if you gave us any update on any major initiatives as that's become a larger piece of the business and any early takeaways since Sean has joined?
Sure. Well, Sean has extensive experience in retail something north of 20 years. And additionally, the bulk of that experience was in Europe. So the expectations are really to be able to view our existing platforms today. Let's become the most efficient we can with our existing opportunities.
And then let's talk about what other opportunities might exist for us. So we're excited about his view so far. It's clearly an opportunity for us to get better. It's not a broken model. We've got lots of great things going on and lots of terrific people here, but I think we can improve our returns on that part of the business.
And then once we've gotten that view, we'll talk about additional investments in that area, which will likely occur, but we're not ready to talk about what they are today. Got it.
Okay. And then my last question is on the distribution for the Columbia brand, when it's all said and done like in the updated 13 numbers, will you expect any big changes or percentage moves around sporting goods versus department stores versus chain stores on what you're doing with some of your product at this point?
No. And in fact, we think the opportunity for us to grow in each of the channels is significant, but not one over another.
Got it. Thanks very much.
Thanks Bob. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Kate McShane with Citigroup Global Markets. Please proceed with your question.
Hi, thanks. Good afternoon. Is there any degree of difference either positive or negative from when we last heard from you about what retailers are thinking for winter 2013?
Well, no, I haven't heard much change. I mean, frankly, if I think about it, there is not much change from the last time we spoke. I guess retailers would probably if asked be looking for weather conditions to be about what they were the last 2 years, so a poor start to the weather. The latter half of winter twenty twelve, twenty thirteen was certainly much improved from our perspective. And I think it had the opportunity to clean inventories much more fully than they otherwise would have been.
But I think retailers are probably still considering their expectations of the weather will be a repeat. Now that having been said, I'm sure that they all have lower inventories than they thought they would have going into the season. So I suppose that bodes well, but we've been cautious in terms of our purchasing and the timing on outerwear and boot production doesn't really lend itself to be rebuilding product in season. So the existing inventories are sort of going to be what they are.
Okay. And then this is a more theoretical question, but do you think there's any impact on sell through in winter 2013 because you did have a surge in demand towards the end of winter 2012 since maybe people got their winter jackets later in the winter? Do you think that impacts the sell through for the following winter at all?
Yes. I don't I would say probably not. But I don't think there's much impact. I think let me think about that. We're not going to have to come back to that sort of an unusual question.
But I mean my initial response is I don't think it has much impact. Everything was marked down when people bought it at the end of last year. So I don't think it's going to have much impact. But let me think about that and I'll try and come back to you on that one, Kate.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Christian Busse with Credit Suisse. Please proceed with your question.
Hi, good afternoon. This is James Berkley for Christian Busse. Thank you for taking my call. I was just wondering if you could please provide some perspective on any changes you're taking to the approach in the European market following your restructuring initiatives. And could we see a turn of momentum there anytime soon?
Or when could
we? Yes, I would expect and I've spent quite a bit of time in Europe over the last really 12 to 18 months. And I think what we've what I've discovered there is that our retailers first of all appreciate the company's financial strength and size of its business globally and they're asking us to provide them with products that only a few companies can provide that are in that kind of situation. I think we allowed ourselves to get in a position structurally from our product basis that was just outside of where consumers and retailers expected us to be. So the focus has been on certain specific geographic areas and certain specific customers in terms of making sure that we have the proper products for them and that we can provide which something else that few companies can provide which is a well known pan European brand.
So I think once we get ourselves aligned correctly from a product standpoint, get our efforts focused on a narrower range of customers and geographies that will be successful. But we're relying on Doug Morris who's a senior executive for the company to help us in the interim, but we're looking for a strong local manager who can help us with the nuances of the specific European markets.
Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. And I was just curious as a follow-up on I noticed you noted before Spain, Germany and France were strong points in Europe. Is that still true for the most part?
Did you see any geographic changes there in terms of pockets of strength throughout the continent?
Well, in terms of our direct business, really our biggest markets are Germany, France and then Switzerland. We should be much more successful in the U. K. Than we have been. And so from a direct market standpoint, those are key focuses for us.
There's an opportunity in the Nordics as well too. But we just have to make sure that we're focusing our time and effort on those high return countries and specific customers. We also have to remember the our EMEA region as reported includes our big business in Russia. So that's been very successful.
Okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Burns from D. A. Davidson. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, guys. This is Devin Prater on for Andrew Burns. Thanks for taking my question. Just a quick one on the Swire over in China. I was hoping you guys could update us on the outdoor market environment over there.
Have it slowed down or if there's any excess inventory issues? And then just a second one, if you could give us kind of the outlook for that industry growth in that market going from 2014 and beyond, that'd be great.
Yes, this is Tom. I would say if we look at the China business in 2012 2011, that business grew at high double digit rates. Obviously, we've all read about the slowdown there. So we've seen some slowing in growth, but we're still planning for that business to grow this year, not at the rates of last and for the foreseeable future.
Yes. I think the China business as we see it unfolding over the next several years is really going to be a function of really 2 parts of wealth and as well as expansion of the company's business into 2nd and third tier cities which we've barely touched upon. And so the expectation is that as the business matures, we end up with a larger business and a more robust Pan China business than we have today.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Yes. I mean, we're clearly still planning for that business to grow, but just not at the rate it has the last few years, which was extremely high.
Okay, great.
There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the floor back over to management for closing comments.
Thanks. Well, Kate, if you're still on, I just wondered if I had a chance to think about your question. I think really at the end of the day, consumers are quite responsive to weather. So if we have weather, there's lots of buyers out there that need weathered apparel and I would expect that again the early part of the winter would be responsive to weather much like the latter part was. That's the sum of our report.
We certainly appreciate you checking in and we'll be back to you in about 3 months. Thank you.
This does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.