Please stand by. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the PVH Corp Third Quarter 2018 earnings conference call. This webcasting conference call is being recorded on behalf of PVH and consists of copyrighted material. It may not be recorded, rebroadcast, or otherwise used without PVH's written permission. Your participation in the question and answer session constitutes your consent to having anything you say appear on any transcript or replay of this call. The information being made available includes forward-looking statements that reflect PVH's view as of November 29th, 2018, of future events and financial performance. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties indicated in the company's SEC filings and the safe harbor statement included in the press release that is the subject of this call.
These risks and uncertainties include PVH's right to change its strategies, objectives, expectations and intentions, and its need to use significant cash flow to service its debt obligations. Therefore, the company's future results of operations could differ materially from historical results or current expectations. PVH does not undertake any obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statement, including, without limitation, any estimate regarding revenue or earnings. Generally, the financial information and guidance provided is on a non-GAAP basis and identified under SEC rules. Reconciliations to GAAP amounts are included in PVH's third quarter 2018 earnings release, which can be found on www.pvh.com and in the company's current report on Form 8-K, furnished in the SEC in connection with the release. At this time, I am pleased to turn the conference over to Mr. Emanuel Chirico, Chairman and CEO of PVH.
Thanks, Jim. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining me on the call. Michael Shaffer, our Chief Financial Officer, and Dana Perlman, our Treasurer and Head of Investor Relations, are also on the call. I'm pleased with our earnings performance in the third quarter, which exceeded our expectations, driven by the power of our diversified global business model. We continue to over-deliver against our 2018 earnings plan and are raising our full year earnings outlook based on our third quarter outperformance and our confidence in the opportunities for the fourth quarter, despite the recent bankruptcies in the U.S. and the U.K. and increasing geopolitical volatility around the world.
In the quarter, consolidated revenues grew 7% and 9% on a constant currency basis, while our earnings per share of $3.21 for the quarter was $0.08 above the top end of our guidance, despite a $0.06 unplanned charge relating to Sears and the House of Fraser bankruptcies. This earnings beat was driven by the outperformance of our Tommy Hilfiger and Heritage Brands businesses, partially offset by the underperformance of our Calvin Klein businesses. I'll get into the discussion about our three brands momentarily, first, let me touch on our regional performance. Our international businesses continue to experience momentum driven by strong growth in Europe, where our performance has been outstanding. Our brands are very desirable, and we are gaining share with both new and existing consumers. In Asia, our business performed well as a whole.
I do want to note that while our Chinese business performed well and was ahead of plan, we have experienced some softer trends in traffic relating to a softening economy and the related trade concerns between China and the U.S. Despite this backdrop, we continue to see strong results out of China. I am pleased to report that we continue to see healthy trends in our North American business, particularly in our wholesale businesses. In our retail business, we are experiencing growth with our domestic consumers, particularly at Tommy Hilfiger. Yet we continue to experience a slowdown in international tourist traffic in the U.S. relative to the strength we experienced in the first six months of the year. From a digital sales point of view, we continue to see growth at outpaced rate, with revenues growing over 20% across our third-party and our owned and operated businesses.
Again, our digital sales for the company represent about 10% of total revenues. We are off to a strong start in the fourth quarter, including an excellent Black Friday weekend. As we look to the full year, we are raising our earnings guidance by $0.10 per share at the high end of our range. It is important to note that we are projecting underlying business to be more than $0.10 per share, covering an incremental FX headwind relating to the strengthening U.S. dollar and the unplanned write-offs related to our Sears and House of Fraser businesses. Our new earnings per share guidance range implies a year-over-year EPS growth of 18%, and we continue to prudently forecast our holiday season, especially given the strong start to the fourth quarter business. Mike will further quantify some of those results. Now moving to our brand results.
Let me begin with Tommy Hilfiger. Tommy Hilfiger had a truly outstanding quarter, continuing the outperformance we have delivered throughout the year. The brand continues to experience global momentum with strength across all product lines and channels of distribution. This has been fueled by strong product offerings and consistent brand execution around the world. We believe that our consumer-centric brand approach is helping us gain meaningful market share, particularly on the younger end of the age spectrum. For example, Tommy's capsule collection with streetwear label Kith sold out online in 37 minutes. Notably, our recent brand studies have confirmed the average age of a consumer has come down several years as we continue to connect with more Millennials and Gen Z.
We also are delivering compelling marketing campaigns, both from a regional level and a local influencer perspective, which demonstrates to consumers all of the outstanding products that Tommy Hilfiger has to offer, and doing it in a way that highlights diversity of our markets and the needs of our consumers. Our parent marketing campaigns personify this. From Lewis Hamilton to Hailey Baldwin, Winnie Harlow, and Maggie Jiang, as well as diverse global influencers that are featured in our Tommy Jeans campaign. We also are excited that Zendaya will serve as one of our global womenswear ambassadors beginning in 2019. We believe that this will help drive the momentum of our women's business, further expand our women's consumer base, and capture both Zendaya's and our commitment to self-expression and individuality.
Looking at the business, revenue for Tommy grew 11% and earnings rose 16%, primarily driven by strong revenue growth and expense leverage. International revenues increased 16% in the third quarter and comps were up 13%, again exceeding our expectations as Europe and Asia both posted outstanding performance. Beginning with Europe, our performance continues to be robust despite its challenging consumer backdrop in Europe. We continue to be impressed by the strength experienced across all channels, retail, wholesale, and digital. Notably, the recent turn in weather to more seasonal temperatures has been beneficial for our sales of cold weather categories, particularly sweaters and outerwear. As a reminder, our spring and summer 2019 order book is up over 10%, and this positions us very well for the upcoming 2019 fiscal year. The momentum in our Tommy Asia business also continues.
Both our China and our Japan businesses continue to deliver strong growth across all channels, with exceptional performance in e-commerce businesses. Beginning with China, we see significant opportunity to expand Tommy in China, as many of our lifestyle offerings are under-penetrated. While we did see some slowing in retail traffic, our business delivered strong performance overall, and we capitalized on the immense consumer demand to shop digitally. Our Super Brand Day with Tmall was exceptional, and we continue to be opportunistic, leveraging our digital partnerships. Another brand highlight from the quarter was our TOMMYNOW fashion show, which we hosted in Shanghai in September. The event was extremely successful and helped us to continue to grow our visibility in this market, which is driving consumer engagements toward the full breadth of our lifestyle offerings. Overall, we remain energized by the strong opportunity to grow Tommy Hilfiger in China.
The health of the brand continues to improve, we believe that we can realize the full brand potential by growing our category offerings, investing in the business, operating more tier 1 and tier 2 cities directly, and leveraging our local brand ambassadors. Finally, for Asia, moving to our Japan business, which experienced very strong results as we continue to invest in the market through our recent TOMMY ICONS activation event and our digital partnerships with Zalora. We continue to see strong performance out of our Japan business as we both grow on a top-line and a bottom-line basis in this important market. Moving to North America, our overall revenues were up 3% and earnings increased 13%, driven by strong gross margin performance. Our wholesale business performance had another outstanding quarter, with strong sell-throughs across all categories.
Our wholesale customers continue to be excellent partners for us as they are giving us strong support for Tommy in terms of marketing, promotions, and position of product on the floor. On the retail side, our comps were flattish. However, profitability improved as we were significantly less promotional than last year, resulting in a higher level of profitability. On the licensing side, we saw strong results across the board, and in particular, in the Tommy Hilfiger women's business that's being operated by G3, we saw outsized performance there. Moving to Calvin Klein, our business came in below plan for the third quarter. Revenues increased 2% and EBIT declined 15%.
While most of our businesses are performing very well, from underwear to men's and women's apparel, tailored clothing, footwear, and accessories, we did experience some issues in our 205 collection business and in our Calvin Klein Jeans business as we offered more elevated fashion-forward product at higher price points, particularly with our fall jeans relaunch, which did not sell through as well as we planned, resulting in more promotional sales and higher overall markdowns. Despite this, we remain confident around Calvin Klein's long-term growth opportunities. From a brand health perspective, Calvin Klein remains extremely strong. Global brand awareness continues to be exceptional. The earned media value of our marketing campaigns was almost $160 million year to date, with our ranking among our competitors accelerating two spots, putting us ahead of key peers.
Our tracking studies indicate opportunity in terms of Calvin's consideration to purchase ranking, particularly for our collection and Jeans businesses, which suggests that we have work to do on the product and marketing side of the business. Calvin is an incredible brand with tons of potential, but there are several execution issues that we are addressing to better capture the brand's top and bottom line opportunities. First of all, we've been disappointed that our investments in the 205 collection business have not delivered the results we expected. We will cut back on a number of these planned investments in the 205 collection business, and as we move forward, we will be taking a more returns-oriented commercial approach to this important business. Second, we will shift the focus of our marketing campaigns going forward, as they have been too skewed towards our higher-end 205 line and the high-fashion consumer.
Further, we will focus on driving a digital-first approach for the brand. Importantly, marketing is one of the faster levers that we can address. For Holiday 2018, we are shifting more of our media spend from halo marketing to more commercial, digital, and social media advertising. We have upped the frequency of our posts on social platforms like Instagram, and we are increasingly using micro-influencers and hosting local activation to drive meaningful engagement, particularly with Millennials and Gen Z. These changes are just the beginning of what you will see as we head into 2019. We believe that there are some elements of the new Calvin Klein Jeans relaunch which have been too elevated and too fashion-forward for our core consumer, which led us to taking earlier and deeper markdowns than we previously planned. From a product perspective, we went too far, too fast on both fashion and price.
We are working on fixing this fashion miss, and we believe that our CK Jeans offering will be much more commercial and fashion-right beginning in 2019, especially for the Fall 2019 season. Let me focus now on our third quarter segment results. Calvin Klein International rose 3%, reflecting healthy top-line results in Europe. Consumers have a strong desire to purchase the brand, and they are starting to discover and purchase our newer product lines in Europe, including sportswear and performance. While these businesses will continue to ramp up over the next 12 months, Calvin Klein Europe continues to experience healthy growth, and our new businesses are on plan. As we look to 2019, I'd like to reiterate that our European Spring 2019 order book is up 20%.
Overall, we remain excited about the brand's long-term opportunity to expand its core product lines in Europe and capitalize on the white space opportunities we have identified. Moving on to Asia. Our business in Asia experienced some softness during the quarter, which we attribute to a combination of the geopolitical issues and the consumer sentiments that are affecting the consumer in this region, as well as the consumer reception to the new jeans product. We continue to see digital as our fastest-growing and best-performing channel, especially in China, reflecting how consumers prefer to shop. In response to this, we continue to enhance our own digital experience and partner with the key pure-play accounts in Asia to offer the best product, exciting capsule collections, and deliver the best overall consumer experience. Moving to North America, we saw revenues up about 1% in the quarter.
By channel, our trends at wholesale were very healthy. We continue to see strength across the majority of our product lines. In our directly operated businesses, men's underwear, women's intimates, and men's sportswear were quite strong. From a licensing perspective, our tailored clothing, footwear, and the women's apparel business from G3 were very strong during the quarter and continue to have outsized growth. Our North America retail business was challenging during the quarter. Comps declined 2%, reflecting the weaker traffic from international tourists, as well as the softness in the new jeans line. As we look to 2019, we believe that many of the issues we faced in Calvin Klein in 2018 will reverse. We are taking critical steps to offer a more commercial brand and product experience that our consumers want.
Our Calvin Klein operating margins are not currently performing at optimal levels, and we believe that there is an opportunity to increase operating margins by 200 basis points over the next two years. The two key levers to deliver on this operating margin opportunity are, first and foremost, our ability to deliver more commercial, fashion-right Calvin Klein Jeans product. We are working hard on this design and merchandise issue, and we believe that we will see improvement in 2019, especially for the fall season. The second is that we continue to reevaluate our investment spending and the overall expense structure associated with our 205W39NYC business. This process is well underway, and we are taking current actions to ensure that we are well-positioned to deliver 75 to 100 basis points of operating margin improvement in 2019. Finally, moving to our Heritage Brands, which continued to perform very well for us.
Revenues grew 8% in the quarter, in line with our expectation, while comps were down 1%. Overall, we expect revenue growth for the year to be at about 2% for our Heritage Brands. We continue to be pleased with the performance of our dress furnishings and sportswear businesses, as we believe that we are gaining market share, as consumers are responding well to our enhanced fabrications, such as stretch capabilities and temperature activation. The new technologies we have added to our core intimates business are also driving solid results, as our consumers love key franchises like our wire-free Easy Does It bra and our lightweight Cloud Nine collection. Digital continues to be a key initiative for our Heritage Brands division.
We are growing our penetration with our department store partners online. We continue to expand our partnership with Amazon to further enhance our business with them, as the core offerings we sell in Heritage Brands works very well on that platform. We have seen a nice response to date on our Van Heusen and IZOD commercials. Van Heusen celebrated our first-of-its-kind sponsorship partnership with the UFC, featuring MMA fighters and new brand ambassadors TJ Dillashaw and Stephen Thompson, which had digital and social rates that far exceeded our expectations. Additionally, IZOD launched its largest media campaign to date, featuring our new brand ambassadors, the Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers and comedian Colin Jost from the "Saturday Night Live" production. This campaign is targeted at millennials. The campaign has performed very well to date, where we're seeing excellent sell-throughs on our sportswear businesses.
We are also excited to continue to work with these brand ambassadors for the holiday season as we look to continue to drive our outsize sales growth. Finally, as we enter the fourth quarter, our early holiday sales and margin results are running ahead of our financial plan. Our international businesses continue to see nice momentum, with Tommy International comps up low double digits and Calvin International comps running up a solid mid-single digits. We have seen a strong start to the North America holiday season, with comps for Calvin Klein North America trending up one and Tommy North America trending up low single digits quarter to date. We also continue to see strong performance in our wholesale business in North America and in Europe.
We are well positioned for the balance of the fourth quarter. We believe, given our underlying brand momentum and the strength across our businesses, that we will continue to over-deliver against our financial plans. Our Calvin Klein business is a priority for us. I believe we will be able to see significant top and bottom-line growth as we head into 2019. With that, I'd like to turn it over to Mike to quantify some of the third quarter results and outlook.
Thanks, Manny. The comments I'm about to make are based on non-GAAP results and are reconciled in our press release. Due to the 53rd week in 2017, comp store sales for 2018 are more appropriately compared on a one-week shifted basis. Comp store sales I mentioned for the third quarter are compared with the 13 weeks ended November fifth, 2017, instead of the 13 weeks ended October 29th, 2017. Our reported revenues for the third quarter were up 7%, inclusive of a 2% negative impact from FX and in line with our guidance. Tommy Hilfiger revenues were very strong, up 11%, inclusive of a 2% negative impact from FX and above our previous guidance. Tommy Hilfiger International revenues increased 16%, inclusive of a 3% negative impact from FX. The Tommy International revenue increase was driven by strong performance in all regions and channels, with comp store sales up 13%.
Tommy Hilfiger North America revenues were up 3%, including a 1% negative impact from FX, with retail comp stores relatively flat. North America had significantly more full-price selling in the current year quarter versus the prior year quarter and yielded strong gross margins and operating margin expansion. Our Calvin Klein revenues were up 2%, inclusive of a 2% negative impact from FX in the quarter, and were below our previous guidance. Calvin Klein International revenues increased 3%, inclusive of a negative 4% impact from FX. Our international comp store sales were up 1%. Calvin Klein North America revenues increased 1%, including a negative impact of FX of 1%. North America comp store sales were down 2%. As Manny discussed, our Calvin Klein business was negatively impacted by our collection and jeans business.
We have taken all appropriate action in the quarter and have lowered prices on slow-moving product, creating a gross margin shortfall for the quarter. Heritage revenues were up 8% to the prior year and in line with our previous guidance. Our Heritage retail business comp store sales were down 1%. Our Heritage business performed well in the quarter, but was unfortunately negatively impacted by the Sears bankruptcy. Our non-GAAP earnings per share of $3.21 was $0.08 better than the top end of our previous guidance. The EPS beat versus the prior guidance was driven entirely by strong Tommy Hilfiger business. Interest and taxes for the quarter were as guided. We ended the quarter with inventory of 15% versus the prior year due to a shift in the timing of receipts as a result of the 53rd week in 2017, or 8% on an aligned calendar basis.
We have also accelerated receipts to the U.S. as a result of potential new China tariffs, and we continue to increase our investments in basic and core product, particularly in Tommy Hilfiger, to capitalize on strong business trends. In addition, at year-end, we expect inventory levels to be in line with future sales growth. For the full year 2018, we are projecting non-GAAP earnings per share to be $9.33 to $9.35, an 18% growth over the prior year, which is a $0.10 increase at the top end and a $0.13 increase at the low end compared to our previous guidance. This is despite a reduction of $0.04 to our foreign currency translation benefit for the full year.
Our new guidance at the high end, when compared to our prior guidance, reflects $0.12 of business improvement, despite a $0.06 negative impact resulting from the recent retailer bankruptcies in the U.S. and the U.K., and $0.02 improvement associated with interest and taxes, which is partially offset by $0.04 of unfavorable currency. Overall, we are projecting revenues to grow approximately 7% with an immaterial impact from currency. Overall operating margins are expected to increase approximately 30 basis points for the company. Tommy Hilfiger revenues are planned to increase 10%, inclusive of the positive impact of 1% related to foreign currency. Tommy Hilfiger operating margins are planned to increase about 100 basis points. We project Calvin Klein revenues to grow 7% with an immaterial impact from foreign currency.
We are also planning Calvin Klein operating margins to be down about 70 basis points, which is a reduction of 20 basis points to our previous guidance. This reduction is a result of the Calvin Klein business underperforming their sales and margin plans in the third quarter as a result of softness in our jeans and collection business. Calvin Klein operating margins for the fourth quarter are projected to increase about 70 basis points to the prior year. Our Heritage business is planned to have revenue growth of about 2%, with operating margins relatively flat to last year, including the negative impact of the Sears bankruptcy. Interest expense for the year is planned to be about $117 million compared to the prior year amount of $122 million.
This decrease is primarily the result of lower interest EUR 600 million bonds issued in December, partially offset by higher interest rates on our variable debt. In 2018, we are planning to pay down around $200 million of our debt. Stock repurchases in 2018 are planned to be around $300 million. Our tax rate for the year is estimated to be between 13%-14%. Additional IRS regulations are expected to be issued in the near term related to the recent Tax Reform Act. Our current estimates could be subject to change if the regulation's different from our current interpretation. Negatively impacting our fourth quarter earnings per share projection is an $0.11 unfavorable impact versus the prior year due to foreign currency translation. In addition, revenues are negatively impacted by about $125 million in the fourth quarter of 2018 compared to 2017 from the 53rd week and resulting calendar shifts.
The $125 million reflects about $80 million of revenue that does not repeat from 2017 into 2018 due to the loss of the one week of business in 2018 versus 2017, and $45 million of revenue that moves earlier in the year as the calendar shifts a high volume retail selling and wholesale shipping week out of the fourth quarter. Fourth quarter non-GAAP earnings per share is planned at $1.58-$1.60 and includes approximately $0.11 of estimated negative impact for foreign currency. Revenue in the fourth quarter is projected to decrease 4%, including the negative impact of 3% related to foreign currency. In addition, the impact of $125 million in the fourth quarter due to the 53rd week equates to 5% of revenue. When adding back the negative impact of foreign currency and the 53rd week impact, our fourth quarter revenue increase is approximately 4%.
Tommy Hilfiger revenues are planned down 4%, including the negative impact of 4% for foreign currency. Calvin Klein revenues are planned down 6%, including the negative impact of 3% related to foreign currency. Heritage revenues are planned down 2%. Interest expense is projected to be about $30 million for the quarter and taxes to be about 13%-19% in the fourth quarter. With that, operator, we will open it up for questions.
Certainly. If you'd like to ask a question, please signal by pressing *1 on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. Press *1 to ask a question, we'll take our first question from Erinn Murphy with Piper Jaffray.
Great. Thanks. Good morning. Manny, I wanted to start with you just, focusing on the Calvin Klein business. You've clearly invested a lot behind this brand from talent, marketing, product. With the setback you're seeing in denim and the halo areas of brand, what gives you the confidence that you have the fix under control? As we go into 2019, what are some of those guideposts that we should be looking at, whether it's pricing or product or even how you're thinking about evolving the marketing message?
I think I need to say upfront, when you think about what's happening within the Calvin Klein business, I think first and foremost, we recognize we have a product issue, and we recognize that that product issue really centers from a material point of view on the jeans business. I can only say it so many times, but I have some metrics that I just would like to share with everyone, is really feel strongly that there is not a brand issue here in any way. When you think about the Calvin Klein brand, it is universally one of the most well-known and understood brand. It has a global brand awareness of about 90%. That puts it at the top echelon of brands. It also has a very high relevance rate, and intent to purchase around its consumer, which is just quite remarkable for the brand.
The relevance is about 65% when we talk directly to our consumers. That's consistent across the U.S., the rest of North America, and as you move to Europe. As you get to Asia, obviously, the awareness goes down a little bit like with all global brands as our presence in those markets, particularly China, grows more and more. That's why we feel it's such a strong growth market for us. I think as I tried to say on the call, I think there's two areas that we really need to focus on, and I think if you know us as a management team, we are very aggressive when we see a problem to really go after and address it.
On the jeans side, for the last two and a half months, we've been working very hard on the product as we look at 2019, adjusting, not redesigning, but adjusting the 2019 spring buys and merchandising plans, trying to get our price offerings back in line. I think we went too far and too high right out of the gate, adjusting some of that as we go into 2019. As we go into fall, we've really completely re-engineered the product and the design and the approach to it, getting the feedback from the local markets, both in Europe, North America, and Asia, because it's different in different markets, how we could position the brand. I think we truly understand the product issue around jeans.
Secondarily, as we talked about over the last three years, we've been making significant investments in the Calvin Klein brand, particularly at the top of the pyramid, the brand halo in the 205 collection business. I think, based on my comments over that period of time, if you were to quantify that number over this three-year period, we've probably invested between $60 million and $70 million into that business, and we've been reasonably growing into that increased expense structure. As we look at it now, we don't think that we're getting the full payback on some of those investments, and we're taking a really hard look on the planned investment spendings that we had as we looked into 2019 and taking a hard look at that, whether those are necessary. Should we redeploy some of those investments, or should we take it out of our expense structure?
Looking at our overall expense structure associated with 205 and overall Calvin Klein. It gives us great confidence based on the investments we've made and how we know to run the business, that there's real opportunities to trim that down, redeploy those assets, and we're highly confident as we go into 2019 that we can improve operating margins in the Calvin Klein business somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 to 100 basis points. You asked me, what should we watch? I think, as you go somewhat into the fourth quarter, but particularly into 2019, you need to watch gross margin, and we need to do a good job of explaining what's going on because sometimes driven by mix, geographic, the U.S., which is a lower gross margin business versus some of our international pieces.
We need to be even more transparent about what's going on in that gross margin, and we will be. But I think that'll be a key. Fundamentally, are we delivering on the operating margin expansion of the 75 to 100 basis points that we feel confident we can deliver? We're going to have to continue to message that. I guess on a personal level, for me, this is a credibility issue, and I really feel strongly about what needs to be done and the actions that need to be taken as we go forward. We will reposition the expense structure, we will reposition the brand positioning and the focus of our marketing as we go forward. Like always, we're very aggressive in moving in and out of inventories.
That's why I think you saw such a big gross margin hit in the third quarter for Calvin Klein, is because we were aggressive about marking goods on the floor, providing the gross margin reserves that we needed to get through the fourth quarter as well and into spring. We've tried to be as aggressive as we can and as transparent as we can about that.
No, I appreciate the candor. Thank you. Just a follow-up, Manny, on China, you mentioned you still outperformed your expectations in the market, you are starting to see traffic slow a little bit. Is that in the mainland? Is that in tourist markets? When did you start to see that slowdown? Thank you very much.
It seems to have coincided with the trade tensions as you would expect. Clearly, as I've traveled throughout Asia, in particular in China, there's real concerns about what's going on there. I know everybody quantitatively is thinking about tariffs, I consistently have been talking about that's a issue, and that's managed as we try to have as flexible a sourcing base as possible. If we have time, meaning that some lead time with some of the tariff concerns, it will be much more effective in managing that. I guess secondarily, what I'm concerned about is, Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger are two great American brands, if there's tensions in different parts of the world about America, its position in the world, I think in and of itself, it does create some pause.
We haven't seen that kind of a backlash anywhere, what we have seen is in China is just the consumer has slowed down from the accelerated pace we saw in the first two quarters of 2018. We're still comping positively. The traffic levels in the store are not what they were in spring season, it does give us some pause as we go forward, and we're managing that business a little tighter than we have in the past.
Thank you.
Moving on. We'll take our next question from Bob Drbul from Guggenheim Securities.
Hi, Manny. Good morning.
Hi, Bob.
I have a Calvin jeans question for you. I guess when you take a step back 90 days or from the last quarter and just sort of walk us through, you got rid of some of the inventory coming out of the second quarter that was older inventory. Can you just walk us through, when you think about the supply-demand equation for the denim business, where you think we are in terms of the sort of purging of some of this product that isn't working? And when it turns You talked about changing the buys into the spring. When you sort of walk us through the ability to really impact the product or sort of get it more equilibrium in terms of where the product is. Can you just walk us through the steps that you still need to take? And I guess the second question is just related.
Is the creative sort of the design organization with some of the changes that you see necessary on the denim business, are they signed up for these changes that you need to see happen here?
I guess, let me take it in pieces. On the inventory position and as we've gone forward, I think as good starts get delivered in August, I guess the reaction we saw on the floor, the sell-throughs weren't as strong as we had anticipated. And given that reaction, and we feel that there was price resistance on some of We were taking price up on some of our core denim and some of our other key categories 20%-25%, and we felt we built in product attributes that would warrant that the reaction from the consumer, either because of the fashion component of it in design or just the price positioning, we're just not getting the weekly sell-throughs we anticipated. The initial reads in early August were fairly good, but that was just really the start of the season.
As the delivery started to come through, we basically came to the conclusion we were too fashion-forward and our price positioning was too high. And given that, we've been very aggressive about moving through inventory and also providing markdowns, not just taking POS markdowns. We've actually either permanently, we've taken markdowns on price on the floor, or we've provided for those markdowns for the balance of the 2018 fiscal year. I guess we could have bled this out over a number of quarters, and what we've tried to do is get the pain behind us on what's actually in the pipeline and being delivered on the floor in the warehouse or on a boat soon to be delivered in, for us, November and December. We've tried to address that.
By the end of fiscal 2018, January, by the end of January, our inventories will be in the right position and priced appropriately on the floor. For jeans, they will not be an issue of carryover inventory on the floor from a margin point of view. That's been all captured in our quantification of this problem, both particularly in the third quarter, but also planned for the fourth quarter. We think we have that behind us. The real question, we get to product and design as it goes forward. Obviously, you know lead times in this industry. We're able to impact spring to a degree in the architecture of the business, but not necessarily to the same level from a pure design aesthetic point of view. We think we've repositioned the pricing appropriately as we go into spring.
We think the product is more core-driven, less fashion, and we rebalance the buy. I think where you really see the big changes in the design is as it goes forward in the fall selling season. Last piece about talent and where we are. Our design center of excellence is in Amsterdam for our jeans business, and I think that is fully staffed. Our teams are there, and a lot of the players there also do Tommy Jeans and understand the sourcing and dynamics of the market. We have the talent in place and key design talent in place to really deliver against that whole jeans assortment. We need to get back to what is Calvin and the core DNA of the brand.
Got it. Manny, as you get through all the denim product that is off and missed, is this disposition through online with Amazon or your outlet business or off-price? Can you just talk us through how you manage it from the brand perspective going forward now?
Bob, this is all happening in channel. We're clear, this is not like we got a pile of inventory, we got millions of dollars of inventory in there. There's a flow to this business, we're adjusting that flow as it goes forward. We do have, obviously, we didn't wake up to this problem today. We've been recognizing and dealing with it. I'm confident as we get through 2018 that this will all go through. It's going to be captured in the seasonal promotions that go on in the channels of distribution where the goods are, at department stores, in our own retail stores. This is not, we got a swag of inventory we've got to burn or anything like that. This is current inventory, but it's just not getting the sell-throughs that are there.
Instead of being promoting at lower rates, we're going to have to promote a little bit harder, it'll be part of the overall presentation that's going on at retail during this highly promotional time of year. I don't think it'll have any brand-damaging issue, I think we've tried to be as conservative as we can to build it all into the guidance.
Great. Thanks very much, Manny.
Thank you. Next question.
Moving on. We'll take our next question from Matthew Boss from JPMorgan.
Great, thanks. Manny, on the Calvin business, I guess, what's your confidence in the 70 basis points CK margin expansion forecast for the fourth quarter? And then as we exit this year, anything at all that changes your view that this brand is a mid-to-high single-digit top-line grower next year and beyond?
Okay. Excuse me. I think on the 70 basis point improvement, I guess that's implied in our annual guidance. Obviously, there's two components to that. I said the first piece of that is on the gross margin side. I think there, we're looking for something between 10 and 20 basis point improvement in the Calvin Klein business gross margins. I think given the type of reserves and markdown reserves and allowance reserves we built up in the third quarter, I think we're very confident. More importantly, given the trend of business right now that we're seeing through November, we're outperforming our sales plan, and we're outperforming our margin plans in the businesses as we go forward. That gives us a lot of confidence as we go forward.
There's still a big Christmas season to go, and everybody knows there's this extra week in December, we don't want to get ahead of our skis, but it feels good now. I think we've got the brand, the product that's problematic, positioned on the floor at the right retail selling price that the consumer is really reacting to it. I think we're getting momentum and velocity on the brand, and I think that gives us confidence. On the SG&A side, we don't miss SG&A. We know what the numbers are. It's the way we have our marketing plan. It's the way we feel about the business and how we're moving forward. Given the investments and where we are, we are highly confident about the 70 basis points.
Great. Then just a follow-up. For the total company, I guess, Manny, what's your comfort today in your mid-single digit top-line and 13 to 15 bottom-line algorithm, maybe as we look to next year?
Well, look, I'm not going to get involved in all the guidance. I would say is that nothing has fundamentally changed about our algorithm. I can't factor in, especially the unknown, and there's two big unknowns for us, and they're related to a great extent, is all that's going on with trade. I don't have a crystal ball. I can't factor that into where we are. Hopefully, that settles down and there's a solution. What's going on with currencies, which I think is a direct result of a lot of what's going on with the trade tensions as the U.S. dollar over the last four or five months has continued to strengthen, which just mathematically puts pressure on such a big piece of our business when we translate that forward.
We've been able to, in 2018, even with some of the issues that we've had to deal with, we've been able to make up for currency hits that probably total somewhere around about the $0.35 range this year against our initial guidance back in March. We've been able to cover all of that and continue to raise our guidance for the year. There are levers to be pulled with some of this stuff. The algorithm for PVH overall is intact. We still have great confidence as we go forward. I talked about the two external issues that has the potential to pressure that for 2019.
That's great to hear. Best of luck.
Thank you.
Moving on, we'll take our next question from Michael Binetti from Credit Suisse.
Hey, guys. Thanks for all the help here and the transparency, Manny. Very helpful after, I know, you had a tough quarter there with Calvin. I just want to follow up on that quickly. Does the FX and the bankruptcies that we've seen recently and then some of the jeans overhang issues, you've walked us through how those extend into the spring, and you've made some changes, a lot more confident in reversing that by fall. Is there anything that gets us to a point where we're saying 13%-15% next year is going to be lower than that because of currency? Anything that we should think about today related to those things that we're going to enter the year with, perhaps?
I think you need to be cognizant of currencies. You need to be cognizant of what's going on in tariffs. I don't think the bankruptcies that we experienced this year really shouldn't impact business at all. The Sears business is relatively small. Again, not a crystal ball, but if Sears survives in some form, it's going to be much smaller. The House of Fraser situation seems to be a real restructuring, and they seem to be coming out of it better capitalized as they move forward. I don't think that'll be a negative impact as well. Those are the factors outside of everything that's going on.
When we get to the first quarter of next year, at the beginning, we'll give you the appropriate guidance, we'll also try to be as transparent as we go through this as things develop in the market to keep you informed about how this might impact us in those key areas as we go forward.
I guess, just on the currency, there's been some changes in the currencies that are a little bit tougher to hedge that make the currency model that we run a little bit harder to think about lately. As we think about you guys, and since it is such a big input, if currencies stay where they're at today, how should we walk through the transactional FX into next year? I know that's operated traditionally with quite a lag, maybe anywhere from 12 to 18 months even. As you look at that today-
I think.
Are there options then over Yeah.
Let me back up. I think transaction next year will be relatively minimal. We're hedged, and I think we understand where that is. It'll probably be a small headwind if I had to guess right now, but a lot depends on what happens as we go forward. We're hedged out as far as 12 months on certain purchases, but it builds over the year, as you know. It's really the translation that's the wild card, because obviously that is something we don't hedge, and I don't think most companies hedge. Particularly in the first half of the year, our biggest currencies, it's not the small currencies you talked about, it's the big currencies. It's the euro, the pound, the Canadian dollar-
RMB
the RMB, the China currencies, the Brazilian real. If you look at where currencies were when we initially gave guidance back in March of this year for the current year, the euro, as an example, was 124. Today, the euro is 113. That is going to be an issue if there's not movement in that as we go forward. I don't think I'm telling you anything that everyone doesn't know, and there's not much that I think you can do in the short term to manage against that. We manage our expenses, but there's only so much you can do because you have to manage the business in the currency that it's being supported in.
Again, just to summarize it, I don't think that transactional issues, because we're hedged out, is a real issue for us, but I think the concern might be more on the translation side.
Okay. Thank you very much.
I guess I would just add, because this always comes up, is for a U.S. company that's U.S. dollar denominated, 50%-plus of our sales are coming out of the international markets with the currencies I discussed, and over 60%-65% of our profitability is coming out of those. That's why currencies present a bigger issue relative to, say, some of our competitors in this market here, who has a much smaller geographic diversification than we do.
Moving on, we'll take our next question from-
Next question.
Yes, sir. Moving on, we'll take our next question from Chethan Mallela from Barclays.
Hey, good morning. It sounds like there's a big distinction between the performance of the Calvin Klein Jeans and collection businesses and just the balance of that brand. Can you maybe just talk about the magnitude of the differential that you saw on the top and bottom line between Jeans and collection versus the balance of Calvin in the third quarter, and just how you're thinking about that relative performance into the fourth quarter?
I guess I'm not going to get into profitability by product category, but let me just try to put the Calvin business, the jeans business in size perspective so you get a sense. I guess I also, last night on Cramer rattling, I did the math in my head, and I was wrong on when I said that jeans represented 10% of our business globally. It represents about 15%, 16% of our business globally. For PVH, from an owned and operated, when you distinguish between half of our business, more or less, is licensed and half of our business is directly operated by us. It represents 15%, 16% of our overall Calvin Klein brand business of retail sales globally.
For the businesses that we operate directly that we report sales on, it represents about just over 30% of our business, to give you a sense. It has a bigger financial impact, given that, on our own P&L. That's a bit of a background. What I would say to you is, look, all you have to do is just go to Macy's or go to Dillard's or some of the key department stores and see the Calvin Klein presentation at retail. You'll see on the women's side of the floor, it's been spectacular. The results for a brand that's as big as it is at Macy's in particular, we continue to see, and G-III will talk about it in their conference calls and as they go forward.
We continue to see very strong growth out of the Calvin Klein business, and our partner, G-III, just does an outstanding job. The men's tailored business continues to be very strong. Our Calvin Klein dress furnishings business continues to be very strong. Our sportswear business is performing on men's side, the way we look at it. Our footwear business continues to be a good business for us. Obviously, the crown jewel of our portfolio is our men's underwear and women's intimate business, and that business is just off the charts, and you can't help but walk in the store and just recognize that. To give you a perspective, and my point being, I know this jeans issue is something we clearly have to deal with, and it's a key part of the brand.
I think at times, it does overextend its importance to the overall brand as we move forward. I think it's important to share that.
That's really helpful. Just one quick modeling follow-up. I know that some of this is still in flux, but should we be thinking about the fiscal 2018 tax rate, where we're looking to land at the end of this year as a reasonable assumption to use on a go-forward basis?
You know.
Guidance is still coming.
Yeah, look, guidance is still coming, but the model did imply that, and that's where we are at this point. We're still waiting. Regulations are being firmed up. There's so many moving pieces, but I think that's a safe assumption for now.
Great. Thank you very much.
Moving on, we'll take our next question from Tiffany Kanaga from Deutsche Bank.
Hi. Thanks so much for taking our questions. I think we've touched on this tangentially, but when you discussed 200 basis points Calvin Klein operating margin improvement ahead, would you outline what's also baked into those plans in terms of retailer bankruptcies as well as FX tariffs and global macro risks?
Would you break down the opportunity between North America and International? Thanks.
Okay, Tiffany, I'll do this. I'm not counting on any bankruptcies as we go forward, obviously. It'll be what it'll be. There's always something going on, and I don't think that really should be meaningful unless there's some major issue out there that I'm not aware of. I don't think bankruptcies are an issue. I think geographically, and as we've said it, is international will grow faster than the North America business, only because the North America business, on a relative size level, is so much bigger, and the product categories here in North America are much more developed. We always are talking about the European opportunity for Calvin Klein. What I continue to say is, today, the Calvin Klein brand for us is doing just under $1 billion in sales in Europe.
The Tommy business is more than twice as big as the Calvin business within Europe, and we think there's the opportunity to be as big in Calvin as we are in Tommy long term. Developing our men's and women's sportswear business, developing more of our performance business, our tailored clothing, our footwear and accessory opportunity that exists for us. It's the only region in the world where Tommy is larger than Calvin. It gives us a lot of confidence. Plus, we have the management team, the expertise, and the model in place with our operating platform in Europe to really take advantage of that and have the credibility with our key retail partners there to have two of the premier brands in the world to really use as leverage as we go forward. We have a tremendous amount of confidence that we can deliver against that.
Just to, not to go back too far in history, but when we took over that European business 5 years ago, it was $500 million, and it was losing money. Today, it's $1 billion, making double-digit operating margin. That gives us big confidence. The continued growth within Asia, just as that market continues to grow, both driven by China and then the related Greater China markets as we go forward. There's just significant growth and white space opportunities for the brand. Just like Europe, the product category offerings are much more limited overseas in Asia than they are as developed here in the U.S. I think that's where you are. Keep in mind that the operating margins internationally for Calvin and Tommy are higher than the operating margins of our North America business.
I think that's what gives us confidence as we move forward.
All right. Thanks so much.
Thank you. Operator, we're going to take one more question. It's already after 10:00 o'clock.
Certainly. We'll take our final question from Kate McShane from Citi.
Okay.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Just one small question with the tourism softness in the U.S. that you had mentioned. Is that across the board in tourism, or is it just specifically with the Chinese tourism?
For us, I guess there's two big categories that we see. It's what you touched on, which is China. It's also Brazil. Given what's gone on there in this hemisphere, particularly this time of year, that's always a strong consumer for us, particularly for our two brands that have great market position in Brazil, both Tommy and Calvin. I think we outsize performance with that target consumer. It's really that South American consumer, and it's the China piece that we've seen slow down. The European tourism, we haven't seen really slow down at all in the U.S. I think a number of people have talked about it on their calls, that international piece is not as strong as it was in the first half of the year.
Okay. Thank you for that. I just wanted to ask a quick question. Tariffs I know are a big unknown. I just wondered if you could maybe quickly walk us through how much you're thinking you can mitigate in terms of, pushing back on your suppliers and finding efficiencies in supply chain versus what would be your view on pricing if tariffs were to be enacted here.
Okay. Kate, I guess, let me put it into some context first. If you look at imports for apparel and accessories from China into the U.S., the last statistic I saw, it's a bit of a moving target, is about 40% of imports for the U.S. market come from China. We are, as a company, we are below 20% of our production for North America, for U.S., it's about 17%, 18%, and we're constantly adjusting that. If you were to look at us 3 years ago, we would've been over 40%. We've been strategically moving because of cost pressures, because we didn't like the way that market was developing for the U.S. market. We've used our China sourcing base for China and also for the European market, and that's been a really strong strategic move for us, particularly in the environment that we are.
Given our size, 17%, 18% of our production, which represents about 8%, 9% of our cost of goods sold globally, is still coming out of China, and that number is about $75 million of tariff impact to our cost of product if it comes to a 25%. It's not insignificant. I think now we get into a couple of things. If it happens and the tariff is put on, if it happens and it happens that the administration makes a decision, we're going to raise all tariffs, we're going to do 25%, and we're all going to do it on January 1st, we got a problem in the short term in that there's no time to react. You can't even change tickets to adjust it on the floor to move your retail selling price if you so desired to do that.
The purchase orders are already written with all the retailers, I'm sure we're going to get pushback to say, "Well, we got a deal." It's not logical to me that that's what would happen, but everyone would be dealing with that issue. If it was more like an announcement that tariffs are going to go in place, and it's going to be 10% in April, and then if nothing's resolved, it's going to be 25% in July. I'm making this up. There's an opportunity to start to really mitigate as we get into the second half of the year and clearly into 2019. I do think if tariffs come, it's going to do two things. It will pressure costs and create inflation on the goods from China, but we also have to be realistic.
It will also create inflation globally for products coming into the U.S. because if Vietnam is now more in demand, there's going to be cost increases coming through as we start to place production there. That's going to have to be evaluated. I think this entire exercise on tariffs has got the potential to create some real inflation in the apparel and accessory area. There is going to be some movement to be more efficient, but there is also going to be, unfortunately, some pain to the consumer in that we are going to have to raise prices. What does that do to demand? We could run through all these theoretic exercises and be assured we're looking at it, but that's the exercise that really needs to happen.
Thank you.
Thank you. With that, I think we're going to close the call. I want to wish everybody a healthy and happy holiday season. Happy Hanukkah, merry Christmas to everyone, and a healthy and happy New Year to you and your families. We look forward to speaking with you in our fourth quarter press release in March. Have a great day. Thank you.
Again, that will conclude today's conference. We do thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.