MSC Industrial Direct Co., Inc. Q1 2009 Earnings Call Transcript

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2009-01-08 13:20:36.0

Tags: Revenue, Guidance, Call Transcript, Earnings, MSC Industrial Direct Co. Inc., Sales Strategy, Research & Development, Sales Force Management, Operational Accounting, Sales, Business Operations, Finance, Seeking Alpha

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Your first call comes from Adam Uhlman – Cleveland Research.

Adam Uhlman – Cleveland Research

My first question is on the revenue guidance for the second quarter, sales down 16% so far in December and the guidance suggests that sales growth becomes even worse over the next couple of months. You talked about that a little bit in the prepared remarks, but could you flush out some of the issues, the differences in selling days and presumably customer shutdown days should be less worse in January and February. Could you maybe talk about what your customers are saying about their own production schedules?

David Sandler

We tried to hit it head on in the script that the reality is that our forecasting right now is about as cloudy as its ever absolutely been and so we tried to – I don't say be conservative with the guidance but to tell you the truth, the way that we see it given that the guidance was based on the only data point we have which is the holiday season, I could make a case that the guidance would be much better.

To the extent that things bounce back to let's call it pre vacation levels, but unfortunately that's on one side of it but unfortunately on the other side of it, I could probably also make the case that given what we're seeing with layoffs, the harshness of this environment, the fact that the ISM we know is something that historically anyway has been a leading indicator of what's to come, and the reality is that that trend continues to come down. I could make a case that based on that and the limited visibility that we have it could actually be worse.

We've tried to put it out there and caution as much as we can that it's just very cloudy for us right now and it's our best guess at this time.

Adam Uhlman – Cleveland Research

Chuck you had mentioned that you had done some modeling and expect the company to be profitable this year and understanding that you don't provide guidance more than one quarter out, would you care to share your current thinking on maybe what a high end, low end earnings potential is for the company in 2009?

Charles Boehlke

I can't do that. What I can tell you is what we did in the modeling is in ranges of -15% to -20% on the revenue line. Operating margins are in the 11% to 12% operating range. You can do your forecasting based on what you think. That guidance would include the current level of investment spending baked in there.

 

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