Central Garden & Pet Company F1Q09 (Qtr End 12/27/08) Earnings Call Transcript

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2009-02-11 16:29:15.0

Tags: Call Transcript, Quarter, Earnings, SunTrust, Retail, Benefits, Human Resources, Seeking Alpha, Central Garden & Pet Co.

Question-and-Answer Session

Operator

(Operator instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Bill Chappell of SunTrust. Please proceed.

Bill Chappell – SunTrust

Good afternoon.

Stu Booth

Hi, Bill.

Bill Chappell – SunTrust

I guess, the simple first question is, I think in the last call you had talked about the December quarter having – December quarter profit being below the December quarter of last year but you actually exceeded it. And it certainly seems like your revenue came in lower than you planned with your de-stocks. So, is it really that SG&A that came up better than expected or did you see a little better on gross margin as well?

Stu Booth

One of the big drivers, Bill is we got some additional benefit from interest expense quarter. Obviously, when our interest expense is down basically half of last year that was more than what we expected.

Bill Chappell – SunTrust

And I assume you actually got interest expense to be $25 million – $28 million for the full year?

Stu Booth

We haven’t put out a number out there, yet Bill. But –

Bill Chappell – SunTrust

I’ll keep trying. Just checking on the Garden trends we heard from Scott yesterday that they actually had pretty good pre-orders from some of the retailers. Some of the retailers were fairly energized about the Garden season, but sounds like you had seen actually some de-stock and some sales decline. Can you maybe help us bridge the gap between the two?

Bill Brown

I can’t speak to them. We shared with you the point of sale is either flat or up in the segment from the big picture category. They operate in some different categories than we do and so core of their business. So, the shapes are little different. So, that may be a factor in it. And as I said in the broad comments, our listings in our positions in retail are as strong as they have ever been.

Bill Chappell – SunTrust

Got it. I mean on the cost side, did we see any benefit from the lower commodity costs for bird seed or grain this quarter or will you start to see that in the March quarter?

Bill Brown

I don’t think that there is anything that we saw this quarter. And knowing the forward buying positions, it would be modest if it shows up next quarter.

Bill Chappell – SunTrust

 

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