Nash Finch Q3 2007 Earnings Call Transcript

  • download
  • Print
  • Recommend
  • 3

2007-11-13 12:33:28.0

Tags: Nash Finch Co.

Question-and-Answer Session

Unidentified Analyst

(Inaudible) You talk about getting organic growth of 2% by the end of fiscal year '09. Do you need to have positive comps in your retail stores in order to get there?

Alec Covington

Well, clearly, our retail stores is something that we're very focused on. If you look at the size of our retail organization today it doesn't have the kind of significant to our overall comps that it once did. It's a much smaller operation today than it was several years ago.

Having said that, we do believe that we need to have improved performance. Does it need to be positive? I don't know that we've counted on a huge amount of influence from the corporate retail side, but we clearly have not counted on that division to continue to see declines in comps.

I would characterize it is that we have not counted on a huge amount of positive store impact from the corporate retail side, but we certainly have built into our assumptions that we can reverse that trend at least keep it flat. We're really banking more on the distribution side of our businesses both Military and Food Distribution to achieve those 2% comps than the retail side.

And, Bob, if that's not fair, you need to step in please feel free, but that's my recollection. Is that fair?

Bob Dimond

That's correct.

Unidentified Analyst

If I could ask another one or two. Then looking at your Food Distribution business, are there opportunities that you see out there well, two parts. Is there any concern or do you have any new business any business that you currently have that's up for new contract in this fiscal year '08?

And on the flip side, is there any new business that you see in conversations that you're having that you think would be a good opportunity, do you think you could an opportunity to get the business in the near-term?

Alec Covington

Yes, let me answer the latter first. And that is we see growing the top line of food distribution as being the one of the most predominant priorities of our entire senior management team.

That means that myself as the CEO, Christopher Brown, who runs that business, all of us at the most senior levels of our organization are focused on that every day of our lives.

Now, we do see and we are in conversations with several customers about opportunistic growth, and we believe that just as much today as I did a year ago that those opportunities are out there.

 

BNET TalkbackShare your ideas and expertise on this topic

Please add your comment:

  1. You are currently: a Guest |
  2.  

Basic HTML tags that work in comments are: bold (<b></b>), italic (<i></i>), underline (<u></u>), and hyperlink (<a href></a)

advertisement
advertisement
  • Click Here
  • Click Here
  • Click Here
advertisement
Click Here