Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Kaumil Gajrawala - UBS.
Kaumil Gajrawala – UBS
Just listening to the SKU rationalization, do you feel that you have identified all the SKUs you will be discontinuing or are there more studies ahead of us and potentially a further cut in your brands and packages?
Robert S. Sands
As we discussed before, we are looking at three detailed, sort of gross margins are not alike SKU by SKU. That process continues and actually we will continue to that. So I would think we are going to continue to scale back on SKUs which can’t cover their inventory investment or just don’t make money for us. We want our sales guys focused on our most profitable products.
Kaumil Gajrawala – UBS
As you think about your portfolio long term is there an overall margin you’re aiming for, after you are complete with this process, specific just to the wine business?
Robert S. Sands
No, I don’t think we are that far along in the process to say where we want our overall profit margins to be. I would say that is an ongoing effort.
Operator
Your next question comes from Judy Hong - Goldman Sachs.
Judy Hong - Goldman Sachs
If you can just give us a little bit more color in terms of consumer behavior across different price segments for all of your portfolio.
Robert S. Sands
You know, if you’re really talking about market conditions, I think starting in the United States, market conditions remain pretty healthy as measured by consumer take-away in our mid-single digit value growth for the wine business.
The spirit business has probably been impacted to the greatest extent with growth getting near flattish. But that hasn’t affected us particularly because we’ve got some very hot brands and they’re just on fire.
The beer business has actually accelerated in general during the economic downturn, as you are probably aware, but driven I would say by the domestic premiums and the next tier up, which is in that market place.
If you look around the world, you are seeing somewhat similar trends.
The U.K. has slowed down, I would say, to the greatest extent in terms of consumer take-away, on wines, which is really all we track in the U.K. and has gotten much closer to flattish in that market place.
There is not a lot of data that has been published, just in the last year or so, on the holiday season. It’s probably on the top of everybody’s mind how was the holiday season. I would characterize it as is follows:
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