Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen our question and answer session will be conducted electronically. (Operator Instructions) We will pause just for a moment to assemble the question roster. For our first question we go to Brad Stephens with Morgan Keegan.
Brad Stephens – Morgan Keegan
Where to begin, with OshKosh can you give us maybe some milestones along the way to you guys which proves it’s a viable brand still and how we can monitor the success or the improvement in this brand.
Frederick J. Rowan, II
I’ll give you overview and how we feel there. We feel committed to OshKosh, we’ve revisited the consumer, you know and the consumer sentiment type brand is high, we know our customers still want the brand to do well. If I felt that was not the case there’s no question we’d shut this business down. I’ve said 100 times and I’ll say it 101, we believe most of the OshKosh problems by far were our own miskeeps and we think we’ve identified them, we’ve repositioned that brand to be more core key items, it’s more competitively priced. The product is going to be far superior. The milestones will be spring 08 is not [inaudible], we’ve said that all along. We started improving the product for the spring launch, we’re seeing some bright spots there. Summer, we’ve validated all this with our customers and the consumer, we’re using consumer panels for all our product development. Consumers see the summer even better than spring. We particularly struggled in girl’s consumer segment and particularly in color since we really acquired the business. The consumer likes the summer girl’s colors. We’ve done the same with fall. Actually, our customers are seeing product improvement but it’s a phasing issue here with us. It should improve as the year moves on. We’re very focused on that. We have better talent, there’s no question. The sentiment inside is that we’ve got a very talented group at Shoo now that are really fixed on the brand product and doing a good job.
Brad Stephens – Morgan Keegan
It sounds like you’re committed there at least for the near term. Moving on to Carter’s Wholesale business, can you give us some more color on that maybe one as it pertains to the higher vendor allowances. Was that something you realized throughout the fourth quarter or was this something that the retailers came back to you more recently and they’re really starting to clamp down on the vendors in general? Then, if you can talk about your order book looking forward, why is it weaker? Is it a case of the product slowdown? Is it a case of you’ve seen traffic slowdown at the retailers? If you could maybe delineate between the different baby, sleepwear and playwear, is it EDI? Is it fashion? What is it that’s causing the slowdown here at wholesale?
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