Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Very good. [Operator Instructions]. And our first question will come from Brian McGough with Morgan Stanley.
Brian McGough - Morgan Stanley
Thanks guys. Agreed with your comments. Certainly, nice to see a company beat numbers in this kind of date [ph] and also congratulations to you, Eric, as well. I hope Mackey, we will still hear you on the calls.
Mackey J. McDonald - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Oh yes, I'll be here.
Brian McGough - Morgan Stanley
I was hoping you guys could just give a little bit of color on the overall environment out there. I mean with your portfolio overall, both on a geographic basis as also as well by category, you just have a pretty good view, I would think, as to what's going on out there. And everyone's wondering is it whether? Is it a weak consumer? I don't know if anyone really knows. But you guys probably have a better read than most. What do you think?
Mackey J. McDonald - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
I'll make a overall comment, and then I sure Eric will add to it. But what we are seeing is what we have been seeing now for a number of quarters and actually for several years. The consumer continues to be very resilient. They continue to buy apparel when the weather is hot, later in the season when the economic conditions are tough. But they are changing the way they buy it. They are being selective, they are buying either very special brands and products that make a strong statement about their lifestyle or they buy products of great value. And fortunately, our brands, as we've moved into lifestyle brands, have fallen primarily into these categories of strong lifestyle statements for consumers. So they are buying our products. Or we have products obviously of great value as well and those are doing well even in these choppy waters.
Eric C. Wiseman - President and Chief Operating Officer
Brain, the other comment that, as more of a corporate comment around that is, one of the things that Mackey and I both mentioned during our earlier comments is the diversity of our portfolio puts us in a position of strength we think. And it's because we own some of our own retail stores and it's because over a quarter of our business is done outside of the U.S. There are a lot of things that we have going for us that from an overall business standpoint help us perform at this high level during these challenging times. And we certainly do have pockets of our business that are most... more effective than other pieces by the current challenging environment out there. But overall, as you can see in our numbers and in our forecast for the year, we'll do just fine through this.
Brian McGough - Morgan Stanley
And then I guess just another question more specifically on the portfolio in the context of the environment, but when you look at other brands out there outside of VF and then when you look at your own brands, what kind of businesses are holding up and what's not in this kind of climate. I am wondering if that changes your thinking in any way from the overall, I guess, just a standpoint of what type of businesses you want to own, what type you want to buy and even are there any that you currently own that perhaps you might want to divest?
Eric C. Wiseman - President and Chief Operating Officer
We have identified Brian that we want to own kind of leading lifestyle brands, and that's the kind of businesses that we have been investing in and that's the kind of businesses that we'd like to continue to invest in. Having said that, and we have talked about this, we have different expectations of different parts of VF. Some of our businesses, their contribution to the Corporation is slower sales growth, but they are profitable and contribute a lot of cash. Others are much faster growing and we are investing more in them. And what we try to do is run the portfolio in a way that delivers the best return for our shareholders.
Brian McGough - Morgan Stanley
Okay. I think that's clear. And then I guess just lastly, a specific question on North Face. It's the one business that I was surprised to see do as well as it did in light of everything now we are seeing out there. And I was wondering if that was more growth indoors or is it that you are just getting better sales out of existing doors as you add new categories like footwear.
Eric C. Wiseman - President and Chief Operating Officer
Ye have little faith, Brian.
Brian McGough - Morgan Stanley
Sorry about that.
Eric C. Wiseman - President and Chief Operating Officer
We have... the team at The North Face has delivered that brand in a great way quarter after quarter, year after year for a long time now. And that brand continues to post double-digit growth rates both in the U.S. and internationally. And it's because... it's part of the diversity thing again. They've made that more than an outerwear brand. It's got an important sportswear business both men's and women's, and the outerwear business has developed beyond almost exclusively heavy outerwear to all different weights of outerwear. So our sell throughs in that brand have been strong and we are expecting a great fall season with The North Face.
Brian McGough - Morgan Stanley
Okay. Thanks very much.
Operator
Our next question is from Omar Saad with Credit Suisse.
Omar Saad - Credit Suisse First Boston
Thank you. I wanted to ask a quick question around if you think about the different channels. I mean you guys are obviously diverse in terms of your brand portfolio, but also the channels that you operate and sell into. Could you talk about kind of the mass channel versus department store channel versus kind of some of the sporting good channels? Which of these, in your wholesale business, which of these channels in terms of inventory positioning, execution, the health of the consumer in those different channels, which ones do you feel most comfortable with in this environment and which ones are you going to watch a little bit more closely?
Eric C. Wiseman - President and Chief Operating Officer
You are kind of asking us to pick a favorite customer, and I am not going to do that. I will tell you that they have different challenges right now, and that's kind of public knowledge. We have a strong and growing mass business. Our business in the mass channel is good. And our biggest customer in that channel has struggled in their apparel business, and we are trying to be a part of that solution with them. At the other end of the spectrum, there is a big department store that's going through an enormous transformation right now. And they are working hard to make that work for them and we'd like to part of that with them as well. But all of our channels have different challenges and we try to just engage with them and help them grow.
Omar Saad - Credit Suisse First Boston
Okay. And kind of following on on the mass channel comment, you look at your Jeanswear numbers this quarter, I mean the profitability there was phenomenal. Can you elaborate a little bit on that? What really allowed you to drive some of the profit improvement? Obviously, the 3% sales growth in Jeanswear was great, but expand as well in terms of the profit growth there?
Robert K. Shearer - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Omar, this is Bob. There were a couple of things. One was actually last year, we had some expenses that I'd call in the nature of some restructuring that we did. I think we called them aligning capacity. But as much, if not more than that, we just... we ran the business more efficiently. We last year were caught with inventories that were a little bit higher than they should have been. We needed to provide for those inventories, and we just didn't have that issue this year. So, overall, it was just running the business and the quality of the sales were improved over what we saw last year in the quarter.
Omar Saad - Credit Suisse First Boston
And Bob, quickly, on the other hand, if you look at the outerwear business, obviously extremely profitable this quarter, but still down a little bit there. Is there anything we should read into that?
Robert K. Shearer - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
No, there really isn't. I mean it was down just slightly. And in any one quarter, we are continuing to invest behind those businesses both in terms of some new product initiatives and that kind of thing. And in any one quarter, they might stand out a little bit more than another. So, no, there is nothing at all in terms of the fundamental profitability of these businesses. They remain very, very strong.
Omar Saad - Credit Suisse First Boston
Okay. Great job. Great job you guys. Really nice to see these kind of results in this environment. Congratulations.
Mackey J. McDonald - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks Omar.
Operator
Our next question is from Robert Drbul with Lehman Brothers.
Robert S. Drbul - Lehman Brothers
Hi, good afternoon.
Mackey J. McDonald - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Hey Bob.
Eric C. Wiseman - President and Chief Operating Officer
Hey Bob.
Robert S. Drbul - Lehman Brothers
A couple of questions. I guess Bob or Eric, can we start on inventories? Can you drill down a little bit more when you like what was the dollar number in the inventories that was attributed to the acquisitions and can you maybe just elaborate in each segment if you are comfortable in all segments in terms of the inventories?
Robert K. Shearer - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Let me start with that Bob. A little bit more on the inventory. The increase was, as we said in the comments, was up 25%. And again, as we look to the fourth quarter, we are anticipating sales growth of 18%, very strong 18%. Now, they are not exactly in line, the higher days of the newly acquired companies. And that's very, very typical when we make acquisitions; the days that we bring in are normally a little higher than the average VF days. So that impacted... the recent acquisitions impacted that comparison by about 3 percentage points, all right. So you start with 18 as a comparison and that's another 3. And then the Outdoor business, we did build some inventories there to service the business and we felt we were a little bit short last year, so we wanted to make sure that we service that business properly. So the days there were up a bit, but again, we were very comfortable doing that. And then the other piece, it was a little bit smaller piece, but Sportswear as well, softer sales there had also contributed to the increase. So overall, we continue to feel very, very good about the overall quality of the inventories. There is not any one piece that we are concerned about.
Robert S. Drbul - Lehman Brothers
Okay. And when you look at the overall retail business, your retail business, what was the blended overall comp of your retail business? Is it a fair way to look at that and can you give us that number?
Unidentified Company Representative
Give us just a minute here.
Unidentified Company Representative
We are looking for... see if we have that for the quarter.
Robert S. Drbul - Lehman Brothers
Okay. And I guess I'd throw another one out, as you look for, overall, for the Nautica business, how much of that business is now done on replenishment and what sort of expectations do you have for the promotional activity in Nautica for the fourth quarter versus what you had experienced in the third quarter?
Eric C. Wiseman - President and Chief Operating Officer
Yes, I actually don't know the exact replenishment number, Bob. But it's a smaller percentage of the business, and most of that business is run in the traditional sportswear mode of having a line that's into these stores over time. I will say that there is going to be more promotions in the next 90 days because the season got off to a slow start. We have reflected that in our forecast for the year and we don't expect any additional requirement for that from budgeting purposes. But it's going to be a promotional October, November, December is my guess because we got off to such a slow start. And I am not sure we are going to get the comp store sales number for our owned stores. We would only have it for our domestic stores when we get it, but we can talk to you about that later.
Robert S. Drbul - Lehman Brothers
Okay, sounds good. Thank you very much.
Eric C. Wiseman - President and Chief Operating Officer
Thanks Bob.
Robert S. Drbul - Lehman Brothers
Good luck.
Operator
Our next question is from Virginia Genereux with Merrill Lynch.
Virginia Genereux - Merrill Lynch
Thank you and congratulations Eric Wiseman.
Eric C. Wiseman - President and Chief Operating Officer
Well thank you very much.
Virginia Genereux - Merrill Lynch
That's exciting. Okay, a couple of questions. Your organic growth, the fourth quarter guidance implies a little faster organic growth, Bob, if you've sort of been running up. I think year-to-date you are organically growing, approaching 10%. And by my math, you are closer to 12 organically in the fourth quarter, and maybe and retail is a part of that, but can you talk about a little bit what's driving that?
Robert K. Shearer - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Actually, in the fourth quarter at the 18%, Virginia, the organic phase would be right in the 9 to 10% range. Okay, 9 to 10%. And what's driving that are the same pieces. Now remember that last year was a more challenged quarter for the Jeanswear business after a very, very strong September. You'll recall things slowed down a bit in October. So that's a factor. Across most of the other businesses, there was no one piece that stands out. The same where we are seeing strength today, we should continue to see in this next quarter. And again, the overall organic growth rate is very comparable to what we saw in the third quarter.
Virginia Genereux - Merrill Lynch
Thank you. And sort of a follow on to that, you gave a lot of good color on the retail environment and the back half year. As you look out to spring of '08, there has been feedback that retailers are ordering with teaspoons. Would you expect to be able to maintain sort of these magnitudes of organic growth into the first half of '08?
Mackey J. McDonald - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Well, as we look at retail going forward, as I said earlier, we feel this is going to continue to be a somewhat choppy situation, will extend on for a while. But we do feel that there are going to be clear cut winners in brands and in categories. And that's why we feel very positive not only for fourth quarter, but as we go into next year. We feel very positive of our ability to sustain strong growth levels. But we do expect overall retail to continue to have choppy performance as it has for sometime now.
Virginia Genereux - Merrill Lynch
Thank you, Mackey. And then on the mix, just quickly, you guys, you mentioned, Eric, that you are... that 20% of the business is mass and department stores. I don't know if that includes national chains. But if we are just thinking about the sort of pro forma mix maybe for next year, it looks like owned retail is going to be 14% this year, you said it was $1 billion, so maybe that grows a little bit international, and I guess owned retail, some of that is owned retailed. But that's high 20s altogether.
Unidentified Company Representative
Correct.
Virginia Genereux - Merrill Lynch
Can you just sort of segment the business as it stands kind of now by channel and geography maybe?
Eric C. Wiseman - President and Chief Operating Officer
It's a little... actually, the answer is I can't do that accurately, because it is complex, because the way we look at the business how much is retail, how much is international, there is overlap. It's a fair question and we can get... we can do that calculation.
Virginia Genereux - Merrill Lynch
Okay, I can do that offline. That's great. Last one, if I may. Are you all seeing any impact from the weaker dollar? Either, and more specifically I guess in your kind of cost to manufacture, kind of input cost, are you seeing any negative impact there that could be an issue at some point?
Mackey J. McDonald - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Well, we see both benefit and some issues with it from our standpoint. So it pretty well evens out. I mean we obviously see some higher costs in buying materials, but we also see greater revenue coming in from our growing international operation. So this growth in international operations is a real strength. It's one of a number of things I mentioned earlier that had changed VF to a very different type company. And that's why in this environment, as we look at our international operations, our owned retail, the strong brands we have across all these different categories, we just feel very positive with how these factors are coming together to allow us to continue to perform in a choppy environment.
Virginia Genereux - Merrill Lynch
That's great. Thank you all so much.
Mackey J. McDonald - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Okay.
Eric C. Wiseman - President and Chief Operating Officer
Thank you.
Operator
Our next question is from Jeffrey Edelman, UBS.
Jeffrey Edelman - UBS Warburg L.L.C.
Thank you. And Eric, my congratulations to you also, and look forward to the next five years very similar to the past five years?
Eric C. Wiseman - President and Chief Operating Officer
As do us [ph]. They are going to get better, probably.
Virginia Genereux - Merrill Lynch
Seriously, in that same vein, it looks as if you pretty much hit the... your target 14% operating margin next year. And obviously we can look at the faster growing more profitable businesses and Nautica showing some improvement. As we think over the next few years, is there room to expand the margin, be above that or are you going to focused more on investing to drive the top line? Strategically, how should we look at the parts going forward?
Robert K. Shearer - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Hey Jeff, this is Bob. You've actually... I mean you've hit on all the points. And I'll tell you we are in the process right now of looking at our five year plan. And what I can tell you is that clearly is an opportunity. Just as we've been seeing margin expansion over the last several years, as you mentioned over the last five years, we see that kind of opportunity to continue for sure. The question is always the balance, the balance in terms of growing the top line, which we have seen very, very strong growth over the past several years. And the question there is the investments that we need to make to continue that top line growth. So that's exactly what we'll be taking a really hard look at and we'll have more to comment on that when we talk... and we lay out our five year plans.
Virginia Genereux - Merrill Lynch
Fair enough, thanks, and good luck Eric.
Eric C. Wiseman - President and Chief Operating Officer
Thanks Jeff.
Operator
We'll next go to Brad Stephens of Morgan Keegan.
Brad Stephens - Morgan Keegan
Hey, good afternoon and congrats on a great quarter. A question for you in the Sportswear line. When we look at Nautica, I think you've had a falling out with one of your retail partners. Is that substantial impact going forward? And then just looking at the coalition as a whole, operating margins have been under pressure for probably the last eight quarters or so. When should we see a reacceleration in the operating margins and then what is Nautica's growth rate from here?
Eric C. Wiseman - President and Chief Operating Officer
We have... on the operating margin question, when we acquired Nautica, it was a kind of mid to high single-digit operating margin, and we rather quickly got it up over 15 to almost 16%. Following that, we've decided to reduce that margin, make some investments in programs like our women's sportswear business, which has been an investment track for us. Absent that, absent investments like that, the men's sportswear business at Nautica operates at or above the 14% level right now, which is our target for Nautica and target for VF. And we are confident that we can run Nautica at the 14% operating margin level again. We are making some investments in it right now. We also need to get it on a better growth track than it's been on the last year. And we are working very hard to align with our customers in a better way and bring them better product, and we have got a team assembled at Nautica that we think can do that.
Brad Stephens - Morgan Keegan
Could you talk to the top line given the relationship with Dillard's [ph] and how we should think about Nautica long term and then over the course of the next 12 months? Is that a big impact or minimal, etcetera?
Eric C. Wiseman - President and Chief Operating Officer
You are catching us in the middle of a planning cycle in understanding what 2008 is going to look like. And I am not going to disclose the 2008 growth targets for any of our brands right now including Nautica, sorry.
Brad Stephens - Morgan Keegan
Okay. A question for Bob. You mentioned the accounting impacted you 20 basis points. Is that something that goes on forward or what was that?
Robert K. Shearer - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
It will go forward. Again, it was just some expenses that actually came out of SG&A and went up into the gross margins. So, again, it was worth... it was only 20 basis points. I just felt that I should point it out given the overall gross margins because we have seeing about 30 basis points almost per quarter of mix improvement. And once again, we saw that in this quarter.
Brad Stephens - Morgan Keegan
All right, thank you very much.
Operator
We'll next go to Robbie Ohmes, Banc of America Securities.
Robert F. Ohmes - Banc of America Securities LLC
Thanks. Just a quick follow-up question. Can you... I guess this is sort of for Bob. Can you just give us some help with how we should think about the fourth quarter? It would seem like with the 18% revenue growth that you can grow earnings maybe fast as 18% or faster. Could you give us the line items that bring you back down to that lower earnings growth in your guidance? Is it gross margin is a little tougher because of Nautica or is it the interest expense from the acquisitions, or, a little help there would be great. Thanks.
Robert K. Shearer - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Okay, Robbie. Actually, from a gross margin standpoint in the fourth quarter, we expect to see... we'll see some improvement. Now, again, last year's numbers included in the gross margin as well as in the SG&A area included some expenses, some restructuring expenses. So they won't repeat. So we are helped a bit by that. But outside of that, we expect to see about 50 basis points of improvement in the gross margins for the quarter. So, again, all in, more like 150 basis points of improvement, right. But again, that's helped by the expenses that won't recur. So once again about... actually, I am sorry, about a full point coming from actual improvements. The expenses last year were worth about a half a point, were worth 50 basis points. Again, let me make sure that's clear. 150 basis points in total, 50 basis points of that due to the lack of restructuring that was in last year and then a 1 point improvement. That's gross margins.
On the SG&A side, once again, last year was impacted by some restructuring costs that won't recur. That's 40 basis points. And there, just as we have been seeing, the mix as well as some impact from the acquisitions will pretty much offset that. At the bottom line, what's happening there is why the 13% is last year, actually, we had the tax credit, a significant tax credit overall. Now again, even net of the restructuring, the tax credit was positive to the EPS numbers by about $0.03 worth. So if you take that out of the equation, we are closer to a 16% improvement in EPS, which is pretty close to the 18%. Why isn't it exactly on, because part of the top line improvement does come from acquisitions. And in these very early stages of those new acquisitions, again, not a lot of EPS contribution coming from them.
Robert F. Ohmes - Banc of America Securities LLC
Got it. That was very helpful. Thanks so much.
Robert K. Shearer - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Good. You bet.
Operator
Our next question is from Kate McShane of Citigroup.
Kate McShane - Citigroup
Hi, thank you. Can you talk a little bit about the backlog for spring for The North Face? And on an unrelated question, can you talk a little bit more about what seasonality we should expect from the new Contemporary business segment?
Eric C. Wiseman - President and Chief Operating Officer
Yes, hi Kate, it's Eric. I'll deal with the bookings. You asked about the bookings for The North Face for spring, was that your question?
Kate McShane - Citigroup
That's right.
Eric C. Wiseman - President and Chief Operating Officer
Yes. In the kind of vocabulary that we have normally talked about that proudly is that we have double-digit bookings increase. We have had in the past, and I will tell you we continue to have for this spring of '08 a double-digit bookings increase for The North Face.
Kate McShane - Citigroup
Okay. And is there any... is that mostly from one particular category or is it across the board, sportswear --
Eric C. Wiseman - President and Chief Operating Officer
That's... the business is kind of trying to cooking on all cylinders right now. We are getting growth in our footwear business, in our sportswear business, in our equipment business and in our outerwear business.
Kate McShane - Citigroup
Okay. And then just, can you talk through the seasonality of the new Contemporary business at all?
Eric C. Wiseman - President and Chief Operating Officer
Kate, we don't expect that there are going to be significant variations quarter-to-quarter. But with the growth on the international side, we expect to see in sportswear, what I'd really like to do is defer that question till we have... till we take a little bit closer look at the '08 plans and we'll speak more to it at that point.
Kate McShane - Citigroup
Okay, thank you very much.
Eric C. Wiseman - President and Chief Operating Officer
Sure.
Operator
Next question is from Robert Samuels, J.P. Morgan.
Robert Samuels - J.P. Morgan
Hi, good afternoon. Can you comment a little bit more about your... on your international strength, any particular markets stronger than others?
Eric C. Wiseman - President and Chief Operating Officer
Yes, this is Eric. We have a lot of good things going on internationally. The bulk of our momentum right now is in Europe and in Asia. That's not to say that we don't have traction in Mexico and other places. But the big dollar growth is coming out of those places. Some of that is new business. You may be call that I guess 13 months ago, we established a joint venture in India which is moving along, so that's a new business for us. We also just acquired in the spring of this year The North Face brand in China. And that's a small business, but growing rapidly. And we have recently moved some leadership to China to coordinate our growth across VF in that region, and that team is kind of getting built and settled now. In Western Europe, our Jeanswear business has been particularly strong. We talked earlier they were up 13% in the quarter. As well our Outdoor business and our Vans business and our Reef business is all growing very, very nicely in Europe.
Robert Samuels - J.P. Morgan
Great. And then just quickly, just a quick comment on Reef. Did you see any pressure there during the quarter from things like crocs [ph]?
Eric C. Wiseman - President and Chief Operating Officer
Almost 80% of Reef's business happens in the first six months of the year, currently from a shipment standpoint. So the year is kind of over by the end of June from a wholesale shipment standpoint. And we are having a decent year at Reef and we are expecting growth next year.
Robert Samuels - J.P. Morgan
Thanks.
Operator
Next question sis from Eric Tracy, BB&T Capital Markets.
Eric Tracy - BB&T Capital Markets
Good afternoon. If we can just touch on the Contemporary profitability, by my math, it comes in at roughly 15% on an EBIT basis. Just wondering if you could kind of elaborate on that. That seems... is that seasonally strong for that quarter or is that sort of a base that we can expect to work off of?
Robert K. Shearer - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Well, again, the Contemporary brands, we only owned the brands for a month. So we only had one month of operations in the quarter, Eric, so it's a little hard to draw conclusions from just a quarter. Although from an operating margin standpoint, yes, they were actually a little bit lower than which might expect going forward.
Eric Tracy - BB&T Capital Markets
Okay, fair enough. And then maybe just a clarifying point. I think Mackey mentioned on the acquisitions, did he... $0.07 accretive for '08 is now expected? Was that what I heard kind of in his summarizing comments, add roughly 360 in revenues and $0.07?
Mackey J. McDonald - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
That's in '07.
Eric Tracy - BB&T Capital Markets
That's in '07?
Mackey J. McDonald - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Yes, not '08.
Eric Tracy - BB&T Capital Markets
Okay. So $0.07 accretive as opposed to kind of neutral what we thought previously?
Mackey J. McDonald - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
I am sorry, what was the question?
Eric Tracy - BB&T Capital Markets
Can you... I guess maybe --
Mackey J. McDonald - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
That's all acquisitions made during this year.
Eric Tracy - BB&T Capital Markets
The entire year.
Mackey J. McDonald - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
It's all of the '07 acquisitions, not just the recent ones.
Eric Tracy - BB&T Capital Markets
Not just lucy and --
Mackey J. McDonald - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Right.
Eric Tracy - BB&T Capital Markets
Fair enough. Great. Thanks guys.
Operator
Next question is Linda Donnelly [ph], Franklin Management Group, Wachovia.
Unidentified Analyst
Thank you. Just one quick question. Prior guidance for depreciation and amortization for '07 was $125 million. Do you think at this point it will be slightly higher than that?
Robert K. Shearer - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Actually, the number right now... you said 125?
Unidentified Analyst
Yes.
Robert K. Shearer - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yes, we are right on that number.
Unidentified Analyst
All right, great. Thank you.
Mackey J. McDonald - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Any more questions?
Operator
[Operator Instructions]. Our next is now from Christian Buss [ph] with Thomas Weisel.
Unidentified Analyst
Yes, hi guys, congratulations on a nice quarter.
Eric C. Wiseman - President and Chief Operating Officer
Thank you.
Unidentified Analyst
Wondering if you could provide a little bit of perspective on The North Face, China opportunity sort of if you can provide any color on what kind of phase that comes on, what kind of opportunity you see.
Eric C. Wiseman - President and Chief Operating Officer
You are coming through a little soft. I think your question was about The North Face, China opportunity. And that's a brand new business for us. It's a very difficult market to predict. What we know is that we have a really good brand for that market. There is some cold weather in that market, and we think it can be important. But it really is too early for me to give you any kind of direction about how big it might be. We just think it's an important place for us to have the brand.
Unidentified Analyst
All right, thanks a lot. And then one other question I had, which is on the 7 For All Mankind brand, what's the mix there between domestic and international right now if you could remind me?
Eric C. Wiseman - President and Chief Operating Officer
Right now, between 25 and 30% is international and the balance is in the U.S.
Unidentified Analyst
All right, thanks a lot.
Eric C. Wiseman - President and Chief Operating Officer
You're very welcome.
Operator
And we do have a follow up from Virginia Genereux with Merrill Lynch.
Virginia Genereux - Merrill Lynch
Thank you. Bob, what about CapEx for this year? It looks like under 80 year-to-date.
Robert K. Shearer - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yes, it should be right around 140, Virginia.
Virginia Genereux - Merrill Lynch
So you are going to spend 60 in the fourth quarter?
Robert K. Shearer - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
It's a little higher spending.
Virginia Genereux - Merrill Lynch
Okay, okay. And can you quantify, Bob, the intangibles amortization associated with the 7 and lucy acquisitions and when that... and what portion of it falls off and when?
Robert K. Shearer - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yes, in the early years, it's about, I believe it's about $13 million or $14 million. And it's heaviest obviously during the first three to four years. I can get back to you with some more specifics on that.
Virginia Genereux - Merrill Lynch
Okay. All righty. Thank you all.
Robert K. Shearer - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Okay.
Operator
And with that, there are no further questions. I would like to turn the call to Mackey McDonald for a closing comment.
Mackey J. McDonald - Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Okay, thanks for joining us. We hope that you've gotten a very clear perspective of why VF has performed differently in this type of environment and also why we feel comfortable that we can continue to outperform the market going forward with the transformation we have made in the company. Thanks for being with us.
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