Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from Omar Saad – Credit Suisse.
Omar Saad – Credit Suisse
I wanted to try to get you to dig into the sales line a little bit more. It was kind of minus 10, minus 11 number, probably a little bit more than a lot of us expected and from what I understood coming into this quarter, fourth quarter was giving you an extra week this year versus last year, so if you kind of think about what that implication is, the core underlying run rate is probably even below that. Am I thinking about that properly?
Richard Noll
Yes. First, let me make a couple of comments about sales. First of all, we see these results as absolutely unacceptable and we will do what is necessary to turn them around. Now let me address your question specifically.
In the fourth quarter, sell through slowed considerably and it was across the board. It was across all categories and in all retailers. Additionally when you look at our retail inventories and our major retailers, they reduced our inventories by the end of December by about $30 million, so both of those factors conspired to deliver those shipment results that you saw in the quarter.
We did have that extra week. Lee, how much was that extra week worth? It looks like it was around $50 million. So that would suggest the underlying trend was a little bit worse, but there was the two factors coming together to produce the results.
Omar Saad – Credit Suisse
Help us understand because if you take minus 11 and you said the run rate is a little bit worse than that, and you look at some of the comps coming out of the retailers you sell into, you sell into some of the healthier retailers. Obviously let's say I get comps by most apparel departments but help us get comfortable with the market share question. I know you have some data that tells you that it's closing up and it's really coming across the board and categories. How should we think about that and how do we get comfortable with it?
Richard Noll
I want to correct something. The underlying trend isn't necessarily worse than the 11%. I think it's those two factors; the sell through and the pull down of inventory which they never pull down inventory in Q4. That's generally a Q1 type of thing where retailers tend to pull our inventories down in January and/or early February more tied to their fiscal year.
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