Earnings Call Excerpt
J. Crew Group, Inc. (JCG)
F1Q08 Earnings Call
May 29, 2008 4:30 pm ET
Executives
Millard S. Drexler - Chairman of the Board, Chief Executive Officer
James Scully - Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President
Allison Malkin - Integrated Corporate Relations
Analysts
Paul Lejuez - Credit Suisse
John Morris - Wachovia
Dana Cohen – Banc of America Securities
Kimberly Greenberger - Citigroup
Brian Tunick - J.P. Morgan
Roxanne Meyer - Oppenheimer
Jeff Black - Lehman Brothers
Richard Jaffe – Stifel, Nicolaus & Co.
Michelle Tan – Goldman Sachs
Barbara Wyckoff - Buckingham Research
Samantha Panella - Raymond James
Dana Telsey – Telsey Advisory Group
Marni Shapiro – Retail Tracker
Presentation
Operator
Welcome to the J. Crew Group, Inc. first quarter fiscal 2008 earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Allison Malkin of ICR.
Allison Malkin
Before we get started, I would like to remind you of the company’s Safe Harbor language, which I’m sure you are all familiar with. The statements contained in this conference call which are not historical facts may be deemed to constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual future results may differ materially from those projected in such statements, due to a number of risks and uncertainties, all of which are described in the company’s filings with the SEC.
With respect to any reference we make on this call to adjusted earnings per share in fiscal 2007, the reconciliation of earnings per share on a GAAP basis to adjusted has been provided in exhibit 3 of our earnings release issued on March 11, 2008, which are available on our website.
Now I’d like to turn the call over to J. Crew's Chairman and CEO, Millard Drexler.
Millard Drexler
I will go through the comments quickly because I know you all have a lot of questions. Thanks for joining us on our first quarter 2008 results. Jim Scully, our CFO, is here along with our other senior partners in the company. I’ll turn the call over to Jim for financial highlights and updating our outlook. We’ll then open it up to questions.
For the quarter revenues increased 15% to $341 million with comp sales increasing 2% and direct sales increasing 17%. This strong revenue increase coupled with gross margin expansion and SG&A leverage drove a 20% in operating income to $53 million or 15.6% of revenues versus 14.9% last year. The 70 basis point improvement came on top of a 110 basis point improvement last year.
- To read the full transcript on Seeking Alpha, click here »
