Earnings Call Excerpt
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (WMT)
F3Q07 Earnings Call
November 14, 2006 9:00 am ET
Executives
Lee Scott - President and CEO
John Menzer – Vice Chairman responsible for the U.S.
Tom Schoewe – CFO
Charles Holley – SVP, Finance
Carol Schumacher – VP, Investor Relations
Presentation
This call is the property of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and intended solely for the use of Wal-Mart shareholders. It should not be reproduced in any way. This call will contain statements that Wal-Mart believes are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and intended to enjoy the protection of the Safe Harbor for forward-looking statements provided by that act.
These forward-looking statements generally are identified by the use of the words or phrases: believe, continue, continue to forecast, estimate, expect, expectation, forecast, plan, see, to come, will add, will be, will continue, will continue to be, will grow, will improve, will offer and will pick up, or variations of one of those words or phrases in those statements or by the use of words or phrases of similar import.
Similarly, descriptions of our objectives, plans, goals, targets or expectations are forward-looking statements. These statements discuss, among other things, our anticipated U.S. comparable store sales for the current fiscal quarter and our anticipated earnings per share from continuing operations for the current fiscal quarter and for fiscal year 2007; our expectations for the continuing effect of hurricane recovery-related sales in prior periods on future comparable store sales; our expectations for the rate of growth of our capital expenditures in fiscal 2008; the anticipated growth in our retail space and locations and the rate of square footage growth in fiscal 2008; our expectations for establishing price leadership in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007; the expected nature of our 2006 holiday period campaign; our expectations for rollbacks and other pricing on merchandise during the fourth quarter; our expectations for profits in the toy category; our anticipation for future results of our generic drug sales program, and our plans to offer that program in more states; the expected impact of interest expense during the balance of the fiscal year; the expected results from initiatives in our operations in the United Kingdom; expected times of the recommencement and continuation of certain remodeling activities for stores in the Wal-Mart Store segment of our business; our expectation for improvement in comparable store sales in our Sam’s Club segment in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2007; our anticipated tax rate for all of fiscal year 2007; and the anticipation and expectations of Wal-Mart and its management as to future occurrences and trends.
- Approximately $40 million of costs were incurred as a result of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma.
- We incurred about $69 million in the Wal-Mart segment of expense related to product warranty programs. Even if the impact of this adjustment is removed from last year's third quarter results, our current year gross margin is a solid increase for the quarter in the Wal-Mart segment.
- Finally, these items were partially offset by $29 million of other income resulting from the Visa/MasterCard antitrust litigation settlement. This was also recognized in the Wal-Mart segment.
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