Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Scott Krasik - C.L. King & Associates, Inc.
Scott Krasik - C.L. King & Associates, Inc.
I think this is a market week for you guys. Maurice, maybe talk about the retailers attitudes in the last six or eight weeks based on what they’ve seen in their sales trends and how that impacts your core Maidenform sales. Obviously you have some new initiatives but they are being offset by declines in the core business.
Maurice S. Reznik
This market week is focused towards department stores and chains. The mass channel doesn’t come to market week. The general view is that obviously retailers are being conservative in managing their inventories. Some interesting notes though are that some of our businesses are actually doing extremely well and we kind of touched upon them in the call, particularly Shapewear. There’s a lot of excitement about Total Solutions. Retailers are looking for bigger bolder ideas that clearly there is a focus on inventory.
Scott Krasik - C.L. King & Associates, Inc.
What sort of declines should we expect in the Maidenform? Have there been cancelations in the core Maidenform brand?
Maurice S. Reznik
We haven’t experienced cancellations per say but again, on the ongoing replenishment clearly that’s been impacted, there’s more pressure on driving inventories down not just us but in general. The retail numbers will come out tomorrow so we’ll get more insight.
Scott Krasik - C.L. King & Associates, Inc.
The Shapewear roll out, a plus 30 or so for the year is fantastic, where do you see that? Is that pretty much rolled out now or should we see above average growth next year as well?
Maurice S. Reznik
We have targeted Shapewear, it really is a core competency of our brands and of our company, we’re really good at this. We see not just growth organically within our businesses but we see growth also from brand generation and just growing the business in general. Internationally it’s a phenomenal business for us too.
Christopher W. Vieth
I’ll just add that looking forward we believe that we’ll be able to continue to mitigate pressures on department stores and chains core bra business with increases in Shapewear, continuing strength in the mass, and we ought to get some headwinds from some of our new products like Total Solutions as well.
Scott Krasik - C.L. King & Associates, Inc.
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