Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from Paul Lejuez - Credit Suisse.
Paul Lejuez - Credit Suisse
Mickey, does this environment change the way you view the long-term store potential of the J. Crew brand? You mentioned pulling back on growth for next year. Maybe you can give us some quantification of how many stores you plan to open there?
James S. Scully
Just in terms of quantifying it, excluding Madewell which we said was going to be 15 units and now we’re saying 10 to 15 units as we evaluate some unsigned leases, if you look at the core of the business, what we’re saying is approximately 4% to 5% square footage growth versus the traditional 7% to 8% square footage growth.
Paul Lejuez - Credit Suisse
In terms of pulling back versus long-term pull? That’s what I’m hearing?
Millard S. Drexler
Long term, again there’s kind of a short-term war going on here and long-term frankly if I had to pick a position to be in in our industry today, it would be at J. Crew and Madewell and our factory business. I say that because if you look at the world, there’s an enormous seed change happening at this point and I like the position we’re in. It’s clear that the Golden Age is over on the high priced goods that frankly don’t provide great value.
But in the short term it’s prudent and wise for us just to not rush. We think, we don’t know, if everything else is falling in value, why not real estate. We’re seeing much more flexibility in that market place and frankly we want to sleep at night.
It’s just our opinion at J. Crew, but we have a design team, we have our own products, we deal with the best factories in the world, we’re getting incredible recognition on that as is exhibited by our Collection business, our high end business, and we have very friendly opening price points, and our goods are not available in every discount outlet in America. They are only available in J. Crew.
If you look at the high priced business today, you can see clearly that any customer in the world with online ability can find a better deal on most things. I look at those stores as developers with real estate as much as anything else and the fact is if you want J. Crew, you buy it with integrity in our stores and there’s a value proposition which has never been more important in so long it’s incredible.
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