Update on Billabong: The TPG Offer

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This is kind of fun. As you’re aware, TPG Capital offered to buy all of Billabong for $3 a share before the Nixon deal and other steps were announced. Billabong said no because the deal was contingent on too many things and they needed an immediate, certain solution to their short term balance sheet issue. But now, even with the Nixon deal happening, TPG still wants to buy them for $3.00 a share. What can we learn from that?

First, I guess we can conclude that TPG approves of the actions Billabong management has taken. And apparently they agree with Billabong management that the earnings lost from the sale of half of Nixon will be made up for by store closings and expense reductions being undertaken.

Or maybe the $3.00 a share was a lowball offer made on the assumption that Billabong needed to make a deal (which they did).
 
In what I published about Billabong yesterday, I said okay, great, they’ve solved their short term balance sheet problem, but we are left knowing almost nothing about how Billabong management views the prospects for their longer term vertical retail strategy. I guess we’re about to find something out.
 
If Billabong’s board of directors were to conclude that it’s in the shareholders’ best interest to sell the company for $3 a share (Or $4?) we’d have to conclude they aren’t all that confident in the strategy and their ability to implement it either because of anticipated economic conditions or because their balance sheet, even with the fix of a few days ago, won’t be strong enough.
 
Then there’s the issue of the whole competitive environment in the surf/action sports/youth culture market. I’m actually working on a longer think piece on this. My basic question (perhaps a bit exaggerated for impact) is with everybody trying to respond to weak consumer demand by selling everything they can everywhere (perhaps the wrong approach?) is there enough brand distinctiveness left to make a plaid shirt from a cool brand worth $20 more than the same plaid shirt bought at Target?
 
I remember when the skate hard goods industry was somehow caught by surprise as more and more skaters decided that a $30 deck was just as good as a $55 deck as they were essentially identical in construction and were going to wear out anyway.
 
Just because there’s an offer from TPG doesn’t mean there will be a deal. It is a very preliminary offer with a lot of work to be done. One thing that might be a stopper is the condition that the tax liability associated with the Nixon transaction not be higher than $10 million. Billabong has estimated that, at worst, it might be $45 million. I doubt they’d be willing to guarantee the $10 million number.
 
Somebody (thanks Somebody) sent me this article which discusses the deal in some detail. It’s worth a read. I’ll be watching with you to see how this all plays out.
 

 

 

Billabong’s Announcement: Short Term Solution, Longer Term Question.

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With last Thursday’s announcement, Billabong has moved to address its balance sheet issues. But, to paraphrase one of the analysts in the conference call, "This is all well and good, but how do we know we won’t be discussing the same issue a year from now?"

Let’s look at the steps Billabong took and its half yearly numbers. Then we’ll talk about Billabong’s longer term strategy and see if there’s an answer to the analyst’s concern in there somewhere..
How Did We Get Here?
Billabong is suffering from a strong Australian dollar, a weak world economy that hasn’t recovered as quickly as they expected, an aggressive, opportunistic retail strategy, and having paid what looks in the ever perfect hindsight to be a bit much for some of their acquisitions. Of course, if the economy wasn’t so weak and the Australian dollar so strong, the last two might not be such an issue. But we are where we are.
Billabong announced back on December 11 that its “…sales growth trend has deteriorated significantly…” in November and the first part of December. They indicated they were concerned about their level of debt and violating their loan covenants. I wrote about that in some detail here. Last Thursday, before their announcement, I described briefly what I thought their choices were.
What Have They Done?
First, they sold 48.5% of Nixon to Trilantic Capital Partners (TCP).   They are keeping 48.5% themselves. Nixon management will own the other 3%. They expect to raise US$285 million, all of which will be used to pay down debt. That solves the immediate balance sheet issue, reducing net debt at December 31 from $527 million Australian dollars to $259 million Australian dollars on a proforma basis.
Because Billabong now owns less than half of Nixon, Nixon will no longer be consolidated on Billabong’s financial statements. That is, its assets, liabilities, revenues and expenses will no longer flow through them and Billabong won’t be responsible. I think what will happen (at least it’s what would happen here) is that Billabong’s share of Nixon’s income will be included on Billabong’s income statement under “Other Income.”  
Nixon product will continue to be sold in Billabong owned retail. Billabong has signed a long term supply agreement with Nixon (no details available) to insure that. The TCP group may be really nice people, but I’m guessing they’d like Nixon to make as much money as possible. So I assume that the prices at which they sell Nixon product to Billabong will be consistent with prices to other retailers. Billabong, under those circumstances, will just get a normal retail margin on their sale of Nixon product.
Most intriguing to me is what TCP’s plans for Nixon might be. There were some comments in the public material and the conference call about Nixon already being distributed outside of Billabong’s traditional channels. The release says, “Nixon will be a stand-alone business focused on continued growth into areas such as Billabong’s core action sports channels, as well as high-end department stores, quality electronics stores and other channels.”
Hmmm. Does that sound to anybody besides me a bit like the Skullcandy strategy? Nixon is doing headphones already. It occurs to me that Billabong might not have been able to finance Nixon’s growth opportunities. Untying Nixon from Billabong may benefit it.
Billabong bought Nixon for $55 million in 2006 plus a deferred payment of US$76 million. The transaction values Nixon at around US$464 million so Billabong will report a one-time gain on the transaction (size unknown) at the end of their fiscal year.
Second, they are going to close between 100 and 150 of the 677 company owned stores by June 30, 3013. They think that once this process is complete, they will have reduced rent expense by $20 to $30 million Australian dollars and will increase EBITDA by $5 to $10 million Australian dollars in the year ending June 30, 2013. They noted that they had closed 30 stores in the last six months.
Third, they’ve got a program to reduce annual costs by $30 million Australian dollars. These cuts will be across the board. There will be about 400 full time jobs lost including 80 in Australia. I’d be interested to know how many of the 400 will be the result of closing stores.
Finally, Billabong is going to reduce its dividend payments.
The net of all this, according to Billabong management, is that the loss of Nixon’s earnings “…will be more than offset…” by Billabong’s share of profits from the Nixon joint venture along with the other expense reductions.
The Six Months Results
Here are the income statement numbers in Australian dollars for the six months ended December 31, 2011.
Sales rose 1.5% to $850 million dollars compared to the prior calendar period. Constant currency revenues were up 6.3%, but down 2% excluding the impact of acquisitions. Over two years, Billabong has seen the translated value of its profits from Europe decline by 40% because of the decline in the value of the Euro against the Australian dollar.
The cost of goods sold stayed almost constant at $455 million, but the gross profit margin fell from 54.4% to 53.4%. Selling, general and administrative expenses were up 10.4% to $316 million. Other expenses and finance costs were more or less the same. There was a $15 million impairment charge for Billabong’s South African operations.
Profit for the six months fell to $16 million from $57 million in the same six months the previous year.
What happened? CEO Derek O’Neill, in his presentation, sites four challenges. First, sales were lower than expected in November and early December in Europe and Australia. Second, they couldn’t recover all their higher product costs in a “…highly price sensitive retail environment.”
Third, there was a lot of discounting going on at both wholesale and retail in Australia and Europe. It wasn’t as bad in the U.S., but it was still there. Fourth, add on to that aggressive clearance of inventory, which obviously kills your margins, and you can see why it wasn’t a great six months.
You can see in their balance sheet some of the issues I’ve discussed above. Inventories have risen $56 million from a year ago even though sales aren’t up significantly and accounts for the whole rise in current assets. Trade and other payables have risen $40 million over a year ago and accounts for the whole rise in current liabilities. Long term borrowings rose from $570 million to $701 million, reflecting a decline in deferred payments (partly for acquisitions) from $188 million to $86 million. The interest coverage ratio has fallen from 8.8 to 4.2 times.
Tactics and Strategy
We’ve reviewed Billabong’s half year results, seen how they got themselves in a bit of a hole, and outlined the tactics they’ve used to resolve their immediate balance sheet issues. Given their circumstances and the choices they had, what they are doing seems appropriate to me.
But it doesn’t address that inconvenient analyst question: “How do we know we won’t be here a year from now discussing the same thing?”
Billabong’s strategy, we all know, has been to expand their owned retail to increase penetration of their brand portfolio and benefit from the vertical margin.  Pretty simple to state. I thought it was a good strategy when they started it though, as I wrote at the time, I was unsure about the West 49 deal. But the devil’s in the details. Let me quote what I wrote last Thursday.
“How much of your owned brands can you put in a retailer before it’s perceived as a Billabong store regardless of the name on the front? How do you handle the other brands those owned stores carry when you’re trying to make room for your own higher margins brands?   How do they feel, as one of those non-owned brands, about being in those stores and the way their brand may be merchandised? I am sure Billabong management spent, and is spending, time on those issues every day.”
That, to me, is the heart of the strategic issue and we came away from the public documents and conference call with basically no insight into how the implementation of this central, long term strategy is going. That analyst’s question kind of implied it, but the answer wasn’t very helpful. To be fair, I can’t really expect Billabong management to just drop their drawers for their competitors in an open forum, but it is still the central issue given that direct to consumer now accounts for 49% of Billabong’s revenues.
One paragraph of one slide from CEO O’Neill’s presentation gave us a bit of information. We learned that Billabong family brand share is now about 37% in West 49 stores compared to 15% at the time of acquisition. It was 32% at June 30, 2011.
The owned brand share is 38% in the acquired SDS banner, and close to 50% in the acquired Rush store. We don’t have any information as to what it was when the deals closed.
That’s it. That’s all I know for sure about the major strategic bet that Billabong has placed. How far can we expect those percentages to rise? Any perceived blowback from consumers yet? How have other brands reacted? Did Billabong just get ahead of itself in an economic environment it misjudged and commit a one-time balance sheet faux pas? Or is the strategy dependent on improved economic growth? If so, and we don’t get that growth, what happens?
I don’t expect to ever get quality answers to those questions unless I fly to Australia and drag those guys into a bar. In the meantime, I invite you all to review at Billabong’s investor site the documents I’ve referred to in this article, and see if you can figure the answers out. 

 

 

Billabong’s Upcoming Half Year Report and Their Choices

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Sometime late afternoon West Coast time, Billabong is going to release their half yearly numbers and have a conference call on those results. In the meantime, as most of you may know, trading on their stock has been suspended pending an announcement. That announcement may have something to do with this article stating that Billabong has received a US $820 million takeover offer from TPG Capital.

All I know is what’s in the article. But I thought in light of the pending news and possible acquisition of Billabong, it might be useful to review their choices before the announcement.

Back in December, when Billabong announced that they had some issues and were pursuing a review of their options, I did a pretty detailed analysis about what was going on. You can read that here. We haven’t seen a complete balance sheet, so we don’t know the extent of the problem. But when you’re dealing with issues of capital adequacy, there are only so many things you can do. In no particular order, here they are.
 
You can raise some expensive money along the lines of what Quiksilver did with Rhone.
 
You can sell the company as the article referenced above suggests might happen.
 
The trouble with both these choices, of course, is you don’t get a very good price. But then you may not have a choice.
 
You can cut expenses across the board to improve cash flow. What we don’t know, since we don’t know the exact size of the problem, is whether this could have enough impact quickly enough. My guess is no. And of course, this has an adverse effect on the company’s ability to pursue its strategy.
 
You could sell a brand. But Billabong’s whole strategy is focused on putting those brands into their growing retail channels. So every brand less it has makes that strategy a bit less valid.
 
Maybe it could take one of those strong brands it owns public to raise capital. That way they wouldn’t lose control of the brand. But as I am sure you all know it’s a tough time to take a company public. Somebody suggested that alternative to me. Wish I’d thought of it myself.
 
In a few hours, we’ll be able to put some numbers on the problem size, and maybe the solutions will have been announced. But let’s review quickly, in the interest of making the article I’ll write when the report and conference call happen shorter than a novel, how they got here.
 
First of all, the Australian dollar got strong, and the worldwide economy weakened, with the Australian economy being the last to follow others into recession. You can’t blame Billabong for that, but they have to manage the consequences.
 
Second, they chose to purchase West 49 because, well, it was available and consistent with their strategy. Had it not appeared on their radar screen, I don’t think they would have been pursuing an acquisition of that size with its issues. And, as I’ve written, I think those issues turned out to be worse that Billabong management expected.
 
Third (and this is true for most of us) there was an expectation of more of a global recovery than happened.  One consequence is that the acquisitions they have made start to look expensive in light of our current economic reality. That is, the prices are harder to justify because the future cash flows don’t look as strong. This impacts the company’s value as Billabong looks for solutions to its debt/cash flow problem.
 
And finally there’s the issue of whether or not the strategy of putting owned brands into an expanded, owned, retail base made sense.  I thought it did (though I wasn’t particularly happy about the implied impact on specialty retailers).
 
But, as I discussed a long time ago, the devil of that strategy’s implementation was in the details. How much of your owned brands can you put in a retailer before it’s perceived as a Billabong store regardless of the name on the front? How do you handle the other brands those owned stores carry when you’re trying to make room for your own higher margins brands?   How do they feel, as one of those non-owned brands, about being in those stores and the way your brand may be merchandised? I am sure Billabong management spent, and is spending, time on those issues every day.
 
If the economy hadn’t gone quite so far south or had recovered a bit quicker and the Australian dollar wasn’t through the moon would things be okay? That would depend on facts I don’t have. When we get Billabong’s numbers, we aren’t going to be able to conclude that the strategy was “good” or “bad.” All we’ll know and I guess we know it right now, is that they ran out of time to pursue it as their balance sheet weakened.
 
I’ll be all over Billabong’s report the minute it comes out, but I do like to read stuff slowly and take some time to think about it, so be patient with me.

 

 

Interesting Stuff from Quiksilver’s 10K Annual Report

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Back in December, Quiksilver released its annual and quarterly earnings and held a conference call. I did the best analysis I could, but bitched and moaned because I didn’t have the complete 10K or the balance sheet. You can see that analysis here. Last week, the company issued its 10K. I’m not going to redo the analysis I did, but there’s a few pieces of interesting additional information I thought you’d want to see.

The Balance Sheet

To put it most simply, the October 31, 2011 balance sheet is almost unchanged from a year ago. The current ratio at 2.62 times is pretty much the same as last year. Total liabilities to equity have risen slightly from 1.74 to 1.83. Long-term debt, excluding the current portion, rose from $701 million to $725 million “…to fund higher working capital levels…” Total equity is up only a couple of million to $623 million.

I had hoped, but not really expected, to see some further balance sheet improvement. Maybe that wasn’t realistic given the economy. But let me remind you that a couple of years ago debt was $1 billion and Quiksilver faced a short term liquidity crisis with principal payments that it, well, couldn’t make. The Rhone deal, and the restructuring of their European bank lines, leaves Quiksilver with a very manageable $11 million in principal payments through the end of 2013. There’s $35 million due in 2014 and $400 million due the next year.
 
Trade receivables rose 8% to $397 million, consistent with sales growth. I think that was in the press release. I pointed out only because I noted that Quik mentioned it was doing some consignment sales in Asia. This is hardly unique to Quiksilver (and not just in Asia.). But in general terms, if consignments and other forms of non-sales sales become more common, one has to wonder how to think about the receivables numbers. As far as I know, consignment sales remain in inventory, and don’t show up as receivables.
 
New Risk Factor
 
I haven’t compared all of last year’s risk factors with this year’s, but I did notice one addition. They’ve added, “If our goodwill becomes impaired, we may be required to record a significant charge to our earnings.”
 
Now, I don’t take these factors all that seriously, because I know the lawyers want to put in anything that could conceivably go wrong. But this one, I thought, was instructive. Lots of companies have impairment charges; especially in a slow economy.  When they tell you about them, they always point out that they are non-cash, which is true. But, as I’ve written before, and not just when I’ve been talking about Quiksilver, these charges represent an anticipated future reduction in cash flow and/or a decline in value. That’s why the impairment charges are required.
 
When I see Quiksilver add this risk factor, I don’t see an imminent problem. I think, rather, that it was an appropriate factor to add and that there must be a reason they chose to add it. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw it in other company’s filings.
 
Some Sales and Retail Numbers
 
At the end of their fiscal year, Quik had 770 stores and was selling in over 90 countries. 547 of those stores are owned and 223 licensed. Of the owned stores 109 are outlet stores, which is more than I had thought. Here’s a breakdown of the kind of stores they are and where they are located. Note that about 57% are in Europe.
 
The Quiksilver brand represented 41% of revenues for the year. Roxy was 27% and DC 28%. The Hawk plus the Lib Technologies and Gnu brands together totaled 4%. Apparel is 61% of total revenue, down from 64% the previous year. Footwear, at 23%, was up from 21%. Accessories and related products represented 16% of revenue, a 1% increase from the prior year. The United States represented 35% of total revenues. The chart below shows the complete breakdown of revenues by geographic region.
 
 
This next chart shows their distribution channels. I wish we have some information on what kind of retailers they put in which category. I wonder how they characterize outlet stores?
 
 
Random, Interesting Facts
 
At the end of the paragraph discussing the gross profit results in the fiscal year that just ended, Quik made the following comment:
 
“In fiscal 2012, our cost of goods sold is expected to increase by 75 to 100 basis points as a percentage of revenues as a result of the lower value of the euro in comparison to rates that prevailed in fiscal 2011. Our gross profit margin in fiscal 2012 may also be negatively impacted by increased raw materials and labor costs.”
 
They also noted a backlog of $480 million at the end of November, 2011 compared to $478 million a year before.
 
Quiksilver spent $124.3 million on advertising and promotion in the year ended October 31, 2011. $24 million of that amount was athlete sponsorships.
 
Okay, that’s kind of it. No grand conclusion here and no changed opinion from what I wrote based on the press release and conference call.
 
The release comes out, the conference call is held, and everybody sort of forgets there’s more information to come. Hope you find it useful.

Billabong Reports Deteriorating Sales Growth Trend; The Strategy or the Economy?

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Billabong’s announcement about sales trends since the end of October and the actions it’s taking may portend issues for other companies as well as for Billabong. Let’s take a look at what they announced, what actions they are taking, how they found themselves in this position, and how it relates to the global economic environment.

Here’s what they said (you can go here to read the announcement and the transcript of the conference call):

“Following receipt and finalization of management accounts reflecting actual trading results for the month of November and receipt of preliminary retail sales data for company owned stores for the period ended 11 December, the sales growth trend has deteriorated significantly in this critical retail period.”
 
They report that constant currency sales revenue growth for the three months ended September 30 was 24.7%. For the four months through October 31 it was 17.2% and for the five months ended November 30, 11.7%. If you exclude acquisitions, the numbers were 6.2%, 2.8% and 0.4%. Remember these are constant currency numbers. I don’t know what the “as reported” numbers will look like.
 
For a single month, and then two months, to pull the numbers down this hard means that things went south pretty quickly, and apparently so far they aren’t looking good in December. Remember that a lot of business is done during the holiday season, so these percentage declines translate into a whole lot more dollars than they would at other times of the year.
 
“Based on preliminary sales data to 11 December and assuming a continuation of current trends, it is now anticipated that sales revenue for the six months to 31 December will be approximately 5% higher than the pcp [prior calendar period] in constant currency terms (down approximately 3% adjusting for the impact of acquisitions).”
 
 They say this “…reflects the European sovereign debt issues and the ensuing fears of global recession which are impacting consumer confidence and spending patterns significantly.” You can read their description of conditions in each region in the announcement. Weather has made a difference in both Europe and Australia. Billabong reports seeing “very low” sell through at retail, and poor reorders. CEO Derek O’Neill notes that reorders “…must be at reduced prices due to large amounts of unsold inventory washing through the marketplace therefore impacting gross margins.”
 
Basically, Europe is the toughest market followed by Australia and then the U.S. But whatever strength there was in the U.S. apparently dissipated in the first two weeks of December “…on growing global concerns about Europe. Challenging trading conditions remain in Canada, in both wholesale and retail.” 
 
In discussing the U.S., CEO O’Neill refers to some weakness from PacSun orders related to their accelerated store closing. He estimated Billabong had lost a “couple of million’ in business over the last four weeks as a result. I had highlighted this issue when I reviewed PacSun’s results.  I’m sure other brands will experience similar impacts consistent with their exposure to PacSun.
 
The good news is that Asia continues to perform well and Japan has rebounded. They also note that they have a “low double digit forward order book for late Spring and Summer in the USA in the wholesale business.” They had noted, however, that some orders (not just in the U.S.) had slipped from first half to the second half, and I wonder how that might impact those comparisons.
 
The result of all this is that Billabong expects their EBITDA for the six months ending December 31 to be between $70 and $75 million Australian dollars compared to $94.6 million in the same period the prior year.
 
Remember, so far the other public companies have reported just their end of quarter results- typically for October 31. None have felt an obligation to stand up and announce that conditions have gotten tough since then. But they report earnings every quarter where Billabong reports only every six months. I suppose these conditions could be unique to Billabong, but that seems improbable. It’s my belief that the on again, off again meetings about European sovereign debt and the growing realization that nothing has actually been done to solve the issue is creating a global caution among consumers.
 
What’s Billabong Doing?
 
I have the sense from the conference call that Billabong was a bit caught by surprise by the extent of the decline, but they seem to be acting decisively. The first thing they are doing is working to move inventory. This is in contrast to the position they took when the financial crisis hit in 2008. At that time, they indicated they were more concerned with holding margins and brand position than with losing some sales. They choose to be less promotional than others as a matter of brand positioning. Not so much this time I guess.
 
They are also undertaking a complete operational review to see where they can take costs out of the company. I expect that will reverberate through all their brands and locations.
 
Next, and most intriguing, a “strategic capital structure review” is under way with Goldman Sachs, the company’s advisor. What they indicated was that nothing was off the table, but raising more equity was pretty much the last choice. That makes sense when you note that their stock closed today (Tuesday) at AUD $1.77.
 
So that means that besides reducing expenses there’s at least the possibility of selling a brand, accelerating the closing of underperforming stores, maybe raising some kind of convertible debt, or, I guess, even selling the company.
 
They are doing this because their balance sheet position may require it, especially if business conditions deteriorate further. They noted that they were not in violation of any of their banking covenants as of December 19, but would not speculate on where their debt coverage ratio would be at the end of December. CEO O’Neill said the poor business conditions were “…expected to result in a deteriorating leverage position [at December 31].” Here’s how CFO Craig White puts it:
 
“The fact is that we’ve gone from a position where I could say that we were comfortably within covenants to a position that’s less comfortable, but I’m not going to speculate on where we’ll end up at the end of December. There’s a lot of things that can move around in that time.” 
 
It’s reasonable of them to say that they don’t know yet where they will be at the end of December. December, as they point out, is a big month. But they are concerned enough that they’ve got Goldman Sachs looking at their choices. How did they get to this position?
 
Good Strategy, Bad Timing?
 
During the conference call, CEO O’Neill continued to support the company’s overall strategy of retail growth. He discussed the systems they have in place to manage it, and the progress they are making of getting better product to market faster in a more coordinated, efficient way.  The more or less unspoken question during the call was “Hey, if this strategy is so hot, how come you got Goldman Sachs helping you figure out how to strengthen your balance sheet?!”
 
It’s not a bad question. As you recall, the West 49 acquisition was a big one. And it came along not necessarily at the time Billabong wanted it to. But there it was looking too good to pass up and fitting the company’s strategic criteria. You may remember they borrowed a bunch of money to pay for it, and I noted at the time it was a good thing they’d raised some capital earlier when they could even though they didn’t need it or the deal probably couldn’t have happened.
 
The other thing I emphasized was that buying a turnaround, which West 49 clearly was, was a whole different story from buying a solid brand or retail chain with a history of profitable growth and strong management in place. If they’d asked me at the time (they didn’t) I would have told them that whenever I’ve walked into a turnaround, it’s always been worse than I expected before I got there.
 
In a stronger economy, that might be an inconvenience. In a lousy one, it’s a problem. I’m not suggesting that the West 49 deal is the basis of all Billabong’s issues. The economy would still suck even without it. But if they didn’t have the debt they used to pay for the company, and hadn’t had to invest management time and some money into integrating and cleaning it up and stocking it with more of their owned brands, maybe they wouldn’t need Goldman Sachs to help them work through their potential balance sheet issues.
 
This is a tough situation that’s come on Billabong pretty suddenly. There were some concerns over the inventory and balance sheet at the last review but clearly they’ve accelerated due to deteriorating business conditions. There appears to be a not trivial chance that Billabong will violate some of its bank covenants at the end of the year.
 
The thing is, if it’s a small violation and you can see how it’s going to work its way out over a quarter or two, you don’t necessarily need Goldman Sachs to help fix the problem. What I might do (what I have done) is go to the bank and have a conversation about a soft quarter, and cash flow, and how it’s just a temporary thing, and about how I’m going to fix it, and couldn’t they see their way clear to waive the covenant for may six months, and yes, of course I’d be thrilled to pay them a fee to do that. Grovel, grovel, grovel.
 
Banks are a little more gun shy than they use to be (10 years too late may I point out), so maybe it’s not that simple. I still think the Billabong strategy makes sense as long as they exercise some caution as to how much of their owned brands end up in their owned stores. I also continue to think that tough times create opportunities, but only for those with strong balance sheets. Billabong apparently needs to shore their balance sheet up. We’ll find out in February if not before by how much and what they do.            

 

 

Quik’s October 31st Quarter and Full Year

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I’m going to work without my usual net of an SEC filing this time. That’s because year-end 10Ks always take a long time to come out, and I don’t want to wait that long to look at Quik’s results. I’ll review the 10K when it does show up. Right now, we’ll go with the press release and conference call transcript.

Not to be old fashioned here, but I think I’ll avoid proforma adjusted EBITDA numbers and start with the good old fashioned generally accepted accounting principles numbers. I’ll discuss some of the adjustments Quik takes into account in coming up with their presentation.

The Quarter’s Income Statement
 
Quik’s revenues for the quarter rose 10.1% to $545 million from $495 million the same quarter the previous year. Ecommerce revenues grew 69% globally, but they don’t tell us what that means in dollars.
 
The gross profit margin fell from 53.5% to 51.9% largely, as reported in the conference call, due to the cost and price increases all industry companies experienced. Selling, general and administrative expenses rose from $222 million to $248 million. As a percentage of sales, they were up from 44.9% to 45.4%. A chunk of the increase was the cost of the Quik Pro NYC, which we’ve learned today won’t be held next year.
 
The asset impairment charge for the quarter was $11.8 million, up from $8.4 million last year. These, as you probably know and which companies always like to point out to us, are noncash charges associated with changes in long term asset values. 
 
Operating income fell by 31% from $34.3 million to $23.7 million. That is earnings before, interest, taxes, foreign currency loss and discontinued operations. Let’s look at some of those items.
 
Interest expense in the quarter fell $50.6 million to $14.1 million. I think that decline is the result of Rhone converting its debt into equity and some of the restructuring and debt repayment Quik has done over the last year. This is why I really like to have the SEC filing in my hand. It would allow me to be more specific.
 
That’s a hell of a decline in interest expense. But as a shareholder you need to remember that the Rhone conversion that’s largely responsible for the decline resulted in a lot more shares being outstanding, so the value of each share declined, all other things being equal.
 
Foreign currency loss was about $5.8 million compared to $463 million in the same quarter last year. That leaves us with pretax income of $3.9 million compared to a pretax loss of $16.7 million in last year’s quarter.
 
Due to a settlement mostly with the French tax authorities that I guess goes back to the Rossignol deal and Quik’s losses on that deal, there is a one-time $64 million non-cash income tax benefit in this quarter compared to a charge of $5.2 million last year. This leaves Quik with a reported net income for the quarter of $68 million compared to a loss of $22 million in the quarter last year.
 
How do we think about this?
 
Well, every year companies have “one-time events.” So I tend to have a hard time ignoring them on the grounds that they won’t recur, because something always happens to generate a new “one-time event.” But in the case of this French tax credit, it’s so enormous and out of the ordinary we’ve got to ignore it as we consider how Quik is operating. That’s what Quik does in presenting its proforma results.
 
The Complete Year
 
For the year, sales rose 6.3% to $1.95 billion. The gross profit margin was down only very slightly from 52.6% to 52.4%. Operating income fell by 66% from $123 million to $41.5 million. Most of that decline is the result of the asset impairment charges (Non-cash!) that rose from $11.6 million last year to $86.4 million. Interest expense fell from $114 million to $74 million. The net loss for the year rose from $6.3 million to $17.9 million.
 
I should point out (I have before) that these non-cash charges reflect an expected decline in the future cash flow of the assets being written down. That may be non-cash, but it’s hardly irrelevant.
 
The Americas generated $61 million in operating income for the whole year, up 7% from $57 million the previous year. Europe’s operating income grew from $94 million to $112 million. Asia/Pacific went from an operating profit of $11.8 to a loss of $84 for the year.
 
The Quik brand, we’re told, grew 5% during the year to $806 million. Roxy was down 2% to $519 million, but it improved each quarter, growing 10% in the final quarter compared to the same quarter the previous year. One of the analysts noted that Roxy’s revenues were down around $250 million from its peak in 2008. DC was up 15% to $545 million.
 
You know what I just realized? There’s no complete balance sheet provided in the press release. Gimme my SEC filing! What they tell us in the conference call is that receivables at $397 million are 6% higher than a year ago in constant currency. Inventory of $347 million was up 26% in constant currency, with much of the increase due to the early receipt of goods. Ten to fifteen percent of the increase is the result of higher cost of goods. Prior season’s goods represent only 5% of inventory. Cash on hand was $110 million. 
 
Lacking the complete presentation we won’t see until the 10K, I’ve got no opinion on their balance sheet position.   
      
Details by Region
 
With the broad income statements discussed, let’s look at some of the quarterly detail in the documents.
 
Americas revenue was up 12.7% to $250 million for the quarter. Same store sales were up 16%.   Europe was up 11.5% to $213 million (6% in constant currency). Same store retail sales turned positive for the first time in 6 quarters in Europe. Asia/Pacific rose only 1.9% (down 7% in constant currency) to $82 million. The recession in Australia and strong Aussie dollar are making that a tough market. Japanese revenues at $25 million for the quarter are nearly back to the pre-tsunami levels.
 
The gross profit margin in the Americas fell from 48.1% to 47.1%. Europe was down from 60.2% to 57.2% and Asia/Pacific fell from 54.7% to 52.6%. As I’ve noted before, margins are a lot more attractive outside of the Americas. I wonder if the U.S. margin is much different from what’s reported for the Americas as a whole.
 
Operating income in the Americas fell 27% from $12.7 million to $9.3 million. Europe’s operating income jumped 50% from $20.9 million to $30.3 million. Asia/Pacific had an operating loss of $3 million after a profit of $8.6 million in the same quarter the previous year. 
 
Opportunities
 
The company’s goal is to get to $3 billion in revenues in five years. They think the Quiksilver Girls and Women’s business have a $100 million opportunity in the next five years. They also expect growth in ecommerce of a similar amount. In DC, especially outside of the United States, they think there’s a half billion dollar opportunity. And they see a couple of hundred million dollar of revenue from emerging markets.
 
I would have been happier if we’d gotten some more specifics about some of their initiatives in the conference call. I probably expect too much from that forum.
 
It looks to me like growth will be limited in the United States (and margins are lower). Europe generated 71% of Quik’s operating earnings excluding corporate expenses in the fourth quarter. For the year, as you can see in the numbers above, Quik wouldn’t have had any operating earnings without Europe. But Europe is poised for a recession.     
  
When we ask how Quik is doing in general, I have to go back to the operating income that declined 31% for the quarter and 66% for the year. I guess I should point out that the stock market, in its collective wisdom, doesn’t, at least with immediacy, think much of my point of view. Quik’s stock closed up 12.7% today (the day after the announcement) at $3.46 on volume that was almost three times its 90 day average. They must like that proforma, adjusted, EBITDA stuff.

 

 

PacSun Makes Progress; Third Quarter Results, Store Closings, and Financing

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When I looked at PacSun’s previous quarter I wrote, “The question in my mind, which hasn’t changed much since the last time I took a look at PacSun, is whether there’s enough uniqueness so they can afford to implement it [their strategy] given the economy and the company’s financial circumstances.”

Whether or not their strategy is a good one, they were becoming too cash constrained to implement it. If you were paying attention to this post at Boardistan in late November and the associated New York Post article, you knew something was going to happen.

Now it’s happened. As part of their conference call yesterday and release of their 10Q for the quarter ended October 29th, PacSun announced a $100 million line of credit from Wells Fargo that basically replaces their old line, a five year term loan of $60 million from private equity firm Golden Gate Capital (GGC), and plans to close 190 stores by the end of January 2013. Most of the closings will come near the end of the fiscal years. That makes sense as you’d like the holiday season to help you move inventory.
 
At the end of this quarter, PacSun had 820 stores and inventory of $152 million (at cost). 190 stores are 23% of their total stores. Assuming inventory is equally distributed among all the stores, they would have to reduce their inventory by 23% or $35 million. If you’re a brand that sells to PacSun, how do you think about that? Will PacSun move it to other stores? Will they close it out? Will they try and get you to take it back? Will they sell it somewhere you’d really rather it wasn’t sold? What’s the impact on your brand going to be when a chunk of your sales to PacSun just disappear?
 
One of the analysts kind of asked about this in the conference call saying, “Could you talk about conversations you’re having at the same level with the brands and your suppliers to make sure that you’re still in the best products and getting goods timely at the best prices and getting the best products from the key vendors?”
 
CEO Schoenfeld answered, “Yes, I really feel good about relationships, both with our key brand partners and our suppliers on our proprietary products. And they’ve been critical to the progress we’ve made and recognize that we still got work to do to get ourselves back to profitability, and they continue to be very supportive of our efforts.”
 
It’s the expected conference call kind of answer, and as always the devil will be in the details of the relationship with each brand.   
I’ll bet lots of brands are thinking about this issue. Makes those who tried to reduce their dependence on PacSun over the last year or two look pretty clever.
 
Tactics
 
You know what it takes to close stores and revamp the ones you’ve got left (about 620 by the end of January 2013)? It takes money, and PacSun didn’t have enough. After the deal with GGC, they say they do. As CEO Gary Schoenfeld put it, “Securing this additional capital will enable us to fund the lease terminations previously mentioned, make selective store refresh and technology investments and supplement any further near-term operational cash flow needs.”
 
The deal gave GGC two seats on PacSun’s Board of Directors. The interest rate is 13%. 5.5% has to be paid in cash quarterly. The other 7.5% is accrues annually in arrears. That is, they increase the amount they owe and pay interest on that increase as well. PacSun also issued to GGC convertible preferred stock that can be converted into about 20% of the company’s stock at $1.75 a share. Expensive money, but they needed to do it.
 
Note that the date at which the deals with Wells Fargo and with GGC were signed was December 7th– the same date as the conference call and release of quarterly results. What clever person said, “The task expands to fill the time available?”
 
We also find out that before the quarter ended Pacsun was madly negotiating with its landlords and had negotiated buyouts of 75 leases at a cost of $13 million, short term lease extensions for 50 stores, and termination on lease expiration for 115 stores. They think they will close 80 stores during the rest of this fiscal year and 110 in the next one. They expect savings in the year that starts February 1, 2012 of $9 million before the buyout payments. Those annual savings should rise as more stores are closed and, of course, those savings are annual while the buyout payments are one time. So the return on invested capital looks pretty good.
 
The stores they are closing had average sales of $600,000 over the last 12 months and their sales were down 9% compared to the previous year. The 600 stores they expect to have left when the closing process is completed average $1.1 million in revenue and their comparative store sales were only down 1%.
 
The store closures are expected to reduce revenue by $100 million to $125 million, but improve EBITDA by $10 million to $15 million. The reduction in inventory should offer a similar improvement to the balance sheet. 
 
I assume that the landlord negotiations, GGC loan, and Wells Fargo credit negotiation didn’t each take place in a vacuum. Much like when Quiksilver got the Rhone investment, I’m guessing there were multiple party dependencies that had to come together. Must have been interesting, though that might not be the word you’d use if you were in the middle of it.
 
The Numbers
 
Over the year that ended October 29, 2011, PacSun’s balance sheet weakened some due to the ongoing losses. Over the year, the current ratio fell from 2.02 to 1.44. And total liabilities to equity rose from 0.89 to 1.5. Inventory fell 8%.
 
Even with sales down 6.2% this quarter compared to the same quarter last year, current liabilities rose 15% from $112 million to $129 million. It’s possible that’s nothing more than timing differences, but I think we can say that PacSun needed to find some additional resources so they could pursue their strategy faster. The GGC term loan won’t improve the balance sheet since it’s debt, but it will give PacSun the cash it needs to move forward. In a turnaround, cash flow is way, way more important than your balance sheet I can tell you from experience.
 
$13 million of the sales decline resulted from store closures. Another $7 million was from a 3% decrease in comparable store sales. They gained $4 million from stores not yet included in the comparable store calculation and from a 12% increase in ecommerce sales. Men’s sales were flat and women’s down about 5%.
 
The gross profit margin fell slightly from 25.0% to 24.2%. You would think there’d be a big opportunity to improve that if PacSun could get its coolness back. Selling, general and administrative expenses actually rose 6% from $71.1 million to $75.4 million. As a percentage of sales that’s up from 27.6% to 31.1%. This included $6.2 million in charges related to closing stores ($4.4 million of which was noncash).
 
The net loss rose 153% to $17.6 million from $7 million in the same quarter last year.
 
Strategy
 
I characterize the store closings, new line of credit, and term loan as tactics that allow PacSun to pursue its strategy. I don’t think that strategy has really changed since Gary Schoenfeld became CEO two years ago. As he puts it, “We still have more to do to reestablish our brand identity and emotional connection with our customers, but I believe we are on the right path to make this happen.” He continues in another part of the conference call, “So we do continue to recognize that part of our turnaround is getting people excited again about PacSun and what our brand means and strengthening that emotional connection."
 
I agree with that. I’ll bet everybody in the industry agree with it because that’s what we all try to do with our brands. We don’t have, and I wouldn’t expect, details on exactly how they are going about that. To some extent, as I’ve written, they’ve been ham strung by a lack of financial resources. Now that’s resolved, and I guess we’ll get to see if PacSun can become cool again. Remember, even the stores they are keeping have 1% negative comps and the economy is still tough and the competitive environment highly promotional, so this isn’t a slam dunk even with some cash in the bank.

 

 

Zumiez’s October 29 Quarter; Consistently Pursuing a Solid Strategy

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I know I’ve written about it before, but let’s review the pillars of Zumiez’s strategy as I see them before we get to the numbers. Here’s the link to the 10Q if you’re interested.

  • Find and retain employees who are actively committed to the action sports lifestyle and make sure they are customer service focused. I suspect this might restrain their growth sometimes, but that’s okay.
  • Have a wide selection of established and new brands, including ones that are hard to find in other places. Manage these brands, and the associated inventory, so you can be generally less promotional than competitors. Their largest vendor represented less than 7% of total sales during the quarter.
  • Grow only as fast as you can find the right mall locations and staff.
  • Be the only mall retailer that offers hard and soft goods in a specialty shop-like environment.
  • Continuously work to have systems and procedures in place that let each store carry what its customers want to buy.
 In broad brush, this hasn’t really changed since the company was founded.
 
Zumiez’s 442 stores in 38 states now include 10 in Canada. Sales for the quarter ended October 29th were up 10.3% to $154 million compared to $135.9 million in the same quarter last year. Comparable store sales were up 6% and a net of 42 new stores have been opened since the end of the quarter last year. Ecommerce sales were 6.4% of the total, or $9.9 million. In the same quarter last year they were 4.4% of the total, or $6 million.
 
It’s interesting to hear how they talked about the comparable store sales increase during the conference call. CFO Marc Stolzman said, “The comparable store sales gain was primarily driven by an increase in dollars per transaction, partially offset by a decline in comp store transactions. The increase in dollars per transaction in the quarter was primarily a result of an increase in average unit retail, partially offset by a decrease in units per transaction.”
 
To me, that speaks at least partly to the success of their brand strategy. They were able to increase comparative store sales because they got more dollars per sale even though the number of transactions fell. 
 
Gross profit margin rose from 38.7% to 39.1%. The improvement was largely the result of distribution center efficiencies (remember they opened their new distribution center in California).
 
Selling, general and administrative expenses rose 11% to $37.3 million. As a percentage of sales, they were down from 24.7% to 24.3%.
 
Net income was up 14.8% from $12.3 million to 14.1 million.
 
The balance sheet is strong, and they have no debt except for the normal kinds of current liabilities every business incurs in the normal course of business. The increase in inventory was in line with the sales growth.
 
Though they didn’t talk about it in any detail, they noted that 15% to 20% of their business was private label. Private label business is particularly compelling when you’re already a retailer because of the higher margin with no additional costs. But we’ve learned in our industry that too much private label can be a bad thing. If only it was easy to know how much was too much before you got to too much. It is, I suppose, possible that Zumiez’s strategy of having a lot of brands and turning them frequently lends itself to more private label business. I’ll watch with interest to see how much they grow it.
 
Well, that’s pretty much it. When things are going well and the strategy hasn’t changed much there’s not a whole lot to write about. Here’s hoping I get to do lots of short articles like this one because of good results from a host of industry companies.     

 

 

Orange 21’s September 30 Quarter: Sales are Up, But So Is the Loss

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This is one of the few times where it makes sense to start on the balance sheet to really understand what’s going on. It shows stockholders’ equity of a negative $4.3 million. How, you might ask, are they paying their bills? If you look under liabilities, you’ll see a “Note payable to stockholder” of $10.5 million.

That $10.5 million is owed to Costa Brava. Costa Brava “beneficially owns” approximately 50% (depends on how you calculate) of Orange 21’s common stock. The sole general partner of Costa Brava is Mr. Seth Hamot, who is the Chairman of the Board of Orange 21. To put it succinctly, if Mr. Hamot didn’t have a whole lot of money and wasn’t willing to lend a bunch of it to Orange 21, the company would have been closed or sold long ago.

It would be great fun to speculate on why this company went public in the first place, what the original plans for the public platform was, and why Mr. Hamot has been willing to commit this level of resources to the company (more to come according to the 10Q). But it would be only speculation and I guess I’ll stick to what we know. In any event, the fact that it is public has allowed us to watch it move through various management and strategic direction changes, and it’s been interesting. It continues to be interesting actually.
 
Since the end of the September 30 quarter, former CEO Carol Montgomery has resigned and been added to the board of directors. Michael Marcks is the new CEO, consultant Michael Angel has become the permanent CFO, and Greg Hagerman is the Executive VP for Sales and Operations. Meanwhile, as reported in the 10Q, the company has given up on its licensing agreements with O’Neill, Melodies by MJB, and Margaritaville and is still feeling the impact of the sale of its Italian factory (LEM). I should point out that I thought the licensing agreements were a good idea because, if successful, they’d give the company volume it needed to cover expenses it was going to incur in growing the Spy brand. I don’t know if licensing turned out to just be a bad idea or if there was some slippage in implementing the strategy.
 
Anyway, all this stuff has and is costing them a lot of money. They are refocused now on growing the Spy brand. Here’s how the company put it:
 
“We have recently decided to focus our development, marketing and sales activity on our SPY products. As part of that focus, we decided to cease any new purchase orders of additional inventory for the O’Neill , Melodies by MJB or Margaritaville eyewear brands.”
 
Reported sales for the quarter were up 11.7% to $9.2 million. If we ignore the LEM sales in the September 30 quarter last year, we see that proforma sales actually increased by $2.3 million, from $6.9 million to $9.2 million. Sales of Spy products were up $1.6 million. Closeout sales during the quarter were $900,000 and were primarily O’Neill and Melodies by MJB product. Sunglasses and goggles represented 57% and 43% of sales, respectively, during the quarter.
 
Reported gross profit fell from $3.9 million to $3.2 million. As a percentage of sales reported gross profit fell from 47.1% to 35.3%. This was largely the result of selling O’Neill and Melodies by MJB product at cost and of taking inventory reserves for Margaritaville product.
Sales and marketing expense rose almost 51% from $2.3 million to $3.4 million. $400,000 of the increase was for commission on higher sales (can’t argue with that). Another $400,000 was for staff additions and the remaining $300,000 represented additional marketing costs.
 
Total operating expenses were up 21.3%. $1.5 million of this was to terminate the Melodies by MJB deal. A million was paid in cash in July and $500,000 will be paid next March 31, but was accrued during the quarter. 
 
The loss from operations rose from $819,000 to $2.4 million. Not unexpectedly given the borrowing from Costa Brava, interest expense was up from $160,000 to $413,000. The net loss was $3 million, up from $932,000 in the same quarter the previous year.
 
Cash flow remains an issue for Orange 21 and “The Company anticipates that it will need additional capital during the next 12 months to support its planned operations, and intends both to borrow more on its existing lines of credit from Costa Brava and BFI, provided they remain available and on terms acceptable to the Company, and to, if necessary, raise additional capital through a combination of debt and/or equity financings.”
 
It’s too long to quote, but they then go on to describe the circumstances under which the existing lines of credit from Costa Brava and BFI will be adequate. Recognizing that a 10Q is a legal document that’s by definition focused on what could go wrong, I still walked away with a sense there’s a not insignificant chance that capital from another source might be required. I know you let me read SEC filings so you don’t have to, but you might use the link above to look at the first three paragraphs of page 12 of the 10Q to see what I mean.
 
Where we’d like to focus now is on the potential and growth of the Spy brand. But there are still some significant required minimum purchases from LEM in 2012 and I don’t know if we’ll see any more write downs of licensed brand inventory or not. The saga continues.

 

 

VF’s Quarterly Result; Why is it We Bother?

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We review VF’s results because they own brands we are interested in. Same reason we review Jarden’s, PPR’s and other companies. But we rarely get much information on those brands because they are part of a larger segment by which the corporations represents its business. And, in the case of VF, we get literally nothing on Reef because it’s so small that its contribution to the action sports and outdoor segment isn’t significant I guess.

This is, in part, the inevitable result of consolidation. But if we’re paying attention to these conglomerates, in spite of the lack of information on brands we’re interested in, there must be a reason.

It’s because for most brands in our industry, the focus is on youth culture or fashion or some other word as much or more than the core action sports market. That much larger target is where most of the customers are. We use terms like “consolidation” and “vertical integration” benignly, and it’s a little too easy to forget just how hard these trends make it for specialty shops, smaller companies, and brands that are strictly wholesale. I don’t say that critically of companies that are consolidating and integrating, but as a reminder to those of you who aren’t of what your competitive environment looks like.
 
Let’s get to the specifics of VF and then I’ll point you to something you might want to read.
 
Revenues for the quarter ended September 30 were $2.75 billion, up 23% from the same quarter last year. However, the acquisition of Timberland was completed during the quarter and it contributed $163.6 million, or 7%, of the increase to revenues. Direct to consumer and international grew 15% and 29% organically (excluding acquisitions) during the quarter. Including acquisitions, the numbers were 21% and 44%. A weaker U.S. dollar increased the quarter’s revenues by $56 million.
 
I guess what we’re most interested in is VF’s outdoor and action sports group that contributed, including Timberland, $1.437 million in revenue, up 37% from $1.045 billion in the prior year’s quarter. This is the segment that includes Vans and Reef, as well as The North Face and others. It’s 52% of VF’s revenues for the quarter. The next closest segment, of their six, is about half that. Profit from the action sports and outdoor segment before interest, taxes and common corporate expenses was $321 million, up from $248 million in the previous year’s quarter. That’s 65% of the quarter’s profit before the expenses I mentioned. No wonder VF likes action sports and outdoors.
 
Action sports and outdoor business in the Americas rose 21% in the quarter (13% excluding Timberland). Worldwide, The North Face and Vans grew 22% and 25% respectively. In Asia, the segment’s revenues were up 81% (50% excluding Timberland). “Direct-to-consumer revenues in this coalition [segment] rose 31% in the 2011 quarter (20% excluding Timberland), with increases of 29% and 18% in The North Face® and Vans® direct-to-consumer businesses, respectively. Direct-to-consumer revenue growth was driven by new store openings, comp store revenue growth and an expanding e-commerce business.”
 
The gross margin percentage fell from 46.5% to 45.3%. There was a “…1.8% net impact from higher product costs that were not fully offset by pricing increases. This decline was partially offset by a greater percentage of revenues coming from higher gross margin businesses, including the Outdoor & Action Sports, international, and direct-to-consumer businesses.” Not so different than a lot of other companies.
 
Having read that quote, anybody want to speculate on where VF if going to focus its attention?
 
Net income was $301 million, up from $243 million in the same quarter the previous year. Timberland contributed $8 million of the increase.
 
The balance sheet took a bit of a hit because VF borrowed money to pay for Timberland. The current ratio fell from 2.5 a year ago to 1.5. Debt to total capital was up from 20.1% to 40.1%. Short term borrowings rose from $49 million a year ago to $1.145 billion at the end of this quarter. They expect the short term borrowings to be repaid by year end. They also borrowed $900 million in longer term debt for the acquisition. $400 million matures in August of 2013. $500 million isn’t due until 2021.
 
Receivables grew 40% from $1.1 billion to $1.548 billion. But $315 million of that was the result of the Timberland acquisition. As you think about inventory levels for VF and other companies, remember that higher prices mean higher inventory even when the units don’t change. VF says 9% of its inventory growth was the result of higher prices.
 
One of the analysts in the conference call pointed out that Timberland did some of its own manufacturing, and asked if VF might see this as an opportunity to make some more of its other products as well. It’s something it sounds like they will look into, but it’s too soon after the deal closing for them to be specific was the response. 

As you have probably concluded for yourself, VF is doing just fine.  Rather than think up some clever closing paragraph, I thought I’d offer you a link to an article that Rob Valerio of business consultants CPO sent me on the expansion strategies of retail CEOs.  It doesn’t refer just to our industry, and VF is much more than a retailer.  Still, you’ll see certain continuity between the strategies retailers in general are using and what VF and others in our industry are doing.  As I said at the start of this article, independent retailers, small brands, and brands that are strictly wholesalers are being pressured by bigger, sophisticated companies.  You may not be able to do what VF does, but you can look at some of these strategies and pick a few places where you can perhaps do something new, different or better.