Guess’, Inc. (NYSE:GES) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Carlos Alberini: Yes, let me just address the outlook Dana, as we said during our prepared remarks, just we expect to really give you a full just view of what we are seeing for next fiscal year when we release our fourth quarter numbers and that is going to happen in March of 2023. So just we are obviously working on our plans and we will come back to you with a full explanation of how we see the year and so forth like we always do. And Dennis, do you want to address the currency

Dennis Secor: Yes, the currency impact as we’ve been saying all year is pretty significant. And if you think about it in terms of how it sort of paces through the year, the Europe, I use that as the best benchmark. Last year, it just started to decline in the third quarter. And this year, it actually reached below parity, I think it got as low as $0.97. So the third quarter where we just said in our prepared remarks, the overall margin impact was 180 basis points, which was the same as the total operating margin. That should be the most severe in the third quarter assuming currency’s rate remain at roughly prevailing levels. That the currency started to drop with a dollar start strengthen towards the back end of last year and actually as the dollar has weakened a little bit 3Q into where we sit right now. So that starts to narrow. So all other things being equal, some of that currency pressure should start to abate as long as the currencies stay roughly where they are.

Carlos Alberini: And then, Dana, you also asked about pricing and cost of products and so forth. And we saw significant spikes last year as there was significant issues with finding the product and the raw materials and so forth and with all the inflationary forces everywhere. We are seeing a more normalized environment. We have done a lot to plan ahead and just we worked on our calendars and we’re still working on revising our calendars to be pretty much on top and being able to really offer product whenever the demand is there for it. We have done a lot in fabric platforming. So then we have access to fabric and raw materials and this is impacting all our businesses. And we are very pleased that we have done this because we are very well prepared and we have contracts that go well into next year.

And then we have done a lot about data. This is something that I think I mentioned during our previous call that just having access to data and being able to have visibility and to see where the product is at all points during the development is something that has helped us to really anticipate and react more effectively to what we need to service the business well. It’s difficult to know exactly what’s going to happen with cotton prices and that’s because all these markets have been very dynamic. But I think we have done a good job in anticipating and trying to really set contracts where we consider it prudent. And also we are negotiating with our vendors, especially those that are somewhat favored by the fact that we are still paying dollars.