You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: Once again, I hope all of you and your families are safe and healthy during these unprecedented times.
As you know, Maurice Marciano was injured in a bicycle accident recently.
He is under great care, but we expect this will be a long recovery process for him.
On behalf of Paul, our Board and our entire Guess?
family, we pray for his fast and full recovery.
Maurice is an amazing person.
He is very strong.
And we all hope to get him back soon.
In the next few minutes, I will speak about the overall environment and our Company, then I will touch on our second quarter results and I will close with how I see our outlook for this year and into the future.
, we are managing through the situation with our eyes on the road and our hands firmly on the steering wheel.
I'm very proud that our teams around the world continue to rise to the challenge imposed by this crisis in an extraordinary way.
I believe that the progress we made in the second quarter, both with our financial results and with our initiatives to better position the Company for the future, demonstrates our team's strong leadership, their relentless hard work and their amazing commitment to our customers and our Company.
Since we last spoke, a few things have changed in the world and in our Company, and some have stayed the same.
Among those things that changed, the most important one is visibility, which has improved meaningfully.
Starting with our store reopenings in all regions, we have had relatively consistent performance for several weeks now.
Almost across the board, we have seen a significant reduction in customer traffic from the comparable prior-year period, partially offset by the improved conversion rates.
Improved visibility is helping us size our expected demand more effectively, and as a result, we can project our inventory needs more accurately, which is key to optimizing future sales, margins and profitability.
Improved visibility helped us to better assess our liquidity, enabling us to capitalize on share repurchases that we think offer a material long-term return opportunity for our shareholders.
And improved visibility gave our Board the confidence to reinstate our quarterly dividend.
The second change relates to customers' lifestyles and shopping behaviors, which clearly have not returned to pre-pandemic conditions.
This, to us, signals that the changes may be more permanent than we originally thought.
While many people feel more comfortable shopping online than in stores, those that do venture out are much more intentional to make a purchase when they visit.
Our e-commerce business in North America and Europe delivered high single-digit revenue growth during the second quarter, and gross profit dollars grew more than 20% as margins improved significantly as a result of increased full price selling and improved IMUs.
We are confident that our e-commerce business will accelerate in the second half of the year as we increase our investment in marketing, continue to reposition our product offering and complete our Salesforce platform implementation.
We are encouraged with our digital business in August, which was up in the teens, and again, with improved margins, driven by strong performance in Europe and, to a lesser degree, in North America.
We continue to see that product priorities have shifted toward more casual dressing.
We expect this to evolve over time as people begin to go out again, but we believe that casual and comfortable clothes will remain a key priority for our customers.
Based on this trend, we are investing in the development of a strong assortment of active apparel, outerwear, stretch and sustainable denim and an extensive line of tops and dresses in multiple colors that capitalize on high quality and comfortable knit fabrications.
We are also focused on seasonal lines and essential products and strong lines of accessories, including handbags.
While we reduced marketing spend dramatically during the second quarter, we see an opportunity to increase our investment in the second half of the year to continue to strengthen our brand position and drive traffic.
We are planning multiple campaigns for the season featuring several of our product lines of women's, men's, accessories and kids'.
has recently engaged Italian actor and singer, Michele Morrone, as a new worldwide face of GUESS men's.
Michele Morrone is a lead actor in the movie, 365 Days, one of the top movies of Netflix, currently streaming in 200 countries.
He will be featured in our fall/winter 2020 collection campaign.
We intend to intensify our global efforts in digital media, including social media, and have plans for direct mail, TV advertising and outdoor media, including billboards, buses and others.
One very positive industry development relates to inventory ownership in our market, which seems to be already rebalanced and better aligned with current customer demand.
This should result in a less promotional environment going forward, leading to improved product margins.
We continue to make inventory management a key strategic initiative and made good progress this quarter as we experienced a product margin increase and our inventories are in a good place.
At quarter-end, inventories were down 13%, and we own less clearance inventory than a year ago.
For the rest of the year, we continue to plan our inventory purchases based on expected demand and have built flexibility with fast-track processes and basic product ownership to react to potential higher demand.
We already see opportunities for increased business and believe that we will be able to capitalize on this strategy.
With respect to resource utilization and cost structure, I'm very impressed by our team's ability to do a lot more with less, achieving greater efficiencies and significant reductions in our cost structure, both temporary and permanent.
Katie will spend more time on this later on.
Regarding things that have stayed the same, unfortunately the pandemic is still with us, and we have seen new outbreaks in multiple countries.
People are still very uncomfortable socializing and leaving their homes.
And for now, tourism continues to be non-existent between countries as a result of restrictions and low willingness to travel.
I recently read that in July, the amount of tourism spend in Europe was down 95%, with the Chinese spend down 98%.
For this reasons, we are approaching the second half of the year cautiously.
We continue to make our priority the safety and well-being of our teams, our customers and the communities that we serve.
We closed all California stores in enclosed malls after having them reopened, and we are now reopening many of them again.
We are happy to report that most of our stores worldwide are now reopened.
Our headquarter buildings in North America and in Europe have been operating at 50% capacity and the remaining team members work remotely.
As we closed our second quarter, we were pleased with how we managed the business in light of the circumstances presented by the pandemic.
Our retail sales were better than originally anticipated, and our wholesale businesses, which also performed better than expected, benefited from some product shipments pull-forward from the third quarter into the second quarter as many European customers requested products earlier than expected.
Margins were better than planned as we managed inventories well and benefited from positive rent relief in Europe.
We also managed cost effectively during the period.
All in all, we reported a 41.7% revenue decline, and we almost broke even at the operating level for the period on an adjusted basis.
As we look into the second half of the year, we expect a slow recovery of our retail business, driven by similar metrics to those that we have seen since we have reopened our stores, but with a gradual improvement in customer traffic.
We believe that there is an opportunity to expand the holiday selling period and have worked on plans to begin the season earlier with direct mail, customer appointments, optimizing omnichannel capabilities and focusing on other initiatives to avoid customer congestion during peak periods.
Regarding our wholesale business, during the last week of June, we launched our spring/summer sales campaign with a live event in Lugano, Switzerland, which was attended by over 200 people.
Plus, the event was live-streamed and over 550 people participated.
I believe this was unusual in our industry and was very well received by our customers.
Paul, with the creative teams, have done an incredible job with the collection, and I believe that the product line is the best that I have seen in all my years with Guess?
The response to the line has been very positive, and the customers' interest in our brand is very strong.
We are very excited about the opportunities that we see to gain market share, even in the near term.
This year, we continue our strategic planning implementation work, and I'm very pleased with our progress.
We still believe that our Company is in a strong position to capture the 500 basis points improvement in operating margins that we had targeted last year as most of the improvements are expected to be driven by operational efficiencies that we are confident remain available to us in the near future.
Our brand positioning work is in full force.
Our commitment is to elevate our GUESS and MARCIANO brands, focusing on high quality materials, SKU rationalization and developing one global line for each brand, while addressing market needs with specific products by region.
We continue to believe that our brand DNA and our obsession for inclusivity, sustainability and celebrating customer diversity represent a significant strength in today's environment.
Regarding our customer-centricity initiatives, we implemented Salesforce for our GUESS website in North America and in two European countries, France and the UK.
Tomorrow, we are launching 19 additional countries in Europe and 26 more will be rolled out through the rest of September and October.
We also launched the customer 360 project that I mentioned in our last call, and we continue to upgrade our omnichannel capabilities.
The entire plan should be fully implemented by the end of next year.
We continue to believe that our e-commerce business penetration will grow as a result of this strategic initiative to represent over 23% of our direct-to-consumer business in three to five years, up from 13% last year.
We plan to update our entire strategic business plan in the next few months and share it with you during the fourth quarter and an Investor and Analyst meeting.
In closing, while we are approaching the short term cautiously, we are focused on the long term and we see very bright days ahead.
Our vision for our Company and our brand remain intact.
I strongly believe that the long-term impact of this crisis in our Company will be extremely valuable as we reposition our brand and redesign our business model.
The crisis inspired our team to think differently to challenge every aspect of the business and to architect a simpler, more efficient and capital-light model.
We're building a business that will be better positioned to compete in the future and gain market share globally.
We have a true iconic global brand that has been relevant for consumers all over the world for 40 years.
stayed relevant by adapting its model time and time again.
I believe that companies that adapt their business models to actively embrace new consumer preferences, placing the customer at the center of everything they do, will gain share and overcome this crisis faster.
We fully expect to be one of those companies.
We have a strong team which is even more excited about our future today than I have seen it since I came back to Guess?
I strongly believe that in the next few years we will deliver outsized returns to our shareholders.
Paul and I and our entire leadership team couldn't be more excited about our future.
With that, let me pass it to Katie.
This is our second quarter navigating the Company through what is, no doubt, the most challenging period in our history.
So while consumers remain cautious, we were pleasantly surprised with the initial level of productivity that we saw as our stores reopened across each region during the quarter.
This is a sign not only of a macro recovery, but also the strength of our brand and the effectiveness of the business decisions that we have made over the last few months.
Once again this quarter, we have proven that we can successfully control the middle of the P&L with appropriate reactions to current environment, all while maintaining an emphasis on the long-term health of our brands.
We decreased operating expenses by $70 million, expanded product margins and maintained a very clean inventory position.
And as a result, even with sales down over 40%, we were able to maintain almost breakeven adjusted net earnings and a solid balance sheet.
I'm happy to report that our liquidity position remains strong.
I believe this is a competitive advantage for us, allowing us the flexibility to make appropriate investments to drive our long-term strategy as well as return value to shareholders.
In the first quarter, at the beginning of the pandemic, we took strong actions to preserve our liquidity, not having a clear outlook into what the future held given the uncertainty of the global crisis.
We drew down on our credit facility, extended our ABL and secured additional low interest term loans in Europe.
As the situation began to stabilize during the second quarter, we paid back a significant portion of the borrowings on our drawn revolving lines and seized the opportunity to return incremental value to our shareholders with a $39 million repurchase of our shares.
In addition, we announced today that our Board has decided not to declare any cash dividends from the prior two quarters, and it has approved the resumption of our quarterly dividend program this quarter.
Our long-term capital allocation policy has not changed.
Now let me take you through some of the details on our performance for the quarter.
Let's start with sales.
Second quarter revenues were $399 million, down 42% in US dollars and 41% in constant currency.
Revenues were negatively impacted by store closures in all regions at the beginning of the quarter and lower productivity to prior year at stores once open.
Our stores were closed for approximately 30% of the days in the quarter, and when they were open, traffic was roughly half of our customer flow in the prior year.
Overall sales productivity for our retail stores since reopening for the quarter was down 21% in the US and Canada, down 31% in Europe and down 26% in Asia.
We have been seeing traffic declines, partially offset by significantly higher conversion.
And our tourist-centric locations have been experiencing a tougher recovery.
Our e-commerce business in North America and Europe was up [Phonetic] 9% for the quarter.
Our wholesale and licensing partners were experiencing similar decreases in demand, resulting in lower sales in these areas in Q2 as well.
Gross margin for the quarter was 36.9%, 2% lower than the prior year.
Our product margin increased 210 basis points this quarter primarily as a result of higher IMU as well as lower promotions.
However, this was more than offset by occupancy deleverage of 410 basis points on lower sales.
Regarding rent, we are still in negotiations with our landlords to appropriately adjust our rental expenses in line with the store closures and declines in traffic.
As a reminder, in general, we suspended rent payments for April, May and June that all rental expenses are accrued until final agreements are in place at which time the adjustments are made.
This quarter, we [Indecipherable] about $8 million in rent credits for fully negotiated rent relief deals, mostly in Europe.
Adjusted SG&A for the quarter was $148 million compared to $218 million in the prior year, a decrease of $70 million.
A little over half of these savings, we would consider one-time.
For example, we received government support in various countries across the globe like employee payroll stipends during closures.
We put in place value reductions that have since been reinstated.
We pulled back hard on advertising.
And we also saved on some variable costs while our stores were closed like distribution and payroll at both the store and corporate level that we are filling back in to support a more normalized business.
The other half we will continue to benefit from on a go-forward basis.
We have decreased corporate headcount as well as travel and professional fees and other discretionary spending.
We have also adjusted how we staff our stores, allowing for significant savings in labor while maintaining the quality of our customer service and our selling culture on the floor.
Right now, for the most part, we have more buyers than lookers relative to what we have historically seen in our stores.
And these lower traffic levels help us optimize our labor spend while still capitalizing on demand.
We have assessed and continue to assess all aspects of our business to reduce redundancies that we have across regions, and are operating in a leaner and more agile model.
Our eye will be on the middle of the P&L as we focus on maintaining a cost structure that makes sense for our organization in our new normal.
Adjusted operating loss for the second quarter was $900,000 versus a profit of $48 million last year.
Our second quarter adjusted tax rate was 156%, up from 28% last year.
As the total Company's adjusted pre-tax earnings is roughly breakeven for the second quarter, the tax rate changes over prior year and from quarter to quarter are more pronounced than in the past due to the mix of tax jurisdictions.
Inventories were $419 million, down 13% in US dollars and 15% in constant currency versus last year.
After paying back $185 million of borrowings on our committed credit facilities, we ended the second quarter with $328 million in cash and had an incremental $236 million in borrowing capacity.
Capital expenditures for the first six months of the year were $10 million, less than one-third of what we spent in the same period of the prior year.
As we have mentioned, we continue to invest in those initiatives that are mission-critical to our business plan like our digital capabilities.
Free cash flow for the first six months of the year was an inflow of $29 million, an increase of $87 million versus an outflow of $59 million last year.
This improvement included the nonrecurring payment of last year's $46 million EU Commission fine as well as the adjustments this year to our payment terms with our vendors and unpaid rent to landlords while we finalize negotiations.
Given the continued level of uncertainty in the current environment, we are not going to provide formal guidance.
However, let me walk you through some of our thoughts on how we're planning sales for the rest of the year.
As discussed, we were encouraged by our initial reopening performance which was stronger than expected.
However, the continued recovery since opening is moving slower than we anticipated and in some cases, like the Americas, deteriorating from reopening level.
Consumers remain cautious about shopping which will most likely not change for the end of the year given the nature of this crisis.
In August, we saw sales productivity at our retail locations of down 29% in the US and Canada, down 13% in Europe and down 33% in Asia.
E-commerce has picked up quite a bit, driven by Europe, and we are tracking up double-digit there.
We see particular risk for the holiday shopping period where social distancing and consumer caution could impact our high in-store volumes during that time.
As Carlos mentioned, we are mitigating this risk by implementing strategies around elongating the holiday season and reducing congestion during peak times, while still capitalizing on the demand.
Our wholesale and licensing businesses pretty much follow our retail business as our partners are experiencing similar headwinds.
As a result, we expect both Q3 and Q4 revenue performance to prior year to be in the negative mid teens range.
We are obviously hopeful that trends in the back half of the year will turn out better than that, but we are planning our business assuming they will not.
We are confident in our products and our marketing strategy and have the flexibility in our inventory to meet the demand should it exceed our expectations.
In closing, the work that has been done by our teams across the business and around the globe over the last few months has been grueling, to say the least.
But it's so rewarding for our team to see the fruits of their labor in our performance.
And we can see it in our clean inventories, our strong liquidity position, our well-managed expenses and the ongoing sales recovery across our segments.
This fuels momentum and teamwork, and we feel that right now at Guess?

user
q2 revenue $399 million versus refinitiv ibes estimate of $384.8 million.
continued to tightly manage costs and inventory position.
not providing detailed guidance for q3 ending october 31, 2020 or full fiscal year ending january 30, 2021.
expect revenues for third and fourth quarters of fiscal 2021 to decrease in mid-teens range.
during q2 of fiscal 2021, continued to experience lower net revenue compared to the same prior-year period.
finished the quarter with a strong balance sheet and ample liquidity.
ended quarter with inventories down 13% compared to last year.
pandemic has had and is continuing to have a material impact on co's financial performance.
well positioned for second half of year.
as of august 1, 2020 approximately 95% of our stores were open.

assistant