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: Kurt will begin and close the call, and Melinda will speak to the financials midway through.
We'll then open the call to questions.
Although we believe these statements to be reasonable, our actual results could differ materially.
The most significant risk factors that could affect our future results are described in our annual report on Form 10-K.
We encourage you to review those risk factors as well as other key information detailed in our SEC filings.
Following yesterday's close of market, we reported our fiscal 2020 fourth quarter and full year results.
Fiscal '20 was indeed a tale of two cities.
Our performance through the first ten months of the year was one of the best in our Company's history, with strong retail results, great product introductions and supply chain excellence, all translating into solid sales and earnings growth.
However, all of that changed in March when the COVID-19 pandemic and related retail closure forced us to cease production, close our own stores, and wait for the economy to reopen.
Now, given our philosophy of fiscal conservatism, we entered the crisis with a strong balance sheet, which positioned us to successfully move through this uncertain period.
With the health, safety and well-being of our employees, customers and communities our top priority, we responded quickly and rolled out an action plan on March 29th, that included a series of elements essential to ensure La-Z-Boy not only weathers the unprecedented storm, but emerges with strength.
In addition to temporary plant and store closes, our COVID-19 action plan included a temporary furloughing 70% of our workforce, eliminating all non-essential operating expenses, significantly reducing capital expenditures, suspending the June dividend and share repurchase program, and temporarily reducing pay by 50% for senior management and 25% for all other salaried employees, with our Board of Directors foregoing the cash portion of their compensation.
We also proactively drew down $75 million on our credit facility to ensure liquidity through this period.
As we continue to analyze and prepare for success in the new economic landscape earlier this month, we took some additional actions to strengthen and align La-Z-Boy to the new external environment.
While we were pleased to have brought back some 6,000 furloughed workers, we made the decision to permanently close our Newton, Mississippi La-Z-Boy branded manufacturing facility and reduce our global workforce by approximately 10%.
All of these actions impacted our various stakeholders and everyone throughout the La-Z-Boy organization was affected in some way.
To level set where we are today, we started calendar 2020 with 9,800 employees, and during the worst of the pandemic, temporarily furloughed about 6,800.
In the end about 10% became permanent reductions.
We deeply regret the impact to those employees, but our decisions are in the long-term best interest of the Company.
However, as we now move forward, our manufacturing facilities and Company-owned stores are open.
The vast majority of our workforce will be back to work by the beginning of July and our employees are back to full pay without -- with the exception of the executive officers and Board members.
On the manufacturing side, for the La-Z-Boy branded business, we have been ramping up production weekly.
When we restarted our plans from a complete shutdown, we ramped up to about 50% in May versus May of 2019.
And as we head into July, we expect to be operating at 80% of year ago volumes.
I'm so proud of how our team rapidly geared up once we restarted production to meet the demand we are experiencing.
With no notice, we announced difficult furloughs for a broad population.
And when we restarted operations and brought people back, they returned with enthusiasm and hit the ground running, without missing a beat.
We have an amazing workforce that has my admiration.
I'd also like to say how proud I am of the work we did throughout the pandemic to provide support to many organizations including manufacturing and donating hundreds of thousands of masks for health-care workers and tens and thousands for our suppliers.
They certainly are our true heroes.
Balancing the two very different chapters of the year, the Company turned in solid financial performance.
We closed fiscal 2020 with $1.7 billion in sales, generated $164 million in cash from operations and returned $68 million to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases.
Now turning to the results of the fourth quarter.
As noted earlier, the Company performed very well through February.
However, the shutdown of North America [Technical Issues] COVID-19 has a significant impact on our results for the fourth quarter, with many retailers across the country closed for the last four weeks of the period and for even longer during the quarter as well as our manufacturing operations closed for the last four weeks of our year.
To provide some perspective, with respect to one component of our distribution, for the entire La-Z-Boy Furniture Gallery network, written same-store sales increased 10.5% in the third quarter and increased 20% in the month of February, only to drop 44% in March, and 90% in April, in concert with the pandemic.
As a result, for the quarter, we experienced a 19% decline in consolidated Company sales to $367 million and the GAAP operating income for the period was $13 million and non-GAAP operating income was $34 million.
Even with this dramatic impact, for the quarter, we were still able to generate $44 million in cash and returned $14 million to shareholders through dividends paid and share purchases made prior to the shutdown.
Looking at our business by segment, we will start with retail, which has become a core competency for the organization, and is greatly contributing to the value of the La-Z-Boy enterprise.
Throughout the year, prior to COVID, the team executed at a very high level with increased conversion, and design sales with improved engagement with our consumers.
For the quarter, on an 8% sales decline to $140 million, the segment posted a double-digit operating margin driven primarily by prior period written sales delivered during the quarter and lower operating expenses related to the Company's COVID-19 action plan.
Let me give you some more context.
For the first three quarters of fiscal 2020, written sales for our Company-owned stores were up 8.1%.
For that same period, delivered same-store sales were up 3.6% with both metrics, written and delivered, driven by improved traffic trends, conversion and strong execution at the store level.
After an extremely strong February start, which delivered same-store sales for the Company-owned stores with -- delivered same-store sales for the Company-owned stores, increasing 15%, they were only up 2% in March and declined 52% in April, culminating in a fourth quarter delivered same-store sales decrease of 10%.
As the majority of the stores were closed in the last four weeks of the quarter, as state and local restrictions limited our ability to deliver product.
However, many are working on reduced schedule in terms of hours open, and number of employees depending on traffic.
We have implemented a series of health and safety procedures to keep our employees and consumers safe.
It is essential for our customers to feel comfortable in our store environment, and we are also offering private shopping appointments outside of regular store hours if they prefer to shop that way.
As stores reopen, we manage our spend on marketing and overhead in more short-term iterations remaining very nimble as we anticipate what would happen each week.
In the meantime, our teams are rapidly adapting to improve e-commerce sales through the shutdown and executed a virtual design program.
Now for the broader store network, includes both Company-owned and dealer-owned stores, written same-store sales for the 354 La-Z-Boy Furniture Gallery stores in North America decreased 35% in the fourth quarter.
As we noted, even with a 20% increase for the month of February, it was hard to overcome the effect of store closures throughout the period with many stores closed for a part of March and the majority of stores closed in April as per local guidelines, driving written sales, same-store sales down in March and April 44% and 90% respectively.
The challenging fourth quarter impacted the full '20 year with written same-store sales down 3.6% even after a 6.4% increase for the first three quarters of the year.
The La-Z-Boy Furniture Gallery store system is the cornerstone of our distribution, and we along with our dealer base are committed to investing in the stores to keep them updated and appealing to the consumer.
We ended the year with 354 stores including one net new and 166 in the new concept design.
Presuming business trends continue to improve, we anticipate adding four net new stores over the course of fiscal 2021 bringing our total store count to 358.
Now, onto our wholesale business.
In the upholstery segment on sales -- on a sales decline of 22% to $253 million, non-GAAP operating margin increased to 11.8%.
Margins benefited from a one-time $16 million rebate of previously paid tariffs and favorable commodity costs, mostly offset by higher bad debt expense due to the Art Van furniture bankruptcy and the provision for potential credit losses in the COVID-19 environment in SG&A.
Also, our SG&A dollar spent for the period were lower due to COVID-19 action plan, but higher as a percentage of sales due to decline in volume related to the pandemic.
Throughout this period we have right-sized our marketing investment to balance fiscal responsibility with regaining sales volume in what appears to be increased interest in living room furniture as consumers spend more time at home and shift discretionary dollars to furniture.
During uncertain and challenging times, consumers tend to return to brands they know and trust, and we are building on that momentum -- on the momentum of our Live Life Comfortably campaign featuring brand ambassador Kristen Bell who continues to be a highly effective spokesperson for us.
Before turning to Casegoods, I'd like to take a moment and talk about la-z-boy.com.
As discussed in the past, our core consumer has consistently demonstrated a preference to shop-in-store.
Without that ability during the pandemic, we did see an uptick in traffic and an increase in sale on www.
la-z-boy.com and are happy to provide consumers this option as part of our omni channel offering.
During the year, we strengthened our digital presence and consumer experience, introducing a number of innovations that further simplify browsing, researching and purchasing, including various selling tools that allow consumers to view products in their own home virtually.
Such innovations facilitate easier virtual engagement and were particularly helpful while all the stores were closed.
Going to our Casegoods segment, with a 20% decline in sales, our non-GAAP operating margin decreased to 1.9% primarily reflecting the impact of COVID-19, and related temporary manufacturing facility and retail closures and an increase in bad debt expense given the current economic environment.
Although the segment faced a number of headwinds throughout fiscal 2020, we are better positioned now with more occasional tables sourced from countries other than China, freight rates starting to ease, and a series of new product introductions that have been well received.
However, we do expect some disruption to continue in the import, supply chain over the next several months as suppliers come back online following the COVID-19 shutdowns in Asia.
I'll now spend a few moments on Joybird.
For the quarter, Joybird's sales reported in Corporate and Other declined 30% to $15.4 million as the business posted a larger operating loss than the prior year period.
Operating performance impacted in the quarter by the temporary closure of the Joybird manufacturing facility, and our inability to deliver product to consumers due to the state and local restrictions related to the pandemic.
On a more positive note, Joybird's written sales for the quarter were very strong and a higher order rate for the first -- for first time visitors to the site.
With their Mexico-based manufacturing facility reopening in phases throughout May, and working its way up to pre-risk production levels in June, Joybird will have a longer tail for deliveries versus the La-Z-Boy branded business, and expects to deliver these written orders at the end of the first quarter and some into the second quarter.
We are continuing to make improvements across the Joybird business model with the objective to balance investments and growth, with bottom line performance and expect to Joybird to deliver value to the La-Z-Boy enterprise over the long term.
As always, let me remind you that we present our results in both the GAAP and non-GAAP basis.
In addition to these items, also excluded from our non-GAAP reporting for the full year and discussed in previous quarters are, pre-tax charges from purchase accounting adjustments from the first three quarters of the year, a non-cash impairment charge for an investment in a privately held start-up Company, a net benefit related to our supply chain optimization initiative, and the benefit related to the prior year termination of the Company's defined benefit pension plan.
Fiscal 2019 non-GAAP results for the fourth -- full year and fourth quarter, exclude a charge for the termination of the Company's defined benefit pension plan, and purchase accounting charges.
My comments from here will focus on our non-GAAP reporting.
On a consolidated basis, fourth quarter sales declined 19% to $367 million in fiscal '20, Q4 versus the prior-year period, reflecting two months of dramatic, temporary impacts from the COVID pandemic.
Consolidated non-GAAP operating income was $34 million versus $39 million in last year's quarter and consolidated non-GAAP operating margin was 9.3% versus 8.6% reflecting increases in the upholstery and retail segments, offset by a decline in Casegoods margins.
Results for the quarter include a 440 basis point benefit related to a rebate of previously paid Chinese tariffs, almost entirely offset by higher bad debt expense.
Fiscal 2019 fourth quarter results include a 40 basis point charge related to changes in employee benefit policies.
Non-GAAP earnings per share was $0.49 per diluted share in the current quarter versus $0.64 in last year's fourth quarter.
Moving on to full year results for fiscal 2020, sales decreased 2.4% to $1.7 billion, again reflecting strong performance through February and two months of impact from COVID-19.
Consolidated non-GAAP operating income increased to $139 million from $137 million in fiscal 2019, and consolidated non-GAAP operating margin was 8.2% versus 7.8% in the prior year, with results reflecting improvement in our upholstery and retail segments.
Diluted non-GAAP earnings per share for fiscal 2020 were $2.16 versus $2.14 in fiscal 2019.
Consolidated gross margin for the full fiscal year increased 230 basis points.
Improved gross margin was driven by rebates on previously paid duties which provided a 100 basis point increase to gross margin and changes on our consolidated business mix due to growth in our retail segment and the contribution from Joybird, both of which carry a higher gross margin than our wholesale businesses, which accounted for 90 basis point increase.
We also benefited from lower raw material costs in the upholstery segment with most of that offset by the temporary shutdown in our manufacturing facilities in Q4 due to COVID-19, and inflationary pressures in the broader supply chain.
Moving on to SG&A for the full fiscal, on lower sales volume for the year, SG&A as a percent of sales increased 190 basis points.
Changes in our consolidated mix with Retail and Joybird composing a higher percentage of our business increased SG&A as a percent of sales by 130 basis points for the year.
Bad debt expense drove an 80 basis point increase on the year, primarily due to the Art Van bankruptcy as well as a provision for credit losses given the current economic environment.
In fiscal 2019, we recognized a one-time $3.8 million benefit due to changes in employee vacation policies, the absence of which resulted in a comparative 20 basis point increase in SG&A as a percent of sales for fiscal 2020.
Partially offsetting these increases was a 90 basis point decrease in SG&A as a percent of sales related to lower incentive compensation costs as we fell short of our targets due to the impact of COVID-19.
On a GAAP basis, our effective tax rate for fiscal 2020 was 31.4% versus 26.4% last year.
Impacting this year's effective tax rate was a net tax expense of $4 million primarily from the tax effect of the non-deductible goodwill impairment charge related to Joybird, and tax expense of $1.3 million from deferred tax attributable to undistributed foreign earnings no longer permanently reinvested.
Absent discrete adjustments, the effective tax rate in fiscal 2020 would have been 26.4%.
Our effective tax rate varies from the 21% federal statutory rate, primarily due to state taxes and for fiscal '21 absent discrete items, we continue to estimate our effective tax rate on a GAAP basis, will be in the range of 25% to 26%.
Turning to cash, we generated $164 million in cash from operating activities in fiscal 2020.
We ended the year with $264 million in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash, including $75 million proactively drawn on the Company's credit facility to enhance liquidity in response to COVID-19, as well as $29 million in investments to enhance returns on cash.
This compares with the $132 million in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash and $31 million in investments to enhance returns on cash at the end of fiscal 2019.
During the year, we invested $46 million in capital, primarily related to machinery and equipment upgrades to our Dayton manufacturing facility, and investments in our retail stores.
Over the fiscal year, we also paid $25 million in dividends and spent $43 million purchasing 1.4 million shares of stock in the open market under our existing authorized share repurchase program, which leaves 4.5 million shares in purchase availability under that authorization.
Our longer-term capital allocation priorities remain to invest in the business to drive growth, and then provide returns to shareholders with our dividends and discretionary share buyback.
However, as part of our COVID-19 action plan, in an effort to preserve cash in the near term and provide for a financial flexibility, we eliminated our expected June dividend and temporarily suspended our share buyback program.
As the Company's performance continues to recover, we will look to return value to our shareholders through dividends and share buybacks, once we have evaluated the business recovery for a meaningful period.
We expect capital expenditures for fiscal '21 to be in the range of $25 million to $40 million, largely dependent on economic conditions and business recovery.
Our spending for the year will prioritize essential maintenance, projects already under way including plant upgrades to our upholstery manufacturing and distribution facilities, technology upgrades, improvements to several retail stores, and other projects as business conditions permit.
And we anticipate one time pre-tax charges of $5 million to $7 million or $0.08 per share to $0.11 per share related to our recently announced closure of the Newton assembly plant and the 10% reduction of our global workforce.
The majority of which will be realized in the first quarter.
Moving forward, savings realized from these closures will be reinvested to drive business recovery.
And finally, I'd like to spend a moment to address the ongoing impact of COVID-19 on our business.
Indeed, there was a dramatic hit to our fiscal 2020 fourth quarter due to plant and retail closures, which we have addressed in detail.
But importantly, there is a continued tail to the retail and manufacturing shutdowns, which will impact, at least, our first quarter, which is already our seasonally slowest period for sales and earnings.
As all of the written sales we didn't have in March and April and even early May during the shutdown, resulting no deliveries and no related revenue recognition for May and June.
And then, a dip in cash until those receivables are collected even later in the summer.
Although we incur expenses to reopen and ramp up.
Even with the positive recovery trends, results for at least Q1 will be extremely challenged.
The good news is that stores are open and plants are up and running, while we're cautiously optimistic, we will need to remain as agile as possible to manage through this near-term period.
More broadly speaking, I would note that no trend should be drawn from our fiscal 2020 fourth quarter margin performance, given the many dramatic and unique impacts of COVID-19 shutdown.
While our plants are ramping up production on a weekly basis, we still have not reached prior-year volume levels or even critical sales levels to support our historically strong margins.
Only time will tell if what we are seeing in terms of volume increases is solely pent-up demand, the impact of federal stimulus money or longer term sector rotation with discretionary spending moving from travel and leisure to home and furnishing.
All may be playing a role in the bounce back of the home furnishings industry that we are experiencing.
Whether that demand is sustainable and what the new normal will be are still questions.
Thus, we continue to balance meeting customer demand for our product with financial prudence.
While most retailers now are open, thus far, we are pleased with consumer traction.
However as Melinda alluded [Phonetic] to, there is some uncertainty with respect to future trends and it will be a while before we have a better idea of the continuing, ongoing run rate.
That said, with solid positioning in the marketplace through our well-known and trusted brand, our vast distribution network, including the vibrant La-Z-Boy Furniture Gallery stores system, world class supply chain and a strong balance sheet, I have every confidence we will emerge with strength and have the potential for additional market share gains, as demand environment improves.
In my more than 40 years at La-Z-Boy, I have seen the Company manage its way through many crisis, but never seen an event the magnitude of COVID-19 where we were in a no revenue environment for an extended period of time.
Now that made our path forward complex and even unpredictable.
We are now focused on ramping up the business, and importantly, we will take as much from this experience as possible to further strengthen La-Z-Boy and make it more competitive.
And I am confident we will emerge as a stronger, wiser and more resilient Company and will provide long-term value and returns to our many stakeholders.
Steve led the Casegoods Group through a comprehensive transition from a domestic manufacturer to an import model as the wood industry primarily moved offshore.
He was a gentleman's gentleman, was highly respected within the industry, a man of great integrity and a friend of all.
He truly cared about every single employee at every level at Kincaid, and was a great leader.
He will be sorely missed by many of us.
We will begin the question-and-answer period now.
Kristie, please read the instructions for getting into the queue to ask questions.

user
q4 non-gaap earnings per share $0.49.
la-z-boy - have called back some 6,000 furloughed workers, who have returned or will return to work by july 1.
la-z-boy - permanently closed newton, mississippi manufacturing facility, reduced global workforce by about 10%.
la-z-boy - written same-store sales for la-z-boy furniture galleries network decreased 35% in q4.

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