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Text: Before providing you with an update on our response to COVID-19 and our first quarter financial and operating results, I'm going to spend a few minutes on recent events.
What has happened across the country over the last few weeks has brought into sharp focus that we as a country are still falling well short of our national aspiration of racial equality and equal economic opportunity for all.
It is time for us all to listen, learn, and act.
We can feel heartbroken, fearful or uncomfortable, but we must get busy and take action to change things for the future.
With this in mind, Oxford is making a $1 million commitment of additional support over the next four years to help our local communities address economic and racial inequality through education.
Every child regardless of race or economic circumstance deserves the chance to learn and be successful.
The likelihood of success increases exponentially when a child has access to a quality education.
All too frequently, particularly in economically disadvantaged communities and communities of color that access does not exist.
Our commitment builds on Oxford's long history of supporting education programs that improve access to quality education for economically disadvantaged use and predominantly African-American communities.
Now let's talk about what's going on in our business.
It goes without saying that this year is a very unusual year.
In any other year, our key objective is always delivering the sustained profitable growth that drives long-term shareholder value.
With the shutdown of the economy in response to the COVID pandemic, this is a year that given the nature of our business makes it almost impossible for us to achieve this objective.
That said, we believe this situation is temporary and that by focusing on our people, our brands and our liquidity, we will emerge from this year positioned well to thrive in the new and very different post-COVID marketplace.
With respect to these three objectives, people, brands and liquidity, I am very pleased with what we have accomplished since March and the track we're on for the rest of the year.
With respect to people the COVID pandemic and the resulting shutdown have been incredibly disruptive for people at both personal and professional level.
To navigate through this difficult situation, we have had to take a number of painful but necessary actions that have added to the disruption in people's lives.
These have included layoffs, furloughs, pay reductions and other actions, including work from home that have added to the challenges that people face.
We do not take these actions lightly at all, and I am deeply appreciative of how our teams have rallied.
Their commitment, resourcefulness and focus has far exceeded what I could have possibly hoped for.
As we are beginning to emerge from this shutdown or in the early stages of recovery, I believe our team is stronger than ever and better suited to take on the new challenges facing our industry.
Secondly, with our bricks-and-mortar operations substantially shut down for several months and only now slowly beginning to reopen, we have done a terrific job of protecting and preserving the integrity of our brands and our relationship with our customers to ensure we remain in a strong position for the post-COVID consumer marketplace.
We took actions to help us mitigate an over-inventoried position which would undoubtedly require us to engage in the heavy discounting and promotional activity that could damage the integrity of our brands.
We reduced and canceled existing orders, we reduced the amount of our previously planned forward orders, and we delayed and remerchandised inventory that was already in the pipeline.
Through our digital marketing and e-commerce capabilities, we have also done a great job of keeping our customers engaged with our brands in ways that are relevant during this unusual time.
The key takeaway is that some of the most effective messages were those where we really leaned into our brands and their messages of optimism in the happiness.
Customers really look to our brands as an escape from some of the realities of living in a quarantined, work from home, home-schooled world.
Reemergence from the shutdown has also accelerated our efforts to become truly omni-channel.
We believe that all of these actions put our brands in great shape for the future of the lives ahead.
Finally, and very importantly, we have managed our cash outflows very carefully and as a result have reserved a strong liquidity we had going into the shutdown.
We are confident that we will finish the year with more than adequate liquidity to grow and thrive going forward.
Some of the key steps that we've taken have included painful but necessary reductions in employment expense, including the elimination of cash bonuses and reductions in executive and other employee salaries, reducing the forward inventory commitments, slowing down capital expenditures, negotiating equitable rent arrangements with our landlords and a reduction to our dividend and the Board of Directors' cash compensation.
Many of these actions are ongoing, including our discussions with landlords as we work to resolve the current situation.
To reiterate, our key focus this year is making sure our people, brands and liquidity are in an excellent position for the post shutdown consumer marketplace.
I'm very proud of what we've accomplished and believe we are on the right track toward achieving these critical objectives over the remainder of the year.
Our first quarter of 2020 began strongly.
In February, we were very excited to open two new Tommy Bahama Marlin Bars both in the Fort Lauderdale area.
Our retail and e-commerce businesses were posting positive comps, and we were on track to add to our multi-year positive comp trend.
As we approach mid-March, the spread of COVID-19 started to accelerate and began impacting the retail marketplace.
From March 17, to protect the health of our employees and customers, we temporarily closed all of our North American stores and restaurants.
Our corporate offices successfully adopted work from home strategies and with appropriate safety measures in place, we have been able to keep all of our distribution centers open.
The impact to Oxford from the COVID-19 crisis is exacerbated by the seasonality of our business.
Our Tommy Bahama Lilly Pulitzer and Southern Tide brands are oriented primarily to spring-summer with March through June being four of our strongest months of the year.
Our stores and restaurants, which make up 47% of our overall sales in 2019 just began to reopen in early May, and we expect to have almost all of our locations open by the end of June.
As our stores open, however, they are operating with many restrictions in place and consumer traffic that is rebuilding slowly.
The stores that are open are operating at about half prior-year levels on average, with significant regional variations.
But we don't expect revenue from stores to reach prior year levels at anytime during 2020.
We do anticipate steady improvement as restrictions ease and consumers' comfort level increases around travel and shopping.
Turning to our wholesale channel.
It appears that the pandemic is likely to accelerate the closure of a number of department and specialty stores.
Over the last several years, we have very carefully managed our exposure to these accounts as it become increasingly difficult to find partners with whom we can maintain a mutually beneficial business.
In 2019, wholesale sales at Tommy Bahama decreased to 20% of revenue, and at Lilly Pulitzer 21% of revenue.
Most of our wholesale partners have excess inventory and we believe it will take them a while to work through what they have on hand, but we believe the demand for new product will be soft in 2020 and therefore we expect wholesale revenue to be significantly lower than 2019.
Throughout this challenging period, we were able to successfully use our digital platforms to stay connected with our customers.
E-commerce, which was 23% of our revenue in 2019 grew by 12% in the first quarter and the positive momentum has continued into the second quarter as we reap the benefits of the long-term investments we have made in digital and e-commerce, such as upgrades and redesigns of websites, enhanced search engine optimization and new enterprise order management systems.
In the first quarter, adjusted gross margins declined 220 basis points due to higher inventory markdowns and a modest increase in promotional activities.
We expect to continue to experience pressure on gross margin, as we expect to be modestly more promotional throughout the rest of the year.
We have made significant strides in reducing expenses in the first quarter with the reductions across most spending categories, reducing SG&A by $17 million compared to last year.
Employment costs were reduced by $11 million in the first quarter as we made the difficult decisions affected our employees.
We furloughed substantially all of our retail and restaurant employees, eliminate positions throughout the organization, reduced salaries for certain employees, and we suspended our bonus and 401(k) match programs.
We expect SG&A to be lower year-over-year, with the largest percentage decrease in the second quarter.
Then as we expect all locations to be open for the full third and fourth quarters, the year-over-year percentage decreases in SG&A are expected to narrow.
Managing inventory is a critical component of ensuring the health of our brands, and we have taken meaningful actions to reduce and defer our inventory orders, with approximately a 25% reduction in forward orders.
By repurposing some of Tommy Bahama spring-summer collection, we've taken about $25 million of inventory, moved it out to Tommy Bahama's resort line in December, and we have been working with our vendors to extend payment terms.
We are pleased with our efforts and inventory at quarter end increased only 8% despite the significant sales decline.
While it's incredibly difficult to project results in this uncertain environment, I want to add some color on how we currently view the remainder of the year.
The timing of the COVID-19 pandemic created significant headwinds to our top line and similar to the first quarter, we expect a significant year-over-year decrease in second quarter sales.
However, in the second quarter, we expect a larger percentage year-over-year decrease in SG&A, resulting in a smaller loss than in the first quarter.
The third quarter is always a difficult quarter due to seasonality, and we expect it to be even more difficult this year.
Right now, we are projecting the fourth quarter to be modestly profitable with some recovery in our direct-to-consumer channel, but sales will still be below last year.
As Tom mentioned, preserving a high level liquidity is essential during these uncertain times.
We have ample liquidity to meet our ongoing cash requirements, reflecting the strength of our balance sheet entering the pandemic, as well as the recent actions we have taken to mitigate the COVID-19 impact.
During March 2020, as a proactive measure to oyster cash, and we drew down $200 million of our $325 million asset base revolving credit facility.
At the end of the first quarter, we had $208 million of borrowings outstanding, an additional $114 million of unused availability and $182 million of cash and cash equivalents.
Our cash flow from operations used $46 million in the first quarter compared to a use of $6 million in the prior year period.
As we ended the second quarter, our cash burn rate has decreased and we expect it to continue at lower levels throughout the remainder of fiscal 2020.
In the first quarter of fiscal 2020, net sales in each of our operating groups decreased from prior periods, resulting in significant lower operating results, including operating losses in each group other than Lilly Pulitzer.
As a result this triggered first quarter goodwill and indefinite lot intangible asset impairment assessments in accordance with our accounting policies.
Our assessments included at the fair values of the Southern Tide goodwill indefinite-lived intangible assets as of May 2, 2020 did not exceed their respective carrying values, resulting in a $60 million non-cash impairment charge.
Last quarter, the Board of Directors reduced our quarterly dividend from $0.37 per share to $0.25 per share.
The Board has determined that it's appropriate to keep the dividend payable on July 31 at $0.25 per share.
The Board has also elected to reduce its cash compensation by 50% for the remainder of the fiscal year.
We appreciate your support.
Please stay safe during these challenging times.

user
oxford industries - q1 e-commerce sales grew 12% over q1 last year & positive momentum has continued into q2.
oxford industries - expect to have almost all locations open by end of june.
oxford industries - confident it has ample liquidity to satisfy ongoing cash requirements in fiscal 2020 & for foreseeable future.
qtrly inventory increased 8% to $169 million compared to $157 million in prior year period.
oxford industries - not providing financial outlook for fiscal 2020.

assistant