Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY)

Q2 2012 Earnings Call

September 19, 2012 5:00 pm ET

Executives

Eugene A. Castagna - Chief Financial Officer, Principal Accounting Officer, Treasurer and President of Buy Buy Baby Inc

Warren Eisenberg - Co-Founder, Co-Chairman and Secretary

Steven H. Temares - Chief Executive Officer and Director

Presentation

Operator

Welcome to Bed Bath & Beyond's Second Quarter of Fiscal 2012 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Today's conference is being recorded. A rebroadcast of the conference call will be available beginning on Wednesday, September 19, 2012, at 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time through 6:30 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday, September 21, 2012. To access the rebroadcast, you may dial 1 (888) 203-1112 with the passcode ID of 6602434.

And at this time, it's my pleasure to turn the conference over to Gene Castagna of Bed Bath & Beyond. Please go ahead.

Eugene A. Castagna

Thank you and good afternoon. Welcome to Bed Bath & Beyond's Second Quarter of fiscal 2012 Conference Call. A short time ago, we issued a press release announcing Bed Bath & Beyond's results for the 3- and 6-month period ended August 25, 2012. During this call, we will comment on some of the second quarter highlights and provide an update of our model through the end of the fiscal year. We will also provide some additional information related to the recent acquisitions of Cost Plus, Inc. and Linen Holdings, LLC.

Before proceeding, I will read the following statement and I quote, "Bed Bath & Beyond's fiscal second quarter press release and comments made during this call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities & Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. Many of these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as may, will, expect, anticipate, approximate, estimate, assume, continue, model, project, plan and similar words and phrases. The company's actual results and future financial condition may differ materially from those expressed in any such forward-looking statements as a result of many factors. Please refer to Bed Bath & Beyond's SEC filings, including its Form 10-K for the year ended February 25, 2012. The company does not undertake any obligation to update its forward-looking statements."

Joining me on today's call are Warren Eisenberg, Co-Chairman of Bed Bath & Beyond; and Steven Temares, Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors.

I'm now very pleased to introduce Warren Eisenberg. Warren?

Warren Eisenberg

Thanks, Gene, and good afternoon. We are pleased to report our company's fiscal second quarter net earnings per diluted share of $0.98, which, after accounting for the World Market and Linen Holdings acquisition, was at the high end of our model. As previously announced, we are excited that during the quarter, we completed the acquisition of both Cost Plus, Inc. and Linen Holdings, LLC. Cost Plus, Inc., which we will refer to as World Market, is a retailer with 258 stores in 30 states at the time of the acquisition, operating under the names of World Market, Cost Plus World Market and World Market Stores that sell a wide range of home decorating items, furniture, gifts, holiday and other seasonal items and specialty food and beverages.

Linen Holdings is a business-to-business distributor of a variety of textile products, amenities and other goods. And we're looking forward to the opportunities provided by these acquisitions to do more for and with our collective customers. In a few minutes, Steve and Gene will provide some additional information regarding these transactions.

In addition to these transactions, other second quarter activities included the opening of 5 Bed Bath & Beyond stores, 3 buybuy BABY stores, 2 Harmon Face Values store and 1 Christmas Tree Shops store. We also continued to relocate and renovate stores throughout the company. At August 25, 2012, consolidated store space, including the 258 World Market Stores, was approximately 41.4 million square feet, an increase of approximately 16.3% over the end of last year's second quarter.

Since the beginning of the fiscal first quarter of 2012, we opened 3 World Market Stores, our first opening since the acquisition was completed, and 1 additional buybuy BABY store. Including these stores, we currently operate 1,453 stores, consisting of 1,000 Bed Bath & Beyond stores in all 50 states the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Canada; 261 World Market Stores; 73 Christmas Tree Shops stores; and 72 buybuy BABY stores and 47 stores under the name Harmon or Harmon Face Values.

During fiscal 2012, including the 22 stores we have opened to date and including several anticipated World Market openings, we have modeled opening approximately 45 stores across all our concepts. We believe that fiscal 2012 mix of store openings by concept, excluding World Market, will be relatively comparable to that of fiscal 2011. As the year progresses, the total number of stores that we will open will be updated as we gain greater visibility.

We believe that throughout the United States and Canada, there is an opportunity to operate in excess of 1,300 Bed Bath & Beyond stores, as well as grow our World Market, Christmas Tree Shops, buybuy BABY concepts from coast to coast. Additionally, we will continue to open Harmon Face Values stores and place health and beauty care offerings in selected stores as well as specialty food and beverage departments in selected Bed Bath & Beyond stores. We remain committed to and are excited about the continued growth of all our merchandise categories.

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