El Pollo’s (LOCO) CEO Steve Sather on Q3 2015 Results
We’ve seen reduced visits from some of our more price conscious consumers
“it was reduced the visits from some of our more price conscious consumers.”
It’s going to take some time for consumers to come back in and see these value initiatives
“I think it’s going to take some time to as consumers come in and see these value initiatives that are on the menu now as well as the service improvements that we’re making. And I think that’s just going to take more time to bring those consumers back. Let them experience that both on the price side and the service side and regain those customers.”
We’re fortunate that minimum wage headwind is being offset by lower commodity prices
“In terms of then managing pricing versus margins, I’m not ready to get into a full discussion about 2016 margins. One thing I will highlight is obviously we do have a minimum wage impact. Fortunate thing is on the commodity side, as we highlighted it worked 3% to 4% deflation, which were actually offset the minimum wage impact on our business”
Value conscious consumer is trading down
“when we did the research what we found is that we saw that the fact — the frequency has declined in our business, especially among we call more value conscious consumers. And we ask them where do you go instead of El Pollo Loco, it was pretty clear where they’re going, which was down to the lower end called the Taco Bells, In-N-Out Burgers and McDonalds.”
Burberry Group’s (BURBY) CEO Christopher Bailey on Q2 2015 Results
Impacted by weaker Chinese Consumer
“given the importance of the Chinese consumer to the luxury sector, our retail sales were affected by a slowdown in total Chinese spending. This reflected weakening consumer sentiment following the stock market turbulence and economic uncertainty over this summer.”
The US slowed markedly in the second quarter
“the U.S. slowed markedly in the second quarter. This reflected uneven demand from both the domestic and tourist consumer. The drivers here remain hard to read against a backdrop of a generally positive economic picture. However, we believe recent stock market volatility may have influenced local sentiment, and that the strong dollar discouraged tourist spend.”
The fundamentals of the luxury industry are changing. Growth is slowing
“current macroeconomic uncertainty, notwithstanding, there is no doubt that the fundamentals of the luxury industry are changing. Growth in Chinese luxury spending is moderating, competition in digital is intensifying, pricing leverage and space growth are tempering and customer behavior is rapidly evolving. For these reasons and more, sector growth is now forecast at just 1% to 2% in 2015 compared with 7% just a couple of years ago.”
Xinyuan Real Estate (XIN) Q3 2015 Results
Xinyuan Real Estate says that Chinese government policies continue to favorably impact business
“With respect to our operational effort on the government policies to continue to favorably impact our business. In the fourth quarter, we remain committed to driving performance of our shareholders with our quarterly cash dividend program. We will execute our sales purchase program as appropriate based on valuation.”
Bancolombia (CIB) Q3 2015 Results
Saw a significant depreciation of the Colombian peso against the US dollar
“During this period, we saw a significant depreciation of the Colombian peso against the U.S. dollar, which caused Bancolombia balance sheet to grow faster when presented in pesos. Let’s remember that the depreciation on an annual basis, it is 53%; and in a quarterly basis, it is 19%.”
Minimal impact though because operations are dollarized
“Nevertheless, despite every expression of assets and abilities into Colombian pesos, the impact in shareholders’ tangible equity is very small. This is due to the fact that all of our operations in Central America are dollarized and the assets that we have in U.S. dollars in Colombia are funded with liabilities in U.S. dollars as well.”
NIM was impacted by a raise in rates by the central bank
“A third topic that drove, and is driving the business environment today is of the monetary policy in Colombia. The Central Bank increased rates by 75 basis points over the last couple of months, which currently proceeds at a level of 5.25%. These increase coupled with our lower growth in deposits in the Colombian system and the higher stock of long-term debt caused the cost of funds to increase during the third quarter. As a result, we experienced a compression in the net interest margin during the quarter.”
Cresud’s (CRESY) CEO Alejandro Elsztain on Q1 2016 Results
Low commodity prices affecting our portfolios
“The low commodity prices are affecting all of our portfolio in all the region and there was a big drop that we saw on the prices mainly on the corn and soybean is effecting margins in all region too. ”
Good weather conditions for crops
“we can see how good weather condition in the region allows a positive start during this planting moment. Rainfall for this summer is above average as we’re going through a New Year. As we can see in the map Argentina presents good weather conditions in general particularly good in the Northeast of the country. In Brazil, even though the rainy season got delayed, the rains went back to the average levels along the normal soybean and corn productions.”
Copa Holdings SA (CPA) Pedro Heilbron on Q3 2015 Results
Latin America continues to be affected by slower economic growth
“Financial results for the quarter were in line with expectations, as Latin America continues to be affected by slower economic growth and weaker currencies. We expect the situation to continue in the short to medium term.”
We expect things to stabilize next year, but not expecting dramatic improvement
“we’re not building into our guidance an economic – an improvement in the economics of our region, we are expecting currencies to be stable, to stabilize, but we’re not building in a dramatic improvement to the economies.”
The Coca-Cola’s (KO) Management Discusses on Morgan Stanley Global Consumer & Retail
Sandy Douglas – President-Coca-Cola North America
Now expecting 4 point worse headwind from FX than expected on 3Q call
“Since our third quarter earnings call, the U.S. dollar has continued to strengthen. So while our business results are on track, we now expect a greater headwind from currency. After considering our hedge positions, current spot rates, and the cycling of our prior year rate, we now expect a seven point headwinds on net revenue and 11 point headwind on income before taxes for the quarter. Now, this is a four percentage point worse than the guidance that we provided.”
Consumers are moving to smaller packages which is higher revenue per volume
“The consumer is now changing. The consumer is moving to smaller packages. A 12-ounce can traded to a 7-ounce can is a 30% reduction in volume, but it’s an increase in revenue.”
TJX Companies’ (TJX) CEO Carol Meyrowitz on Q3 2016 Results
Carol Meyrowitz – Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
We like competition
“there is always competition and our job is to be outrageous value every day and have a very unique eclectic mix and that’s what we strive for. We don’t harp on we move forward, we don’t harp on the competition, we like competition, we like when we are next two, I won’t name certain stores, but we’re fine with it, it brings traffic and our job is to do a better job.”
JPMorgan Chase’s (JPM) Management Presents at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Daniel Pinto – Chief Executive Officer, Corporate and Investment Bank
IN fixed income trading you need to have scale and diversification
“when I look at the fixed income business, I think that, in my view the key of success in fixed income is scale. It’s a relatively expensive business to run and if you have scale, you can make it profitable. The other component that is important to me is to have diversification because when you look at what has happened for the last couple of years, two, three years, one of the challenges in business was the rate business. This year is doing very well. So credit has done very well in the last few years even though the climate this year has a bit more challenge than before.”
I do believe the Fed will move in December
“I do believe that the Fed will move in December. I think that, as you look at where the market is pricing today, is probably pricing 75% probability of that were to happen. So I think that the impact in trading will be not very relevant at all. I think that the Fed is starting to cycle.”
M&A is still healthy. Companies have to show growth somehow
“The M&A process is still very healthy and will continue to be so in the sense that companies will – the S&P earnings growth this year is zero when you look at the evaluation. So you would argue that companies need to demonstrate some growth. At this level of growth, in the United States for the economy, there will have to be a bit more inorganic than organic, so therefore the M&A will continue as long as funding and capital is available. I think that funding and capital is available. I think that the risk appetite overall has dropped recently.”
Walgreens Boots Alliance’s (WBA) Management Presents at Morgan Stanley Global Consumer & Retail Brokers Conference
George Fairweather – Chief Financial Officer
This whole industry is going to see reimbursement pressure
“I think specialty like other parts of market will continue to come under reimbursement pressures. I don’t think there is any part of the market that’s going to escape. And this is just the way of – the way of our industry. The healthcare expenditure here in the United States is still a high proportion of GDP versus perhaps what you might see in Europe where I come from. And I believe that what we are going to see in our market is continued pressure on growth in healthcare expenditure. We will see pressures in various reimbursements and then what we have got to do is continue to drive efficiency, drive the front-end profitability.”
Micron Technology Presents at UBS Global Technology Brokers Conference
Ernie Maddock – Chief Financial Officer and Vice President, Finance
It would be pretty silly for the Chinese to try to compete in DRAM
“I would tell you that if you aren’t in the DRAM space, it’s kind of tough to imagine finding that a particularly appealing space to want to deploy a lot of capital and a lot of effort in and certainly as has been released in the press over the last couple of days, I think there’s been some commentary made about at least one particular Chinese entity having not being interested in DRAM per se. But it’s a business that is quite mature. It’s hard to envision that capacity expansion will be required based upon what we know of bit growth and where we think folks would be on the technology curve. And I think whether your perspective is that DRAM technology is very near the end of its technical capability or not quite to near the end. I think there is at least some amount of finite lifetime that certainly [indiscernible] if I were thinking about a rational economic investment in an industry, it wouldn’t be one that is in this state of maturity, because I think the opportunities for success there would be pretty low.”
Still in the very early stages of understanding the potential of 3D X Point
“because it is arguably the first new memory technology in 20 years, we’re having to learn how that market is going to develop. And of course, there is a relationship between how quickly the market develops, how quickly output ramps up and what happens to cost as a result of that. So there are still a lot of variables at pay that are quite different than the visibility, the understanding and comprehension we have of the NAND business or the DRAM business. So we are at the very early stages of learning here”
E-House’s (EJ) CEO Xin Zhou on Q3 2015 Results
Next year’s real estate market wont be much different from this year’s in China
“Overall, we don’t think next year’s real estate market will be very different from this year’s. The main theme is still efforts encouraged by the government to reduce inventory, reduce the overall level of inventory. And we continue to believe the Tier 1 and Tier 2 market overall will be healthier relative to the Tier 3 and Tier 4 business, which will continue to experience difficulties.”
Staples’ (SPLS) CEO Ron Sargent on Q3 2015 Results
Ron Sargent – Chairman and CEO
Markets softened across all categories early in the quarter
“Early in the quarter, the markets softened across all categories relative to the trends we had seen during the first half of 2015. We also saw deceleration in our contract print business as we cycled a couple of large customer wins from last year and continue to feel pressure from the ongoing digitization of our forms business.”
I don’t know if there’s been a lot of change in corporate spending behavior
“from my perspective, I don’t know if there’s been a lot of change or differences in corporate spending behavior. I know in general, technology has been weak and we have had great success in selling products beyond office supplies.”
Office supplies down to only 45% of sales mix
“You look at the total company mix, gosh, it wasn’t that long ago, we were probably 75% to 80% office supplies and today I think that number for the whole company is probably about 55% office supplies and 45% BOS or beyond office supplies, and obviously, as BOS continues to grow, at some time point those lines will cross and will be more non-office supplies than we are office supplies.”
Macy’s Management Presents at Morgan Stanley Global Consumer and Retail Broker Conference
Karen Hoguet – Chief Financial Officer
Clearly the consumer isn’t doing as badly as our industry
“clearly the consumer isn’t doing as badly as what my industry, our industry is doing, because of some of the shifting in spending patterns of the customer. But that didn’t change between Q2 and Q3.”
Top malls are still going to be fabulous shopping experiences
“one of the thought from the industry that I hear most often is what is the future of malls? And we kept hearing ourselves saying, we have absolutely no doubt that the top malls are going to continue to fabulous shopping experiences.”
Wells Fargo’s (WFC) Management at BAML conference
David Carroll – Senior EVP, Wealth and Investment Management
I’m bullish on financials
“Personally, I’m very overweight financials; I have it for a long time. But seriously, I’m pretty bullish on the sector. I think institutions are very positively positioned relative to raising rates. I think if we do get any kind of economic expansion, financials are going to be the beneficiary of it. But, we are better capitalized more liquid than we have been in a decade. I think in our case, given the breadth of our business mix, whatever parts of the economy, you are experiencing growth we are going to benefit from it.”
DOL proposals on fiduciary standard have unclear impact
“Again we don’t know. There is speculation that this could be the catalyst for the demise of 12b-1 fees and other types of network — networking fees. We don’t know. So it’s kind of pointless to speculate on it. At the end of the day, we have enough confidence in our platform and in our client relationships. We think we’ll be successful.”
Tractor Supply Company’s (TSCO) CEO Gregory Sandfort Presents at Morgan Stanley Global Consumer and Retail Brokers Conference
There’s a lot of things that can’t be delivered to a customer via drone
“Omnichannel for us is a growing business but there are a lot of things that can’t be sold on omnichannel and delivered to the customer through a drone or through an easy methodology. And some of these things are things that are unique to Tractor and we have to find ways to get it to our customer.”
Philip Morris International (PM) Management Presents at Morgan Stanley Global Consumer and Retail Brokers Conference
Jacek Olczak – Chief Financial Officer
Russian market responding to price increases reasonably well
“So far the total industry volumes are responding to the price increases within the sort of acceptable elasticity ranges, but we’ll have to – I think Russia will remain one of the least of the countries to watch the next year. I mean so far everything seems to be working well. There is some down trading, but with the price increases which we are taking there, I mean obviously you will have some down trading.”
No Macro environment that really concerns me
“Nothing today stands in the least which would worry me. There are few places to watch, but I think it’s pretty manageable going forward.”
General Motors’ (GM) CEO Mary Barra Presents at Barclays 2015 Global Automotive Conference
More change in this industry in the next 5 years than we’ve seen in the last 50
“I believe that we’ll see more change in this industry in the next five to 10 years than we’ve seen in the last 50, but we are not waiting to follow, we are not waiting to be disrupted, we are disrupting ourselves because with all these changes and challenges there is also opportunity whether it’s the strength in the U.S. market whether it’s the growth potential in China although China is moderating and even with the non-traditional entrants coming in the space when you look at the assets that we have and I’ll cover them as we go through the presentation, we feel we are well positioned.”
Will be launching the Bolt 200 mile range
“And we’re very excited about the next generation Volt which is the foundational technology that enables us to be able to be launching the Bolt, and the Bolt will go 200 miles on a charge, this really starts to change the equation in all electric, remember the Bolt is extended range electric vehicle because once you get to 200 miles you really get to a point for most drivers most days even with unexpected, you’re not going to create range anxiety”
You could make the argument that sharing cars will expand the market
“”when you look at sharing you can look at it and say, hi that’s going to be less cars sold. But you can also say it’s going to enable people either the use or people who have some impairment or at an age where they are not able to drive. And so I think it expands the market.”