Tag Archives: WBA

Walgreens Boots Alliance 1Q17 Earnings Call Notes

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Walgreens Boots Alliance’s (WBA) CEO Stefano Pessina on Q1 2017 Results

Appears to be a solid holiday period

“Holiday shopping started later than usual, with the bulk of the sale occurring in the last days before Christmas. That said, we have once again seen what appears to be a solid holiday period in our main retail market.”

Would like to do something in China but it’s difficult

“But you see countries like China, for instance are still enormously interested. I remember that in China we have a good presence in sales but not as a retailer and this is due to a historical reason that until three years ago the foreign people could have just 30 pharmacies. So, we had 30 pharmacies, we were 29 in Brazil. So, we were prevented by the pharmacies there.”…

“The problem is that you have to dedicate a lot of time to get a deal in China, and it’s true that we have a team in China, a permanent team in China of Chinese people, but it is also true that to do a big deal in China, you must have the agreement of the Chairman of the relevant company and the Chairman generally doesn’t want to talk to the Chairman.

China is really, it’s a very high hierarchical society. And so, it’s also true that in the last two years, I have not gone to China as frequently as I used to go. And so I was not able to keep the relationship as I should have done, but now I have gone to China, I have spent some time to China in the last months and now we are back and I believe, I strongly believe that sooner or later we will be able to do something. When? I don’t know, but it is possible.”

The changes to ACA are going to be rational no matter what

“We really believe that we could start to work on hypotheses with information that we have. We have a lot of affirmation that will appeal the ObamaCare okay, but after they say yes, but maybe we have to give something similar. We have to create a transition. It’s very difficult to understand what worked practically, the new administration will decide to do because for sure will try to do something sensible and rationale and they will start something, which will not be to the detriment of the citizens.

So, it will take some time to start, probably the outcome will be quiet rationale and at that time we will be able to organize ourselves and prepare our business to respond to the new environment. We don’t have to be taken by panic, just because the rules, mainly rules – the rules are changed. We have to wait for the changes and after rationally we will decide how to react without panicking.”

Too early to say on tax reform

“I can answer on the second part of the question whether we have some ideas on the coming tax reform, I can repeat the same thing I said before, now there is not a project of tax reform there are certain principle, people are discussing about certain principle, not everybody in the administration agrees on the same principle and even if they are on the same principle they don’t agree on the level on their quantity of the principles. So it’s a waste of time today to start to create a scenario, which very likely would be in reality substantially different. So, let’s see when we will have the frame of the tax and after we will start immediately to think how we can leave with these new environment.

In any case we will not have a new tax system tomorrow morning, it will take months and we will have time to see how this will shape over time and when we believe that we are close to a final shaper we will start to see how we can work, but even though having looked at the taxes – at the different principle that are now have been debated, yes, there are certain principle who could damage us, but there are other principle who could benefit us and it is clear that the principle who could damage us, who would damage all our peer and so the market will find another equilibrium and other assets.

So, at the end of today, the conclusion is that for the time being we have to continue to work with the rules that are in place today and probably one year or two year or three year, we will have to change if something, but now it’s too early to distract how people – to do things, which should probably will never happen before the end, the mixture will be completely different.”

Walgreens Boots 3Q16 Earnings Call Notes

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Walgreens Boots Alliance’s (WBA) CEO Stefano Pessina on Q3 2016

Rite Aid acquisition progressing as planned

“Our proposed acquisition of Rite Aid is progressing as planned. As you know, we are in the process of seeking a regulatory approval in parallel our integration team is continuing its work on preliminary planning. In June, we completed a $6 billion public bond offering to support the funding of the acquisition.”

UK referendum has created volatility

“Since the quarter end as you are seeing the U.K. referendum on Europe has created some uncertainty and volatility in our market. Our businesses and management teams have operated through main business cycles in many markets. Perhaps changes normal and the sign of life. We work with and manage it every day. Less volatility and uncertainty create issues that would be overcome, but they also provide opportunity for our company. It is our job to ensure that we meet these opportunities positively and position and structure our company to its best advantage.”

We are expecting RAD deal to go through

“we would have a lot of ideas, but I can assure you that we are for the time being we are not taking into consideration because we are very confident that at the end of this deal we will go through. It takes some time, but we knew it. It is normal of this kind of deals which is a complex deal at the end of the day is normal for this kind of deals to take months and months. So I would say that we are on track.”

Adding labor

“we are also upscaling our people. For example, we’re through with a lot of differentiation. We are putting in place a number of beauty consultants in our top 2000 stores who have got deeper expertise and more knowledge and more ability to take care and drive up sales appropriately with customers. That’s another investment we’re making in labor cost in our stores but with a very clear return on our investment. So, we are feeling good about where we are on these two investments.”

Too early to say on the impact of Brexit

“Very, very difficult to say. The situation is very volatile at this time. For sure, the period of uncertainty will be quite long whatever happens because even if the U.K. will leave the Euro, it cannot happen overnight, it will take at least two years. And the consequence of it will be much longer than two years.

So, I believe that once the emotional impact is gone, things will settle down and we will have an idea of what is happening, but for now really — it’s really too early, too soon we have seen in the stores days — very good days, bad. So in a few months probably we will be able to say something.”

Alex Gourlay

Demographics driving Med D growth

No. I just think that the market is growing through the aging population. So that’s why med-D is the fastest growing channel as is all of that people are putting together more comparative offers both in terms of price, but also in terms of care and performance. And that comes as well. So I think that’s the driving, is really the market has been driven always by the customer and it’s a growth market.

Walgreens Boots Alliance 1Q16 Earnings Call Notes

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Stefano Pessina

Rite aid acquisition progressing as planned

“As you have heard, we are not assuming our proposed acquisition of Rite Aid will provide any material accretion for the 2016. But I would reiterate that this transaction is progressing as we expected and planned. We continue to anticipate completing the acquisition in the second half of calendar year 2016. The transaction remains subject to approval by Rite Aid’s shareholders, regulatory clearances, and other customary closing conditions.”

I am convinced that vertical integration is necessary

“Yes, you know what I think. I couldn’t have been clearer since the very beginning. I have seen this market and I am really convinced that vertical integration is a necessity for the market, [by] market. It is part of what we have to do to reduce — to control the costs in the healthcare arena. Any kind of vertical integration is good. It depends on the opportunities that we will have. It depends on the availability of partners.”

We don’t do a deal just for control

“let me say that I have never, ever spoken about control. What we want is to do something which creates value — long-term, sustainable value. We have never spoken about control. We have done many, many deals where at the end we have lost the control, and it’s by chance that many of our mergers have come back. And this was not the design. It was just the force of things. When you merge a company, when you merge two companies, you have one company; and of course, all the people of the previous two companies are members of the new company. ‘

Alex Gourlay

Valeant is a great team to work with

“So we saw the opportunity to lift and shift our best practice in Europe into Valeant. And they liked the idea, and they walked through it pretty quickly and got to a good place in that pretty short period of time. They are a great team to work with, and we wish Mike a very speedy recovery. The team themselves are very engaged and working with us very well, and we will do all we can to make sure that any concerns are taken care of and are independently reviewed.”

Miscellaneous Earnings Call Notes 11.19.15

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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.”

Miscellaneous Earnings Call Notes 10.29.15

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E*TRADE Financial (ETFC) Paul Thomas Idzik on Q3 2015 Results

There’s a big penalty for a bank when it crosses $50B in assets in the form of greater regulatory spending

“as I said many times in previous calls when this topic comes up, none of our owners are going to reward us by tiptoeing over $50 billion and incurring all the costs and distraction. If we go over $50 billion, it will be when Mr. Pizzi and I and the rest of the team are confident that it’s going to make sense for our owners.”

Volvo’s (VOLVY) CEO Martin Lundstedt on Q3 2015 Results

We see a strong year for trucks in North America

“Trucks North America, we can say that North America – when we start with the macroeconomic view on North America, I think we see the same thing as many other people see. It is a solid growth also for next year, so we don’t see any kind of other things in North America compared to what most, I would say, macroeconomic people see.”

Brazil is probably not coming back for two years

“I think that also one should recognize that Brazil is most probably not going to come back into some kind of high growth or anything like that for – I would say don’t anticipate that for the next coming two years at least because Brazil has to go through quite a lot of things. We don’t see the boom in terms of raw material prices. And not only prices, also the demand is actually coming down and that was very much what fueled the economy in Brazil.”

Whirlpool’s (WHR) CEO Jeff Fettig on Q3 2015 Results

Currencies have experienced a global reset

“Given the significant economic shocks this year, we believe that currencies have experienced a global reset, and we are prepared to operate this changed environment going forward.”

Europe is a split market

“On Europe, again it’s a split market, if you want to say. But Eastern European market demand continues to be very slow and very much down, which is driven by Russia and Ukraine…The western side, on the other side, I would say its stronger than anticipated. The most markets are in a very healthy and robust phase.”

China -4% right now

“China has been slower in terms of market events than we expected, kind of coming into the year. Its at around minus 4% right now, and for that market, it’s a big decline, although in general terms its not and we don’t think that it should have a significant impact on our business”

State Street (STT) Joseph L. Hooley on Q3 2015 Results

It’s certainly a positive that markets have rebounded month to date

” it’s certainly a positive that markets have rebounded month-to-date here in October. I would point out just for completeness that emerging markets now are pretty close on a month-to-date basis back to the third quarter average. They had really dipped in late September, and what’s particularly important to us is the average over the whole quarter. So I would – I’d hesitate to try to claim any kind of victory based on the first three weeks of October, and obviously we’ve got another couple months to go. But I would agree with you that it’s certainly been helpful to see the equity market positive news on the first three weeks of the month.”

Royal Caribbean Cruises’ (RCL) CEO Richard Fain on Q3 2015 Results

Bookings are strong even in China

“The Caribbean and China which makes up approximately two thirds of capacity are significantly more booked than last year at higher rates. The strength of these two products is more than offsetting continued pressure in Latin America.”

Our feelings are good about China

” our feelings are good about how we see China. We think the opportunity is still very, very strong. So that’s kind of our perspective on China.”

Bank of Hawaii’s (BOH) CEO Peter Ho on Q3 2015 Results

CRE has been the headliner for loan growth but we are pretty mature in the cycle, and our core relationships will probably begin to pull back

“all of our lending categories are performing very well right now. So CRE has been the headliner for a good amount of time. It continues to be through the third quarter and we think we still have some space left in this cycle for continued growth. Having said that, we are pretty mature in both the commercial and in particular the commercial real estate cycle and really what you are likely to see is as our core relationships begin to pull back in light of pricing in the marketplace, you will likely see us doing the same.”

Consumer lending strong

“on the other consumer side, home-equity and indirect and installment and credit card, those portfolios are growing very nicely for us. And really, I think a reflection of what’s happening with the economy here in town.”

Comcast’s (CMCSA) CEO Brian Roberts on Q3 2015 Results

Comcast venturing into wireless service

“we believe that wireless obviously is an important area for consumers and how they are in the future. And today, we have incredible success with our Wi-Fi network, which is the largest in-home Wi-Fi network, as well as a terrific out of home Wi-Fi, we’re seeing a majority of bits travel over the Wi-Fi network. But it takes about six months to activate the MVNO. We’ve had told everybody that before, we were going to trial some things and test some things after we activate and we’ll update people as that progresses.”

Ford Motor’s (F) CEO Mark Fields on Q3 2015 Results

We are seeing stabilization in China

“just a couple comments on the China industry, we are seeing stabilization and as Bob mentioned we do expect to lift from the stimulus package. And as he mentioned we are seeing showroom traffic improve, we are seeing closing ratios improve and unquestionably we see this as a really good opportunity, because 70% of our sales have the engines that are eligible for the stimulus.”

Expect stronger for longer in the US

“We would characterize the U.S. industry as healthy and borrowing any type of shock whether it would be economic or policy related. We do see industry sales staying well supported at the current levels through the next few years or in other words we expected to be stronger for longer.”

The industry is going to have to do a lot of work to increase fuel efficiency by the end of the decade

“if you look 2019 and 2020 I mean I think there’s a lot of work the whole industry is got to do at that point in time in response to your compliance particularly around the machines and fuel economy, but I think we feel good about where we are up until 2019, but then there is a sort of a step level increase and we are all going to have to continue to work on particularly with more electrification that’s going to be required in that timeframe.”

Coach (COH) Victor Luis on Q1 2016 Results

We’re bucking the trend of a weak environment in China

“In terms of China, as you mentioned, we’re really pleased to be bucking the trends that many of our traditional competitors are reporting…our team is managing our brand incredibly well in what is of course a very turbulent environment, not only with the exchange rate fluctuations and the impact on traffic into Hong Kong and Macau, but also the domestic stock market gyrations which are now very well-publicized.”

PACCAR’s (PCAR) CEO Ron Armstrong on Q3 2015 Results

European outlook continues to improve

“The European economic and truck market outlook continues to improve. GDP growth expectations for this year are 2.6% in the UK, which is PACCAR’s strongest market in the region, GDP growth is also accelerating on the continent…We expect the strong market conditions to extend into next year.”

Simon Property Group’s (SPG) CEO David Simon on Q3 2015 Results

Bankruptcies in 2015 but better comps than expected

“We are obviously had a lot more bankruptcies in ’15 than we did in ’14 and the other impact we’ve had on the negative side is that we’ve lost certain amount of percentage rent from the outlet business because of the fact that the strong dollar has also heard tourism shopping and we’ve seen that impacted more in the outlet business, the outlet tourists centers then we had in the mall business. The mall comp sales have been a better than our expectations and our leading portfolio in terms of that.”

Applied Industrial Technologies (AIT) Neil A. Schrimsher on Q1 2016 Results

October declined from September

“I mean we had a weakness in July, some expected. That continued through August. And off of that lower base, September probably came in modestly positive. As we look month-to-date through October, I’d say sequentially, it’s around 2% decline that we would see off that period”

CBRE Group’s (CBG) CEO Bob Sulentic on Q3 2015 Results

Our strongest growth is in Europe

“we are not seeing a lot of pressure. I would tell you where we are seen the strongest growth is in Europe. You saw the results this quarter, we expect that continue, but we saw good growth in places where people did not necessarily expected. In Greater China, we had nice growth. In Australia, we did, so we have not felt a lot of meaningful pressure at this point and the backlogs of business we have suggest that year should finish out nicely for us.”

Not seeing any deals die because of lack of capital

“From what we have seen, there is sufficient capital from other sources to step in. As I mentioned earlier, we have been anticipating that the rate of growth in sales will come down to a more sustainable level and we still believe that that is likely to be the case, but we are not seeing deals die basically because of a lack of capital”

Mondelez International (MDLZ) Irene B. Rosenfeld on Q3 2015 Results

13 percentage point currency headwind

” Based on current spot rates, we estimate currency to have a negative 13 percentage point impact for the year, a little more than our previous estimate of a 12-point impact”

The European retail environment is challenging

“the European retail environment is challenging. And I think we have been able to hold our own quite well. They’re interested in some of the very same things that our retailers around the world are interested in: what’s happening in health and wellness, what’s happening on the innovation front. And as long as we continue to drive traffic to their stores, we’re an important partner.”

AGCO (AGCO) Martin H. Richenhagen on Q3 2015 Results

Another robust harvest putting pressure on farm economics

“Another year of robust global harvest is putting pressure on commodity prices, and more challenging farm economics has reduced demand for agricultural machinery, especially for larger models.”

Argentina has increased import allowances

“the biggest export market outside of Brazil, or the market that we ship the equipment from Brazil to, is Argentina. And as you’re aware, the last few years they’ve had import restrictions that has really reduced sales in that market. This year, though, there has been some increase to those import and import allowances.”

Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) Stefano Pessina on Q4 2015 Results

Global healthcare markets are ready for change through scale

“The global healthcare markets, and perhaps the U.S. market more than any, are ready for change, and open to new ideas and new approaches that throughout provide scale. As the leading global healthcare company, we have the potential to play a defining role in this evolution.”

We’re not doing the RAD deal to increase our negotiating power with the payer and PBM

“Well, we have not done this to increase our negotiating power with payer and PBM. We have done this because we believe that we can extract a lot of synergies, rationalizing the combined company for, I would say, from internal sources and the harmonization of prices”

This deal will not reduce competition because we’re in an environment with lots of competition

“at the end of the day we are in an environment where the margins are decreasing. So it was decreasing. We are in an environment where there is a lot of competition. And the fact that we put together two companies will not reduce the competition – not just the competition among pharmacies.”

Macerich’s (MAC) Management on Q3 2015 Results

Apparel sales are struggling with lack of a distinct fashion trend

“On the negative side, apparel sales are only showing modest sales per square foot gains, if they struggle with a lack of a distinct fashion trend increasing competition from large format retailers and sluggish consumer settlement”

We anticipate bankruptcies will likely be comparable or higher than in previous years

“Looking towards the end of the year, we are anticipating that bankruptcies are likely to be comparable or higher than in previous years. Many of these retailers are public companies and based on their current stock prices the markets are pricing in a significant risk of bankruptcy. Contrary to the previous year, we are expecting less store closing as part of the bankruptcies as many of the retailers are prime candidates for restructuring with a smaller store base. Again, we believe the lower quality centers will be disproportionately impacted.”

Chains will use bankruptcy to their advantage to reduce store count

‘these chains will use bankruptcy potentially to reduce their store count.Outside of bankruptcy it’s more difficult, because the landlords will typically require some buyout or compensation and many of the companies have not – there’s been very few examples where companies have been successful doing that.”

Manitowoc (MTW) Kenneth W. Krueger on Q3 2015 Results

Deteriorating demand for tower cranes

“our third quarter results were disappointing, as deteriorating demand for tower cranes in the Middle East and Asia coupled with lower than anticipated all-terrain and crawler crane shipments, all contributed to the shortfall in revenues. The current global economic environment affecting customer demand is unlike any cycle we’ve seen in the recent past. Uncertainty among our customers is mounting due to emerging market peers, ongoing question over Chinese growth outlook, persistent depressed oil prices and slowing domestic growth. ”

The third quarter was one of the most difficult operating environments in recent memory

“The third quarter proved to be one of the most volatile and difficult operating environments in recent memory. Manitowoc has weathered many economic cycles and our team has proven its ability to manage the business without compromising our competitive position in the marketplace. This cycle should be no different.”

Delphi Automotive Plc (DLPH) Q3 2015 Results

China was significantly weaker than expected, but we are now starting to see a pickup in orders

“we’re real optimistic. We’re still optimistic about China. For the third quarter, it was significantly weaker than what we originally estimated. If you recall, our outlook was China up about 3.5% or 4% in the third quarter; ended up actually being down 9%. So it was very fluid. For the fourth quarter, our original outlook was China volume up roughly 5%. Current outlook is basically down a point. However, when we look at sequentially third to fourth quarter, we are starting to see a pickup in orders, a strengthening in the market, sequential growth in vehicle production”

The New York Times (NYT) Mark J. T. Thompson on Q3 2015

NYT exploring ways to deal with ad blockers

“Now ad blockers have been much in the news perhaps this is a good moment to give our perspective on that topic. As you know the Times’ digital subscription revenue stream means that we are significantly less expose the most publishers to the impact of ad blockers. Nonetheless, let me make it clear that we oppose ad blocking. The creation of quality news content is expensive and digital advertising is an important way in which we and other high-quality news providers fund news gathering operations. We are exploring a number of options including but not limited to technical solutions to mitigate the impact of ad blockers should the threat increase.”

Strength in luxury, technology advertising

“We’ve seen in Q3, and I think this will continue in Q4 real briskness in the luxury business. We saw real briskness in Q3 in the technology business. I think that will continue. And then there are other categories like retail where we just have less visibility and where there tends to be more volatility.”

We are a journalism play

“we are a journalism play. We are a news and features and opinion provider with multiple platforms, and we’re very interested in the synergies between the platforms. ”

BorgWarner’s (BWA) CEO James Verrier on Q3 2015 Results

Lowering sales guidance thanks to weakness in China and global commercial vehicle markets

“Our reported sales growth is now expected to be between minus 6% at the low end and minus 5% at the high end. This is compared with minus 5.5% to minus 2.5% previously. The change in our sales growth guidance is primarily related to two things. The impact of weaker than expected market conditions in China on our business and weak commercial vehicle markets around the world.”

Walgreens Boots Alliance FY 3Q15 Earnings Call Notes

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Interim CEO named permanent

“As you have seen today, I have been appointed by the Board as Chief Executive Officer, replacing the Interim appointment that I was previously fulfilling. The Board has decided that bearing in mind the pace of change and the amount that we have still to do there is a benefit to stability at the senior level in the organization”

The best way for us to thank you is to deliver on our plans

“I thank you for your continued support and but also acknowledge that the best way to thank you is to deliver on our plans. And I can assure you we fully intend to continue to do so.”

We are actively looking for acquisitions

“I have said many times, that I believe that the American markets will go through a substantial wave of consolidation horizontally and vertically. I have said very clearly that we want to be part of this, at the right time with the right partner. We are open to any kind of combination which could improve the value of our company and we are looking actively around us to understand which is the best option for us. But please don’t forget that we are looking actively not just in the U.S. but even in other countries because we consider ourselves a global company.”

We can clearly see the need for consolidation in our industry

“we can clearly see the need or the opportunity for horizontal and vertical consolidation in our industry and this is happening. In reality I believe that this is a good news for us because the consolidation, the horizontal consolidation will create a clear market and will give us more opportunities in future. What we will be able to do specifically is a little too early to say, but I repeat we want to be one of the players in this space and we see a lot of opportunities and the opportunities are really open along the chain, along the space of this healthcare industry.”

It’s true the market is quite bullish but it’s also true the cost of money is still quite low

“As you know we have been always [indiscernible] with potential acquisitions, so we will if we will have an opportunity we will analyze this opportunity very rationally and we will do it just if this will create additional value. It’s true the market is now quite bullish but it’s also true that the cost of the money is still quite low and there are other ways to create value, not just acquisitions, so we are analyzing all the opportunities. If we will see an opportunity which fit our strategy and which can create value we will take action.”