Haverty Furniture Companies, Inc. (NYSE:HVT) Q1 2022 Earnings Conference Call May 3, 2022 10:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Richard Hare – Chief Financial Officer

Steven Burdette – President

Conference Call Participants

Anthony Lebiedzinski – Sidoti & Company

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Haverty Furniture First Quarter Results 2022 Conference Call. Today’s conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Richard Hare, Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead, sir.

Richard Hare

Thank you, operator. During this conference call, we’ll make forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those made or implied in such statements, which speak only as of the date they are made and which we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise.

Factors that could cause actual results to differ include economic and competitive conditions and other uncertainties detailed in the company’s reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Our Chairman and CEO, Clarence Smith, is a little under the weather this morning and he will not be on today’s call. Our President, Steven Burdette will now give you an update on our results and comment on our business.

Steven Burdette

Thank you, Richard. Good morning and thank you for joining our 2022 first quarter conference call. We are pleased to report a record first quarter in sales and a strong profit of $1.11 per share versus $1.04 per share last year. We had outstanding gross profit margins of 59%, demonstrating our ability to adjust our retail pricing to our cost increases and our values in the marketplace. We had good pricing discipline in the stores and with our merchandise teams to help build the record gross margins.

Our business was good during the early part of the quarter in both delivered and written business, compared to the very strong results in 2021, due to a record Presidents’ Day weekend.

For the quarter, our sales performance could be attributed to our continued improvement in our average ticket of over $3,000 and improvement in our special orders and more H Design in home opportunities.

However, we now place headwinds, including inflation, rising interest rates, continued supply chain disruptions, softening consumer confidence, and an adverse geopolitical situation.

Overall, our written sales were down 8.8% for the quarter with March being the weakest month. We have a very strong backlog of undelivered orders, but our average age has increased slightly to 11 weeks.