Citi Trends, Inc. (NASDAQ:CTRN) Q3 2022 Results Conference Call November 28, 2022 9:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Nitza McKee - Senior Associate-ICR, LLC

David Makuen - Chief Executive Officer

Heather Plutino - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Jeremy Hamblin - Craig-Hallum Capital Group

Chuck Grom - Gordon Haskett

Dana Telsey - Telsey Advisory Group

John Lawrence - Benchmark

Operator

Greetings and welcome to the Citi Trends 3Q 2022 Earnings Conference Call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, Tuesday, November 29, 2022.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Nitza McKee, Senior Associate. Please go ahead.

Nitza McKee

Thanks, [Malika] (ph), and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on Citi Trends third quarter 2022 earnings call. On our call today is our Chief Executive Officer, David Makuen; and Chief Financial Officer, Heather Plutino. Our earnings release was sent out this morning at 6:45 AM Eastern Time. If you have not received a copy of the release, it's available on the company's website under the Investor Relations section at www.cititrends.com.

You should be aware that prepared remarks today made during this call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Management may make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions. These statements do not guarantee future performance. Therefore, you should not place undue reliance on these statements. We refer you to the company's most recent report on Form 10-K and other subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a more detailed discussion of the factors that can cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements.

I will now turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, David Makuen. David?

David Makuen

Thank you, Nitza. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today on our third quarter fiscal 2022 earnings call. I will begin the call with a review of third quarter results, as well as some fourth quarter to date insights. Heather Plutino, our Chief Financial Officer will then elaborate on our financial results and a few other items related to the rest of our year outlook. Then we'll open the call up to your questions.

To begin, we delivered $192 million in top line sales, which equates to a three year comp stack of 1.4%, both of which were in line with our expectations. Our Buy, Move and Sell teams worked tirelessly to deliver compelling value driven trends coupled with an engaging in store experience to post a 39.8% gross profit, our 10th consecutive quarter of expanding gross profit when compared to pre pandemic 2019 levels. Additionally, we continue to manage inventories tightly with high freshness factor. Total inventory at the end of the quarter was only 1% higher than 2021, an improvement from 26% higher at the end of the second quarter.