Macy's, Inc. (NYSE:M) Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call June 1, 2023 8:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Pamela Quintiliano - VP, IR

Jeff Gennette - Chairman and CEO

Adrian Mitchell - COO and CFO

Tony Spring - President and CEO-Elect

Conference Call Participants

Matthew Boss - JPMorgan

Oliver Chen - TD Cowen

Brooke Roach - Goldman Sachs

Dana Telsey - Telsey Advisory Group

Paul Lejuez - Citi

Alex Straton - Morgan Stanley

Chuck Grom - Gordon Haskett

Jay Sole - UBS

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Macy's, Inc. First Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

I will now turn the call over to Pamela Quintiliano, Vice President of Investor Relations. Pamela, you may now begin.

Pamela Quintiliano

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. With me on the call today are Jeff Gennette, our Chairman and CEO; Tony Spring, President, Macy's Inc. and CEO-Elect; and Adrian Mitchell, our COO and CFO.

Along with our first quarter 2023 press release, a presentation has been posted on the Investors section of our website, macysinc.com.

Unless otherwise noted, the comparisons we provide will be versus 2022. Comparisons to 2019 are provided where appropriate to best benchmark performance. All forward-looking statements are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations and assumptions mentioned today. A detailed discussion of these factors and uncertainties is contained in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In discussing the results of our operations, we will be providing certain non-GAAP financial measures. You can find additional information regarding these non-GAAP financial measures as well as others used on the Investors section of our website. Today's call is being webcast on our website. A replay will be available approximately two hours after the conclusion of this call.

With that, I'll turn it over to Jeff.

Jeff Gennette

Thanks, Pam. So good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Before getting started, I want to take a moment to acknowledge our team and how they have continued to navigate an extremely dynamic macro environment.

On that note, let's discuss the current macro landscape. On our fourth quarter earnings call, we said that we expected pressure to be more intense in 2023 compared to 2022. Subsequently, demand trends began to worsen in mid-March and further decelerated in April. We believe cooler temperatures and headlines surrounding layoffs and the banking crisis were factors, but so were the compounding effect of some previously identified macro headwinds. The U.S. consumer, particularly at Macy's, pulled back more than we anticipated as they reallocated spend to food, essentials and services.