Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (NYSE:ANF) Q3 2022 Earnings Conference Call November 22, 2022 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Kate Wagner - IR

Fran Horowitz - CEO

Scott Lipesky - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Dana Telsey - Telsey Advisory Group

Corey Tarlowe - Jefferies

Kelly Crago - Citi

Carla Casella - JPMorgan

Janet Kloppenburg - JJK Research Associates

Mauricio Serna - UBS

Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Abercrombie & Fitch Third Quarter of Fiscal Year 2022 Earnings Call. This conference is being recorded. At this time, I'd like to hand the call over to Kate Wagner. Please go ahead, ma'am.

Kate Wagner

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to our third quarter 2022 earnings call. Joining me today on the call are Fran Horowitz, Chief Executive Officer; and Scott Lipesky, Chief Financial Officer. Earlier this morning, we issued our third quarter earnings release which is available on our website at corporate.abercrombie.com under the Investors section. Also available on our website is an investor presentation.

Please keep in mind that any forward-looking statements made on the call 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 we mentioned today. A detailed discussion of these factors and uncertainties is contained in the company's reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, we will be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures during the call. Additional details and reconciliations of GAAP to adjusted non-GAAP financial measures are included in the release and investor presentation issued earlier this morning.

With that, I will turn the call over to Fran.

Fran Horowitz

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today.

Before we dive in, I'd like to thank our global team for their ongoing resiliency and focus on executing to our long-term goals as we navigate a dynamic global macroeconomic environment. Against the challenging backdrop, our Q2 results beat our expectations on the top and bottom line with Abercrombie's sales up 10% and Hollister showing sequential sales improvement, and adjusted operating margin coming in 200 basis points higher than our expectation.

We're excited about our position going into the holiday season, the continued momentum at Abercrombie and inventory is healthy with the year-over-year change cut in half from our peak last quarter. I'm encouraged by the trajectory of our business and I'm confident the steps we've taken throughout the year will put us in a position to win in Q4 and beyond.