Nordstrom Inc. (NYSE:JWN) Q1 2023 Earnings Conference Call May 31, 2023 4:45 PM ET

Company Participants

Sara Penner - IR

Erik Nordstrom - CEO

Pete Nordstrom - President & Chief Brand Officer

Michael Maher - Chief Accounting Officer

Conference Call Participants

Ed Yruma - Piper Sandler

Ashley Helgans - Jefferies

Chuck Grom - Gordon Haskett

Brooke Roach - Goldman Sachs Group

Noah Zatzkin - KeyBanc

Matthew Boss - JPMorgan

Dana Telsey - Telsey Advisory Group

Alex Straton - Morgan Stanley

Simeon Siegel - BMO Capital Markets

Lorraine Hutchinson - Bank of America

Janet Kloppenburg - JJK

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Nordstrom First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. We will begin with prepared remarks, followed by a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

At this time, I'd like to turn the call over to Sara Penner, Manager of Investor Relations for Nordstrom. You may now begin.

Sara Penner

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us. Before we begin, I want to mention that we'll be referring to slides which can be viewed in the Investor Relations section on nordstrom.com. Our discussion may include forward-looking statements, so please refer to the slide with our Safe Harbor language. As a reminder, we are here today to discuss our business and first quarter performance and we will not be taking questions on other matters.

Participating in today's call are Erik Nordstrom, Chief Executive Officer; Pete Nordstrom, President and Chief Brand Officer; and Michael Maher, Chief Accounting Officer, who will provide a business update and discuss the company's first quarter performance.

And now I'll turn the call over to Erik.

Erik Nordstrom

Thank you, Sara. Good afternoon, everyone. For the first quarter, we delivered net sales of $3.1 billion, a loss per share of $1.27 and adjusted earnings per share of $0.07. Adjusted earnings were higher than the first quarter of last year, despite lower sales, reflecting the progress we are making against the priorities we laid out at the beginning of the year, improving Nordstrom Rack performance, increasing inventory productivity and optimizing our supply chain.

As we've seen since June of last year, customer demand continued to be pressured given the current macroeconomic backdrop which impacted our top line results across both banners. By comparison, the first quarter of 2022 benefited from a strong pent-up demand for a return to occasions, as the pandemic receded.