La-Z-Boy Incorporated (NYSE:LZB) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript August 23, 2023 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Mark Becks - Director of IR and Corporate Development

Melinda Whittington - President and CEO

Bob Lucian - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Bobby Griffin - Raymond James

Brad Thomas - KeyBanc Capital

Anthony Lebiedzinski - Sidoti & Company

Operator

Greetings. Welcome to the La-Z-Boy Fiscal 2024 First Quarter Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this conference is being recorded.

I will now turn the conference over to your host, Mark Becks, Director of Investor Relations and Corporate Development. You may begin.

Mark Becks

Thank you, Holly. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss our fiscal 2024 first quarter. With us today are Melinda Whittington, La-Z-Boy's President and Chief Executive Officer, and Bob Lucian, La-Z-Boy's CFO. Melinda will open and close the call and Bob will speak to segment performance and the financials midway through. We will then open the call to questions.

Slides will accompany this presentation and you may view them through our webcast link which will be available for one year, and a telephone replay of the call will be available for one week beginning this afternoon. Before we begin the presentation, I would like to remind you that some statements made in today's call include forward-looking statements about La-Z-Boy's future performance and other matters. Although we believe these statements to be reasonable, our actual results could differ materially. The most significant risk factors that could affect our future results are described in our annual report on Form 10-K. We encourage you to review those risk factors as well as other key information detailed in our SEC filings.

Also, our earnings release is available under the News and Events tab on the Investor Relations page of our website, and it includes reconciliations of certain non-GAAP measures, which are also included as an appendix at the end of our conference call slide deck.

With that, I will now turn the call over to Melinda Whittington, La-Z-Boy's President and Chief Executive Officer. Melinda?

Melinda Whittington

Thanks, Mark. Good morning, everyone. Yesterday, following the close of market, we reported results for our July ended first quarter. We delivered solid operational performance, consistent with the guidance range we issued last quarter, despite an uncertain macro environment and sluggish home furnishings market. Highlights for the quarter included, company-owned Retail written same-store sales growth of 2% versus year ago; consolidated delivered sales growth, up 16% versus our most recent pre-pandemic first quarter; record first quarter consolidated operating margin driven by our retail segment when compared to non-pandemic affected historical first quarters; non-GAAP EPS of $0.62; $18 million in capital returned to shareholders, including $10 million in share buybacks; and continued progress against our Century Vision growth strategy, including the expansion of our retail business with the opening of two new stores, completing the acquisition of two independent La-Z-Boy Furniture Galleries and opening one new retail location for Joybird.