Genesco Inc. (NYSE:GCO) Q3 2023 Results Conference Call December 2, 2022 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Darryl MacQuarrie - Senior Director of FP&A and Investor Relations

Mimi Vaughn - Board Chair, President and Chief Executive Officer

Tom George - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Steve Marotta - CL King

Mitch Kummetz - Seaport Research

Operator

Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Genesco Third Quarter Fiscal 2023 Conference Call. Just a reminder, today's call is being recorded.

I will now turn the call over to Darryl MacQuarrie, Senior Director of FP&A. Please go ahead, sir.

Darryl MacQuarrie

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss our third quarter fiscal 2023 results. Participants on the call expect to make forward-looking statements reflecting their expectations as of today, but actual results could be different.

Genesco refers you to this morning's earnings release and the Company's SEC filings, including its most recent 10-K and 10-Q filings, for some of the factors that could cause differences from the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements made today.

Participants also expect to refer to certain adjusted financial measure during the call. All non-GAAP financial measures are reconciled to the GAAP counterparts in the attachment to this morning's press release and in schedules available on the Company's website in the Quarterly Results section. We have also posted a presentation summarizing our results.

With me on the call today is Mimi Vaughn, Board Chair, President and Chief Executive Officer, who will begin our prepared remarks with an overview of the period and the progress we are making to drive the business. And Tom George, Chief Financial Officer, who will review the quarterly financials in more detail and provide guidance for fiscal '23.

Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Mimi.

Mimi Vaughn

Thanks, Darryl. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. We are pleased with our overall results, particularly sales and gross margin performance. Against last year's record third quarter, we grew revenue 4% on a constant currency basis, achieving significant improvement over the first half of the year, and comps were up 3% with every business posting positive gains.

At the same time, gross margins were better than we expected as we lapped last year's unusually strong gain. The progress made with our footwear-focused strategy to increase digital penetration, strengthen consumer connections, grow our footwear brands and reshape our retail cost structure has put the Company in a better position to both outperform and favorable economic backdrop like we experienced last year and effectively navigate the more difficult consumer and market conditions we're facing today.