Genesco Inc. (NYSE:GCO) Q1 2025 Earnings Conference Call May 31, 2024 8:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Darryl MacQuarrie - Senior Director of FP&A
Mimi Vaughn - Board Chair, President & CEO
Tom George - CFO

Conference Call Participants

Mitch Kummetz - Seaport Research
Mantero Moreno-Cheek - Jefferies

Operator

Good day everyone and welcome to the Genesco First Quarter Fiscal 2025 Conference Call. Just a reminder, today's call is being recorded. I'll 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 First Quarter Fiscal 2025 Results. Participants on the call expect to make forward-looking statements reflecting our 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 measures during the call. All non-GAAP financial measures are reconciled to their GAAP counterparts in the attachments 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 here as well. With me on the call today is Mimi Vaughn, Board Chair, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Tom George, Chief Financial Officer.

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

Mimi Vaughn

Thank you, Darryl. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. While the year is unfolding largely as we expected, we were pleased to deliver first quarter top and bottom-line results that were ahead of our most recent guidance. Sales at Journeys came in a bit ahead of expectations, paving the way for the more significant progress we're working with urgency to achieve for back to school and holiday.

Clean inventories and the benefits of our cost reduction and store optimization efforts contributed to the beat as well. Journey's results more than offset some pressure at Schuh and Johnston and Murphy which were both up against robust multi-year comparisons and both affected by a delayed start to the spring selling season. Overall the consumer environment remains choppy. Consumers continue to show a willingness to shop when there's a reason, like we saw at Easter, and retreat when there's not. In addition, faced with ongoing inflationary pressure, they remain quite selective, shopping almost exclusively for key footwear items and brands.