I was in a panic earlier today and last night. I was checking the counter on the website (now 3 weeks old!)...and realized I couldn't get to this BLOG.
I thought of all the entries down the tube and gone into the emptiness of cyberspace....but then realized I couldn't get anybody elses BLOG up either....so guess it was just one of those things.
Anyhow, taking a break from work and looking through the most active/gainers on CNN.Money....realized that Coach had shown up. As you will see elsewhere on the site, I am an owner of Coach stock that I picked up earlier this year. I have already sold about 1/4 of my holdings when it was up 40% so the stock is really quite strong.
Let me tell you why I like it. First of all, Coach is trading at $51.53, up $2.40 or 4.88% on the day.
On April 22, 2003, as per the NYTimes on the web, Coach reported a 113% increase (!) in earnings per share for its third fiscal quarter ended March 29, 2003. ($.34 vs $.16 last year)
Net sales were $220.4 million, a 36% increase from the $161.6 million recorded in the prior year. Significantly, they exceeded analysts expectations of $.29 for the quarter.
Gross margin improved from 68.8% to 72.5% showing increased profitability on each $ of sales.
Comparable sales "rose 14.1%" during the quarter an outstanding (!) same store sales rate.
Looking at Morningstar, we find a beautiful pattern of revenue growth starting with $513.9 million in 1998, dropping (oops) to $500.9 million in 1999, the up to $537.7 million in 2000, $600.5 million in 2001 and $719.4 million in 2002. With $220 million in revenue latest quarter....extrapolating (?) would get us over $800 million for 2003. COH is on track!
COH is spinning off approximately $65 million in free cash flow and the assets/liabilities picture is slanted significantly in favor of ASSETS.
This is a great company. Although p/e a little high at 35+, everything else looks beautiful and deserves a spot on todays web log. As I noted above, I DO own shares of this as of the first of the year.
Happy Monday everyone!
Bob