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Vera Bradley (VRA -0.46%)
Q1 2023 Earnings Call
Jun 08, 2022, 9:30 a.m. ET

Contents:

  • Prepared Remarks
  • Questions and Answers
  • Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:


Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Vera Bradley first quarter conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode.

[Operator instructions] As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Mark Dely, Vera Bradley's chief administrative officer. Please go ahead.

Mark Dely -- Chief Administrative Officer

Good morning, and welcome, everyone. We'd like to thank you for joining us for today's call. Some of the statements made during our prepared remarks and in response to your questions may constitute forward-looking statements made pursuant to and within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 as amended. Such forward-looking statements are subject to both known and unknown risks, and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those that we expect.

Please refer to today's press release and the company's most recent Form 10-K filed with the SEC for discussion of known risks and uncertainties. Investors should not assume that the statements made during the call will remain operative at a later time. We undertake no obligation to update any information discussed on today's call. I will now turn the call over to Vera Bradley's CEO, Rob Wallstrom.

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Rob?

Rob Wallstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Mark. Good morning, and thank you for joining us on today's call. John Enwright, our CFO, also joins me today. While total company first quarter revenues of $98.5 million fell below our expectations and resulted in a net loss before certain charges of $0.19 per diluted share.

We continued implementation of our price increases, which helped offset logistics and sourcing pressures, continue to drive product innovation, controlled expenses, and completed 10.5 million of share repurchases while maintaining a strong debt-free balance sheet. We have clearly seen a bifurcation in the spending of our customer base. At Vera Bradley, Direct Channel full-line revenues were above last year as customers with higher household incomes remained engaged and spent more than last year. We also saw a healthy year-over-year rebound in Indirect Channel revenues.

However, inflationary pressures, including rates, including rising gas prices, particularly impacted the spending of Vera Bradley customers with household incomes below $55,000, as well as traffic and spending in our Vera Bradley Direct Channel factory stores for the quarter. In addition, Pura Vida's e-commerce revenues continue to be significantly affected by the shift in social and digital media ineffectiveness and rising digital media costs. For the balance of the year, we are taking decisive actions to strengthen the enterprise and remain highly focused on our two core brands. On a companywide basis.

We are in the midst of a comprehensive cost reduction and efficiency process we expect will complete the identification of cost reductions and continue implementation in the second quarter. And we anticipate we will realize annualized savings in the range of $15 million to $25 million. We are also continuing to evaluate and execute strategic price increases for both brands to offset rising raw material and freight costs as appropriate. As you might recall, we began taking some price increases in the fourth quarter of last year.

At the Vera Bradley brand, we remain confident in our core strategy. The brand is fundamentally strong, although we have been fighting through macro issues, including rapidly increasing supply chain costs, recessionary spending from lower household income customers, skyrocketing gas prices, and exponential increases in digital marketing costs. We are continuing to innovate and build on our lifestyle merchandising strategy with a laser focus on protecting the core amplified by targeted marketing. We are maximizing the travel category, which is nearly back to pre-pandemic levels, and optimizing our very important upcoming back-to-campus season with the strategic product assortment enhancements.

Of course, we are continuing with successful product collaborations like Disney, and just in the second quarter, we have introduced partnerships with iconic names like Star Wars, Coleman and Target, and Tupperware. We are thrilled about expanding our home assortments and adding cloud slip-on, and miles to our Vera Bradley footwear franchise this fall and holiday season. At Pura Vida, we are evolving our business model from one largely dependent on e-commerce and digital marketing to one that is a truly omni-channel business with a more diversified marketing base. This will take time, but we are taking the actions to make this transformation happen and return the brand to growth.

Chief growth officer, Lockie Andrews has joined Pura Vida. She will work with the team with a primary focus on building a more innovative, effective, and performance-based marketing program by bolstering our internal marketing and data analytics talent and platform. Lockie is a great addition to Pura Vida and to our entire organization for perspective, expertise, and creative thinking and will be instrumental in developing Pura Vida's full potential as a unique lifestyle brand. In this newly created role, she has responsibility for all digital performance marketing, direct-to-consumer sales, and merchandising initiatives across Pura Vida's channels and distribution.

Working with co-founders Griffin Thall, and Paul Goodman, she will not only strengthen the marketing initiatives that she will explore, develop and launch new sales channels, and drive category growth and expansion over time. She has a deep background in retail marketing, digital strategy, technology, and data analytics and most recently held key commerce and digital post at Party City, and Untuck It, as well as running a boutique consulting firm for the past 15 years. We are very excited about opening three additional Pura Vida retail store locations this year. Building on the success of our first store opened in San Diego last summer.

The San Diego store continues to exceed our expectations, and we continue to experience a double-digit differential in our San Diego e-commerce business relative to the rest of the country since the store opened. Demonstrating the power a retail presence has and driving digital sales, omni-channel loyalty, and spending. So we are very excited about additional store growth. We will open Pura Vida stores in Irvine Spectrum in Orange County, California, and in the high tourist area of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, in July, and in the Phoenix market in September.

We look forward to even more store growth in the future. Pura Vida's future growth will be a balance of online growth and growth in physical distribution channels. Stores will play a key role in driving new customer acquisition as we continue to diversify our marketing platforms. We will also continue to build Pura Vida's customer excitement and engagement through collaborations like Disney, Hello Kitty, and the World Surfing League.

Partnering with key influencers and offering themed collections centered around key events like the upcoming Shark Week. Now let me turn the call over to John to review the financial results. John?

John Enwright -- Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President

Thanks, Rob, and good morning. Let me go over a few highlights for the first quarter. The numbers I will discuss today are all non-GAAP for our complete detail of items excluded from the non-GAAP numbers as well as a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP numbers, please reference today's press release. Consolidated net revenues totaled $98.5 million compared to $109.1 million in the prior-year first quarter.

The consolidated net loss totaled $6.1 million or $0.19 per diluted share, compared to a loss of $1.7 million or $0.05 per diluted share in the prior year. Vera Bradley Direct segment revenues totaled $61.6 million to 7.6%, a decrease from $66.7 million last year. Comparable sales declined 11.1% in the first quarter. Vera Bradley Indirect segment revenues totaled $17 million or 11.2%, an increase of over $15.3 million in the prior-year first quarter.

Pura Vida segment revenues totaled $19.8 million, a 26.8% decrease from $27.1 million last year. First quarter consolidated gross profit totaled $52.5 million or 53.3% of net revenues, compared to $59.2 million or 52.2% last year. The current year rate was negatively impacted by higher inbound and outbound trade expense, partially offset by price increases. Consolidated SG&A expenses totaled $59.6 million or 60.5% for the current quarter, compared to $60.1 million or 55.1% last year.

The first quarter consolidated operating loss totaled $6.9 million or 7% of net revenues, compared to $1.2 million or 1.1% of net revenues in the prior year. Now let's turn to the balance sheet. Cash, cash equivalents, and investments as of April 30th, 2022, totaled $64 million, compared to $52.7 million at the end of last year's first quarter. We had no borrowings on our 75 million ABL credit facility at quarter-end.

We remain in a strong cash position with a debt-free balance sheet. We will continue to take a conservative approach to cash through disciplined expense management, particularly in a volatile and challenging environment. Total quarter-end inventory was 161.8 million, compared to 150.3 million at the end of the first quarter last year. During the quarter, we repurchased approximately 10.5 million of our common stock, representing 1.4 million shares at an average price of $7.35.

35.3 million remains available under the $50 million repurchase authorization. Now, let's shift to our fiscal 2023 outlook. As we expect the challenging macroeconomic environment to continue for the balance of the year, and that it will take time to return to the period of e-commerce business to grow, we have lowered our outlook for the fiscal year. All forward-looking guidance numbers that I will discuss are non-GAAP.

For fiscal 2023, we expect consolidated net revenues of $490 million to $505 million, compared to $540.5 million in fiscal 2022. We expect our consolidated gross margin will range from 54.5% to 55%, compared to 53.3% last year. The potential year-over-year increase is primarily related to price increases, partially offset by incremental freight expense. Consolidated SG&A expenses should range from $248 million to 253 million, compared to $258.8 million in fiscal 2022.

The reduction in SG&A expenses is being driven by cost reduction initiatives and a reduction in compensation, expense, marketing, and other variable-related expenses due to the expected sales decline from last year. We expect consolidated diluted EPS of $0.35 to $0.50, compared to $0.57 last year. Net capital spending should total approximately $10 million to $12 million, compared to $5.5 million in the prior year. Operator, we will now open up the call to questions.

Questions & Answers:


Operator

Thank you. [Operator instructions] Our first question will come from Oliver Chen with Cowen.

Unknown speaker

Hi, Tom Nash on for Oliver Chen. A couple of questions on consumer health with regard to price increases. Could you provide some additional color on where these are occurring across both channel and category? And are there some areas of the business that are taking prices better than others?

Rob Wallstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. In terms of prices, talk about it maybe first by brand, Pura Vida that they've had price increases across nearly all of their product categories and that seems to be a good level of acceptance from the consumer. At Vera Bradley, we've been more targeted in those price increases, really looking at it by item because of the diversity of our assortment there. And what we're seeing now is that as we've increased -- price increases, that consumers are accepting it, but not with an unlimited acceptance.

So we're having to be very disciplined, and very targeted, and we'll continue to evaluate that and continue to look at prices as we move forward. But I would say overall, the reaction it's not initially been different by channel, but what we have seen is, as we talked about earlier, is just more acceptance, more spending overall by the higher income customer, and obviously, a pull back from the lower-income customer. But what's been interesting is even looking at promotional activity, we've found that the promotional activity is really not necessary for the high-income customer, that they seem to be accepting the price increases.

Unknown speaker

OK. Great. And a follow-up on supply chain disruptions. I'd love to hear your thoughts on inventory management through the summer.

And additionally, if we reach peak inflation here. How does the overall business view promotional possibilities across categories and channels?

John Enwright -- Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President

I can take that question. In regards to the supply chain, we continue to see kind of some disruptions in the supply chain. We're not back to pre-pandemic levels on on-time delivery, even with extending our expectation of when that product should be delivered. All that being said, we are in a good inventory -- better inventory and we say better inventory position than we were throughout the year last year.

And we expect to be in a better inventory position during the summertime. And given our sales reduction, we will be looking at potentially cutting forward purchases, given where our current inventory level is. In regards to promotional, as we think about them later in the year, as with our kind of gross margin guidance, we expect promotional not to change based on our original expectation, but we'll continue to assess that throughout the summer and throughout the rest of this year.

Unknown speaker

Thank you. That's very helpful. And one final question on Pura Vida. Can provide some additional detail regarding the strategies for the marketing platform enhancements and any synergies that might be available from the Vera Bradley platform?

Rob Wallstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. Great question. First of all, bringing Lockie in was a critical step. If you've been following our story a few years ago, we brought Daren Hull, who kind of rebuilt the marketing platform, and Vera Bradley brought in data analytics and really kind of moved us forward.

What we're doing is, with Pura Vida is basically going down a similar path by bringing in Lockie and that the Pura Vida team has done an extraordinary job of really leveraging the social media platforms for customer acquisition over the years and were really best-in-class. But as this whole -- the whole channel and the world change, that's become obviously much less effective. And so now, what we're doing is really building out our data platform, building out our first-party marketing, but then also starting to expand in stores and using stores as another avenue for the acquisition will be really critical. And then the other thing is, as we're thinking about the marketing for Pura Vida, it's not just the data, but it's also looking at different channels, both from a performance marketing and also leveraging even heavier the influencer part of the business.

Because what we're seeing in a lot of the direct-to-consumer companies with lower AOVs is the importance of the kind of releveraging out the influencer, putting more time and energy into the influencer tribe, so to speak. And that that is well underway with Griff really leading that initiative. Thanks for your questions, Tom.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question will come from Eric Beder with SCC Research.

Eric Beder -- Small Cap Consumer Research -- Analyst

Good morning.

Rob Wallstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Good morning, Eric.

John Enwright -- Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President

Good morning.

Eric Beder -- Small Cap Consumer Research -- Analyst

Good morning. Could you talk a little bit about the collaborations? Quite obviously, you've been very -- you've been a little more expansive with them and also has been a little innovative in terms of things like the recent Tupperware collaboration. How do you -- where is this kind of limit on how far do you want to take the collaborations going forward for both Pura Vida and for Vera Bradley?

Rob Wallstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Well on the collaboration partnerships that we're doing are really about, customer acquisition, reaching out to new customers, and expanding the tribe of customers inside Vera Bradley and Pura Vida. Over the last couple of years, we've really had a lot of success in doing that through, our Disney partnerships, our Harry Potter partnerships, and most recently through the Star Wars partnership that we find it really brings new excitement, a new customer who discovers our brands, which we think is great. I think you're right, that as we think about the Coleman opportunity, right, moving into from this outdoor space, being in Target, it's great to see the brand and kind of the in-cap in Target. It gets a lot of new customers to see it, as well as thinking about things like Tupperware that it's a way to to get new customers and the brand people that might not be thinking about us from a bag business, but love the pattern, loves the brand, and a new way to join.

So we think, we have to continue to balance that and continue to look for new unique partnerships to keep it fresh and keep it exciting. And I would say that probably the level of collaborations we've been doing is probably around where we would want to be. I don't think that we'll continue to do more and more. I think the trick is to continue to find more and more powerful ones.

But we've been very excited with the ones we've launched in both brands so far, and I've had very good customer responses.

Eric Beder -- Small Cap Consumer Research -- Analyst

OK. When we look at -- and you mentioned a little bit the back-to-campus season, obviously that's a big season for you. And last year there were some opportunities that because of the supply chain, the flows didn't materialize, great [Inaudible] were like. How focused and what should we be thinking about in costuming in terms of that season going forward? Because I am incredibly and I'm sure it's going to start in about two to three weeks.

Rob Wallstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. No, I think the back to -- we're definitely very hopeful on the back-to-campus season coming up. If you think about last year, there still was a lot of noise, shall we say, around COVID, people going back to school, all the stuff that was happening out in the media. So between having some supply chain disruptions, having a maybe a lack of singular focus with kids, and getting back to school, we think there's some opportunity as we move into this year.

Our inventories are in a much better position than they were last year, and we're anticipating that the customer will have more open to spending overall as they go back to school. So we are hopeful. We feel like we're set up and ready to go and then we'll start -- what we're doing this year too is really leveraging now that Vera Bradley kind of the streaming TV, we think it's a way to bring new, new customers into our back-to-campus business.

Eric Beder -- Small Cap Consumer Research -- Analyst

And the last question, in terms of the store mix or now more outlets, the Vera Bradley brand inside, you're more outlet stores than full-price stores. What should we be thinking about that mix and kind of where's the store -- and you obviously shrinking the full-price store base. Where is the correct mix of products and amount of stores that should be out there for Vera Bradley? Thank you.

Rob Wallstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. Thanks, Eric. In terms of store mix, I think two things. As we think about our full-line business, what we think about is the omni-channel approach, right? Between our e-commerce business and our full-line stores.

We think it's important that we have a mix of both. We think that brick and mortar plays an important role in that mix and will continue to and I think you will see us continue to look at different ways of innovating within our full line of portfolio and continuing to look at opportunities, particularly, I think, going forward as we look at new real estate formats, opportunities where customers are. I think you'll continue to see experimentation there. At the same time, we do believe that the factory channel is an important channel for us.

Obviously, right now with gas prices, there's a cyclical pressure on that channel, but long term it's been a very good channel for us, both from an acquisition, and a volume, and profitability standpoint. So we expect that will continue with the focus on the factory channel to kind of balance our full-price e-commerce slash brick and mortar strategy.

Eric Beder -- Small Cap Consumer Research -- Analyst

Great. Thank you. Good luck with the rest of the year.

Rob Wallstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Eric.

John Enwright -- Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President

Thanks, Eric.

Operator

And our next question will come from Joe Gomes with Noble Capital.

Joe Gomes -- Noble Capital Markets -- Analyst

Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions.

Rob Wallstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Good morning, Joe.

John Enwright -- Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President

Good morning, Joe.

Joe Gomes -- Noble Capital Markets -- Analyst

The first question you mentioned, the household income under $55,000, we're seeing some difficulty there. Any data on, what percentage of your overall customers that group makes up? And how has that been shifting over time?

Rob Wallstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, a couple of things. One, it's about 20% of our customer spend is coming out of that customer group. Over the last kind of two years, we've been focusing on really bringing in the 25 to the 35-year-old customer as we've continued to bring new customers into the Vera Bradley brand. And when we started bringing in that younger customer, the average household income was lower in that group than, in our traditional customer base.

So we've seen that group grow slightly, but it's really due to the age. So we think that acquiring that customer in that age category is really important to the long-term health of the brand. The cyclical pressure we're experiencing, obviously, it's painful to go through, but, again, we do believe it's a cyclical one that will change. And having that population in our database and attracted to our brand, we think will make the brand stronger over the long term.

Joe Gomes -- Noble Capital Markets -- Analyst

OK. Thanks for that. And then you mentioned about the cost reduction initiatives that you said you hope to identify them, here by the end of this quarter. Maybe a little more color on, when you think those reductions will be implemented? And when do you think you'll start to see, the $15 million to $25 million of cost savings come through.

Rob Wallstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

It's a great question. And, first of all, we already have begun to take some of the costs out. But what we're really doing is a top to bottom scrub to figure out with the economy potentially being in this lower household income customer really already in a recession. And if that continues for a while, we further bring down the overall cost structure more what I'll call the structural cost structure is important.

So we're -- we've been involved already, we're in the midst of doing all of that work to look at both the short term actions that will begin to take even now as we're identifying them, as well as more of the long term, what I call process improvement ones that might take a little bit of time,  kind of months to implement. That might take a little bit longer. But we'll begin to continue to push those cost reductions even now. And then we'll have a lot more clarity on the next call.

But we wanted to make sure everybody knew that the work was underway.

John Enwright -- Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President

Yeah, I think to Rob's point -- the last point there, we'll be able to give a little bit more color on the second quarter call, but the range of $15 million to $25 million, if you want to think about it, that is an annualized number as you can think about for next year that ultimately our structure would be about $15 million to $25 million less in the SG&A, that would be the intent and we will work through some of that. We'll get some of that benefit call in the second, third, and fourth quarters this year. But we will not get all of that benefit this year.

Rob Wallstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

And then we have other SG&A acts underway and variable cost actions underway as we speak, so.

John Enwright -- Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President

And we've embedded what we believe will get in benefit this year in our SG&A guidance up to 248 to 253.

Joe Gomes -- Noble Capital Markets -- Analyst

OK. Thank you for that. And one last one for me, if I may. One of the things that we've talked about in the past is the potential of doing another Pura Vida type of acquisition.

Given the challenges in the market today, it would seem to be a potentially opportunistic time to make such a type of acquisition. Just trying to get a feel for what your guy's thoughts are given today on the acquisition pipeline.

Rob Wallstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

I think that's a great question. And you're right, there's always this balance between the macro environment being more challenging, and that can put some pressure on valuations downward, which can be opportunistic, and so we are watching that. But at the same time, we do believe that focusing on getting the expenses out, really working on the two core businesses, and really getting those strong in the short term is our number one focus. But we continue to keep our eyes open in the M&A market.

So but right now our heads are really kind of head down, let's focus on these two brands. Let's get the cost structure right and make sure that we really do the best -- the best we can as we move through this short-term recessionary environment.

Joe Gomes -- Noble Capital Markets -- Analyst

Great. Thanks for taking the questions.

John Enwright -- Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President

Thanks, Joe.

Rob Wallstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Joe.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question will come from Steve Marotta with C.L. King & Associates.

Steve Marotta -- C.L. King and Associates -- Analyst

Good morning, Rob, and John. Can you talk a little bit about the cost increases that you're feeling the offsetting price increases, and how that may play out in gross margin in the second, third, and fourth quarters?

John Enwright -- Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President

Yeah. So the second quarter is going to continue to be under pressure from the inbound and outbound freight expenses that we're seeing. We're not lapping some of the high points of last year that we'll be lapping that next year. So the second quarter will definitely have more pressure in it, similar to the pressure you saw in the first quarter.

And as we think about the back half of the year, we should be lapping some of the higher freight expenses and hopefully seeing some benefit with, inbound and outbound freight expenses if we see some change in the macroeconomic environment. But all that being said, we're also seeing some incremental expenses associated with fuel surcharges that are hitting kind of our P&L. Expect to be hitting a lot of P&Ls right now. So that's also going to be a headwind as we kind of manage our way through the rest of this year.

If you think about a cost increase, your question in regards to kind of input cost increase, that will be mostly in regards to next year, we'll see some -- the cotton price increases will flow into next year. And we're trying to get ahead of that with some price increases this year that ultimately will help benefit next year.

Steve Marotta -- C.L. King and Associates -- Analyst

That's helpful. And besides travel and back-to-campus, Rob, that you had already mentioned, are there other categories that you're relatively optimistic about in the second half, and if so, why?

Rob Wallstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. I think the other thing that we've been doing is, is building out what we've called our winning intersections in terms of things like our home category, and we're seeing nice growth there. We have important launches coming up like our cloud footwear launch that will be coming up. So we feel really good about what's in the pipeline.

A lot of innovation coming forward, and a lot of reason for excitement. The real balance is how to continue to expand the brand and then manage through this cyclical short-term recessionary pressure. But we have a lot of great innovations in the pipeline that will make the brand even stronger as we move forward.

Steve Marotta -- C.L. King and Associates -- Analyst

Understood. Thank you. I'll check the balance offline.

Rob Wallstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Steve.

John Enwright -- Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President

Thanks, Steve.

Operator

Thank you. And that does conclude the question-and-answer session. I'll now turn the conference back over to Rob Wallstrom for closing remarks.

Rob Wallstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

Before I close, I would like to thank John Kyees, who has served with distinction on the Vera Bradley Inc Board since 2010 and has held the important roles of lead independent director and chair of the audit committee. John retired from the Board in conjunction with this year's annual shareholders' meeting last month, and on behalf of the other directors and the entire company, I would like to express my gratitude to him for his service and invaluable counsel over the last 12 years. Fran Philip has been named lead independent director, she has tremendous institutional knowledge. Serving on our Board since 2011 and a wealth of industry experience.

Having served as a chief merchandising officer of L.L. Bean and holding a variety of roles with other retailers, including Williams-Sonoma and The Gap. Fran is currently on the Boards of publicly traded Coats Group and Vista Outdoor. Kristina Cashman, on our Board for two years has stepped into the role of audit chair, a CPA with a strong financial and accounting background.

She has served as the CFO for several companies and is currently the audit committee chair for publicly held Basset Furniture Industries. In closing, we are preparing for the macro environment to remain challenging through the remainder of this year and into next year. And despite the strength and Pura Vida's store business and the opportunity for new store growth, we know that it will take time to return the e-commerce business to grow, as rebuilding the marketing platform and remixing the marketing program is underway. We are taking decisive actions that will further strengthen both core brands and our enterprise as a whole, not only to successfully manage through this period but position us for the future.

Our teams are focused on our cash position and the balance sheet remains strong. We have managed to difficult periods before and we will again. We look forward to returning both brands to steady growth. We will keep you posted on our progress.

Thank you for joining us today. We look forward to speaking with you on August 31st, on our second quarter earnings call.

Operator

[Operator signoff]

Duration: 32 minutes

Call participants:

Mark Dely -- Chief Administrative Officer

Rob Wallstrom -- Chief Executive Officer

John Enwright -- Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President

Unknown speaker

Eric Beder -- Small Cap Consumer Research -- Analyst

Joe Gomes -- Noble Capital Markets -- Analyst

Steve Marotta -- C.L. King and Associates -- Analyst

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