Briefing.com summarized the Tiffany conference call....
Decline in foreign spending in NYC store as Europeans slowed travel to the store; says European outlets performed better due to people not traveling to the NYC... gross margin in the quarter came in 'somewhat better than expected'; declined to 55.6% from 57.1% last year; decline was largely due to higher product costs, partly offset by lower wholesale sales of diamonds which sell back into the market at cost; Diamond prices have reversed course in the past six months and are now back to levels of one or two years ago; gross margin benefit is probably not felt until next year based on manufacturing lead times and assumed inventory turnover; notes some mines have recently cut back on their production in order to adapt the reduced global consumer demand and to help stabilize rough diamond pricing... Effective tax rate was 42% in the quarter versus 36.7% last year with the increase reflecting differences in the geographical mix of earnings; expect about a 37% rate for the full year.... $304 million of cash and cash equivalents versus $160 million last year; had $822 million of total short-term and long term debt compared with $611 million a year ago... In Q1 completed plan to secure additional long term financing by borrowing $300 million; this followed issuing $100 million of long term debt last December; proceeds have been or will be used to redeem some maturing debt... call has ended.
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