stlplace

To be fair, Crocs reported a good quarter for Q4 2007. But, the outlook did not please the street, let me quote Reuters:

The company based in Niwot, Colorado, whose vibrantly colored shoes, clogs and boots have become a fad in recent years, also backed its 2008 profit outlook of $2.70 and revenue view of $1.16 billion.

Analysts were expecting a profit of $2.72, before items, on revenue of $1.16 billion.

The stock dropped about 10% after hour. I am not sure if it will recover like AMZN did after its earning couple weeks ago. As I was listening the Conferece call, one analyst asked if people under-appreciated Crocs’ infrustructure, he even said Crocs is like a global supply chain company happens to make and distribute shoes. Interesting point, Crocs has 5,000 employee worldwide as of now.

Crocs scheduled the Q4 2007 earning report on Feb 19. Couple things I anticipated and will pay attention to:

1) I don’t think this will be a strong quarter due to seasonality: it’s winter in Europe and Japan, and in winter they don’t wear Crocs as the American do.

2) Inventory: if the 1) holds, the inventory (classics and Cayman) they built up last quarter will not reduce dramatically. The managment also said in last CC they expect those inventories to ship for Spring 08. This is not good news.

3) Cash flow: they will not have cash flow statement in press release; they will have it in the 10-Q, 10-K afterwards. But don’t expect too much from it. As I said in my earlier post titled “stock option helped Crocs cash flow”, this magic will not work any more now that the stock is beated down.