Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. So Academy
Speaker 1: Sports and Outdoors reported earnings earlier this week. It's stock
Speaker 1: rally more than on the news that was on Tuesday,
Speaker 1: the results causing five analysts to raise their price targets
Speaker 1: on the stock by an average of eleven percent. Stock
Speaker 1: is up nearly fifty percent over the past year, compared
Speaker 1: with the S and P five, which is up around
Speaker 1: and the stock in what was a down day to day,
Speaker 1: actually eking out a six tenth of one percent gain
Speaker 1: for the Thursday session. Ken Hicks as Chairman, president and
Speaker 1: CEO of Academy Sports and Outdoors, joining us on the
Speaker 1: phone from Texas. Ken, how are you terrific? How are
Speaker 1: y'all doing today? We're doing really well. Um, what's working
Speaker 1: so well for you guys? You know, we're just fortunate.
Speaker 1: And the fact that we sell fun and people want
Speaker 1: to have more fun, well, that's true, true, but they
Speaker 1: don't necessarily want to do it. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: it's I think it's so interesting because you know, during
Speaker 1: the pandemic, so many people started spending time outside in
Speaker 1: a different way than they had done perhaps ever, and
Speaker 1: we saw this rise in e commerce, and you're sort
Speaker 1: of taking a different approach, doubling down on physical retail
Speaker 1: stores and saying that you're going to open eighty to
Speaker 1: stores over the next five years. Why are you so
Speaker 1: bullish on physical retail space. Well, first of all, a
Speaker 1: lot of the things that we sell people want to
Speaker 1: touch and feel, like a baseball bat or a fishing rod. Second,
Speaker 1: a lot of it's very difficult to ship, really touch
Speaker 1: to ship a kayak or a treadmill um And the
Speaker 1: third thing, quite frankly, we're only in sixteen states right
Speaker 1: now with two d and fifty nine stores, and we've
Speaker 1: got a great model. Our average store does over twenty
Speaker 1: five million dollars, and we've got, you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of the rest of the country to to grow into
Speaker 1: and to fill out some of our existing markets. And
Speaker 1: at the same time, you know, we're growing our dot
Speaker 1: com business and truly omni channel. And we had a
Speaker 1: very good fourth quarter up over with our dot com
Speaker 1: where many other retailers were down on dot com. How
Speaker 1: many dot com purchases were there for Canoes? I just
Speaker 1: want to know a lot really, but yeah, well it's
Speaker 1: it's you know, the thing is a lot of people
Speaker 1: took up new hobbies during the pandemic and they're sticking
Speaker 1: with them. Would be that fishing or hiking, camping, different sports, exercise,
Speaker 1: and and we're seeing the benefit of that as people
Speaker 1: stick to their you know, the thing that they started.
Speaker 1: Plus we're you know, the trend for for wellness and
Speaker 1: health has been going on for some time and that's
Speaker 1: where we are. We sell to you know, families, you know,
Speaker 1: the moderate upper moderate customer, and we have we have
Speaker 1: a lot to offer in our stores from as they say,
Speaker 1: sport camping or just you know, backyard grills and patio spits.
Speaker 1: You gotta be happy to that. The S and P
Speaker 1: small caps Exandred said we're gonna put you in the index, right.
Speaker 1: You guys got some juice off of that one too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we we did get get a little juice as we
Speaker 1: went into some of the funds. But I think those
Speaker 1: funds are now very happy they put us in After
Speaker 1: the last last week. Hey, Ken, how's your supply chain?
Speaker 1: You know we've been I don't I don't mean to
Speaker 1: sound like absolutely obsessed with the supply chains. We're asking everyone,
Speaker 1: how are you making sure that your shelves are full?
Speaker 1: It is to challenge and there are some categories that
Speaker 1: are just, you know, really really difficult. One of them
Speaker 1: this year is cleats. They're just no cleats anywhere for
Speaker 1: kids who want to play baseball. But overall, we were
Speaker 1: in a much better inventory position, and we've taken a
Speaker 1: number of actions. One is we're alreadering on our merchandise
Speaker 1: early and working with vendors who we know that can supply.
Speaker 1: Another is we're using some of the UH secondary ports
Speaker 1: were located in Texas and we use Galveston, we used Charleston,
Speaker 1: and so we're able to get the goods in more.
Speaker 1: And we're working with our shipping partners and trucking partners
Speaker 1: with long term contracts to make sure that they have
Speaker 1: the capacity to give us to get the goods to
Speaker 1: the stores. Did you say nobody has kids cleats? Uh?
Speaker 1: If if you don't have them by now, it's going
Speaker 1: to be very difficult to get baseball cleats this year.
Speaker 1: What are you rethinking, if at all, about can your
Speaker 1: global supply chain in terms of where it exists, well,
Speaker 1: are are one of the things our supply chain in particular,
Speaker 1: we're fortunate in that we don't we're not as dependent
Speaker 1: on some of the very busy West coast um ports.
Speaker 1: But also we've got three distribution centers that are along
Speaker 1: the southern part of the country, and we're looking to
Speaker 1: grow um more north and further east and then ultimately west,
Speaker 1: and we're going to have to build some new distribution
Speaker 1: centers at some point to be able to service those
Speaker 1: new stores. Right now, we have enough capacity, but with
Speaker 1: our with our growth plans, we're gonna need to continue
Speaker 1: to step up our supply chain capabilities. So if I
Speaker 1: look at your website, we've just got about forty or
Speaker 1: fifty seconds. You know, there's lots of categories. There's backyard,
Speaker 1: this recreation, there's how fitness, men's, women's Kids. Which is
Speaker 1: your busiest vertical Where you're seeing the most growth, uh,
Speaker 1: team sports, footwear and apparel right now? And where are
Speaker 1: you not seeing growth the in in some of the
Speaker 1: fitness categories. Um, you know those those are a little
Speaker 1: bit more challenged. But we expect some of the categories
Speaker 1: as the weather gets warmer, like fifteen and our backyard
Speaker 1: and pools, that should start to take off again. Well,
Speaker 1: I just love that people are are online ordering canoes.
Speaker 1: I bought a huge tub online years ago. You could,
Speaker 1: you can? You can like a tub? Yeah, like you
Speaker 1: can ship anything. UM can. Always love talking with you
Speaker 1: get some great insight and what consumers are up to.
Speaker 1: Ken Hicks is Chairman Presidency of Academy Sports and Outdoors.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned, their stock over the past year has
Speaker 1: been way out performing the S and P five hundred,
Speaker 1: up about fifty percent in that timeframe. SMP just up around.
Speaker 1: Good luck if you're looking for cleats. I know it's
Speaker 1: too late, folks, find another sport. Mrs Bloomberg