Citi Trends, Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the City Trends CTRN First Quarter 2019 Earnings Conference Call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question and answer session. At that time, if you have a question, please press the 1 followed by the 4 on your telephone. If at any time during the conference you need to reach an operator, please press star 0. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded Thursday, May 23, 2019. I would now like to turn the conference over to Nicha McKee, Senior Associate. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Our earnings release was sent out this morning at 6.45 a.m. Eastern Time. If you have not received the copy of the release, it is available on the company's website under the Investor Relations section at www.citytrends.com. You should be aware that prepared remarks made during this call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Management may make additional forward-looking statements in response to your questions. These statements do not guarantee future performance. Therefore, you should not place undue reliance on these statements. We refer you to the company's most recent report on Form 10-K, and other subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a more detailed discussion of the factors that can cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statement. I will now turn the call over to our President and Chief Executive Officer, Bruce Smith. Bruce?

Thanks, Nietzsche. Good morning, everybody, and thank you for joining us today. Also on the call is our Chief Financial Officer, Stuart Clifford, and our two merchandising senior vice presidents, Christina Short and Brian Lattman. First quarter sales results were challenging during the period of income tax refund activity, and in particular, our apparel business was disappointing. Historically, tax refunds have provided a substantial benefit to our first quarter sales. However, this year that benefit was tempered by a delay in refunds, as well as a 3% decline in the overall level of tax refunds. During the four-week period in which tax refunds typically benefit our sales, we experienced a decline in comparable store sales of 10%, while comp store sales were flat for the other nine weeks of the quarter, much like we had seen in the last two quarters of 2018. The challenges during the period around tax refunds were compounded by weakness in our apparel merchandise categories. Sales of accessories and home merchandise continued to grow, but were not enough to offset the decreases in our apparel business. We have work to do to make the changes in apparel fashion that are needed for the back half of the year, but we are confident that we can execute these corrections, particularly as we start to compare against the period of time when the weakness in apparel began in last year's third quarter. At the same time, we are in the process of reallocating inventory dollars to home and accessory lines that have consistently resonated with our customers. Now I'll turn the call over to Stuart to provide additional details on the results before I discuss future plans and expectations.