Vince Holding Corp.

Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, this is the conference operator. Today's conference is scheduled to begin momentarily. Until that time, your lines will again be placed on music hold. Thank you for your patience. THE END Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the events Q4 2020 earnings conference call. At this time, our participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. Thank you. I'll now turn the conference over to Amy Levy. You may begin.

Thank you, and good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Vince Holding Corp's preliminary fourth quarter fiscal 2020 results conference call. Hosting the call today is Jack Schwaefel, Chief Executive Officer, and Dave Sesko, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, let me remind you that certain statements made on this call may constitute forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those that the company expects. Those risks and uncertainties are described in today's press release and in the company's SEC filings, which are available on the company's website. Investors should not assume that the statements made during the call will remain operative at a later time, and the company undertakes no obligation to update any information discussed on the call. In addition, in today's discussion, the company is presenting its preliminary and historical financial results in conformity with GAAP and on an adjusted basis. Discussions of these non-GAAP measures and information on reconciliations of them to their most comparable GAAP measures are included in state press release and related schedules, which are available in the investor section of the company's website at investors.binns.com. After the prepared remarks, management will be available to take your questions for as long as time permits. Now I'll turn the call over to Jack.

Great. Thank you, Amy, and thank you, everyone, for joining us this afternoon. I'm pleased to be here today as the CEO of Vince Holding Corporation. Vince and Rebecca Taylor are two distinct iconic brands that I believe have extraordinary potential as global fashion brands. Vince has powerful brand recognition, a heritage of design and quality, and strong consumer connections. The Rebecca Taylor brand possesses the DNA to achieve similar levels of recognition and popularity in the future. I look forward to working with the teams as we leverage omnichannel focus and data-driven merchandising and marketing approach to help each of these brands achieve their long-term potential. To begin, I'd like to share a little bit of why I joined the company and what I see in each of these brands. And we'll begin with Vince. Since the brand was founded in 2002, it has become a symbol of sophisticated, effortless style, and over the years has developed a strong and loyal customer base. A friend who I would describe as having exceptional taste recently spoke of the Vince brand as the best of America, and I agree. The brand's distinct positioning is one of beautifully designed and crafted products, high-quality fabrications, and easy-to-wear styles. We are extremely fortunate to have such talent in the creative director, Caroline, and her design team as we continue to design our collections to embrace the lifestyle of our customers. We will continue to leverage Vince's strong brand equity and expand awareness as we increase our focus on the direct-to-consumer channel. The e-commerce site serves to engage consumers, and we have an opportunity to enhance our direct-to-consumer channel through the commencement of our omnichannel capabilities. Our stores play a vital role in driving brand awareness and engagement. Turning to Rebecca Taylor, I am equally enthusiastic and optimistic about the future of this brand. Rebecca Taylor is a small jewel known for its romantic feminine style. The work the team has done to return to the brand's heritage serves as a starting point to reinterpret and modernize the collections for today's women. The team pulled back the assortment and eliminated one of the seasonal collections in order to properly reset the brand for the future. There could be no better time for this relaunch to occur as we emerge from the pandemic. Under Stephen Catterton's vision, we took a step back to assess the brand position in preparation for a spring 2021 relaunch, Romanticism Redefined. Rebecca has expanded from dresses and occasion wear to a complete lifestyle offering. New categories include sweaters with romantic couplet details, outerwear in exaggerated silhouettes, sophisticated trousers, and everyday knitwear. Each piece thoughtfully designed, for a decidingly elegant way of dressing that defines romance for today. The relaunch coincides with the brand's new digital first strategy, including a completely redesigned website, the launch of an SMS program, an updated site experience on RebeccaTaylor.com, and a focus on segmentation and personalization. I am also very pleased to be working with an accomplished team as we emerge from the pandemic with two incredible brands with significant growth potential. The organization, under David Stefko's leadership, successfully navigated through this unprecedented period by managing expenses and maximizing liquidity while continuing to engage the customers and generate demand. The team was able to advance the strategic initiatives despite the challenges presented by the pandemic. At Vince, we launched inclusive sizing in 2020 to better address our customer demand and expand our customer following. Additionally, the organization took its first step to omnichannel in 2020 by combining our e-commerce and our wholesale warehouses, forming one virtual warehouse. As we work towards being fully omnichannel by 2021, the current investment in implementation of an enhanced point-of-sale system will allow us to reach this goal. The team has done an exceptional job over this past year, and I look forward to working with them to continue to build upon all this progress. The direct-to-consumer business continues to improve sequentially, and we have maintained strong relationships with our wholesale partners, where some of our peers have seen deeper pullbacks and, in some cases, relationships end. Further, we believe we have actually taken market share during the pandemic, which is a remarkable feat that speaks to the power of the Vince brand. Looking forward, My priorities in the first 90 days will include further finding myself with the broader teams, as well as outside partners, including wholesale accounts, vendors, and landlords. I will also evaluate the business across operations and processes to gain greater insight into our capabilities and infrastructure and determine where we will need to invest and improve the business. During this time, liquidity will remain a priority. we will also remain diligent in our expense structure while limiting any potential investments to critical areas over the near term we will look to capitalize on the growing consumer confidence as the vaccine rollout continues overall i believe that there are a number of opportunities ahead and i'm very excited to work closely with the entire team to ensure we are enhancing the business and profitability and shareholder value over the long term i look forward to providing you with additional details on our no forward strategy and update you on our initial progress on our next call. With this, I will turn it over to Dave.