SEC Company Response from SEALY CORP (CIK 0000748015) — Sep 28, 2005
SEALY CORP (CIK 0000748015)
Date: Sept. 28, 2005 · CIK: 0000748015 · Accession: 0001104659-05-046210
AI Filing Summary & Sentiment
File numbers found in text: 333-126280
Referenced dates: August 29, 2005, August 29, 2005, July 29, 2005, September 9, 2005
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CORRESP 1 filename1.htm [LETTERHEAD OF SIMPSON THACHER & BARTLETT LLP] September 28, 2005 VIA FEDEX AND EDGAR Re: Sealy Corporation Registration Statement on Form S-1 File No. 333-126280 Division of Corporation Finance Securities and Exchange Commission 100 F Street, N.E. Washington, D.C. 20549 Attention: Ms. Meagan Caldwell Dear Ms. Caldwell: On behalf of Sealy Corporation (the “Company”), we are providing the following responses to your comment letter, dated September 19, 2005, regarding the above-referenced Registration Statement. To assist your review, we have retyped the text of the Staff’s comments in italics below. The responses and information described below are based upon information provided to us by the Company. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations, page 41 Results of Operations, page 40 Fiscal Year Ended November 28, 2004 Compared With Year Ended November 30, 2003, page 49 1. We read your responses to our comment 19 from our letter dated August 29, 2005 and comment 78 from our letter dated July 29, 2005 and revised disclosures. The revised disclosure included in your MD&A states in fiscal 2004 your product return costs associated with warranties increased $8.3 million over fiscal 2003. You further disclose that this increase was due to improvements in the method for capturing information related to product returns and an increase in the estimated age of products returned. Your response to our comment 19 from our letter dated August 29, 2005 specifically addresses the following components of the warranty provision, which comprise a portion of the $8.3 million warranty provision recorded in fiscal 2004: • $2.7 million related to a change in estimate based on a portion of warranty returns, previously recorded as sales returns, • $0.7 million related to the timeliness of recording warranty claims, attributable to a backlog of unprocessed claims, and • $1.1 million due to an error in the warranty reserve at November 30, 2003. The above mentioned components represent approximately $4.5 million of the increase in the warranty provision over fiscal 2003. Excluding the factors above, which contributed to the $8.3 million increase in the warranty provision, your reserve increased approximately $3.8 million, or 34.5%; however your net sales increased only 13.5% in fiscal 2004 compared to fiscal 2003. Please expand your disclosure to discuss the other factors that contributed to the additional $3.8 million increase in your reserve. In addition, please include in your disclosure the above mentioned components of the warranty provision, which you included in your response to our comment 19 from our letter dated August 29, 2005. As previously requested, please also expand your MD&A to discuss the business reasons for changes in your warranty provision between November 2002 and November 2003. Please also include a similar discussion in your MD&A related to your comparison of your fiscal quarter ended May 29, 2005 to your fiscal quarter ended May 30, 2004. In response to the Staff’s comment, the Company proposes to revise the disclosure on pages 44, 48, 49, 51 and F-15 of the Registration Statement. Please refer to Exhibit A for the text of the proposed revisions. Notes to Financial Statements for the years ended November 29, 2004 and November 30, 2003 Note 1: Significant Accounting Policies, page F-9 Warranties, page F-15 2. We read your responses to our comment 19 from our letter dated August 29, 2005 and comment 78 from our letter dated July 29, 2005 and revised disclosure. Our comment 19 from our letter dated August 29, 2005 requested that you revise your table included in your disclosure to separately state the portion of your warranty provision that relates to current year sales from the portion of your warranty provision that represents a change in your estimate of the provision from prior 2 years. You have included in a footnote to your warranty provision information relating to the following: • $2.7 million related to a change in estimate based on a portion of warranty returns, previously recorded as sales returns and • $0.7 million related to the timeliness of recording warranty claims, attributable to a backlog of unprocessed claims. Your footnote does not reference the $1.1 million adjustment recorded in fiscal 2004 relating to an error in the warranty reserve at November 30, 2003. Please revise your disclosure to include this. Excluding the aforementioned components of your warranty provision recorded in fiscal 2004, your warranty provision increased approximately $3.8 million, or 33%, over fiscal 2003. If any or all of this relates to changes in your estimate of the provision from prior years, please include this in your footnote. In response to the Staff’s comment, the Company proposes to revise the disclosure on pages 44, 49, 51 and F-15 of the Registration Statement. Please refer to Exhibit A for the text of the proposed revisions. 3. We read your responses to our comment 19 from our letter dated August 29, 2005 and comment 78 from our letter dated July 29, 2005 and revised disclosure. Our comment 19 from our letter dated August 29, 2005 requested that you revise your table included in your disclosure to separately state the portion of your warranty claims that relates to current year sales from the portion of your warranty claims that relates to prior years. You have included in a footnote to your warranty claims information relating to the following: • $2.7 million related to a change in estimate based on a portion of warranty returns, previously recorded as sales returns and • $0.7 million related to the timeliness of recording warranty claims, attributable to a backlog of unprocessed claims. Your response states that prior to fiscal 2004 you did not have a system in place to capture the date of manufacture and associate that with the date of a specific warranty claim. Based on this it would appear that at a minimum you would be able to distinguish those claims received in 2004 from those that relate to prior years as a whole, if not expressly by year. Please revise your disclosure as previously requested. In response to the Staff’s comment, the Company respectfully advises the Staff that, as noted in its response to comment 19 in the Company’s response letter dated September 9, 2005, the Company was unable to determine the ages of warranty returns prior to fiscal 2004. In order to determine the age of a returned product, the date of manufacture must be captured and associated with the date of 3 the return. Also as previously noted in its response, during fiscal 2004 the Company implemented an enhanced product return process which enabled it to begin capturing the date of manufacture associated with returned beds. However, this enhanced process was not implemented until May of 2004 and was further refined and adjusted over an approximately ninety day period; thus, the date of manufacture was unavailable with respect to beds returned during the first five months of fiscal 2004. Complete data does not exist to determine the number of beds returned in fiscal 2004 that were manufactured in prior fiscal years. Accordingly, the Company respectfully advises the Staff that it is unable to revise its disclosure to show the portion of fiscal 2004 warranty claims associated with prior years’ sales. 4. We read your response to our comment 19 from our letter dated August 29, 2005 and Exhibit A, which you included in your response. Your response indicates that a portion of your fiscal 2004 warranty provision relates to an adjustment recorded related to an error totaling $1.1 million, which was recorded in fiscal 2004 relating to fiscal 2003. You further stated that you determined this error to be immaterial related to fiscal years 2003 and 2004 and to the third fiscal quarter in 2004. Please tell us the consideration you gave to the impact that the $1.1 million adjustment recorded during the fiscal quarter ended August 29, 2004 would have had on your results of operations for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2003 and the first quarter of 2004 had the adjustment been made in one of those quarters instead. In reaching your conclusions, please also tell us how you considered the materiality of correcting this error had it instead been corrected in fiscal 2003, the fourth quarter of 2003, and the first quarter of 2004 as it relates to your per share net loss available to common shareholders computations for each of these periods. Please also address in your response how this would have impacted your debt covenants. Analysis of Materiality of the Computation Error in the Determination of Warranty Reserve at November 30, 2003, and the Subsequent Correction Thereof in Fiscal 2004 Background: In determining its estimate of the warranty liability as of November 30, 2003, the Company erroneously identified approximately $1.1 million recorded in the general ledger as being available for application to the required amount of the reserve for domestic operations. In fact, this amount had been set up in prior years as a reserve for warranty obligations for certain of the Company’s international operations, though the amount was recorded on the domestic corporate ledger. As a result, the Company’s total warranty reserve and warranty provision as of and for the fiscal quarter and year ended November 30, 2003 was understated by approximately $1.1 million. The portion of the reserve attributable to international operations had been properly considered in reserve analyses for prior quarters; therefore, no other interim periods in fiscal 2003 were affected. 4 The error was discovered in the third quarter of fiscal 2004, and the correction of the error was recorded in that same quarterly period. To correct the error, the Company re-established the $1.1 million as a reserve for estimated warranty obligations for certain of its international operations, and adjusted its domestic reserve to the new estimate after excluding the $1.1 million from the available balance. Therefore, while the estimate of the warranty reserve was correct at November 28, 2004, the warranty provision for the fiscal year then ended was overstated by approximately $1.1 million. The Company believes that recording the correction of the error in the third quarter of fiscal 2004 was appropriate based on the following considerations of materiality involving quantitative and trend analysis as well as other significant qualitative considerations. Materiality: In assessing materiality for the purpose of determining whether a particular amount, event, or other fact requires disclosure in its financial statements, it is the Company’s policy to consider all relevant facts and circumstances related to the matter under consideration. Such facts and circumstances considered extend beyond simple quantitative measures of materiality. This policy is consistent with the approach of the SEC Staff as set forth in SEC Staff Accounting Bulletin No. 99 (SAB 99), which states, in part: The staff has no objection to such a “rule of thumb” [referring to a 5% test] as an initial step in assessing materiality. But quantifying, in percentage terms, the magnitude of a misstatement is only the beginning of an analysis of materiality; it cannot appropriately be used as a substitute for a full analysis of all relevant considerations. Materiality concerns the significance of an item to users of a registrant’s financial statements. A matter is “material” if there is a substantial likelihood that a reasonable person would consider it important. In its Statement of Financial Accounting Concepts No. 2, the FASB stated the essence of the concept of materiality as follows: The omission or misstatement of an item in a financial report is material if, in the light of surrounding circumstances, the magnitude of the item is such that it is probable that the judgment of a reasonable person relying upon the report would have been changed or influenced by the inclusion or correction of the item. In addition, for interim periods the Company considers the guidance of APB Opinion No. 28, Interim Financial Reporting, paragraph 29 of which states, in part: 5 29. In determining materiality for the purpose of reporting the cumulative effect of an accounting change or correction of an error, amounts should be related to the estimated income for the full fiscal year and also to the effect on the trend of earnings. Changes that are material with respect to an interim period but not material with respect to the estimated income for the full fiscal year or to the trend of earnings should be separately disclosed in the interim period. (emphasis added) Accordingly, the Company believes that any quantitative assessment of materiality must be balanced with careful consideration of qualitative factors which may bear on the perception of materiality held by the users of the Company’s financial statements, and further, that errors related to interim reporting periods should be considered in the context of annual fiscal earnings and trends. Quantitative Analysis: In evaluating the warranty error, the Company considered the absolute value of the warranty error compared to key components of the statement of operations, as well as Adjusted EBITDA (as defined in the Company’s credit agreements), as reported for each fiscal period affected or potentially affected by the error or its correction as follows: ($ in millions, except per share amounts) Annual Fiscal Year Interim Fiscal Periods 2003 2004 2004A (1) 4th Qtr 2003 1st Qtr 2004 (2) 3rd Qtr 2004 Sales $ 1,189.9 $ 1,314.0 $ 1,314.0 $ 306.8 $ 318.2 $ 357.3 Error $ 1.1 $ 1.1 $ 1.1 $ 1.1 $ 1.1 $ 1.1 Percent 0.09 % 0.08 % 0.08 % 0.36 % 0.35 % 0.31 % Gross Profit $ 494.8 $ 573.9 $ 573.9 $ 128.0 $ 134.6 $ 163.3 Error $ 1.1 $ 1.1 $ 1.1 $ 1.1 $ 1.1 $ 1.1 Percent 0.22 % 0.19 % 0.19 % 0.86 % 0.82 % 0.67 % Operating income $ 105.9 $ 22.2 $ 154.7 $ 26.3 $ 36.1 $ 47.0 Error $ 1.1 $ 1.1 $ 1.1 $ 1.1 $ 1.1 $ 1.1 Percent 1.04 % 4.95 % 0.71 % 4.18 % 3.05 % 2.34 % Pretax income $ 36.5 $ (49.6 ) $ 82.8 $ 7.2 $ 19.6 $ 28.5 Error $ 1.1 $ 1.1 $ 1.1 $ 1.1 $ 1.1 $ 1.1 Percent 3.02 % -2.22 % 1.33 % 15.19 % 5.63 % 3.87 % Net income $ 18.3 $ (40.1 ) $ 48.9 $ 1.5 $ 11.3 $ 20.2 Error (net of tax) $ 0.7 $ 0.7 $ 0.7 $ 0.7 $ 0.7 $ 0.7 Percent 3.83 % -1.75 % 1.43 % 46.93 % 6.22 % 3.47 % Per Share: Net income as reported $ 0.17 $ (0.40 ) $ 0.49 $ 0.01 $ 0.10 $ 0.22 Net income adjusted for effect of error $ 0.16 $ (0.40 ) $ 0.50 $ 0.01 $ 0.11 $ 0.23 Adjusted EBITDA $ 158.6 $ 200.0 $ 200.0 $ 45.3 $ 46.1 $ 60.3 Error $ 1.1 $ 1.1 $ 1.1 $ 1.1 $ 1.1 $ 1.1 Percent