SEC Company Response from EVERLAST WORLDWIDE INC (CIK 0000934795) — Jul 26, 2005
EVERLAST WORLDWIDE INC (CIK 0000934795)
Date: July 26, 2005 · CIK: 0000934795 · Accession: 0000921895-05-001188
AI Filing Summary & Sentiment
Referenced dates: July 11, 2005, June 1, 2005, June 1, 2005, June 1, 2005
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REDACTED VERSION
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July 21, 2005
Securities and Exchange Commission
Judiciary Plaza
450 Fifth Street, N.W. DIRECT DIAL: 212.451.2220
Washington, D.C. 20549-0404 EMAIL: RFRIEDMAN@OLSHANLAW.COM
Attention: Brian V. McAllister
Re: RESPONSE OF EVERLAST WORLDWIDE, INC. (THE "COMPANY")
COMMENT LETTER TO FORM 10-K (SEC FILE NO. 0-25918)
Ladies and Gentlemen:
We acknowledge receipt of the letter of comment dated July 11, 2005
from the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "COMMISSION LETTER") with
regards to our response dated June 20, 2005 to your comment letter dated June 1,
2005. We have reviewed the letter with the Company and the Company's auditors
and the following reflect the Company's responses to the Commission Letter. The
section and page number references below refer to the Company's annual report on
Form 10-K (the "Annual Report") filed with the Securities and Exchange
Commission on March 28, 2005. The responses are numbered to coincide with the
numbering of the comments in the Commission Letter.
INDEPENDENT REGISTERED AUDITOR'S REPORT, PAGE 1-F
1. We note your response to comment 6 in our letter dated June 1, 2005.
Please clarify your reference to our records in your response. As of
June 22, 2005, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board
("PCAOB") has Berenson and Company LLP as a registered independent
accounting firm. It does not list Berenson LLP as a registered
public accounting firm or state there is a pending application for
the entity. Please tell us why you believe your independent
accountant is registered with the PCAOB and why your auditor's
report is compliant with Rule 2-01(f)(1) of Regulation S-X.
OUR RESPONSE:
The PCAOB has updated their records to reflect the correct name
of Berenson LLP.
July 21, 2005
Page 2
CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS, PAGE 2-F
2. We note your response to comment 7 in our letter dated June 1, 2005.
In future filings please provide a reconciliation of your accounts
receivables assigned to factor, advances from factor, amount due
from (to) factor, unfactored accounts receivable subtotal,
allowanced for doubtful accounts and net accounts receivable as of
your balance sheet dates. In your response, please show us what your
revised disclosure will look like.
OUR RESPONSE
For future filings, the following reconciliation is an example
of our reconciliation of the Company's accounts receivable assigned
to factor, advances from factor, amount due from factor, nonfactored
accounts receivable and allowance for doubtful accounts and
chargebacks are as follows:
As of As of
December 31, 2004 December 31, 2003
Outstanding Borrowings from $ 18,600,000 $ 14,509,000
Factor ------------ ------------
Outstanding Accounts $ 7,559,000 $ 7,826,000
Receivable Assigned to Factor
Reserve for Chargebacks (275,000) (215,000)
------------ ------------
Net Outstanding Accounts 7,284,000 7,611,000
Receivable Assigned to Factor ------------ ------------
Net Due to Factor $ 11,316,000 $ 6,898,000
------------ ------------
Nonfactored accounts and $ 9,791,000 $ 8,818,000
licensing receivables ------------ ------------
Allowance for Doubtful (10,000) (412,000)
Accounts ------------ ------------
Net Nonfactored Accounts and $ 9,781,000 $ 8,406,000
Licensing Receivables ------------ ------------
3. We further note that you record the assigned accounts receivable as
a sale and also believe the entire factor transaction can be viewed
as a financing transaction. In this regard, cash inflows from the
transfer of receivables arising from the sale of goods or services
July 21, 2005
Page 3
that qualify for sale accounting are generally classified as
operating cash inflows. Reference is made to paragraph 22(a) of FAS
95. Please clarify and advise as of the accounting basis supporting
your net reporting or revise.
OUR RESPONSE
The Company concurs with the Staff's position and will reclassify
its statements of cash flows. Exhibit 1 attached hereto shows the revised cash
flows.
NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS, PAGE 7-F
4. We note your response to comment 10 in our letter dated June 1,
2005. It is not evident that performance of the company is not
assessed based on different components of the company and that
financial information about these components is not available.
Please identify which person or personnel are responsible for
directly allocating resources to and assessing the performance of
your apparel, sporting goods and/or licensing activities and provide
us with a copy of all existing reports which summarize and present
your business activities to your chief operating decision maker(s).
We may have further comment.
OUR RESPONSE
As has been the case since the Company acquired Everlast World's
Boxing Headquarters Corp. in 2000, the Company's chief decision-maker, its Chief
Executive Officer, has been the individual solely responsible for directly
allocating resources to, and assessing the performance of the apparel, sporting
goods, and licensing activities. The largest category of operating overhead
since the acquisition has been advertising and promotion. This commitment to
building brand awareness and improving the public's perception about the sport
of boxing has been a focus that is not at all specific to any of the three
aforementioned activities. One example would be the Company providing boxing
equipment and related apparel to a major movie studio for an upcoming movie.
This particular expenditure is made solely to build brand awareness and clearly
benefits all three activities. Another example, as discussed in our previous
response, was the Company's decision to license its women's apparel instead of
continuing to sell it on its own. This was not an exit of the women's apparel
business, but merely a different approach to selling this product. This rather
significant decision was made to benefit the Company as a whole and not one
particular segment. Attached hereto as Exhibit 2 (confidential treatment
requested) are certain financial information that the Company's Chief Executive
Officer reviews during the year to help make informative financial decisions.
July 21, 2005
Page 4
RESTRUCTURING AND NON-RECURRING CHARGES, PAGE 13-F
5. We note your response to comment 14 in our letter dated June 1,
2005. Please clarify your reference to EITF No. 96-9 which discusses
the required statement of operations classification for inventory
markdowns. Costs associated with a restructuring activity that do
not meet the conditions in paragraph 2 of SFAS No. 146 are
incremental period costs and shall not be recognized before they are
incurred. See paragraph 17 of SFAS No. 146. Please advise or revise
to reflect $1 million of non-recurring idle capacity and product
coordination costs in the periods they are incurred. In your
response, please show us what your revised disclosure will look
like.
OUR RESPONSE
The product discontinuance costs are largely separate and apart from
any factor the market may have had on these products. However, since it is
difficult to distinguish the markdown attributable to a decision to exit an
activity from a markdown attributable to market factors, the Company agrees with
the SEC's position in EITF 96-9 to classify the write-down as a component of
cost of goods sold.
All costs associated with this disposal activity do meet the
conditions of paragraph 2 of SFAS No. 146. These costs included lease
termination expenses which related to the Bronx, New York rent for the months of
January through April 2004, whereby the "cease-use" date was during December,
2003. These costs also included employee severance for those terminated
employees whose service to the Company ended prior to December 31, 2003. Another
significant component of these restructuring and non-recurring charges is the
factory labor and related overhead as it relates to idle capacity. These labor
and overhead costs were incurred in 2003 as the Company transitioned its
production to Moberly, Missouri. None of these labor and overhead costs extended
into 2004. The last of these costs associated with the disposal activity is the
inventory write-downs discussed above. These inventory items were either sold
off, discarded, or written down to their net realizable values prior to December
31, 2003.
July 21, 2005
Page 5
Please direct any questions or comments concerning this response to
Gary J. Dailey at (212) 239-0990 or to the undersigned at (212) 451-2220.
Very truly yours,
/s/ Robert H. Friedman
----------------------
Robert H. Friedman
cc: George Horowitz
Gary J. Dailey
EXHIBIT 1
EVERLAST WORLDWIDE INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES
CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS
Years ended December 31,
------------------------------------------
2004 2003 2002
----------- ----------- ------------
Cash flows from operating activities:
Net income (loss) $(1,027,000) $ (955,000) $ 2,448,000
Adjustments to reconcile net income (loss) to
net cash (used in) provided by operating
activities:
Bad debts -- 136,000 52,000
Depreciation 537,000 534,000 559,000
Amortization 1,389,000 1,062,000 913,000
(Increase) decrease in cash surrender value
of
life insurance policies -- -- (93,000)
Interest income on restricted cash (13,000) (11,000) (4,000)
Deferred income taxes -- -- (84,000)
Non-cash restructuring and non-recurring
charges, including related inventory charge -- 1,157,000 --
Changes in assets (increase) decrease:
Accounts receivable (1,048,000) (1,101,000) (1,539,000)
Inventories (1,770,000) (584,000) 1,201,000
Prepaid expenses and other current assets 186,000 (338,000) 151,000
Other assets (111,000) (74,000) (277,000)
Changes in liabilities increase (decrease):
Accounts payable, income taxes payable
and
accrued expenses and other liabilities 423,000 1,238,000 (1,641,000)
License deposits payable (129,000) 5,000 (124,000)
----------- ----------- ------------
Net cash (used) provided by operating
activities (1,563,000) 1,069,000 1,562,000
----------- ----------- ------------
Cash flows from investing activities:
Proceeds from sale of marketable securities -- 309,000 --
Acquisition of property and equipment (531,000) (268,000) (729,000)
----------- ----------- ------------
Net cash (used) provided by investing
activities (531,000) 41,000 (729,000)
----------- ----------- ------------
Cash flows from financing activities:
Proceeds from long-term debt -- -- 3,516,000
Repayment of long-term debt (310,000) (389,000) (146,000)
Increase in advances from factor 4,091,000 3,803,000 2,908,000
Redemption of participating preferred stock (3,000,000) (3,000,000) (5,000,000)
Issuance of common stock in connection with
exercise
of options 125,000 34,000 21,000
Financing costs in connection with preferred
stock refinance (100,000) (700,000) --
Payment of preferred stock dividend -- (1,451,000) (1,702,000)
Restricted cash -- -- (1,000,000)
----------- ----------- ------------
Net cash provided (used) by financing
activities 806,000 (1,703,000) (1,403,000)
----------- ----------- ------------
Net decrease in cash and cash equivalents (1,288,000) (593,000) (570,000)
Cash and cash equivalents, beginning of year 1,937,000 2,530,000 3,100,000
----------- ----------- ------------
Cash and cash equivalents, end of year $ 649,000 $ 1,937,000 $ 2,530,000
=========== =========== ============
EVERLAST HARDGOODS BACKLOG 6-JAN-04
ShipmentS 12/1-12/31
--------- ----------
Month Sales 01 Sales 02 Sales 03 Sales 04