This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week Carol Masser in our interactive broker studio. Shares of Academy Sports and Outdoors they rose about five percent. This is after the company reported earnings, raising its financial forecast for its fiscal year, including comp sales net income,
despite some ongoing issues tied to COVID nineteen. Remember we talked with the head of the company back in October right after it went public. Let's bring back Ken Hicks. He is chairman Presidency of Academy Sports and Outdoors. He's with us once again from Katie Texas. Ken, how are you doing terrific care? How are you today? Doing well? Doing well, working our way through as the world reopens and it feels good. Um, tell us about you. We talked with you just after the I p O. Your
stock has been on a tear this year. It's up more than eighty five percent. Tell us about how it's been since the I p O and and what business looks like in the consumer trends that you're seeing. Yeah, we're we're actually seen some very strong business uh you know, reported sales up almost thirty nine percent and and very strong profits. And we've up to our estimate for the
year to between UH six and nine UH. And what we're seeing is the customer who found the new hobby, found fishing or camping, were riding bikes, built their home gym, is coming back and buying more. And so people who got into the outdoors uh or into a sport are really continuing with that. Well, that's interesting. And your supply chain, you guys have had no problem meeting everything that you
needed to, well know, the supply chain. The supply chain is a challenge, but you know, we never closed during COVID and we were able to stay open and that allowed us to be able to order goods and see what was happening. And so I'd say we're little bit ahead of some of the others and and our team is just doing a terrific job getting the merchandise through. But it is not easy. So we still don't have some inventory issues in some areas, but overall it's at
an acceptable level. Is it getting easier? Are you seeing things you know kind of like loosen up, like light up in terms of the supply chain getting more you know normal, if I can, I think we're going to see this through the remainder of the year. How does that make you change? You're thinking about how you want your supply chain to work going forward. Well, we actually
have a major study underway right now. We're going to take some significant actions to improve our supply chain going forward to really make it more flexible and more up to date. We you know, it works okay, but we're gonna need as we grow, a much stronger supply chain. Does that mean, though, Ken, Does that mean more stuff in your backyard to where you're selling? What does it mean? Because I'm assuming most of your your sales are helped me out here, remind me, is it mostly North America? US?
All of our sales are US. We're in the south central part of the United States. And you know the thing, better systems, better processes. Uh. You know, we've got the infrastructure in terms of buildings, but what we need now our better processes and systems to be able to track and flow the goods through the system faster and more accurately, and keep a better eye on it. So it's not necessarily manufacturing bringing manufacturing back home to the U S.
You just need systems that can track it. I think I've always the Apple model where I could buy a phone and I could tell where it was at every step of the stages. That's what you're looking to do. Yeah, carry you right on. Hey, listen in the ken in the corporate earnings release, you guys noted there here's a direct quote. There is still like an know the concertainty from the impact of COVID, Nitteen and other external factors, is that the supply chain or something else. I would say,
just it's the supply chain is part of it. But also you know, people are still trying to find their way in what they do in our markets. A lot of people have been out for a while, but you know, how will people spend their money? Uh? And how long people will continue with some of the hobbies and habits
that they've got. We're seeing that they're continuing. But as people go out to eat more, go on vacations and things, you know that there's a there's always a risk of of how much money they have to spend on other adventures. Right the wallet is just so wide and so you make choices. And most people would say so thin exactly exactly, specially you've got a kid in college. Hey, listen when they I want to ask you, your stock is nearly shorted the float as a percentage excuse me of the flow.
I know CEOs don't like to talk about their stock price, But in the world of meme stocks, where high short positions get the attention of the retail reddit investor crowd, are you a little concerned about getting caught up in that? Not really, because the I think the lift we we saw it today and we've seen so far is based on the performance that we had. And unlike some of the other stocks that you you're referring to, they don't have the underlying foundation of a good, solid business. We do.
We've got sales growth, we've got profit growth, and we have opportunities for uh you know, expansion online and in other markets that a lot of other people don't have. So we've got that solid foundation to continue to grow, and I think that's what will allow us to whether through some of the challenges that other other stocks have seen.
Can really quickly twenty seconds. One item that's just flying off the shelves right now, uh tense ten people people are camping like crazy, and so it's that's good for us all right. Good to know um, and always good to check in with you. Ken Hicks. He's a chairman, president and CEO of Academy Sports and Outdoors, Turning us from Katie, Texas