WEIS MARKETS, INC.
PART I
Weis Markets, Inc. is a Pennsylvania business founded by Harry and Sigmund Weis in 1912 and incorporated in 1924. The Company is engaged principally in the retail sale of food in Pennsylvania and surrounding states. There was no material change in the nature of the Company's business during fiscal 2011. The Company’s stock has been traded on the New York Stock Exchange since 1965 under the symbol “WMK.” The Weis family currently owns approximately 65% of the outstanding shares. Robert F. Weis serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors, and Jonathan H. Weis, son of Robert F. Weis, serves as Vice Chairman and Secretary.
The Company's retail food stores sell groceries, dairy products, frozen foods, meats, seafood, fresh produce, floral, pharmacy services, deli products, prepared foods, bakery products, beer and wine, fuel and general merchandise items, such as health and beauty care and household products. In addition, some stores offer third party services including: in-store banks, post offices and take-out restaurants. The Company advertises its products and promotes its brand through weekly newspaper circulars; radio and television ads; e-mail blasts; and on-line via its website, social media and recently launched mobile applications. Printed circulars are used extensively on a weekly basis to advertise featured items. The Company utilizes a loyalty card program, “Weis Club Preferred Shopper,” which allows customers to receive discounts, promotions and rewards. The Company currently owns and operates 161 retail food stores. The Company’s operations are reported as a single reportable segment.
The following table provides additional detail on the percentage of consolidated net sales contributed by product category for fiscal years 2011, 2010, and 2009, respectively:
(1) Consists primarily of groceries, dairy products, frozen foods, beer and wine, and general merchandise items, such as health and beauty care and household products.
(2) Consists primarily of meats, seafood, fresh produce, floral, deli products, prepared foods and bakery products.
At the end of 2011, Weis Markets, Inc. operated 23 stores in Maryland, 3 stores in New Jersey, 12 stores in New York, 120 stores in Pennsylvania and 2 stores in West Virginia, for a total of 160 retail food stores operating under the Weis Markets trade name. Weis Markets, Inc. also operated one Save-A-Lot retail food store in Pennsylvania.
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All retail food store locations, except Save-A-Lot, operate as conventional supermarkets. Save-A-Lot’s limited assortment format serves value-focused customers. The retail food stores range in size from 8,000 to 70,000 square feet, with an average size of approximately 49,000 square feet. The following summarizes the number of stores by size categories as of year-end:
The following schedule shows the changes in the number of retail food stores, total square footage and store additions/remodels as of year-end:
(1) On August 23, 2009, the Company acquired eleven Giant Markets stores located in Broome County, New York including units in Binghamton, Vestal, Endicott, Endwell and Johnson City.
The Company supports its retail operations through a centrally located distribution facility, its own transportation fleet, three manufacturing facilities and its administrative offices. The Company is required to use a significant amount of working capital to provide for the necessary amount of inventory to meet demand for its products through efficient use of buying power and effective utilization of space in its distribution facilities. The manufacturing facilities consist of a meat processing plant, an ice cream plant and a milk processing plant.
The Company operates in a highly competitive market place. The number and the variety of competitors vary by market. The Company’s principal competition consists of international, national, regional and local food chains, as well as independent food stores. The Company also faces substantial competition from convenience stores, membership warehouse clubs, specialty retailers, supercenters and large-scale drug and pharmaceutical chains. The Company continues to effectively compete by offering a strong combination of value, quality and service.
The Company currently employs approximately 17,400 full-time and part-time associates.
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Trade Names and Trademarks. The Company has invested significantly in the development and protection of “Weis Markets” both as a trade name and a trademark and considers it to be an important asset. The Company is the exclusive licensee of more than 100 other trademarks registered and/or pending in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, including trademarks for its product lines and promotions such as Weis, Weis 2 Go, Weis Wonder Chicken, Price Freeze, Weis Gas-n-Go, From The Field, Weis Baker’s Basket and Healthy Bites. Each trademark registration is for an initial period of 10 years and may be renewed so long as it is in continued use in commerce.
The Company considers its trademarks to be of material importance to its business and actively defends and enforces its rights.
The Company maintains a corporate web site at www.weismarkets.com. The Company makes available, free of charge, on the “Corporate Information” section of its web site, its annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act, as soon as reasonably practicable after the Company electronically files such material or furnishes it to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) by clicking on the “SEC Information” link.
The Company’s Corporate Governance materials can be found in the “Corporate Information” section of the Company’s web site. These materials include the corporate governance guidelines; the charters of the Audit, Compensation and Disclosure Committees; and both the Code of Business Conduct and Ethics and the Code of Ethics for the CEO and CFO. A copy of the foregoing corporate governance materials is available upon written request to the Company’s principal executive offices.
In addition to risks and uncertainties in the ordinary course of business common to all businesses, important factors are listed below specific to the Company and its industry, which could materially impact its future performance.
The Company’s industry is highly competitive. If the Company is unable to compete effectively, the Company’s financial condition and results of operations could be materially affected.
The retail food industry is intensely price competitive, and the competition the Company encounters may have a negative impact on product retail prices. The financial results may be adversely impacted by a competitive environment that could cause the Company to reduce retail prices without a reduction in its product cost to maintain market share; thus reducing sales and gross profit margins.
The trade area of the Company is located within a region and subject to the economic, social and climate variables of that region.
The Company’s stores are concentrated in central and northeast Pennsylvania, central Maryland, suburban Baltimore regions and the Southern Tier of New York. Changes in economic and social conditions in the Company’s operating regions, including fluctuations in the inflation rate along with changes in population and employment and job growth rates, affect customer shopping habits. These changes may negatively impact sales and earnings. In addition, employment conditions specifically may affect the Company’s ability to hire and train qualified associates. Business disruptions due to weather and catastrophic events historically have been few. The Company’s geographic regions could receive an extreme variance in the amount of annual snowfall that may materially affect sales and expense results.
Food safety issues could result in the loss of consumer confidence in the Company.
Customers count on the Company to provide them with wholesome food products. Concerns regarding the safety of food products sold in its stores could cause shoppers to avoid purchasing certain products from the Company, or to seek alternative sources of supply for all of their food needs, even if the basis for the concern is outside of the Company’s control. Any lost confidence on the part of its customers would be difficult and costly to reestablish. As such, any issue regarding the safety of any food items sold by the Company, regardless of the cause, could have a substantial and adverse effect on operations.
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The failure to execute expansion plans could have a material adverse effect on the Company's business and results of its operations.
Circumstances outside the Company’s control could negatively impact anticipated capital investments in store, distribution and manufacturing projects, information technology and equipment. The Company cannot determine with certainty whether its new stores will be successful. The failure to expand by successfully opening new stores as planned, or the failure of a significant number of these stores to perform as planned, could have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business and results of its operations.
Disruptions or security breaches in the Company’s information technology systems could adversely affect results.
The Company’s business is highly dependent on complex information technology systems that are vital to its continuing operations. If the Company was to experience difficulties maintaining existing systems or implementing new systems, significant losses could be incurred due to disruptions in its operations. Additionally, these systems contain valuable proprietary data that, if breached, would have an adverse effect on the Company.
The Company is affected by certain operating costs which could increase or fluctuate considerably.
Associate expenses contribute to the majority of the Company’s operating costs. The Company's financial performance is potentially affected by increasing wage and benefit costs, a competitive labor market, regulatory wage increases and the risk of unionized labor disruptions of its non-union workforce. In addition, the long term growth in associate medical insurance costs continues to outpace the Company’s expenses as a whole. The Company's profit is particularly sensitive to the cost of oil. Oil prices directly affect the Company's product transportation costs, as well as its utility and petroleum-based supply costs. It also affects the costs of its suppliers, which impacts its cost of goods. Even with recently enacted Government legislation, including the Dodd-Frank Amendment, the Company continues to remain concerned about the continual rise in bank interchange fees for accepting payment cards at the point of sale. As the use of payment cards grow and banks continue to raise their rates, this expense continues to decrease profit margins.
Various aspects of the Company’s business are subject to federal, state and local laws and regulations.
The Company is subject to various federal, state and local laws, regulations and administrative practices that affect the Company’s business. The Company must comply with numerous provisions regulating health and sanitation standards, food labeling, equal employment opportunity, minimum wages and licensing for the sale of food, drugs and alcoholic beverages. The Company’s compliance with these regulations may require additional capital expenditures and could adversely affect the Company’s ability to conduct the Company’s business as planned. Management cannot predict either the nature of future laws, regulations, interpretations or applications, or the effect either additional government regulations or administrative orders, when and if promulgated, or disparate federal, state, and local regulatory schemes would have on the Company’s future business. They could, however, require the reformulation of certain products to meet new standards, the recall or discontinuance of certain products not able to be reformulated, additional record keeping, expanded documentation of the properties of certain products, expanded or different labeling and/or scientific substantiation. Any or all of such requirements could have an adverse effect on the Company’s results of operations and financial condition.
Unexpected factors affecting self-insurance claims and reserve estimates could adversely affect the Company.
The Company uses a combination of insurance and self-insurance to provide for potential liabilities for workers' compensation, general liability, vehicle accident, property and associate medical benefit claims. Management estimates the liabilities associated with the risks retained by the Company, in part, by considering historical claims experience, demographic and severity factors and other actuarial assumptions which, by their nature, are subject to a high degree of variability. Any projection of losses concerning workers’ compensation and general liability is subject to a high degree of variability. Among the causes of this variability are unpredictable external factors affecting future inflation rates, discount rates, litigation trends, legal interpretations, benefit level changes and claim settlement patterns.
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The Company was liable for associate health claims up to an annual maximum of $750,000 per member prior to March 1, 2012 and is liable for associate health claims up to an annual maximum of $1,250,000 per member as of March 1, 2012. The Company is liable for workers' compensation claims up to $2,000,000 per claim. Property and casualty insurance coverage is maintained with outside carriers at deductible or retention levels ranging from $100,000 to $1,000,000. Although the Company has minimized its exposure on individual claims, the Company, for the benefit of cost savings, has accepted the risk of an unusual amount of independent multiple material claims arising, which could have a significant impact on earnings.
Changes in tax laws may result in higher income tax.
The Company's future effective tax rate may increase from current rates due to changes in laws and the status of pending items with various taxing authorities. Currently, the Company benefits from a combination of its corporate structure and certain state tax laws.
The Company’s investment portfolio may suffer losses from changes in market interest rates and changes in market conditions which could adversely affect results of operations or liquidity.
As of December 31, 2011, the Company had $37.4 million in cash and cash equivalents and $89.3 million in marketable securities. The Company’s marketable securities consist of municipal bonds and equity securities. These investments are subject to general credit, liquidity, market and interest rate risks. Substantially all of these securities are subject to interest rate and credit risk and will decline in value if interest rates increase or one of the issuers’ credit ratings is reduced. As a result, the Company may experience a reduction in value or loss of liquidity from investments, which may have a negative impact on the Company’s results of operations, liquidity and financial condition.
The Company is a controlled Company due to the common stock holdings of the Weis family.
The Weis family’s share ownership represents approximately 65% of the combined voting power of the Company’s common stock as of December 31, 2011. As a result, the Weis family has the power to elect a majority of the Company’s directors and approve any action requiring the approval of the shareholders of the Company, including adopting certain amendments to the Company’s charter and approving mergers or sales of substantially all of the Company’s assets. Currently, two of the Company’s seven directors are members of the Weis family.
There are no unresolved staff comments.
The Company currently owns and operates 81 of its retail food stores, and leases and operates 80 stores under operating leases that expire at various dates through 2028. The Company owns all trade fixtures and equipment in its stores and several parcels of vacant land, which are available as locations for possible future stores or other expansion.
The Company owns and operates one distribution center in Milton, Pennsylvania of approximately 1.1 million square feet, and one in Northumberland, Pennsylvania totaling approximately 76,000 square feet. The Company also owns one warehouse complex in Sunbury, Pennsylvania totaling approximately 557,000 square feet. The Company operates an ice cream plant, meat processing plant and milk processing plant in 259,000 square feet at its Sunbury location.
Neither the Company nor any subsidiary is presently a party to, nor is any of their property subject to, any pending legal proceedings, other than routine litigation incidental to the business.
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The following sets forth the names and ages of the Company’s executive officers as of March 15, 2012, indicating all positions held during the past five years: