We include “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, throughout this report, particularly under “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” included in Part I, Item 2, and “Note 7. Commitments and Contingencies” included in Part I, Item 1, among others. You can identify these statements because they are not limited to historical fact or they use words such as “accelerate,” “aim,” “assume,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “can,” “committed,” “confident,” “continue,” “could,” “drive,” “estimate,” “expect,” “focused on,” “forecast,” “future,” “goal,” “intend,” “likely,” “long-term,” “looking ahead,” “look to,” “may,” “moving forward,” “objective,” “ongoing,” “opportunity,” “outlook,” “over time,” “plan,” “position,” “potential,” “predict,” “project,” “prospect,” “scheduled,” “seek,” “should,” “strive,” “subject to,” “uncertain,” “will” or “would”and similar expressions that concern our strategies, plans, initiatives, intentions, outlook or beliefs about future occurrences or results. For example, all statements relating to, among others, the following are forward-looking statements:
| ● | our projections and expectations regarding expenditures, costs, cash flows, results of operations, financial condition and liquidity; |
| ● | our expectations regarding economic and competitive market conditions; |
| ● | our plans, objectives, and expectations regarding future operations, growth, investments and initiatives, including but not limited to our real estate, store growth and international expansion plans, store formats or concepts, shrink and damages reduction actions, inventory reduction efforts, and anticipated progress and impact of our strategic initiatives (including but not limited to our digital initiatives, DG Media Network, DG Fresh, self-checkout, and pOpshelf) and our merchandising, margin enhancing, distribution/transportation efficiency (including but not limited to self-distribution), store manager turnover reduction and other initiatives; |
| ● | expectations regarding sales and mix of consumable and non-consumable products, customer traffic, basket size, shrink, damages and inventory levels; |
| ● | expectations regarding inflationary and labor pressures; |
| ● | expectations regarding cash dividends and stock repurchases; |
| ● | anticipated borrowing under our credit agreement and our commercial paper program; |
| ● | potential impact of legal or regulatory changes or governmental assistance or stimulus programs and our responses thereto, including without limitation potential further federal, state and/or local minimum wage increases or changes to salary levels required for certain overtime-exempt positions, as well as changes to certain government assistance programs, such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (“SNAP“) benefits, unemployment benefits, and economic stimulus payments, or potential changes to the corporate tax rate; and |
| ● | expected outcome or effect of pending or threatened legal disputes, governmental actions, litigation or audits. |
Forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors that may change at any time and may cause our actual results to differ materially from those that we expected. We derive many of these statements from our operating budgets and forecasts as of the date of this document, which are based on many detailed assumptions that we believe are reasonable. However, it is very difficult to predict the effect of known factors on future results, and we cannot anticipate all factors that could affect future results that may be important to you. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations expressed in or implied by our forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to:
| ● | economic factors, including but not limited to employment levels; inflation (and our ability to adjust prices sufficiently to offset the effect of inflation); pandemics (such as the COVID-19 pandemic); higher fuel, |
energy, healthcare, housing and product costs; higher interest rates, consumer debt levels, and tax rates; lack of available credit; tax law changes that negatively affect credits and refunds; decreases in, or elimination of, government assistance programs or subsidies such as unemployment and food/nutrition assistance programs, student loan repayment forgiveness and economic stimulus payments; commodity rates; transportation, lease and insurance costs; wage rates (including the heightened possibility of increased federal and further increased state and/or local minimum wage rates/salary levels); foreign exchange rate fluctuations; measures that create barriers to or increase the costs of international trade (including increased import duties or tariffs); and changes in laws and regulations and their effect on, as applicable, customer spending and disposable income, our ability to execute our strategies and initiatives, our cost of goods sold, our SG&A expenses (including real estate costs), and our sales and profitability;
| ● | failure to achieve or sustain our strategies, initiatives and investments, including those relating to merchandising (including those related to non-consumable products), real estate and new store development, international expansion, store formats and concepts, digital, marketing, shrink, damages, sourcing, private brand, inventory management, supply chain, private fleet, store operations, expense reduction, technology, pOpshelf, self-checkout, and DG Media Network; |
| ● | competitive pressures and changes in the competitive environment and the geographic and product markets where we operate, including, but not limited to, pricing, promotional activity, expanded availability of mobile, web-based and other digital technologies, and alliances or other business combinations; |
| ● | failure to timely and cost-effectively execute our real estate projects or to anticipate or successfully address the challenges imposed by our expansion, including into new countries or domestic markets, states, or urban or suburban areas; |
| ● | levels of inventory shrinkage and damages; |
| ● | failure to successfully manage inventory balances and in-stock levels, as well as to predict customer trends, spending levels, or price sensitivity; |
| ● | failure to maintain the security of our business, customer, employee or vendor information or to comply with privacy laws, or our or one of our vendors falling victim to a cyberattack (which risk is heightened as a result of political uncertainty involving China, the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East) that prevents us from operating all or a portion of our business; |
| ● | damage or interruption to our information systems as a result of external factors, staffing shortages or challenges in maintaining or updating our existing technology or developing, implementing or integrating new technology; |
| ● | a significant disruption to our distribution network, the capacity of our distribution centers or the timely receipt of inventory; increased fuel or transportation costs; issues related to supply chain disruptions or seasonal buying pattern disruptions; or delays in constructing, opening or staffing new distribution centers (including temperature-controlled distribution centers); |
| ● | risks and challenges associated with sourcing merchandise from suppliers, including, but not limited to, those related to international trade (for example, political uncertainty involving China, disruptive political events such as the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East, and port labor disputes/agreements); |
| ● | natural disasters, unusual weather conditions (whether or not caused by climate change), pandemic outbreaks or other health crises (for example, the COVID-19 pandemic), political or civil unrest, acts of war, violence or terrorism, and disruptive global political events (for example, political uncertainty involving China, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East); |
| ● | product liability, product recall or other product safety or labeling claims; |
| ● | incurrence of material uninsured losses, excessive insurance costs or accident costs; |
| ● | failure to attract, develop and retain qualified employees while controlling labor costs (including the heightened possibility of increased federal and further increased state and/or local minimum wage rates/salary levels, including the effects of regulatory changes related to the overtime exemption under the Fair Labor Standards Act if implemented as currently written) and other labor issues, including employee safety issues and employee expectations and productivity; |
| ● | loss of key personnel or inability to hire additional qualified personnel, ability to successfully execute management transitions within our senior leadership, or inability to enforce non-compete agreements that we have in place with management personnel or enter into new non-compete agreements; |
| ● | risks associated with our private brands, including, but not limited to, our level of success in improving their gross profit rate at expected levels; |
| ● | failure to protect our reputation; |
| ● | seasonality of our business; |
| ● | the impact of changes in or noncompliance with governmental regulations and requirements, including, but not limited to, those dealing with the sale of products, including without limitation, product and food safety, marketing, labeling or pricing; information security and privacy; labor and employment; employee wages, salary levels and benefits (including the heightened possibility of increased federal and further increased state and/or local minimum wage rates and the effects of regulatory changes related to the overtime exemption under the Fair Labor Standards Act if implemented as currently written); health and safety; real property; public accommodations; imports and customs; transportation; intellectual property; bribery; climate change; and environmental compliance (including required public disclosures related thereto), as well as tax laws (including those related to the federal, state or foreign corporate tax rate), the interpretation of existing tax laws, or our failure to sustain our reporting positions negatively affecting our tax rate, and developments in or outcomes of private actions, class actions, multi-district litigation, arbitrations, derivative actions, administrative proceedings, regulatory actions or other litigation or of inquiries from federal, state and local agencies, regulatory authorities, attorneys general, committees, subcommittees and members of the U.S. Congress, and other local, state, federal and international governmental authorities; |
| ● | new accounting guidance or changes in the interpretation or application of existing guidance; |
| ● | deterioration in market conditions, including market disruptions, adverse conditions in the financial markets including financial institution failures, limited liquidity and interest rate increases, changes in our credit profile (including any downgrade to our credit ratings), compliance with covenants and restrictions under our debt agreements, and the amount of our available excess capital; |
| ● | factors disclosed under “Risk Factors” in Part I, Item 1A of our Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended February 2, 2024; and |
| ● | factors disclosed elsewhere in this document (including, without limitation, in conjunction with the forward-looking statements themselves) and other factors. |
All forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by these and other cautionary statements that we make from time to time in our other Securities and Exchange Commission filings and public communications. You should evaluate forward-looking statements in the context of these risks and uncertainties and are cautioned to not place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. We caution you that the important factors referenced above may not contain all of the factors that are important to you. We cannot assure you that we will realize the results, performance or developments we expect or anticipate or, even if substantially realized, that they will result in the consequences or affect us or our operations in the way we expect. The forward-looking statements in this report are made only as of the date hereof. We undertake no obligation, and specifically disclaim any duty, to update or revise any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or circumstances, or otherwise, except as otherwise required by law.
You should also be aware that while we do, from time to time, communicate with securities analysts and others, it is against our policy to disclose to them any material, nonpublic information or other confidential commercial information. Accordingly, shareholders should not assume that we agree with any statement or report issued by any securities analyst regardless of the content of the statement or report. Furthermore, we have a policy against confirming projections, forecasts or opinions issued by others. Thus, to the extent that reports issued by securities analysts contain any projections, forecasts or opinions, such reports are not our responsibility.
