Name: The CEO of Toys 'R' Us Is Still Bullish on China
Uploaded: 2016-07-21
Duration: 3 min 36 s
Description: But growth is slowing down in the U.S.

Dave, Toys R Us does business all around the world. What's your take on the global economy and global growth right now? In our categories, the categories that we compete in, people are still having babies, and many places in the world more now than they were before So there's still a growth in that segment that's very important to us. And people still celebrate children. And people, even with limited funds available, if you're gonna spoil anyone, you're gonna spoil your child. And you're gonna make sure they have a Christmas, and you're gonna make sure they have a birthday, or whatever that special holiday may be. So generally speaking my view of the world is, that we are We're in a position to grow our business, top line growth and bottom line growth, in virtually every country that we operate in. What's the impact of Brexit on your company? Given you have a lot of stores all throughout Europe and Britain. We do, we have a lot of stores in the UK, and the true answer is we're not sure. There's gonna be some Currency dislocations and things that will affect reported results, but as it relates to how is the consumer behaving and at what point does this become more normalized? It's very difficult to say right now. Well, given that there are a lot of worries about the European economy and And Brexit and all that. Do you think that those economic problems could ultimately become a problem for us here in the U. S .? There are some talks about possible recession here. Sure. Yeah it's a concern. There are a lot of smart people who are predicting that. Again, we look at those cycles because discretionary spending is certainly going to have an influence on anyone who's in the retail business. What about China? You have a big push to open 30 some stores in China at a time where there's so much uncertainty with the Chinese economy and the Chinese consumer. Right. So we believe in the big picture there, we believe that that's a super opportunity for our brand and our company And we're gonna continue to invest in it. We have seen some slowdown, in terms of consumer spend, but we're still very positive over there. And we're still very bullish. What about here in the US? How would you describe the climate for doing business? It's tough. I think generally, as an economy, we're in a challenged time, where You know it would appear as though growth is slowing down and ultimately the bottom line is that GNP and what's going on with growth and how's the consumer behaving. I think debt is something that we really need to look at when I see the consumer continues to spend and consumer confidence continues to be pretty high but then when you look at the numbers of how much of that spending is based on debt That's being created at the family level. Again, I think it's a challenging time where we need to really be thoughtful about leadership and the policies we put in place to protect this great economy and the impact it has on the world. Dave, we're getting into this presidential election season and we're gonna be hearing a lot of policy speeches over the next couple of weeks and months. What it, do you think is the most important policy for the success of American businesses and the US economy? We can't lose track of the fact that it's a global market and we need to be a player in it. And certainly all the discussions about are trade deals fair and are they balanced. I think that's all healthy and important. And probably are not as fair and as balanced as they need to be. But we can't lose track of the fact that most of us, as large corporations in the US. We rely heavily on international markets for our growth. And in many cases, to build the infrastructure we need to be successful. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]