Casual Male 4th-quarter earnings down 98 percent
Canton retailer Casual Male Retail Group Inc. said today that its fourth quarter profit dropped 98 percent due to falling customer traffic and hefty write-downs for inventory adjustments.
For the quarter ended Feb. 2, net income fell to $638,000, or 2 cents per share, from $38.7 million, or 83 cents per share in the prior year.
Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected earnings of 15 cents per share.
Revenue fell 8 percent to $133.9 million from $144.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2006. Analysts predicted revenue of $137.3 million.
Same-store sales, or sales at stores open at least a year, fell 0.3 percent for the quarter. Same-store sales is a key indicator of retailer performance since it measures growth at existing stores rather than newly opened ones.
The company said sales in the year-ago quarter were helped by an extra selling week in the year.
Customer traffic also fell nearly 8 percent. Casual Male said promotional discounts meant to minimize excess seasonal inventory also hurt margins and profit.
The company added it cleared out Rochester Big & Tall merchandise and made other inventory adjustments, which resulted in write-downs of about 8 cents per share. The year-ago quarter included a tax benefit of $30.5 million or 64 cents per share.
For the year, profit dropped 99 percent to $414,000, or 1 cent per share, from $42.6 million, or 98 cents per share in the prior year.
Revenue fell less than 1 percent to $464.1 million from $465.4 million in 2006.
Casual Male Retail Group Inc. also said today that its fiscal 2008 earnings per share would be in the range expected by Wall Street analysts.
Casual Male expects earnings between 25 cents and 30 cents per share for the year.
Analysts polled by Thomson Financial forecast profit between 16 cents and 40 cents per share, with a mean of 28 cents per share.
The retailer predicted sales of $470 million to $480 million. Analysts anticipate revenue of $486.9 million.
The company said same-store sales, or sales at stores open at least a year, will be flat to down 2 percent.
Most retailers have struggled to keep same-store sales growing as consumers cut back on discretionary spending to deal with high gas and food prices and the weak housing market. (AP)
