J.C. Penney profit beats estimates on holiday sales boost
Envoyer par mail
02/26/2016 | 02:22am US/Eastern
Customers ride the escalator at a J.C. Penney store in New York
(Reuters) - Department store operator J.C. Penney Co Inc (>> J C Penney Company Inc) reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit, helped by strong holiday sales and improvements in clearance and promotional selling margins.
(Reuters) - Department store operator J.C. Penney Co Inc (>> J C Penney Company Inc) reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit, helped by strong holiday sales and improvements in clearance and promotional selling margins.
The company, which reported results several hours before they were due on Friday morning, said home, Sephora, footwear and handbags were its top performing divisions.
Excluding items, the company earned 39 cents per share, versus 4 cents in the year-ago period, beating analysts' average expectation of 23 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Sales for the quarter rose 2.6 percent to $4 billion, compared with analysts' expectations of $3.99 billion.
J.C. Penney said it expects a 3 percent to 4 percent increase in comparable sales for 2016 and positive adjusted earnings.
The company forecast 2016 EBITDA at $1 billion and a 40-60 basis points rise in gross margin compared with 2015.
"We believe tonight's release will be well received, underscoring CEO Ellison's confidence in achieving the company's $1.2 billion FY17 EBITDA target," JP Morgan analyst Matthew Ross said in a note.
The company's quarterly same-store sales rose 4.1 percent, in line with expectations of analysts polled by research firm Consensus Metrix.
J.C. Penney said in early January same-store sales surged during the holiday shopping months of November and December, spurring shares of retailers on a day when global stock markets dropped on concerns over the Chinese economy.
This was in contrast to sales reports from rivals Macy's Inc (>> Macy's, Inc.), Kohl's Corp (>> Kohl's Corporation) and Nordstrom Inc (>> Nordstrom, Inc.), that said unseasonably warm weather in November and December hurt sales of cold weather goods in the holiday quarter.
For the fourth quarter ended Jan. 30, J.C. Penney reported a loss of $131 million, or 43 cents per share, compared with a loss of $35 million, or 11 cents per share, a year earlier.
J.C. Penney shares have gained 25.5 percent this year until Thursday's close.
(Reporting by Rishika Sadam and Sruthi Ramakrishnan in Bengaluru; Editing by Sunil Nair and Gopakumar Warrier)
Stocks treated in this article : Macy's, Inc., J C Penney Company Inc, Nordstrom, Inc., Kohl's Corporation