What: Shares of Tuesday Morning Corporation (TUES) were down 11.8% as of noon Tuesday after the deep-discount retailer announced CFO Jeffrey Boyer will resign effective July 22, 2015.
So what: Tuesday Morning Corp.'s press release states Boyer made the decision to "pursue other professional opportunities." But that opportunity was quickly identified this morning via a separate press release from higher-end competitor Pier 1 Imports, which announced it will appoint Boyer as its own CFO effective July 27, 2015. Tuesday Morning said it expects Vice President and Controller Kelly Munsch to cover the company's accounting and finance functions until Boyer's replacement is hired. Boyer had been with Tuesday Morning since 2013.
Now what: Investors are understandably disappointed Boyer left for Pier 1, especially considering Tuesday Morning is still striving to turn its business around amid continued quarterly losses. In April, Tuesday Morning missed analysts' expectations for revenue, which fell 3.8% year-over-year to $189.7 million, but met estimates on the bottom line with a narrowed net loss of $2.8 million, or $0.06 per share. To its credit, the latter figure was a big improvement over the $0.20-per-share loss Tuesday Morning achieved in the year-ago period.
Even so, I can't blame investors for taking a step back today given Boyer's timely transition to greener pastures. Though Tuesday Morning might well pull off its turnaround in the coming quarters, I'm content watching its progress from the sidelines until it can show more evidence of its ability to achieve sustained long-term profitability.
