Shares of Scotts Miracle-Gro (SMG 0.13%) soared on Wednesday after the company reported financial results for its fiscal fourth quarter of 2023, majorly beating Wall Street's estimates on the top line. As of 2 p.m. ET, Scotts Miracle-Gro stock was up 21%
Better than expected, but not good
In Q4 (which ended Sept. 30), Scotts Miracle-Gro generated revenue of $375 million, which was down a whopping 24% year over year. The fourth quarter is customarily weak for the company, considering its products are used for agricultural purposes and things slow down as cooler temperatures in North America set in. Wall Street seems to have expected Q4 revenue closer to $330 million, so this is a big relative outperformance.
Scotts Miracle-Gro's profitability was also nonexistent in Q4 as the company moved through inflated inventory, took impairment charges, paid on its high debt load, and more. All told the company had a net loss of $468 million, which was more than it generated in revenue.
As bad as Q4 was, Scotts Miracle-Gro's management is optimistic that it's set up for success in its fiscal 2024, which is encouraging the market despite recent results.
Looking ahead
Management said it made a lot of hard choices in its fiscal 2023 to set itself up for success in fiscal 2024. As a result, the company is expecting an operating margin of 10.5% to 11%, which would actually be closer to its historical average and far improved from its negative margins during the last two fiscal years.
Therefore, things are looking up for Scotts Miracle-Gro. That said, with the company's sizable long-term debt of nearly $2.6 billion, it's paying a ton just to service its debt load -- it spent $178 million in its fiscal 2023 alone.
Management intends to keep paying down debt, which is good. But for a company this size, a lot of money is going to handle this line item. For this reason, Scotts Miracle-Gro may struggle to enrich shareholders for a while even with improved financials, as it tries to dig itself out of a financial hole.
