New York City-based ANN (NYSE: ANN) was seeing its stock sit out the market rally Friday, despite reporting fiscal third-quarter 2013 earnings that trumped analyst estimates earlier in the day.
ANN earned $0.89 per share on $657.5 million in sales, numbers respectively 6% and 7% better than it reported in the same period of 2012. Analysts had expected ANN to earn $0.86 per share on $654.2 million in sales. What's more, said company CEO Kay Krill, ANN did all this in "a challenging and highly promotional retail environment."
The CEO noted that third-quarter results exhibited "higher sales, including mid-single digit comparable sales growth, [and] a solid gross margin rate."
Looking forward, ANN advised investors to expect continued solid mid-single-digit same-store sales growth in the fourth quarter, with total sales in the neighborhood of $640 million. By year's end, the company expects to have racked up more than $2.5 billion in total revenue.
Further details included in the company's guidance suggest ANN will end the year with about $104 million in net profit -- roughly $2.31 per share:
- Gross margin rate performance to be 53.9%;
- total SG&A expenses to be $1.177 billion; and
- the company's effective tax rate to be 41%.
