What: Shares of clothing retailer Men's Wearhouse Inc (TLRD) were down 23.3% at 11:15 a.m. EST Thursday after its quarterly results and outlook disappointed Wall Street.
So what: Men's Wearhouse shares have been crushed over the past six months on slumping sales at its Jos. A. Bank stores, and today's Q3 results -- net loss of $27.2 million on a net sales decline of 2.8% -- coupled with downbeat full-year guidance suggest that things aren't turning anytime soon. While management's efforts to phase out Joseph A. Bank's "buy one, get-three-free" events are helping boost margins a bit, the 14.6% drop in same-store sales confirms that customers aren't taking very kindly to the change.
Now what: Men's Wearhouse now sees full-year earnings of $1.75 to $2.00 per share, down nearly $1.00 from its guidance issued in November. "When we acquired Joseph Bank, we knew that we needed to correct the promotional model," said CEO Doug Ewert. "However, we underestimated the impact to the near-term performance as we began to execute the difficult, but necessary, corrective steps. We remain confident that these steps will restore a long-term, sustainable, profit model and reshape the business for a healthy and growing Jos. A. Bank." With the shares now off a whopping 78% from their 52-week highs and trading at a paltry price-to-sales of 0.25, strong-stomached value hounds might even want to buy into that optimism.
