The Motley Fool, an Web-based investor site, is now calling The Sportsman's Guide a “lean, mean moneymaking machine” after the company posted its latest positive results for the second quarter ended June 30th, beating the street estimates by 2 cents per share.
The outdoor catalog company has again pointed to the Internet has a major growth driver, with 36.5% of total sales now coming from Web-based transactions. The Internet accounted for 30% of total sales in Q2 2002.
The retailer saw sales for the quarter gain 9.2% to $38.0 million. Internet sales were up almost 33%. Net earnings were reported at $646,000, or 12 cents per diluted share, more than double the $317,000, or 6 cents per share, reported for the year-ago quarter.
Gross margin improved by 110 basis points to 31.4% of sales, primarily from the higher Internet sales and well as higher margins in camping, optics, automotive and hardware products.
TMF cited SGDEs healthy balance sheet to confirm the “quality” of the profits, with free cash flow tracking net income, which they said “always a positive sign”.
Shares dipped for the week, down 1.1%, but TMF said it is up 64% over the last five months “in anticipation of just such a performance”.
