Stein Mart, Inc. announced total sales and comparable store sales for the fiscal period ended November 27, 2004, as follows (dollars in millions):
Total Sales Percent Change
Fiscal Period: Total Comparable
2004 2003 Sales Store Sales
November
(4 weeks) $140.3 $137.0 2.5% 2.0%
Year to date
(43 weeks) $1,155.9 $1,087.0 6.3% 8.6%
Ladies and men’s apparel were the best-performing categories of merchandise. Geographically, all regions of the country had positive comparable sales for the month, with better results coming from stores in the Ohio Valley through the Northeast, followed by Central Florida and parts of Texas.
“The strength of our assortment and the freshness of our inventory continued to produce mid-single digit comparable store sales increases through the first three weeks of November, even with the ongoing reduction in promotion activity,” commented Michael D. Fisher, president and chief executive officer of Stein Mart, Inc. “During the Thanksgiving time period, however, customers were clearly more motivated by promotions, and as a result, we did not capture as much of the holiday business as we had planned, although we were very pleased with the full-price selling that did occur.”
Stein Mart operated 260 stores on November 28, 2004 as compared to 265 stores at the same time last year. One location (Stuart, FL) remains closed due to hurricane damage and is expected to re-open this month.
Updated guidance
December sales should be driven by a strong holiday “wear-now” and gift assortment, complemented by an accelerated transitional merchandise delivery. With a higher rate of current, regular-priced merchandise than last year and a beneficial number of shopping days before Christmas, management reiterated its expectation that comparable store sales will increase 3-5 percent for the fourth quarter of 2004, which would result in diluted earnings per share of $0.40 to $0.43 as compared to $0.33 per share in the fourth quarter of 2003.
