The Sportsman’s Guide saw another strong quarter as sales and earnings were up for the both the fourth quarter and the year. During a conference call with analysts, management was also excited about the recently launched BaseballSavings.com and SoftballSavings.com, marking the company’s first foray into the team sports market. Both sites will be run out of The Golf Warehouse with economies of scale coming as a result of vendors like Nike that are similar to the three operations.

The Sportsman's Guide, Inc. reported record results of operations for the quarter and year, with consolidated net sales and earnings per share coming in at the high end of their most recent guidance. Consolidated net sales increased 4.6% to $95.2 million from $91.1 million in the year-ago period. Management noted that the 2004 fourth quarter had 14 weeks of activity, compared with 13 weeks in 2005. The additional week resulted in approximately $4 million of incremental net sales in 2004 with minimal effect on net earnings in the quarter or for the year. Sales at The Sportsman’s Guide increased 6% over the prior year’s quarter on a comp basis, and 22% at The Golf Warehouse.

The company saw net earnings improve 22.7% to $4.5 million, or 53 cents per diluted share, for the quarter, compared with $3.7 million, or 46 cents per share in Q4 last year, reflecting a 3-for-2 stock split, which was distributed in April.

For the full year, consolidated net sales were $285.1 million, a 22.7% increase over $232.5 million in the prior year. The increase is nearly 25% when the additional week in 2004 is not considered. SGDE posted record net earnings of $11.5 million, or $1.38 per fully diluted share, for the year, up 51% from net earnings of $7.6 million, or 95 cents per share, in 2004.