In another sign that the recent holiday season may not have been a hit with everyone, high-end home furnishings store Williams-Sonoma Inc. (NYSE: WSM) today cut its fourth-quarter and full-year guidance. Fourth-quarter EPS guidance was cut from $1.15-$1.20 to $1.10-$1.15. Full-year EPS got whacked from $2.21-$2.26 to $2.16-$2.21.
The company’s CEO blamed the change on discounting, “Williams-Sonoma faced greater challenges on a year-over-year basis given the heavy market discounting on nationally branded products.”
For the first two months of the fourth quarter (November and December) sales rose 4.2% to $9.01 billion. Most of the gain was in catalog direct sales. Retail store revenue dropped -0.6%.
To take out some of the sting, the company also announced a new $225 million stock buyback program and raised the quarterly dividend from $0.17 to $0.22, a jump of 29%.
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