Circuit City Results & Comments Show Incompetence (CC, BBY)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Circuit City (NYSE: CC) has just posted its earnings, or at least its results.  The company posted a loss of $140 million from operations.

Quarterly net sales decreased 3.1 percent to $2.96 billion from $3.06 billion in the same period last year, with consolidated comparable store sales decreasing 5.6 percent.  Excluding the charges, the company lost $0.64 on an EPS basis.  First Call had estimates at -$0.31 EPS on revenues of $3 Billion.

We named Philip Schoonover as a CEO that needs to go, and the board should revolt after you read further down here on the outlook.  Cherkasky is out at Marsh-Mac, and Circuit City needs to follow the same path.

It did announce a new $1.3 Billion credit facility, but it also recorded a non-cash tax expense of $102.8 million to establish a full valuation allowance against its deferred tax assets in the domestic segment.

Philip J. Schoonover, chairman, president and chief executive officer, said: "We are very dissatisfied with our third quarter results.  We underestimated the financial impact from the disruption of our transformation work…..………. "We believe that these issues are primarily self-induced……"  What a dope.

But the outlook is for a loss, as well even though First Call had been looking for the retailer to post a gain in the Christmas quarter: "Assuming that current sales and margin trends continue for the balance of the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, the company expects to deliver a modest loss from continuing operations before income taxes for the quarter."  That is unacceptable for a retailer, even if you have a bozo CEO.  Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) is obviously kicking these guys in the teeth, and if you have been to a both stores back to back you’ll know why.

Shares are down about 15% at $5.65 pre-market and the 52-week trading range is $5.35 to $22.02.  With a $6.66 closing price yesterday you have to wonder if it was an Omen?  It’s a cold winter in the board room this morning.

Jon C. Ogg
December 21, 2007

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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