Tiffany Rewarded for Less Bad Behavior

Net sales and earnings declines, despite being smaller than anticipated, reflected the negative effects from the strong U.S. dollar and a difficult year-over-year sales in Japan.

The company maintained its guidance for the 2016 fiscal year, which “forecast minimal growth in net earnings per diluted shares from the $4.20 earned in fiscal 2014.” The consensus estimates are $4.20 in EPS on $4.29 billion in revenue for the 2016 fiscal year.

Tiffany spent $33 million in the first quarter to repurchase roughly 380,000 shares of its common stock. At the end of April, about $240 million remained authorized for repurchases under a $300 million, which is part of a three-year program that expires in March 2017.

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As for the situation in Japan, on a constant-exchange-rate basis total sales declined 18% and comparable store sales declined 24%. These declines reflected difficult comparisons to strong growth in last year’s first quarter when comparable store sales had surged 30% due to consumer demand prior to an increase in Japan’s consumption tax on April 1, 2014. As reported in U.S. dollars, total sales in Japan declined 30% to $122 million.

In the Americas, on a constant-exchange-rate basis total sales rose 3% and comparable store sales were 1% above the prior year.

Frederic Cumenal, CEO of Tiffany, commented on earnings:

We started the year facing well-known challenges from both global economic uncertainties and the effect of a strong U.S. dollar on the translation of foreign-denominated sales into dollars and on foreign tourist spending in the U.S., as well as a difficult sales comparison in Japan. Despite those factors, our first quarter results for net sales, as well as for gross margin and net earnings, were somewhat better than we anticipated.

Cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments totaled $715 million at the end of April, compared to $381 million in the same period from last year.

Shares of Tiffany closed Tuesday down 1.6% at $85.53. Following the earnings report, shares were up 7.1% at $91.60. The stock has a consensus analyst price target of $97.21 and a 52-week trading range of $82.64 to $110.60.

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