Pier 1 Imports Inc. (NYSE: PIR) is set to report its fiscal first-quarter earnings after the markets close Wednesday. There are consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters of $0.08 in earnings per share (EPS) on $434.53 million in revenue. In the same quarter of the previous year it posted EPS of $0.16 and revenue of $419.06 million.

In the previous earnings report, the company gave guidance for the fiscal first quarter as comparable store sales growth of 4% from the previous year and EPS in the range of $0.07 to $0.08.

The board of directors declared a $0.07 per share quarterly cash dividend in the last earnings report. This was an increase from the previous dividend of $0.06.

Alex W. Smith, president and CEO, outlined a plan going forward in the last report:

Our omni-channel transformation is largely complete and from a brand strength and customer facing perspective we could not be more pleased with the results. However, fiscal 2015 clearly did not turn out as we had originally budgeted and we are very disappointed with the result. Our job now is to use the strength of the Pier 1 Imports brand and our investments in it to improve our profitability.

Despite this plan, the company still intends to close roughly 100 stores over the next three years, primarily through natural lease expirations and relocations.

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A few analysts weighed in on Pier 1 ahead of the earnings release:

• Deutsch Bank has a Hold rating with a $12 price target.
• Wedbush downgraded Pier 1 to Neutral from Outperform and lowered the price target to $12 from $16.
• Cantor Fitzgerald initiated coverage with a Buy rating and a price target of $17.

Shares of Pier 1 were down 0.4% at $12.19 on Tuesday afternoon. The stock has a consensus analyst price target of $14.92 and a 52-week trading range of $11.38 to $18.45.

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