Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (NASDAQ: BBBY) reported its fiscal first-quarter financial results after the markets closed Thursday, and as a result the stock hit a multiyear low. In fact, shares have not been at this level in seven years.
The company said that it had $0.58 in earnings per share (EPS) and $2.74 billion in revenue. That compared with Thomson Reuters consensus estimates of $0.66 in EPS and $2.79 billion in revenue.
Comparable sales in the quarter fell by roughly 2.0%, compared with a decrease of about 0.5% in last year’s fiscal first quarter. Comparable sales from customer-facing digital channels continued to have strong growth in excess of 20%, while comparable sales from stores declined in the mid-single-digit percentage range during the fiscal 2017 first quarter.
During the fiscal 2017 first quarter, Bed Bath & Beyond repurchased $127 million worth of its common stock, representing about 3.3 million shares, under its existing $2.5 billion share repurchase program. At the end of this quarter, the program had a remaining balance of $1.6 billion.
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Bed Bath & Beyond detailed in its earnings release:
Although the first quarter is typically the least impactful quarter in terms of annual sales and earnings, and while the Company continued to have strong growth in its customer-facing-digital channels this quarter, the Company did experience increased softness in transactions in stores, as well as higher net-direct-to-customer shipping expense, coupon expense, and advertising costs during the quarter. It remains to be seen whether these challenges were more pronounced in, or unique to, the first quarter due to the smaller sales base in this period, and/or a later start to the summer selling period.
On the books, Bed Bath & Beyond cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments totaled $469.32 million at the end of the quarter, down from $566.8 million in the same period from last year.
Shares of Bed Bath & Beyond closed Thursday at $33.73, with a consensus analyst price target of $38.00 and a 52-week range of $33.40 to $48.83. Following the release, the stock was down more than 10% at $30.19 in early trading indications Friday.
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