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Staples meets Street with Q2 profit decline
Framingham, Mass. – Staples Inc. met Wall Street expectations with declining profit in the second quarter of fiscal 2015. Costs related to restructuring and the pending acquisition of Office Depot drove net income down 56% to $36 million, from $82 million in the second quarter of the previous fiscal year.
Net sales fell 5% to $4.94 billion, from $5.22 billion. North American store closures and unfavorable foreign exchange rates pushed sales totals downward. Same-store sales in North America (including online) fell 3%.
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Meet retailing’s debt zombies
Reagan era appointee David Stockman is no fan of the current administration or the Federal Reserve’s long-running easy money policy and to make his case against the flawed strategy he singles out four of the biggest names in department store retailing.
Stockman is the Reagan era director of the Office of Management and Budget who became a Wall Street executive and now regularly opines on the troubled state of the economy and looming dangers caused by nearly eight years of zero interest rates he contends have produced all manner of distortions in the economy.
