Michaels crafts a winning quarter as sales, earnings top expectations

9/4/2019
The Michaels Cos. topped Wall Street estimates for its second quarter and offered positive guidance.

The arts and craft retailer reported net income of $24.5 million, or 16 cents a share, in the quarter ended August 3, down from $27.5 million, or 15 cents a share, in the year-ago period. Excluding a charge associated with closing the Pat Catan’s stores, adjusted earnings were 19 cents a share, ahead of the 14 cents analysts had expected.

Sales edged down to $1.034 billion from $1.053 billion, beating Street estimates of $1.019 billion. The company said the decrease in net sales was mostly due to the closure of the Pat Catan’s stores in fiscal 2018.

Same-store sales rose 0.3%, also better than expected.

“We are pleased to return to positive comparable store sales in the second quarter of fiscal 2019,” said Mark Cosby, interim CEO. “Our teams are focused on driving sales and executing on our 2019 priorities, and the early results show the customer is responding positively. It is encouraging to see this early progress and we are focused on the disciplined execution of our priorities to continue to build on this early momentum.”

At the end of the quarter, the company operated a total of 1,262 Michaels stores.

The retailer said it now expects fiscal 2019 sales of $5.16 billion to $5.19 billion and adjusted earnings per share of $2.31 to $2.42.
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