TJX ready to surprise and delight customers in Q4

The fourth quarter is off to a very strong start at TJX Companies, according to CEO Carol Meyrowitz, who expects an exciting mix of initiatives to yield a low single digit fourth quarter comp increase and profit growth.



The company shared its outlook for the holidays in conjunction with the release of third quarter results which saw the company achieve analysts’ earnings estimates. Sales increased 6% to $7.4 billion during the third quarter ended November 1. Same stores sales advanced 2% on top of a prior year increase of 5% as TJX increased selling space by 4% with a net increase of 106 stores.



Profits declined 4.5% to $595 million from $623 million while earnings per share declined a penny to 85 cents from the prior year and matched analysts’ estimates. If an 11 cent a share prior year tax-related benefit is excluded, earnings per share increased 13%. The company’s current year earnings per share calculations benefited by the retirement of 7.5 million shares as TJX spent $448 million on stock buybacks.



“I am very pleased with our third quarter performance. Our comp sales increase of 2% was at the high end of our plan against 5% growth last year, our strongest quarter of 2013. On an adjusted basis, we drove a 13% EPS increase over 21% growth last year,” Meyrowitz said. “We are particularly pleased that customer traffic continued to gain momentum in the third quarter despite unusually warm weather, which we believe dampened sales throughout TJX Europe starting in September and hurt Marmaxx in October. Having said that, the fourth quarter is off to a very strong start. As we enter the holiday season, we believe our gift giving, marketing and values are the most exciting that we have offered our customers. We have many new in-store initiatives that we believe will both surprise and delight our customers.”



The strongest sales performance came from the company’s 485 unit Home Goods division where comps increased 7% on top of a prior year increase of 10%. The Marmaxx division, consisting of 1,113 T.J. Maxx stores and 973 Marshalls stores in the U.S. grew same store sales by 1% on top of a prior year increase of 4%.



The company ended the quarter with 3,385 worldwide locations.