Tuesday Morning names president/COO; posts Q3 loss

Dallas – Tuesday Morning Corp. has promoted Melissa Phillips, who currently serves as executive VP and general merchandise manager, to the newly created position of president and COO. In this role, Phillips will be directly responsible for merchandising, store operations and marketing, and will report directly to CEO Michael Rouleau.



Phillips has more than 15 years of buying and retail experience with national and global retailers. From 2009-2014, she served as general manager for the Home Decorators Collection at The Home Depot, and also held executive roles at Smith & Hawken and Wal-Mart.



Tuesday Morning made this executive change as it met Wall Street expectations with a net loss of $2.8 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2015, compared to a net loss of $8.43 million the same period a year earlier. A slowing pace of growth in cost of sales and relatively flat expenses helped shrink net loss.



Net sales grew 4% to $189.73 million from $182.77 million, missing analyst expectations. Same-store sales rose 6.5%.



"During the third quarter, Tuesday Morning delivered a strong comparable store sales increase of 6.5%, despite adverse weather conditions, moderation in our promotional levels and substantially higher clearance sales in the prior year period,” said Rouleau. “Our broad and shallow merchandising initiative is driving strong sales growth and a significant reduction in markdowns."