Apparel retailer Express Inc. (EXPR) is due out with fourth quarter results before tomorrow’s opening bell. Estimize is looking for earnings of $0.47, four cents higher than the Wall Street consensus and even a penny above the high-end of the company’s guidance range of $0.43 - $0.46. Even with a beat, this would still represent a drop of 17.5% year-over-year, the fifth consecutive quarterly decline. Revenue expectations from the Estimize community stand at $706.6M, slightly higher than the Street’s estimate of $704.1M. This will also be the fifth quarterly decline for sales.
At the beginning of this year, Express announced it was boosting it’s full year and fourth quarter outlook due to a better-than-expected holiday-shopping period. While the holiday season got off to a slow start on Thanksgiving weekend, business improved markedly towards the end of December and beginning of January, a pattern experienced by many other retailers. However, those sales didn’t come without heavy promotions.
Like others in this space, Express has struggled in the last year or so with a lackluster assortment which has pushed customers to fast fashion brands such as H&M and Zara. The stock is up about 2% for the year, but took a big hit in January after announcing it had ended talks to sell itself to private equity firm Sycamore Partners due to a lack of financing. Over the summer, investors rewarded the stock when first hearing about buyout interest from Sycamore which had approximately a 10% stake.
(Photo Credit: Mike Mozart)
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