After reporting negative February comparable store sales (comps) results, The Cato Corporation CATO seems to be back on its track of delivering positive comps. The company’s comps for the five-week period ended Apr 4, 2015 jumped 12% year over year, following which its shares moved up 3.2% on the index.
Total sales during March improved 15% to $117 million. Further, sales for the nine-week period ended Apr 4, 2015 grew 5% to $197.5 million, with the year-to-date sales being 2% higher than the comparable year-ago period figure.
Overall, sales were backed by the favorable shift of Easter from mid to early April, compared with last year. However, this shift is likely to have an adverse impact on sales for the month of April. Moreover, Cato introduced 2 stores and shuttered 1 store in March, taking its total store count to 1,349 as of Apr 4, 2015.
Also, the company recently posted robust results for fourth-quarter fiscal 2014. Driven by strong top-line performance, Cato’s earnings of 33 cents per share not only came significantly ahead of its own guidance range of 13–17 cents, but also surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 25 cents.
Sales for the quarter improved 11% year over year to $237.8 million, driven by favorable weather, while comps improved 8%.
Following its fiscal 2014 performance, the company had issued its guidance for the first quarter of fiscal 2015, per which earnings are expected in the band of $1.00–$1.03 per share. Management reiterated this guidance after releasing its sales results for the month of March.
Apart from Cato, many other retailers posted their comps data for March. While Rite Aid Corp. RAD and The Gap, Inc. GPS witnessed comps growth of 4.3% and 2%, respectively, comps at Conns Inc. CONN descended 6.8% owing to port labor disruptions.
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