Thursday, March 22, 2007

Borders Full Year Results

Any new manager wants to clean house and start from scratch which may be the tactic the CEO George Jones is adopting with the "disappointing" Borders full year results. The worse the starting point the better the future comparison - assuming the strategy works.

From the press release this morning:

The company recorded a consolidated loss in the fourth quarter of $1.25 per share, which compares to consolidated earnings per share of $1.78 for the same period in 2005. For the full year, on a GAAP basis, Borders Group posted a consolidated loss of $2.44 per share compared to consolidated diluted earnings per share of $1.42 for the prior year. Excluding non-operating charges, primarily comprised of asset write-offs, the company recorded consolidated diluted earnings per share of $1.61 for the fourth quarter, which compares to operating consolidated earnings per share of $1.87 one year ago. For the full year, on an operating basis, Borders Group posted consolidated earnings per share of $0.39 compared to $1.57 consolidated earnings per share in 2005.

Most of the EPS loss is attributed to asset impairment related to the UK operations (although they don't discuss exactly what the reasoning is here) but even without the write-downs which were probably necessary the full year operating results versus a mediocre last year are pretty dire.

Full year results were announced as follows:

  • For the full year 2006, consolidated sales increased by 0.8% to $4.06 billion.
  • The company recorded a net loss of $151.3 million in 2006 compared to net income of $101.0 million in 2005 on a GAAP basis.
  • Excluding non-operating charges, net income decreased by 78.3% from $112.0 million in 2005 to $24.3 million in 2006.
  • Borders stores comparable store sales in the segment decreased by 2.8% in the fourth quarter and declined by 2.2% for the full year.
  • International segment comparable superstore sales increased by 0.3% for the fourth quarter and decreased by 0.4% for the year in local currency
  • Walden comparable store sales in the segment decreased by 6.2% in the fourth quarter and declined by 7.5% for the full year.

Press release

No comments: