Destination Maternity doubles second quarter profit

29 Apr '11

5 min read

Destination Maternity Corporation, the world's leading maternity apparel retailer, announced operating results for the second quarter of fiscal 2011, which ended March 31, 2011, with its second quarter diluted earnings per share exceeding its prior earnings guidance and significantly exceeding its prior year second quarter earnings results.

The Company also increased its earnings guidance for the full year fiscal 2011. The Company announced that its Board of Directors declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.175 per share payable June 28, 2011. Also, the Company announced the hiring of Chris Daniel as its President, effective June 1, 2011.

Commentary

Ed Krell, Chief Executive Officer of Destination Maternity Corporation, noted, "We are pleased with the continued increase in the profitability of our business and the continued progress we are making in improving our sales performance. Our GAAP diluted earnings per share was $0.43 for the second quarter of fiscal 2011, which exceeded the top end of our prior earnings guidance range of $0.30 to $0.355 per share that we provided in our January 27, 2011 press release, and was significantly higher than last year's second quarter GAAP diluted earnings of $0.21 per share.

"Our comparable retail sales (including internet sales) have increased for both the second quarter and the first six months of fiscal 2011, and our comparable store sales decrease of 0.9% for the second quarter was near the top end of our guidance range of down 0.5% to down 2.5% provided in our January 27 press release.

"As part of our focus on initiatives to drive profitable sales growth, in February 2011 we completed the significant expansion of our maternity apparel leased department relationship with Macy's, increasing from 115 Macy's locations to our current 632 Macy's locations throughout the United States, offering a mix of Motherhood Maternity and A Pea in the Pod branded merchandise.

"We have been a proud partner with Macy's for nearly 20 years, and this expansion deepens our position as the leading maternity apparel retailer in the world. Although we experienced a slower than planned ramp up of sales from our Macy's expansion, this does not dampen either our enthusiasm or our view of the sales potential for this initiative.

"With this slower than planned ramp up, our total sales of $133.8 million for the second quarter was slightly below the low end of our sales guidance range of $134 to $137 million, even though our comparable store sales performance for the quarter was near the top end of our guidance range.

"We announced the hiring of Chris Daniel as our President. Chris has significant experience leading women's fashion apparel brands and has had great experience in serving a niche customer demographic in a specialty retailing environment through his Torrid leadership position. Chris brings to Destination Maternity a great skill set as a customer-focused retail executive with deep merchandising experience. We are confident that Chris's talent, experience, creativity and energy will help us continue to drive improved sales performance and help us achieve our mission of becoming an even stronger global leader in the maternity apparel business."

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