West 49 Q1 net loss widens despite higher sales

12 Jun '06

4 min read

Leading action sport retailer West 49 Inc has reported its financial results for its first quarter of fiscal 2007, ended April 29th 2006.

The quarter was the first to reflect a full quarter of contributions from all of the company's acquired businesses. All figures are reported in Canadian dollars.

Financial and operational highlights for the first quarter include:

-- Strong sales growth of 87.8 percent, including comparable store sales growth of 8.5 percent;
-- Gross margins increased 143.8 percent compared with the first quarter of last year;
-- EBITDA(1) improved 18.8 percent compared with the first quarter of last year;
-- Opened five new stores during the quarter; and
-- Addition of retail veterans to senior management team.

"We had an overall solid first quarter considering the seasonality inherent in our business," said Sam Baio, CEO of West 49 Inc.

"We are very pleased with our sales growth, which benefited significantly from the strong performance of our acquired businesses. Our buying and markdown strategies continued to deliver positive results, as our gross margin improved over the same period a year before. Additionally, over the past few months we improved the breadth, depth and structure of our senior management team, adding key personnel with proven capabilities in the retail sector," he added.

Net sales for the first quarter of fiscal 2007 increased 87.8 percent to $35.5 million from $18.9 million for the same period of fiscal 2006. Two thirds of the growth was attributable to last year's acquisitions of banners Off the Wall, Amnesia/Arsenic, D-Tox, and the online business under the domain name www.boardzone.com.

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