Dillard’s emphasized profitable sales in its first quarter and beat a Wall Street earnings estimate.
Net income was $180 million, or $11.09 per diluted share, versus $201.5 million, or $11.85 per diluted share, in the year-prior quarter.
A Yahoo Finance-published analyst consensus estimate was for earnings of $9.63 per diluted share and revenues of $1.55 billion.
Comparable sale declined 2% in the period year over year, the company reported.
Net sales were $1.55 billion, total retail sales excluding results from the company’s CDI Contractors construction operation were $1.49 billion, and net revenues were $1.57 billion, versus $1.58 billion, $1.52 billion and $1.61 billion, respectively, in the year-earlier quarter.
Recent business highlights, according to the company, include opening a new 140,000-square-foot location in March at The Empire Mall in Sioux Falls, SD, with South Dakota becoming the company’s 30th state of operation. Dillard’s also announced the forthcoming July closure of its Eastwood Mall Clearance Center in Niles, OH. The company operates 274 Dillard’s stores, including 29 clearance centers, and an e-commerce website at dillards.com.
In announcing the financial results, company CEO William Dillard said, “While the consumer environment remained challenging, we focused on profitable sales by offering interesting product combined with inventory control. As a result, our retail gross margin was 46.2% and inventory was down 2%. For the first time in our history, we reported cash and short-term investments exceeding $1 billion.”
