Elizabeth Arden increases sales and narrows losses
The company said that sales for the three month period ending in March increased by 6.7 percent to $217.0m, but stated that the impact of currency translations meant that organic sales growth came in at 2.1 percent.
The modest increase in sales meant that the company managed to reduce its losses from $3.70m in the corresponding quarter of 2009 to $3.65m.
Company CEO Scott Beattie referred to the results as being in line with expectations and underlined the fact that they were down to a number of initiatives to increase effeciencies, including its restructuring program.
Underlining the effects of its restructuring and cost saving program, the company said that gross margins had improved by 440 base points, while reductions in inventories and credit line borrowings were also reduced.
Mass fragrance and international business drive sales
“We continue to see consistent improvement in our US mass fragrance and international businesses, with sales increases of 7.6 percent and 13.5 percent respectively,” Beattie said.
“Sales were led by the strong performance of our core brands, including the Elizabeth Arden branded products and the Juicy Couture and Britney Spears fragrances.”
For the first nine months of the financial year, the company reported that sales increased by 2.1 percent to $875.5m, compared to the same period last year, a figure that represented growth of 0.2 percent when taking into account the negative impact of currency translations.
Loss turns to profit
For this period the company has managed to swing its operations back into the black, turning a loss of $2.55m in the corresponding period last year to a profit of $17.24m.
On the strength of the results the company says it is maintaining its forecasts for the full financial year, estimating that sales will increase by 2.5 – 3.5 percent, compared to last year when the figure was $1.07bn.
The outlook also underlined that continuing economic uncertainty may effect retailer and consumer demand for the full year, while also stressing that currency translation could further impact the bottom line for the full year.
