The shares of ailing retailer, J C Penney Company Inc (NYSE:JCP), fell 5.28% in the extended trading session after the retailer announced same store sales similar to the previous year period. The company pinned poor sales over the warm season leading to lower sales in September and October.
The retailer posted its third quarter 2014 results with net sales of $2.76 billion, marginally lower than the previous year quarter sales of $2.77 billion. The impressive figures were that of gross margins as the company announced gross margin of 36.6% during the quarter, which is much higher than the margin of 29.5% registered in the same quarter last year. J C Penney Company Inc (NYSE:JCP) reported operating loss of $54 million during the quarter and net loss of $188 million during the same period.
The CEO of J C Penny, Myron E. (Mike) Ullman, III, said,
“This quarter shows the progress we are making in the final phase of JCPenney’s turnaround. We continued to significantly improve the profitability of our business with gross margin expansion of 710 basis points, a $342 million improvement in EBITDA and bottom-line financial results that exceeded even our own expectations.”
While talking about the low sales in September and October, Mr. Ullman said,
“Like most retailers, following a strong start to the back-to-school season, sales did slow in September and October as unseasonably warm weather hindered the sale of fall goods.”
The same store sales for J C Penney Company Inc (NYSE:JCP) remained unchanged from the last year quarter with 4.3% growth on year-to-date basis. The sales of the retailer have shown a positive trend for the previous three quarter and the analysts were expecting same store sale growth of 2.3%.
J C Penney Company Inc (NYSE:JCP) forecasted comparable store sales growth of 2 to 4 percent in the fourth quarter.
This article has been written by Prakash Pandey
J C Penney Company Inc (JCP) Loses Nearly 11% Share Value Post Lower Same-Store Sales Forecast
