Burlington Stores Inc. (NYSE: BURL) reported first-quarter 2019 revenue and earnings that came ahead of expectations. Despite the beat, shares were down 1.5% in premarket hours on Thursday.
Total sales grew 7.3% year-over-year to $1.63 billion. Comparable store sales increased 0.1%. New and non-comparable stores contributed an incremental $121 million in sales during the quarter.
Net income decreased 5.8% to $78 million, or $1.15 per share, versus the prior-year quarter. Adjusted net income fell 2% to $85 million, or $1.26 per share, driven mainly by higher freight expense and deleverage on fixed expenses.
During the quarter, the Children’s Apparel, Baby Depot and Home businesses performed well and the company is looking to improve its Ladies Apparel business which has been seeing weakness.
Merchandise inventories grew to $896 million from $787 million last year, driven by inventory related to the addition of 37 net new stores opened since the end of Q1 2018, and an increase in pack and hold inventory, which was 28% of total inventory at the end of Q1 2019. Comparable store inventory increased 5% at the end of Q1 2019.
For the second quarter of 2019, total sales are expected to increase 8-9% while comparable store sales are estimated to grow 1-2%. Adjusted EPS is expected to be in the range of $1.11 to $1.15.
The company updated its outlook for the full year of 2019 and now expects total sales to increase 8.5-9.2% and comparable store sales to increase 1.3-2.1%. Adjusted EPS is expected to be $6.93 to $7.01. Burlington plans to open 50 net new stores and invest capital expenditures of approx. $310 million.
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