Earnings: Signet Jewelers turns to loss in Q4 as same-store sales fall

Signet Jewelers (SIG) posted its fourth-quarter 2019 earnings before the opening bell on Wednesday, April 3. Total sales in the quarter slipped 6% to $2.15 billion, while total same-store sales fell 2% year-over-year.

Signet reported a GAAP loss of $2.25 per diluted share, versus the previous-year profit of $5.24 a share. Non-GAAP Diluted EPS, however, slumped 7.5% to $3.96 per share.

The same store sales performance included the favorable impacts of about 60 bps related to incremental clearance, and about 35 bps due to planned shifts in timing of promotions at Zales and Peoples, and a 25 bps unfavorable impact related to a timing shift of service plan revenue recognized as a result of the historical claims experience shifting away from the earlier years of the service plans to later years of the coverage period.

North America payment plan participation rate — including both credit and leasing sales — reached 50.1% from 49.7% a year ago.

eCommerce sales in the quarter grew 5.4% to $260.6 million, with the eCommerce sales accounted for 12.1% of fourth-quarter sales. Brick and mortar same-store sales slipped 3% in the period.

Despite turning to a loss in the fourth quarter, Signet still sees GAAP diluted EPS of $1.86-2.66 and non-GAAP diluted EPS of $2.87-3.45 in the coming fiscal 2020. While maintaining a quarterly dividend of 37 cents a share, Signet expects same-store sales to be down 2.5% to flat, and total sales to be between $6.0 billion to $6.1 billion.

Talking about North America sales in the currently reported fourth-quarter, the geography’s same-store sales slipped 1.4%. International same-store sales fell further — down 7.3%.

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