Spring brings little sprouts of recovery for the Valley’s housing market. Arizona was one of the first states to feel the housing market crash and now appears to be one of the first heading toward recovery.
The
front page of Friday’s USA Today shows Arizona’s housing slump will begin to turn this year. New research from the University of Utah shows the glut of homes for sale here will sell off enough to bring back the demand for new home construction.
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Big Lots Inc. stores often operate in aged retail centers aimed at discount-minded shoppers, but its next venture will move it into a new neighborhood.
The Columbus-based closeout merchandise seller will open a 35,000-square-foot store near the Polaris Fashion Place mall, in a former
Linens ‘n Things Inc. storefront vacated last year when the home goods retailer closed.
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A spokesperson for IKEA in China said the Swedish home furnishings multinational had, like B&Q, been impacted by the economic downturn.
Linda Xu, public relations manager for the company, admitted times were difficult for the home improvement market.
"We can also see the negative impact to IKEA's business from the global financial turbulence. We see the customer is more cautious about spending money. We, however, have more visitors to our stores but less spending on average," she said.
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Discount chain 99 Cents Only Stores said its fourth-quarter sales grew 13.3 percent as consumers looked for more bargains amid the lingering recession.
Chief Executive Eric Schiffer said the chain is seeing many new customers who are looking to save money on their everyday purchases, including "perishable food and other consumable items."
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PriceSmart Inc. said Wednesday that its profit rose 34 percent in the fiscal second quarter on improved sales.
The warehouse club operator earned $12.7 million, or 43 cents per share. That compares with $9.5 million, or 33 cents per share, a year ago.
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TORONTO, April 8 (Reuters) - Forzani Group (
FGL.TO) plans to open more than 25 new stores this year as the country's biggest sporting goods retailer takes advantage of a weak economy and an increase in available property.
Calgary-based Forzani, whose banners include Sport Chek, Sports Experts and Coast Mountain Sports, said on Wednesday it had earmarked about C$30 million to C$35 million for capital expenditures in its 2010 fiscal year, mostly for the store openings.
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Bed Bath & Beyond's fourth-quarter profit fell more than 18 percent but still topped Wall Street estimates even as same-store sales dipped, the company reported Tuesday.
The news sent shares of the home decor chain into overdrive in after-hours trading.
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If there are silver linings to the recession, they're not immediately apparent. After all, the national unemployment rate is 8.1 percent, the highest since 1983, and economists predict it will reach 9 percent by 2010. Gross domestic product is forecast to shrink more this year than at any other time since the Great Depression. And across the country, stores are closing, municipal budgets are tightening, and banks are begging for bailouts.
But a handful of industries, companies, and products are doing well—relatively speaking. They run the gamut from Quarter Pounders to contraceptives, but they share a key component: Whether they help people pivot to new careers, cut costs at home, or simply escape from all the bad news, they're poised not only to weather the economic storm but to, in some way, benefit from it. "There always is a silver lining for people who choose to look past the doom and gloom and find one," says Robyn Feldberg, president of the National Résumé Writers' Association, which represents an industry that's bucking the overall trend. "In adversity, there is always potential for innovation."
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Discount retailer Dollar General Corp. said Tuesday its fourth-quarter profit rose 48 percent on a rise in sales and cost cuts.
Dollar General and its competitors, such as Family Dollar Stores, have benefited as consumers watch every dollar they spend and seek out cheaper goods.
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Woolworths Limited (WOW) said first quarter sales were up 9.6% to $12.82 billion.
The company also maintained its full year sales outlook. Chief executive officer Michael Luscombe said it was a good start to the financial year.
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The supermarket Wm Morrison said yesterday it would open small shops for the first time as the economic downturn gave it scope to speed up its expansion.
Marc Bolland, chief executive, said the group had identified more than 100 locations for new stores and had halted a £1bn share buyback to "preserve its firepower". The recession has weighed heavily on commercial property values and
Morrisons said it wanted "maximum financial flexibility" to go shopping for stores.
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Hardware chain Clas Ohlson has reported a lower-than-expected drop in pre-tax profit for its third quarter, even as sales were up by a modest amount. For the quarter, pre-tax profit was down 8.7% to SEK240.2m (E21.3m), compared to SEK263m last year, beating analyst expectations of a profit of SEK227m. Sales meanwhile rose by 3% year-on-year to SEK1.54bn.
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SPRING HILL -
Warm weather and a stout Valentine's Day shopping crowd helped make last week a favorable one for the retail industry.
The week ending Feb. 14 was the third consecutive week-to-week improvement in the retail sector, according to the
International Council of Shopping Centers out of New York.
Some forecasters think the recent numbers are an indication an upswing is not far away.
"It is a sign that things are going to improve this year," said ICSC spokeswoman Erin Hershkowitz.
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EVEN before the economy tanked, discount stores, or dollar stores as Americans call them, were looking healthy. Now their profits are rising like helium-filled balloons. Dollar Tree, a Virginia-based chain of dollar stores, had sales of more than $1.39 billion in the fourth quarter of last year, a 6.8 % increase over the year before. For the whole of 2008, Dollar Tree, which has been in business since 1953, notched up record sales of $4.64 billion.
Family Dollar is prospering, too. The market value of this company, based in North Carolina and with more than 6,600 stores in 44 states, rose 36% last year. Other dollar-store companies have also reported big profits.
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PITTSBURGH- Despite a cutback in new-store openings, management at Dick’s Sporting Goods still sees the country supporting a total of 800 units, up from the 384 it currently operates, chairman and CEO Edward Stack said during the retailer’s fourth-quarter conference call.
"Our business has held up relatively well in this environment," he said of the recession. "We feel there is going to be consolidation in this industry."
Stack specifically pointed to the
Chapter 11 filing by Wilsonville, OR-based Joe’s Sports & Outdoor, a 30-store chain in the Northwest. That move could give Dick’s a chance to move into that region of the country, and if bankruptcies by other chains follow, there could be more opportunities, he said.
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Tuesday, grocery chain operator Kroger Co. (KR:
News ) posted higher profit in its fourth quarter, boosted by its namesake grocery brands. On a per share basis, earnings rose from last year and topped the Street view. In addition, the company issued full-year earnings forecast, below Consensus. Following the news, shares of the company are currently up more than 9%.
Q4 Results
The company's fourth-quarter net income was $349.2 million or $0.53 per share, compared to $322.9 million or $0.48 per share in the prior year quarter.
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Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse Corporation announced that net sales from continuing operations for the third quarter ended February 28, 2009 were $1.022 billion compared with $987.1 million for the comparative period ended March 1, 2008, a 3.5% increase. Comparative store sales decreased 4.3% for the quarter.
Net sales from continuing operations for the nine months ended February 28, 2009 were $2.731 billion compared with $2.612 billion for the comparative period ended March 1, 2008, a 4.5% increase. These results reflect a 2.3% comparative store sales decrease for the period.
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CHICAGO -- Video game retailer GameStop Corp. on Thursday raised its fourth-quarter earnings per share outlook to a range of $1.33 to $1.34 from its previous projection of $1.31 to $1.34. The company also said it now sees full year 2008 earnings in the range of $2.39 to $2.40 a share. GameStop added that it expects to "outperform the retail sector again" in 2009 "despite the current global recession." It expects earnings per share to rise by 18-22%, with sales at stores open at least a year rising 4-6%. "We are energized by the fact that video gaming has gone mainstream, with recent industry data showing that nearly half of new gamers are over 35 years old and 40% are female," said Dan DeMatteo, chief executive of GameStop, in a statement.
ATLANTA (Reuters) – CVS Caremark Corp (CVS.N) posted a higher quarterly profit on Thursday, helped by growth in its pharmacy services and retail drugstore units, and said it expected more market share gains, sending its shares up 7 percent.
The company stood by its profit forecasts for the current first quarter and full-year 2009.
Chief Financial Officer Dave Rickard will retire at the end of this year, and CVS will start a search for his successor, the company added.
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Who’s still opening retail locations in this difficult economy? Once again following Apple’s example, Microsoft Corp., for one, has decided to open a chain of retail locations.
Interestingly, the software behemoth has hired an exec from Wal-Mart, the retail behemoth, David Porter, to oversee its entrance into the retail biz. How will the Microsoft stores be different? Details are few so far, but instead of genius bars, there will be guru zones (or something) in the store. Instead of an Apple logo and ultra-stylish decor, there will be... a pomegranate and cinder blocks? Time will tell.
Buffalo Wild Wings is also planning expansion in 2009, a rarity in the chain-restaurant world these days. Last year, the company opened 67 restaurants, bringing the total to 567 in 39 states. During 2009, the company is planning on increasing its number of restaurants by about 15 percent, or maybe about 85 locations.
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Turkish low-cost retailer BIM - known in the trade as “the Turkish Aldi” - aims to open forty stores in Morocco this year and invest 110 million lira (£55 million) as part of its current aggressive expansion. This is largely on the back of predictions that hard discounters will ultimately fare well in the global economic downturn. BIM has added that lower raw material costs would help maintain a “normal, acceptable” fourth quarter profit margin after a drop in the third quarter which concerned analysts.
At Is Invest, analysts said that higher operating and financial expense due to foreign exchange loss and interest expenses caused the lower bottom line in 4Q08 and 4Q07, adding that low prices make BIM the firm least affected in Turkey during the financial crisis.
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Empire Co, owner of the Sobeys supermarket chain, has seen its third-quarter net profit rise by a better-than-expected 27% to C$48.6m. Excluding capital losses and other items, the company earned 99 Canadian cents per share. Revenue for the quarter was up 9% to C$3.8bn. At Sobeys, overall sales were up 8.8% to C$3.74bn, while same-store sales rose by 7.6%.
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The Delhaize group has seen its fourth-quarter net profit jump a better-than-expected 30.5% to E149m, from E114m in the previous year, helped by growing demand for its own-brand products and the effects of a stronger US dollar. Operating profit was up 18.8% year-on-year to E288.7m, and it had earlier announced that sales rose by 15.8% to E5.4bn.
The company, which earns over two-thirds of its revenue in the US, has been one of the few multi-national chains to benefit from the strength of the US dollar, which helped boosts its figures. Delhaize noted that it also benefitted from an extra reporting week in the fourth quarter this year. The results beat the company's guidance range, and CEO Pierre-Olivier Beckers said this was due to "increased private brand sales, continued efficiencies and disciplined cost management".
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Save-A-Lot Food Stores said Thursday it is opening three new stores in New Orleans this week.
Save-A-Lot, which touted its involvement in the rebuilding of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, said the three stores would create 100 new jobs for residents.
Save-A-Lot said it is able to expand because it specializes in offering “extreme-value,” or cheaper groceries.
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The Super de Boer supermarket group booked net profit of €29m in 2008, almost three times the year-earlier figure.
But analysts in the Financieele Dagblad pointed out that the earnings were influenced by one-offs. Operating profit rose from €21m in 2007 to €25m.
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Minneapolis (March 3, 2009) Target Corp. announced Tuesday the opening of 27 stores, including its first two locations in the state of Hawaii.
The new stores, which include 21 general-merchandise locations and six SuperTargets, will hold a grand opening on Sunday, March 8.
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Memphis, Tenn. (March 3, 2009) AutoZone reported on Tuesday net sales of $1.4 billion for its second quarter ended Feb. 14, an increase of 8.1% from fiscal second quarter 2008.
Domestic same-store sales increased 6% for the quarter.
Net income for the quarter increased $9.2 million, or 8.6%, over the same period last year to $115.9 million.
"At the end of the second quarter, our balance sheet was in excellent condition, and we remain committed to our disciplined approach of growing operating earnings while utilizing our capital effectively," said Bill Rhodes, chairman, president and CEO.
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Natick, Mass. (March 4, 2009) BJ's Wholesale Club Inc. on Wednesday reported better-than-expected results with the news that its fiscal fourth-quarter profit rose 5% partly on favorable state income tax audit settlements.
Earnings for the quarter ended Feb. 2 climbed to $52.7 million, from $50.2 million in the same quarter a year ago.
Revenue grew 3% to $2.56 billion from $2.48 billion. Same-store sales increased 1.7%. Excluding gas, same-club sales rose 6.4%.
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Phoenix (March 4, 2009) PetSmart reported net income of $78.4 million for the fourth quarter of 2008, compared with $75.4 million for same period from the year before, which included a fourteenth week, as fiscal 2007 was a 53-week year.
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San Francisco (March 4, 2009) Hot Topic said on Wednesday that its same-store sales rose 10.8% in February.
Meanwhile, the company also reported that its total net sales for the four weeks ended Feb. 28 increased 13.7% to $57.3 million
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