THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 19, 1994 TAG: 9408190649
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEPHANIE STOUGHTON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 33 lines
Bloated inventories continued to plague Proffitt's Inc., which burst into the southeastern Virginia market last year but got stuck with out-of-date clothing and other products after a slower-than-expected Christmas season.
The Alcoa, Tenn.-based department store chain said Thursday that its second-quarter profits were basically flat. Earnings declined 2.5 percent to $811,000, or 3 cents per share, in the quarter ended July 30. That's down from $831,000, or 9 cents per share, in the same period a year ago.
Sales soared 280 percent, mostly because of the company's purchase last year of McRae's Inc., a Mississippi-based chain of 28 department stores. Sales for the three-month period were $142.4 million, up from $37.5 million in the year-earlier quarter.
Comparable-stores sales increased 2 percent in McRae's stores and declined 3 percent in the 25 Proffitt's stores, five of which are in Hampton Roads.
``Sales were negatively affected at Proffitt's due to inventory reduction'' and distribution problems, said R. Brad Martin, chairman, president and chief executive.
For the first six months of the year, sales were $228.5 million, up 217 percent from $72 million in the year-earlier period. Earnings for the first six months dropped to $1.2 million from $2.9 million in the same period last fiscal year. by CNB