Burlington Stores Inc. shares /zigman2/quotes/203203718/composite BURL +6.80% slid 7.9% in premarket trade Thursday, after the discount retailer posted weaker-than-expected earnings for the first quarter and lowered its full-year guidance. The company posted net income of $16.2 million, or 24 cents a share, for the quarter to April 30, donw from $171.0 million, or $2.51 a share, in the year-earlier period. Adjusted per-share earnings came to 54 cents, below the 63 cent FactSet consensus. Revenue fell to $1.926 billion from $2.191 billion a year ago, also below the $2.033 billion FactSet consensus. Same-store sales fell 18%, also more than the FactSet consensus for a decline of 14.1%. "We are disappointed with our first quarter results," CEO Michael O'Sullivan said in a statement. "We were up against 20% comp growth from 2021 so we had planned for a mid-teens comp decline, but we missed this plan." The main driver was that inventories were too low and "unbalanced" in February and March, he added. The retailer raised inventory levels during the quater but sales trends remained weak with May similar to April "We had anticipated that 2022 would be a difficult year in retail but the economic environment, especially the impact of inflation on lower income shoppers, is having a greater impact than we had expected. We have lowered our outlook for sales," he said. The company is now expecting full-year same-store sales to fall 9% to 6%, compared with a FactSet consensus of down 4.6%. It expects adjusted EPS to range from $6.00 to $7.00, compared with a FactSet consensus of $7.11. For the second quarter, it expects same-store sales to fall 15% to 13% and adjusted EPS to range from 18 cents to 31 cents. The FactSet consensus is for second-quarter same-store sales to be down 8.4% and for EPS of $1.05. Shares have fallen 46% in the year to date, while the S&P 500 /zigman2/quotes/210599714/realtime SPX +3.06% has fallen 17%.
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