Menomonee Falls, WI, Feb. 27--Kohl's Corp. reported a 12% drop in fiscal fourth-quarter net income, hurt in part by weaker sales at stores open at least a year.
For the quarter ended Jan. 31, the discount department-store chain late Thursday posted net income of $246.8 million, or 72 cents a share, compared with $279 million, or 81 cents a share, a year earlier.
Last month, Kohl's projected fourth-quarter earnings between 68 cents and 70 cents a share, which was well below the then-current mean estimate of 88 cents a share from analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call Analysts' latest mean estimate was for earnings of 69 cents a share.
Net sales rose 12% to $3.56 billion from $3.18 billion. But comparable-store sales, a key measure of retail performance, fell 2.1%.
For the full year, Kohl's reported net income of $591.2 million, or $1.72 a share, down 8.1% from $643.4 million, or $1.87 a share, in the previous year. Net sales rose 13% to $10.28 billion from $9.12 billion. Comparable-store sales declined 1.6%.
"In 2003, net sales crossed the $10 billion milestone.... Although we achieved record sales for the twelfth consecutive year, our earnings performance was a disappointment," Chairman and Chief Executive Larry Montgomery said in a prepared statement.
"We are looking ahead to 2004, making improvements where necessary, and continuing to focus on profitably increasing our comparable store sales and increasing market share," Mr. Montgomery added.
Kohl's opened 85 new stores in fiscal 2003, bringing its total to 542 stores.
The company plans to open about 95 new stores in fiscal 2004, and another 95 in fiscal 2005.
