Department store chain Dillard's Inc. earned $80.5 million in its first quarter that ended May 5, the Little Rock company said Thursday.
That was a 21 percent improvement over the $66.3 million earned in the first quarter last year.
Dillard's earned $2.89 per share for the quarter, comfortably beating the average estimate of $2.77 earnings per share based on a survey of five analysts by Thomson Reuters.
Investors were pleased with the report. Dillard's shares rose $4.53, or 6.3 percent, to close Thursday at $76.53 in trading on the Nasdaq exchange.
In the first quarter last year, Dillard's earned $2.12 per share.
Sales for the first quarter were $1.5 billion, including $47 million in sales from Dillard's construction business, CDI Contractors LLC. Sales were up about 9 percent from the same period last year.
Total merchandise sales, which excludes CDI, were up 2 percent in the first quarter. Sales in stores opened more than a year were also up 2 percent.
"Our positive sales momentum continued into the first quarter," William Dillard II, the chief executive officer, said in a prepared statement. "We believe this indicates our customer is more comfortable spending in this economic environment, and we hope the positive trend continues."
Ken Perkins, president of Swampscott, Mass.-based Retail Metrics LLC, said Dillard's didn't provide much commentary on its quarter.
But based on a conference call from Macy's on Wednesday, Perkins said, the department store consumer is looking for fashion.
"From what we've seen in some of Dillard's stores, their fashion offerings have been pretty good," Perkins said.
In the fourth quarter and now in the first quarter, Dillard's seems to be showing "the beginnings of a new sort of fashion cycle, hopefully, that's going to help some of these specialty apparel and department stores fare better," Perkins said.
Sales of home and furniture, women's accessories and lingerie, and juniors' and women's apparel were above the average company sales trend during the first quarter, Dillard's said.
The beauty department has been very strong, Perkins said.
"I think that's been resonating across most department store formats," Perkins said.
Even the beauty department at J.C. Penney, which had a difficult first quarter with declining sales, was very strong, Perkins said.
"And Dillard's did not seem to be impacted by the weather at all like J.C. Penney [was]," Perkins said. "So that was a bit of a surprise as well."
Dillard's should be able to continue its strong performance, Perkins said.
"I think that given the consumer is in pretty good shape here, and there's some decent tail winds behind the consumer in terms of employment, wage gains, the tax cut, [Dillard's] should be able to keep this up," Perkins aid. "Maybe not beat on the upside by quite as much as they did, but carry it through the rest of this year."
Macy's on Wednesday acknowledged that it was benefited by a strong consumer in the first quarter, Perkins said. He expected Macy's would be able to continue the performance the rest of this year.
"I don't see why that wouldn't be the same in Dillard's case," Perkins said.
During the first quarter, Dillard's bought almost $35 million -- about 500,000 shares -- of its stock, completing its buybacks under the February 2016 $500 million program, Dillard's said. In March, the Dillard's board authorized a new $500 million share repurchase program. At the close of the first quarter, Dillard's had 27.6 million shares, down from 30.5 million a year earlier.
Dillard's operates 267 stores and 25 clearance centers in 29 states and an Internet store at dillards.com.
Information for this article was contributed by Robbie Neiswanger of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Business on 05/18/2018