La-Z-Boy Revises Earnings Expectations

October 12, 2006  by in UnCategorized   

By Home Furnishings Business in on October 2006 La-Z-Boy Inc. has revised its earnings expectations for the second quarter ending Oct. 28 to be in the 1 cents per share to 4 cents per share.

The company had previously announced an expected range per share of 11 cents to 15 cents for the quarter. During the second fiscal quarter of last year, the comapny had a loss of 12 cents per share, which included an after-tax restructuring charge of 10 cents per share related to the closing of its Waterloo, Ontario uphosltery factory and 1 cent in income from discontinued operations.

“The weaker-than-anticipated retail environment during the summer period leads us to now expect year-over- year sales for the quarter to be essentially flat compared to our original expectation of a mid-single-digit increase,” said Kurt Darrow, president and chief executive officer. “Although we saw a pick up in written sales over the Labor Day weekend, the momentum was brief and subsequent activity has been sporadic. Our reduction in earnings guidance is primarily due to lower-than-expected sales volume, which is impacting both our wholesale upholstery and casegoods businesses as well as our company-owned retail stores.”

Darrow continued, “While volume has been challenging, our core wholesale businesses are expected to show improving margin trends both year over year and sequentially from our fiscal first quarter, demonstrating the changes we’ve made in these operations are enabling us to operate more efficiently even on lower volume. However, in our retail segment, where we have a higher fixed-cost structure and are continuing to address transitional issues in many of our markets, the decrease in volume is having a significant impact on our expected operating results.”

The company plans to report this year’s fiscal second quarter operating results after the market close on Tuesday, Nov. 14, with its regular quarterly investor conference call the following morning, Wednesday, Nov. 15, at 8:30 a.m.