Ross Stores Earns 66 Cents per Share

Ross Stores (ROST) just released its fiscal Q4 earnings. For November, December and January, the discounter earned 66 cents per share. Sales rose 6% to $264 million, and same-store sales rose 4%.

Barbara Rentler, Chief Executive Officer, commented, “We are pleased with our sales and earnings results for the fourth quarter, which exceeded our expectations despite the highly promotional holiday selling environment and our most challenging sales comparisons from the prior year. These results were driven by the competitive values we offered on a wide assortment of name brand bargains and gifts throughout our stores.”

Ms. Rentler continued, “Fourth quarter operating margin was 12.7% compared to 13.1% in the prior year, as higher merchandise margin and tight expense control were more than offset by the timing of packaway-related costs. For the 2015 fiscal year however, operating margin rose 10 basis points to a record 13.6%.”

For the year, Ross earned $2.51 per share. Net sales rose 8%, and same-store sales rose 4%.

Ross is also raising its quarterly dividend by 15% to 13.5 cents per share. The previous dividend was 11.75 cents per share.

Posted by on March 1st, 2016 at 4:10 pm


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