From: ASAP
Federated Department Stores, Inc. (NYSE:FD)(PCX:FD) said early estimates of the impact of Hurricane Frances on lost sales in its Florida stores is expected to total approximately $20 million, reducing September same-store sales by 1.5 percent and earnings by about 3-4 cents a share in the third quarter.
The company said that while it still is too early to precisely evaluate the total impact of the weekend's devastating storm on the business overall, it did not believe any of its Burdines- Macy's or Bloomingdale's stores in Florida suffered major structural damage from the hurricane.
The hurricane's impact began to be felt on Wednesday with significant sales declines as people prepared for the storm. Federated's stores began closing on Thursday, primarily in the southeastern part of the state and the Orlando area. Over the weekend, as the hurricane slowly traveled west across the state, southeastern stores began reopening as stores on the Gulf coast of Florida were closed. As of today, the company expects that only a handful of stores will remain closed due to power outages.
The company said it will take several weeks before there can be a complete assessment of the hurricane's impact on business, both in terms of lost sales before and during the storm, as well as any potential sales rebound in the days to come.
Federated, with corporate offices in Cincinnati and New York, is one of the nation's leading department store retailers, with annual sales of more than $15.2 billion. Federated operates more than 450 stores in 34 states, Guam and Puerto Rico under the names of Macy's, Bloomingdale's, Bon-Macy's, Burdines-Macy's, Goldsmith's-Macy's, Lazarus-Macy's and Rich's-Macy's. The company also operates macys.com and Bloomingdale's By Mail.
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