WestPoint narrows losses

-- Home Textiles Today, 3/4/2010 2:00:00 PM

New York – WestPoint Home narrowed its losses in the fourth quarter as sales continued to slip but were nearly flat, the best quarterly sales performance of 2009.

WestPoint, the “Home Fashion” division of Icahn Enterprises, had net sales of $105 million in the quarter ended Dec. 31, a drop of 1.9%. Operating loss for Q4 was $16 million, tightened dramatically from the loss of $30 million in the year-ago quarter.

For all of 2009, WestPoint net sales of $369 million were down 13.2% from $425 million in 2008, the company said. The full year operating loss was $71 million, beating the year-ago loss of $95 million.

While gross margin on the year was flat at $31 million, Q4 margin expanded from $6 million to $10 million.

Icahn executives said the improved Q4 margin and operating loss improvements were “due to continuing cost cutting initiatives and moving manufacturing to lower cost locations.”