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Retail Ventures profits as comps fall

By Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 12/14/2007 12:03:00 PM

Columbus, Ohio – Off-price merchandiser Retail Ventures (RVI) found a way to drive third-quarter earnings into the black, notching net income of $68.2 million, up from a loss of $34.1 million in the year-ago period.

Quarterly sales were flat at $787.8 million, while comparable store sales fell 7.3%.

Much of the change in fortune was the result of marked improvement in the “change of fair value of derivative instruments,” which the company reported at $91.3 million for the 3Q 2007 – in sharp contrast to the value of negative $30.6 million one year ago.

Considered without that item, RVI results showed a narrowing operating profit (non-GAAP) of $10.3 million for the period, down from $15.8 million last year.

RVI results continue to be held down by the sub-par performance of its 113-store Value City discount store division. For the nine months year to date, Value City sales of $854.8 million are down 9.6% from $946.0 million in the same period of 2006; comps are down 10.0%.

Value City has produced an operating loss of $44.2 million year to date, wider than the loss of $31.0 million one year ago.

But the 36-store Filene’s Basement off-price division is also puffing hard: last year’s y-t-d operating loss of $2.9 million has broadened to negative $16.0 y-t-d in 2007.

Only the DSW footwear unit, which operates 250 stores plus 339 locations for other retail chains, is turning a profit: $80.3 million y-t-d, up from $76.2 million one year ago.

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