Crown Crafts profits sink 24.8 percent

GONZALES, LA. — With sales still trending down as customers tweak their stockpiles in a tricky retail environment, fourth fiscal quarter profits at Crown Crafts Inc. fell 24.8 percent, to $1.6 million from $2.1 million last year.

Sales in the quarter ended March 28 slipped 6.5 percent, to $25 million from $26.8 million last year. While sales are still soft, the top-line picture improved considerably from earlier in the year, most notably during the second fiscal quarter, when sales tumbled 22.5 percent.

While earnings were off by roughly a fourth during the closing quarter, investors were cheered as profits for all of last year climbed 24.8 percent, to $3.1 million from $2.5 million, as the company shucked off a $1.8 million restructuring charge that dogged the bottom line the year before.

Comparisons with the prior year were somewhat skewed, the company said, because during 2003, it "shipped several new product placements to key customers, which were not repeated at the same levels in the current year."

Notably hard hit, the company said, was the Pillow Buddies program, where "business has been comparatively weaker in the current year because retail dollars have not been allocated to the product and increased competition for character licenses has driven royalty commitments higher than management is comfortable guaranteeing."