FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) _ Pier 1 Imports Inc. (PIR) on Wednesday reported a loss of $51.1 million in its fiscal second quarter.
On a per-share basis, the Fort Worth, Texas-based company said it had a loss of 63 cents.
Net sales for the second quarter of fiscal 2019 decreased 12.8% to $355.3 million, compared to $407.6 million for the second quarter of fiscal 2018. Company comparable sales decreased 11.4% as compared to the prior year period. The home décor company operated 989 stores at the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2019, a decrease of 23 from the second quarter of fiscal 2018.
“As previously communicated, our second quarter financial results reflect execution challenges around our August brand re-launch and our ‘New Day’ strategic plan initiatives taking longer than expected to gain traction,” said Alasdair James, president and CEO, in a news release. “However, we have already taken steps to refine our marketing program and product allocation and are encouraged by early signs of improvement in some of our key customer metrics in recent weeks, including conversion and customer growth. Indeed, as we sharpen our execution on key initiatives around product and marketing, we continue to expect our top-line trend to improve over time. We remain confident that our plan is the right course to drive long-term growth and profitability.”
Net sales for the 26 weeks ended Sept. 1, 2018, were $727.2 million, a decrease of 11.0% from the same period in fiscal 2018. Company comparable sales for the year-to-date period decreased 9.8% from the prior year.
In the final minutes of trading on Wednesday, the company’s shares hit $1.54. A year ago, they were trading at $4.38.
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This story was generated in part by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on PIR at https://www.zacks.com/ap/PIR