USA: Lands’ End Performance Still On The Slide

Lands' End (LE:NYSE - news), the US catalogue and online retailer, announced yesterday that its shares had slumped in its second fiscal quarter. It added that results for the full fiscal year will be lower than it previously projected. Lands' End finished down 8 3/16, or 20%, at 31 15/16.The company said earnings for the second quarter had fallen to half of last year's 14 cents a share. That figure is far less than the 17 cents a share predicted by analysts polled by First Call/Thomson Financial. Sales for the quarter would be little changed from those in the same period of 1999. Previously, the company had said it anticipated earnings growth and positive second-quarter sales. This warning is the latest in a series of disappointments from the company. In November last year, the company predicted poor fourth-quarter sales. This was followed by first-quarter earnings of a penny a share in May this year, while analysts had predicted 16 cents a share. Lands' End blamed weak childrenswear sales, later catalogue mailings, softness in Japan and the poor performances of catalogues meant to draw new customers. In June the company said it expected sales in the first half of fiscal 2001 to be little changed compared with those from the first six months of fiscal 2000, excluding first-half 2000 sales from the discontinued Willis & Geiger business. That compared with the company's previous forecast of a low-single-digit increase. The lowered forecast was a result of weakness in some specialty catalogs, the company said. The company is scheduled to report second-quarter earnings on August 10.