The Bon-Ton Stores, Inc. (NASDAQ: BONT) today announced comparable store sales for the five weeks ended January 2, 2010 decreased 2.6%. Total sales for the five weeks decreased 3.0% to $511.1 million compared with $527.2 million for the prior year period.
Year-to-date comparable store sales decreased 6.1%. Year-to-date total sales tiffany on sale 6.0% to $2,779.7 million compared with $2,958.0 million for the same period last year.
Tony Buccina, Vice Chairman and President – Merchandising, commented, “We are pleased with our December sales results, which exceeded expectations despite the snow storms that negatively impacted our performance on key selling days. Our eCommerce business continues to be the fastest growing segment of our company. Our best performing businesses were ladies’ accessories and jewelry, shoes, children’s and moderate missy sportswear. Outerwear and cold weather accessories posted strong sales results as well. Our weakest performing businesses were furniture, hard home and better missy sportswear. December end-of-month inventory was down 4% on a comparable store basis; this reduction, along with 22% less clearance merchandise, will benefit our margin. Our inventories reflect fresh, transitional merchandise and we are pleased with our customer’s positive response.”
Keith Plowman, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, stated, “We ended December with excess borrowing capacity under our revolving credit facility of approximately $488 million, well above the required minimum availability of $75 million.”
The Bon-Ton Stores, Inc., with corporate offices in York, Pennsylvania and Milwaukee, tiffany sale, operates 278 stores, including 11 furniture galleries, in 23 states in the Northeast, Midwest and upper Great Plains under the Bon-Ton, Bergner’s, Boston Store, Carson Pirie Scott, Elder-Beerman, Herberger’s and Younkers nameplates and, in the Detroit, Michigan area, under the Parisian nameplate. The stores offer a broad assortment of brand-name fashion apparel and accessories for women, men and children, as well as cosmetics and home furnishings. For further information, please visit the investor relations section of the Company’s website at http://investors.bonton.com.
Certain information included in this press release contains statements that are forward-looking within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements, which may be identified by words such as “may,” “could,” “will,” “plan,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” “project,” “intend” or other similar expressions, involve important risks and uncertainties that could significantly affect results in the future and, accordingly, such results may differ from those expressed in any forward-looking statements made by or on behalf of the Company. Factors that could cause such differences include, but are not limited to, risks related to retail businesses generally; a significant and prolonged deterioration of general economic conditions which could negatively impact the Company, including the potential write-down of the current valuation of intangible assets and deferred taxes; changes in the terms of the Company’s proprietary credit card program; potential increase in pension obligations; consumer spending patterns, debt levels, and the availability and cost of consumer credit; additional competition from existing and new competitors; inflation; changes in the costs of fuel and other energy and transportation costs; weather conditions that could negatively impact sales; uncertainties associated with expanding or remodeling existing stores; the ability to attract and retain qualified management; the dependence upon relationships with vendors and their factors; a security breach; the ability to reduce SG&A expenses; the incurrence of unplanned capital expenditures; the ability to realize the expected benefits from our planned tiffany jewelry on sale in operating structure and the ability to obtain financing for working capital, capital expenditures and general corporate purposes. Additional factors that could cause the Company’s actual results to differ from those contained in these forward-looking statements are discussed in greater detail under Item 1A of the Company’s Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.