Woolworths down on poor sales
The retailer also said on Monday that overall sales for the 26 weeks to December 24 grew just 2.5%
The Woolworths share price dropped nearly 9% on Monday as the retailer reported poor sales in some of its businesses and lower headline earnings per share. Woolworths announced that earnings per share for the 26 weeks to December were expected to be 20% lower than in the matching period in 2016. Headline earnings per share were expected to fall as much as 17.5% to between 200.1c and 212.3c, down from 242.6c. Woolworths attributed the drop in earnings to the inclusion in the prior period of the profit on disposal of the David Jones’s Market Street property in Sydney, as well as the effect of a potential reassessment of the carrying value of David Jones assets. This process is under way. Equity analyst at Vele Asset Managers Matthew Zunckel said the expected decline implied significant margin pressure in one or several of the businesses and management may have resorted to discounting to achieve better sales numbers, which hit the bottom line. “I wouldn’t be buying the share at current...
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