Bed Bath & Beyond Earnings Miss Street, Shares Down 12%

(RTTNews) - Bed Bath & Beyond Inc., (BBBY) on Tuesday said its second-quarter profit declined from a year ago hurt largely by higher expenses that continued to weigh down the bottom line while sales continue to drop. The home goods retailer's earnings and sales for the quarter fell short of Wall Street expectations, sending its shares down 12 percent in the after-hours trading.

Union, New Jersey-based Bed Bath & Beyond's second-quarter profit dropped to $94.2 million or $0.67 per share from $167.3 million or $1.11 per share last year. On average, 21 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $0.95 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

The company said its earnings were negative impacted by a cash restructuring charges associated with the acceleration of the realignment of store management structure of about $0.08 per share and the impact of Hurricane Harvey of of about $.02 per share.

Sales for the second quarter dropped to $2.94 billion from $2.99 billion last year. Analysts had a consensus sales estimate of $3.01 billion for the quarter. Comparable sales in the second quarter decreased by about 2.6 percent.

Bed Bath & Beyond has been battling with weak margins. The company's selling and administrative expenses increased to $899.7 million from $835.9 million last year.

The company declared a quarterly dividend of $0.15 per share, to be paid on January 16, 2016 to shareholders of record as of December 15, 2016.

BBBY closed Tuesday's trading at $27.03, down $0.27 or 0.99%, on the Nasdaq. The stock further slipped $3.26 or 12.06%