Bed Bath & Beyond Earnings Top Wall Street, Outlook Strong; Shares Up 15%

(RTTNews) - Bed Bath & Beyond Inc., (BBBY) on Wednesday said its third-quarter profit declined from a year ago, as higher expenses continue to weigh down on the bottom line. The home goods retailer's earnings for the quarter trumped Wall Street expectations by a penny, while revenues fell short.

Moving ahead, the company detailed a strong outlook for the full year 2018 and 2019, sending its shares up 15 percent in the after-hours trading.

Union, New Jersey-based Bed Bath & Beyond's third-quarter profit dropped to $24.4 million or $0.18 per share from $61.3 million or $0.44 per share last year. On average, 20 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $0.17 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Sales for the third quarter rose to $3.03 billion from $2.95 billion last year. Analysts had a consensus sales estimate of $3.04 billion for the quarter. Comparable sales in the third quarter decreased by about 1.8 percent.

Bed Bath & Beyond has been battling with weak margins. The company's selling and administrative expenses increased to $954.2 million from $932.7 million last year. Cost of sales increased to $2.03 billion from $1.91 billion last year.

The company declared a quarterly dividend of $0.16 per share, to be paid on April 16, 2019 to shareholders of record as of March 15, 2019.

Looking forward, Bed Bath & Beyond expects fiscal 2018 earnings of "about $2" a share and "fiscal 2019 net earnings per diluted share will be about the same as fiscal 2018." Analysts currently estimate earnings of $1.99 a share for fiscal 2018, and $1.59 a share for fiscal 2019.

BBBY closed Wednesday's trading at $12.26, up $0.48 or 4.07%, on the Nasdaq. The stock further gained $1.89 or 15.42% in the after-hours trade.