Why L Brands Continues To Succeed While Other Retailers Falter? Sterne Agee Retail Analyst Explains

While most apparel retailers are going through a tough phase, L Brands Inc

is turning out to be an exception with March comps up 9 percent and March sales up 6 percent year-over-year to $981.2 million. Ike Boruchow from Sterne Agee was on CNBC recently to discuss how L Brands is managing to have a great run while other retailers falter and what's going on in consumers' mind. L Brands "I think that people are expecting March to be a good event," Boruchow said. "I mean if you look at the Limitedbrands which we do cover, had a Buy rating on, [the comps is actually] pretty phenomenal high single digit comp. They are doing it with inventories down 10 percent per square foot. So, […] margins are going in the right direction, the comps are going in the right direction, the stock is going in the right direction, it's up 60 percent since August of last year." "So, that's what you really want to see right now is momentum on the top-line with well managed inventories and if you do that you got, continue to have earnings visibility with these retailers and people are paying up for that. Limitedbrands multiple all time high, people want that visibility." Consumer Sentiment Boruchow was asked what's going on in the mind of apparel consumers. He replied, "I think what's going on in consumers mind is that they don't really know what exactly they are doing. I mean, we looked at holidays, it was okay, it was good not great, then we had a bit of a slowdown in February." "Things were starting to bounce back in March, the Easter ship is helping everyone better [ware] for the apparel category, that's going to help. April is going to be a little ugly because that Easter ship reverses for most players, but when you look forward it's all about inventory management and promotional activity," Boruchow concluded.