Shares of Children's Place Gain 12% Following 1Q14 Results - Children's Place (NASDAQ:PLCE)

The Children's Place Retail StoresPLCE

on Thursday reported first quarter financial results for the 13 weeks ending May 3, 2014.

First Quarter Results

Net sales came in at $410.1 million, including the $3.5 million hit from currency exchange rate fluctuations.
Comparable retail sales fell 3.6 percent for the first quarter.
Adjusted net income was $0.68 per diluted share, compares with $0.83 per diluted share in the 1Q13.
Operating income came in at $20.1 million, compared with $28.5 million in the same period of the previous year.

Quarter Highlights

The Board of Directors approved a quarterly dividend of $0.1325 per share to be payable on July 17, 2014 to shareholders on record at the close of business on June 27, 2014.
The company opened 13 International franchises in the first quarter, 10 in Israel.
Children's Place opened 4 stores and closed five in the quarter. At the end of the quarter, the company had 1,106 store and square footage of 5.195 million.
The company repurchased 521,017 shares for roughly $26.5 million. This leaves $88.2 million available for future share repurchases out of the $100 million authorized in March 2014.

Guidance

Children's Place plans to open 25 stores for the remainder of 2014, for a total of 35. This is 10 stores fewer in North America than the original plan. Ending square footage is expected to be 1.2 percent less than the end of fiscal 2013.
Management adjusted fiscal year 2014 EPS guidance to the range of $2.90 and $3.05, assuming comparable sales will be flat to negative one percent.
The company expects a loss of between $0.47 and $0.41 for 2Q14.
Foreign exchange is expected to negatively impact by $0.02 in the second quarter and $0.10 for fiscal 2014.

Stock Action

Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs