Movado Q4 Profit Tops Expectations, Shares Surge

Shares of

jumped more than 5% in pre-market trading after the company reported stronger-than-expected earnings for the fiscal fourth quarter and raised its quarterly dividend by 10%. The Paramus, New Jersey-based company posted a quarterly net profit of $10.1 million, or $0.40 per share, versus a year-ago profit of $7.2 million, or $0.28 per share. Its sales surged to $133.91 million from $132.26 million. However, analysts were expecting earnings of $0.20 per share on revenue of $134.31 million. Gross profit declined to $67.4 million, or 50.3% of sales, versus $69.3 million, or 52.4% of sales, in the year-ago period. Operating expenses slipped to $57.3 million from $62.6 million, while operating income surged to $10.1 million from $6.6 million. The company raised its quarterly dividend to $0.11 per share from $0.10 per share. During the quarter, Movado Group repurchased around 489,000 shares under its share repurchase program. Efraim Grinberg, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said, "Our brands and businesses performed above our revised expectations and led to fourth quarter and fiscal year 2015 earnings surpassing our guidance. The overall watch category experienced slower growth than in previous years and we saw retailers curtailing their purchasing to more tightly manage their inventory. In addition, extreme fluctuation in foreign currency exchange rates late in the year impacted our results. Nevertheless, we experienced improved sell-through at retail as a result of our design innovation and strength of our brands. As we look towards fiscal 2016 we expect currency headwinds to continue and that we will continue to see a slow growth retail environment." For fiscal 2016, Movado projects earnings of of $2.00 to $2.10 per share on sales of $590 million to $600 million. Analysts had expected earnings of $1.89 per share on revenue of $602.6 million. The average estimate among 7 Estimize users was for earnings of $0.23 per share and revenue of $133.53 million for the fourth quarter. Movado shares climbed 5.93% to $27.15 in pre-market trading.