Sally Beauty Holdings Reports In Line EPS For 2Q

Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc.

reported net earnings of $60.16 million in the second quarter, down 2.2% from $61.54 million in the year earlier period. However, its earnings rose 5.1% to $0.41 a share from $0.39 a share in the comparable quarter of the last year on lower outstanding shares. Sally Beauty Holdings' net sales grew 4.5% to $980.07 million from $937.76 million in the year-ago quarter. While earnings were in line with the Street analysts expectations of $0.41 a share, revenue was well above the Street projections of $965.0 million. Reacting to the financial numbers, the company's President and CEO, Chris Brickman, commented, "Our second quarter results were consistent with our expectations. Our BSG business continued to deliver strong results, and, as expected, Sally experienced some modest sales headwinds during the quarter. The transition to a solution-based offering in our second largest category in all 3,000 Sally stores was a major undertaking, and the team did an excellent job of executing on this initiative in a short period of time. I believe the changes we implemented, combined with the additional investments made in TV advertising during March, will further our efforts to drive traffic and sales growth from the retail customer. Moving ahead, he added further that "Looking ahead to the third quarter, we will continue to bring more innovation to our business; re-merchandising our brush and comb section in all Sally stores, introducing a color education center into approx. 1,600 stores, launching the BITZY cosmetic brand at our cash wrap, and releasing a mobile application for stylists through our BSG business to help enable stylists to run their business via their smart phone. As a result of our combined initiatives, we believe steady sales improvement will continue and we remain confident that we can deliver on our full year guidance." Shares of the company advanced 1.07% on Wednesday.