Spartan Stores here Wednesday said the early Easter holiday and new wholesale accounts helped the company post sales gains and better-than-expected earnings in the fiscal fourth quarter.
For the 12-week period that ended March 30, Spartan reported net earnings of $7.7 million, down 26.6% from a 13-week fourth quarter in fiscal 2012. EBITDA adjusted for the extra week improved 16% as gross margins as a percent of sales improved 20 basis points to 22.4%.
Sales of $592.8 million improved 4.9%, and comparable retail sales increased by 0.4%. Sales benefitted as a result of new retail stores and wholesale customers, and as a result of an earlier Easter holiday shifting sales from the first quarter to the fourth quarter this year.
“These encouraging results reflect improvement across both our distribution and retail segments as we gained new customers, continued to refine our promotional and loyalty programs and benefitted from the early Easter holiday,” Dennis Eidson, Spartan’s president and chief executive officer, said in a statement.
For the fiscal year, net sales improved 0.9% to $2.61 billion, excluding sales from the 53rd week in 2012. Comps were down 0.5%, due to low inflation and a shift toward generic drugs. Net earnings of $27.4 million decreased 13.7%.
Eidson said Spartan was well-positioned to benefit from a gradually improving economy in Michigan, although the combination of the Easter sales shift, a continued shift to generic drugs and the cycling of a new store opening the Grand Rapids market would likely result in negative 2% comps during the current first quarter.
The company is planning to rebanner 13 Glen’s stores to the Family Fare banner, complete 12 store remodels and open three Valu Land discount stores in fiscal 2014.
