Victoria’s Secret Reveals Mid- quarter Revenues; Updates Guidance
The Victoria’s Secret’s ues in full swing.
Parent company L Brands, which includes the Bath & Body Works business, revealed a mid-quarter earnings update Tuesday after the market closed, with net sales increasing by nearly a billion dollars in the quarter to date.
Total revenues for the nine weeks ending
spin- off contin
July 3, or L Brands' second-quarter fiscal year 2021, were $2.35 billion, compared with $1.36 billion during the same period a year ago. By brand, Bath & Body Works revenues were more than $1.2 billion quarter to date, compared with $743 million last year, while Victoria's Secret's revenues were more than $1.1 billion, compared with $625 million.
The company pointed out that 2020's second quarter was negatively impacted
— as nearly all retailers were — by temporary store closures during the pandemic.
But sales during the first nine weeks of the current quarter also surpass 2019's pre-pandemic sales of $2.1 billion. That's an increase of 12 percent.
Second quarter-to-date sales were also negatively impacted by a later start to both brands' semiannual sales, compared with sales in 2019.
L Brands now expects second-quarter earnings-per-share to be between $1.20 and $1.30 a piece, compared with its previous guidance of $0.80 to $1.00, as a result.
The company is anticipating second-quarter operating income of more than $400 million for the Bath & Body Works segment and more than $200 million for the Victoria's Secret segment, which includes the lingerie, beauty and Pink divisions, thanks to better-than-expected merchandise margin rates, disciplined inventory management, reduced promotional activity and positive consumer response to the updated assortment.
Still, shares of L Brands, which closed down 3.19 percent Tuesday to $74.12 a piece, fell nearly 2 percent during after-hours trading. Year-over-year, shares are up nearly 345 percent.
Also on Tuesday, L Brands revealed that founder and former chairman emeritus Leslie H. Wexner began the process of a secondary offering of more than 20 million shares. Following the closing of the offering, the company agreed to repurchase an aggregated 10 million shares of common
Meanwhile, L Brands founder Leslie H. Wexner begins the process of a secondary offering of more than 20 million shares.
stock from one of the shareholders, L Brands said in a statement, with J.P. Morgan acting as the sole “book-running manager” of the offering.
Earlier this month, the L Brands' board approved the spin-off of the lingerie brand, which is set to take place in August. The move puts Victoria's Secret on the New
York Stock Exchange as a stand-alone firm, under the stock ticker “VSCO.” In addition, L Brands Inc. will soon become Bath & Body Works Inc., with the stock ticker going from “LB” to “BBWI.”