At what point does Bill Ackman throw in the towel and admit that his latest windmill crusade is unsalvageable? Perhaps somewhere around now:
- Q4 EPS: ($1.95), Exp. ($0.19) - No, there was no decimal comma error here.
- Q4 Revenues: $3.884 billion, Exp. $4.09 billion. This includes a "free" 53rd week in the year which generated $163 million. Ex this, Q4 revenue was $3.721 billion.
- Q4 Comp store sales excluding the 53rd week were down 31.7%
- Q4 Interent sales down 34.4% - must be the store layout's fault
- Q4 Gross margin: 23.8%, Exp. 30.9%; (30.2% last); "Gross margin was impacted by lower than expected sales and a higher level of clearance merchandise sales related to inventory reductions in 2012"
- The company's cash declined by $577 million, which is now down to just $930 million. More than all of the company's cash came from Inventory (net working capital) which generated some $1.021 billion in the quarter.
- 2012 cash burn was a gargantuan $906 million; this compares to cash flow of +$23 million in 2011.
- Company is down to $2.3 billion in inventory. We wonder how the credit facility will feel about this.
- Speaking of credit facility, JCP had no borrowings under its 2012 Revolver, and about $1.3 billion available net of L/Cs. Expect these numbers to change.
And so on. Stock should be down much more, but someone keeps on buying it after hours to telegraph that this epic disaster was "expected"... though as the evening wears on reality sets in... -10% now
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Source: Q4 earnings release [6] [6]