Hudson’s Bay Co reports three-fold rise in profit following Kaufhof takeover

Hudson’s Bay Co. has reported a clear, crisp increase in both fourth-quarter and full-year net earnings as the department store group had a big boost from the sale of property investments.

The company, whose banners include Hudson’s Bay, Lord & Taylor and Saks Fifth Avenue among others, said net earnings in the three months ended Jan. 30 was $370 million, or $1.88 per diluted share.

That was up from $115 million, or 62 cents per diluted share, in the comparable year-earlier period because the company realized $516 million around the sale of investments in its property joint venture.

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Revenue soared 70.4 per cent to $4.486 billion from $2.632 billion, primarily because of adding HBC Europe following the close of its Galeria acquisition last September.

On a continuing currency basis, HBC said consolidated comparable store sales – an important metric in retail – increased by 1.8 percent for the quarter and a pair of.5 per cent for that year.

For the full year, net earnings totalled $387 million, up from $233 million in fiscal 2014. Full-year consolidated retail sales were $11.162 billion, up 36 percent from $8.169 billion, also primarily due to the addition of HBC Europe.

“The diversity of our banners when it comes to geography and consumer segment helped us navigate a frightening retail environment and resulted in 2015 comparable store sales growth of 2.5 percent on the constant currency basis,” Richard Baker, HBC’s governor and executive chairman, said in a statement accompanying the results.

Baker said that with the closing of the Galeria acquisition, the biggest department stores in both Germany and Belgium were now part of the HBC family. Meanwhile, the following sale of a area of the company’s equity in HBS Global Properties was utilized to delever its balance sheet.

“This is simply one illustration of the way we can utilize our real estate holdings to boost our financial flexibility,” Baker said.