Body Central Shares Tumble On Q3 Loss; Reduces Staff By 11%

(RTTNews) - Shares of Body Central Corp. (BODY) fell 16 percent in extended trades after the women's apparel retailer reported a loss for the third quarter on lower revenues that missed analysts' expectations. The company also said it has reduced its corporate staff by 11 percent with immediate effect due to the longer transition period.

Brian Woolf, Body Central's CEO, said, "Our third quarter results reflect the continued difficulty of driving traffic into our stores and the overall traffic slowdown within our segment. While our comparable sales decreased 18% for the quarter, we realized positive comp sales performance in our bottoms and shoe businesses."

Jacksonville, Florida-based Body Central's net loss for the third quarter was $8.98 million or $0.55 per share, compared to net income of $153 thousand or $0.01 per share in the prior-year period. On average, six analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report a loss of $0.19 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Net revenues for the quarter declined 10 percent to $60.83 million from $67.92 million in the same period last year. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $66.01 million for the quarter.

Store sales decreased 10.1 percent to $55.7 million due to a comparable-store sales decrease of 18.3 percent. This was partially offset by a net increase of 28 stores from the same quarter last year.

Direct sales decreased by 13.6 percent from the year-ago period to $5.1 million.

During the quarter, the company opened 5 new stores and operated 291 stores as of September 28, 2013.

Looking ahead, Woolf said, "We are also confident that our focus on nightlife and club wear will resonate with our customers this holiday season. The introduction of our Sexy Stretch line performed well and we have plans to expand the offering. Our priorities continue to be to improve merchandise assortments, customer messaging and store traffic."

The company said that the job cuts as well as other cost cutting measures that will be fully deployed by year end are expected to reduce its annualized SG&A exposure by $5 million.

BODY closed Thursday's regular trading session at $5.63, down $0.08 or 1.32 percent on a volume of 544,756 shares. In after-hours, the stock further declined $1.03 or 18.22 percent to $4.60.