Staples 2nd-Qtr Profit Rises 47% After Acquisition (Update2)
Aug. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Staples Inc., the world's largest office-supplies retailer, said second-quarter profit surged 47 percent as sales increased and it benefited from a European acquisition. The company raised this year's profit forecast.
Net income rose to $87.8 million, or 18 cents a share, from $59.6 million, or 13 cents, a year earlier, the Framingham, Massachusetts-based retailer said in a statement. Sales in the three months ended Aug. 2 climbed 18 percent to $2.87 billion.
Sales at North American locations open at least a year rose 6 percent while European sales jumped 88 percent, boosted by the purchase of Guilbert SA in October. Staples is renovating stores to make them more attractive and easier to shop for business customers, selling more higher margin private label products and keeping more goods in stock.
Profit this year is forecast to be $1.09 a share, the company said. It was forecast to earn 16 cents last quarter and $1.05 this year, according to the average estimates of analysts polled by Thomson Financial.
Staples shares rose to $21.35 from $20.38 in Instinet trading. They'd gained 11 percent this year.
Sales at North American retail stores climbed 11 percent to $1.62 billion. Sales at the company's delivery business increased 14 percent after adding 3,000 new corporate accounts.
Staples bought Guilbert, a former office supplies mail order unit of French retailer Pinault-Printemps-Redoute SA, for about $825 million to boost sales in the region.
Office Depot Inc. plans to buy Pinault-Printemps-Redoute's stationery unit for about $1 billion to double European sales and regain the lead as the world's largest seller of office supplies from Staples.
Last Updated: August 19, 2003 08:05 EDT