Submitted by Fox First at Ten on November 16th
NEW YORK (AP) - Foot Locker Inc. said Friday that its third-quarter net income rose 61 percent, boosted by higher sales at its existing stores and contributions from new ones.
The results were better than Wall Street expected and Foot Locker shares were steady at $31.85 in trading 15 minutes ahead of the opening after rising as high as $34.18 earlier in premarket trading.
For the quarter ended Oct. 27, the New York-based retailer earned $106 million, or 69 cents per share, up from $66 million, or 43 cents per share, in the same quarter last year.
The recent quarter's results included a $9 million tax benefit stemming from the settlement of a foreign tax audit. Excluding that, the company said it posted an adjusted profit of 63 cents per share.
Revenue rose 9.3 percent to $1.52 billion from $1.39 billion.
Analysts, on average, expected a profit of 54 cents per share on $1.47 billion in revenue, according to a FactSet poll.
Foot Locker said its revenue at stores open at least a year increased 10.2 percent and included 18.3 percent growth in direct-to-consumer sales. The metric is a key measure of a retailer's health, because it excludes sales at stores that recently opened or closed.
As of Oct. 27, the company had a total of 3,367 stores, up from 3,402 at the same time the year before.
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