Office Depot swings to fourth quarter loss despite improved revenue
OFFICE DEPOT
$2.35
02:00 30/06/20
US retailer Office Depot posted a $48m loss in its fourth-quarter on Wednesday, just twelve months after reporting a $55m profit for the same period.
However, Office Depot, which has been trying to reinvent itself as a business solutions company, still managed to top expectations on the Street as revenue came in at $2.73bn, above estimates for $2.54bn.
On a per-share basis, Office Depot turned in a loss of $0.10 each, while earnings, adjusted for pretax expenses and non-recurring costs, came to $0.08 per share, again beating estimates of $0.07 gain per share.
For the year, Office Depot posted net income of $146m, or $0.27 per share, on $10.24bn in sales, marking a significant decline from the profit of $679m, or $1.24 per share recorded twelve months earlier, as the Floridian group's results benefited from $250m worth of income related to a fee from Staples for terminating its proposed $6.3bn merger agreement.
Office Depot tapped full-year earnings to come in at around $0.30 per share.
Chief executive Gerry Smith said that Office Depot was pivoting to a more services-oriented revenue base and that 2018 would continue to be a "year of transition."
In January, Office Depot opened its debut in-store tech center in Austin, with plans to open 28 more in-store tech zone service centers, with the Austin market also being used to launch BizBox, a monthly subscription service offering website creation, email marketing, IT services, payroll services and social media marketing, aimed at creating recurring revenue for Office Depot.
As of 1410 GMT, shares were untraded on $2.90 each.