Outdoor financials: Backcountry.com's parent posts quarterly loss, plus Hanesbrands, Winmark

Backcountry.com’s parent posts quarterly loss

Liberty Media Corp. (Nasdaq: LINTA), parent of Backcountry.com, posted a quarterly operating loss due to writedowns at its Liberty Entertainment unit and falling sales at its QVC cable TV shopping channel.

The conglomerate of media and Internet assets posted a quarterly operating loss of $1.29 billion, compared with a year-earlier operating profit of $63 million, across its three main units: Liberty Interactive, Liberty Entertainment and Liberty Capital. Liberty Media operates under these three tracking stocks to allow investors to more closely follow its businesses.

Liberty Interactive, which houses QVC and several e-commerce companies including Backcountry.com, posted a 44 percent drop in operating income to $226 million during the quarter. Sales fell by 4 percent to $2.38 billion.

The unit also reduced its senior debt load by $1.4 billion and said QVC had bank debt of $5.23 billion as of Dec. 31.

Liberty Entertainment reported a loss of $1.15 billion after one-time impairment charges of $1.26 billion. Revenue increased 26 percent to $360 million. Operating losses at Liberty Capital widened slightly to $377 million, while revenue increased by 44 percent to $131 million.

Liberty Media has also agreed to lend $530 million to Sirius XM Radio in exchange for a 40-percent stake.



Hanesbrands amends earnings growth forecast

Hanesbrands (NYSE: HBI), parent of Duofold, revised its adjusted long-term annual earnings growth forecast, saying it anticipates an earnings growth outlook in a range of 10 percent to 20 percent. Previously, the company said it expected income to grow by a percentage in the double digits.

While the company said it expects the first half of 2009 to be difficult, it anticipates the second half of the year may benefit from increased prices, lower commodity costs and reduced inventory and capital spending needs.

Hanesbrands predicts long-term annual sales growth of 1 percent to 3 percent, which does not include acquisitions.

For the three-year period ending in 2009, the company expects restructuring charges of about $250 million. It has recognized $209 million in restructuring and related costs to date.

Winmark swings to Q4 loss

Despite saying its franchising business performed well in 2008, Winmark Corp. (Nasdaq: WINA), parent of Play It Again Sports, saw its income for the year drop and reported a loss for the fourth quarter.

Net income for the year was $1.13 million, or $0.21 per share diluted, compared to net income of $3.04 million, or $0.54 per share diluted, in 2007.

The fourth quarter 2008 net loss was $2.07 million, or $0.38 per share diluted, compared to net income of $853,000, or $0.15 per share diluted, for the same period last year.

Revenues for the year were $35.4 million, up from $31.1 million in 2007.

The company added that its results were negatively impacted by a $2.8 million after-tax earnings charge, or $0.52 per share, in the fourth quarter related to the impairment in its investment in Tomsten.

–Compiled by Wendy Geister

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