Outdoor financials: Cabela's Q2 profit drops 35 percent, plus Big 5, Outdoor Channel, Luxottica, Garmin

Cabela’s Q2 profit drops 35 percent

Cabela’s (NYSE: CAB) reported its financial services revenue was hurt by an increase in bad debts in the company’s credit-card portfolio.

The company said profit for the quarter ended June 28 fell 35 percent to $72.8 million, or $0.11 per share, from $11.3 million, or $0.17 per share last year.

Revenue rose 17 percent to $526 million from $451.2 million last year. Same-store sales fell 1.6 percent.

Its financial-services revenue fell nearly 7 percent to $38.3 million due to higher bad debts in its credit card portfolio. Cabela’s said charge-off levels are below industry average, however, and delinquency rates have stabilized compared with the first quarter of 2008.

Shares fell $1.72 to a low of $9.90 during afternoon trading on Aug. 1, near the low end of its 52-week range of $9.67 to $28.80. It closed at $10.20.

Big 5 Sporting Goods 2Q profit declines on charges

Big 5 Sporting Goods (Nasdaq: BGFV) reported a two-thirds drop in its second-quarter profit compared to the year before.

Its quarterly profit declined to $1.7 million, or $0.08 per share, from $5.9 million, or $0.26 per share, in the year-ago period. Results in the most recent quarter included $0.04 in charges.

Sales fell 4 percent to $209 million from $217.8 million.

Same-store sales declined 7.6 percent for the second quarter. The company said the drop was primarily due to a mid-single digit decrease in customer traffic and continued weakness in the roller shoe product category, which accounted for approximately 140 basis points of the same store sales decline during the second quarter.

Gross profit for the fiscal 2008 second quarter was $68.4 million, compared to $74.8 million in the second quarter of the prior year. The company’s gross profit margin was 32.7 percent in the fiscal 2008 second quarter versus 34.3 percent in the second quarter of the prior year.

“Given the challenging sales environment, we are pleased with our second-quarter earnings results, which came in at the high end of our expectations on an operational basis, but were impacted by the one-time charge relating to lease accounting,” said Steven G. Miller, Big 5 president and CEO, in a statement.

The company’s board of directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.09 per share of outstanding common stock, which will be paid on Sept. 15 to stockholders of record as of Aug. 29.

During the quarter, the company repurchased 210,474 shares of its common stock for a total expenditure of $1.7 million.

For the third quarter, the company anticipates a decline in same-store sales in the mid-single digit range and earnings per diluted share in the range of $0.14 to $0.20.

For the full year, it anticipates a decline in same-store sales in the mid-single digit range and earnings per diluted share in the range of $0.60 to $0.80.



Outdoor Channel posts double-digit revenue gains for Q2

Outdoor Channel Holdings (Nasdaq: OUTD) reported a 14.4-percent increase in total revenues for the second quarter.

Total revenues from continuing operations amounted to $13.0 million for the 2008 second quarter, compared with $11.4 million in the corresponding period a year ago.

Advertising revenue for the 2008 second quarter rose 28.0 percent to $8.5 million from $6.6 million in the prior-year period.

Subscriber fees totaled $4.6 million for the second quarter of 2008 — down 4.6 percent from last year’s $4.8 million.

Outdoor Channel Holdings posted net income of $271,000, or $0.01 per diluted share, for the 2008 second quarter, compared with a net loss of $1.1 million, or $0.04 per share, in the prior-year period.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization amounted to $1.6 million for the 2008 second quarter, compared with $2.4 million in the prior-year period.



Luxottica’s Q2 sales up 2.1 percent

Luxottica Group (NYSE: LUX), parent of Oakley, said net income fell 16.5 percent in the first half of the year due to a strong euro, a U.S. consumer slowdown and one-time charges.

Net income for the six-month period was EUR 236.3 million (USD $368.2 million). First-half revenue rose 4.8 percent to EUR 2.753 billion (USD $4.289 billion).

The group, which has a strong U.S. presence, said it was on track to meet full-year targets. It forecast sales of EUR 5.6 billion to EUR 5.75 billion (USD $8.7 billion to $8.9 billion) for this year and earnings of EUR 1.11 to 1.14 (USD $1.72 to $1.77) a share.

It said conditions were tough in North America, which was beginning to see a slight improvement in the third quarter, while there was steady growth in emerging markets.

It said one-time charges linked to the purchase of Oakley last year would total EUR 20 million (USD $31.1 million).

For the quarter, sales rose 2.1 percent to EUR 1.354 billion (USD $2.109 billion). Luxottica last month said it expected mid-single digit growth in second-quarter sales at current exchange rates.



(Conversion of Euros into U.S. dollars is for information only, is not necessarily relative to earnings, and is based on the currency rate as of July 31.)



Garmin completes acquisition of Austrian distributor

Garmin Ltd. (Nasdaq: GRMN) said it has completed the acquisition of Puls Elektronik GmbH, the distributor of Garmin’s consumer products in Austria, and re-named the company Garmin Austria GmbH. Financial terms of the transaction were not released.



The Austrian company will retain its management, sales, marketing and supporting staff, consisting of approximately 30 people, and will continue operations at its current headquarters located in Nestelbach/Graz, Austria.



For more information about any public company on this page or its financial reports, as well as to view stock prices updated every 15 minutes, visit the SNEWS® Stock Market Updates. Click on: www.outsidebusinessjournal.com/cgi-bin/snews/stock_report.html.