Kohl's raised profit view misses estimates, shares slip

(Reuters) - Department store operator Kohl's Corp forecast full-year earnings largely below estimates, a dire signal ahead of the all-important holiday shopping season, sending its shares down 8 percent on Tuesday.

Retailers are hoping that the upcoming shopping season will help rekindle sales after years of declines because of intense competition from online rivals.

But investors have not been impressed with the latest set of results from Kohl's and other big department store chains such as Macy's Inc and Nordstrom Inc.

"With the sector's relative outperformance over the last three months (vs globally exposed retail names), it appears that investors are not convinced in-line results are enough to perform against Q4's difficult comparisons," RBC Capital Markets analyst Brian Tunick said.

 

Kohl's raised the lower end of its adjusted full-year earnings forecast to $5.35-$5.55 per share from its prior forecast of $5.15-$5.55. The range was largely below the average analyst average of $5.51, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

The company's shares, which have risen 31 percent this year, were down 7.5 percent at $65.61 in early trading on Tuesday.

Like other department store operators, Kohl's has been resizing and sprucing up its stores and has invested in its mobile app, delivery services and chatbots to win back shoppers from online rivals.

These efforts helped it post a 2.5 percent increase in same-store sales for the third quarter, beating the 1.74 percent rise analysts had expected on average.

Net sales for Kohl's rose 1.3 percent to $4.63 billion, beating the average estimate of $4.36 billion.

Excluding items, the department store chain earned 98 cents per share, 2 cents more than analysts had expected.

Net income rose to $161 million, or 98 cents per share, in the third quarter ended Nov. 3, from $117 million, or 70 cents per share, a year earlier.

(Reporting by Jaslein Mahil and Soundarya J in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)