Big Lots reports Q4 adjusted EPS (28c), consensus (23c)

Reports Q4 revenue $1.432B, consensus $1.43B. The decline to last year was driven by a comparable sales decrease of 8.6%. The net impact of the benefit of the 53rd week, offset by a net decrease in store count, contributed approximately 140 basis points of sales growth compared to the fourth quarter of 2022. Commenting on today’s results announcement, Bruce Thorn, President and CEO of Big Lots stated, “I’m pleased to report another quarter of sequential improvement in comps and gross margin rate, while continuing to take out costs. For the third quarter in a row, we did what we said we would do, and despite a challenging macroeconomic environment and well documented weather challenges in January, we finished the year in a much better place than where we started. That said, there’s a lot of work to do in 2024, and we are moving aggressively to accelerate our transformation, return to positive comparable sales, and continue to improve our gross margin rate over the course of the year.”