Vera Bradley reports Q4 adjusted EPS 11c vs. (3c) last year

Reports Q4 revenue $133.3M vs. $147.1M last year. Jackie Ardrey, Chief Executive Officer of the Company, stated, “We are pleased with the completion of the first full year of our turnaround story. We have successfully pivoted the organization toward a bright future and effectively managed both the existing business as well as the turnaround efforts, through Project Restoration, which will begin to bear fruit in the coming year. Our teams continued to carefully manage both gross margin and expenses in the fourth quarter, consistent with efforts earlier in the year. We have improved discipline around gross margin management and cost control, which will continue. In addition to this discipline, our strategic efforts are focused on stabilizing and growing our sales base. Our recent sales results demonstrate the need for change in our branding, product assortments, and store environments – the exact areas that Project Restoration addresses to position Vera Bradley, Inc. for long-term, profitable growth. After a year of foundational work, we are very excited about the customer-facing changes through Project Restoration that we will unveil this year. For the fourth quarter, Vera Bradley brand revenues fell 6.1%, with soft sales in all Direct channels. Sales were also negatively impacted by store closures over the last twelve months. Customers responded to some of our latest product collaborations and to our newer product offerings like leather, but overall, they continued to be more discriminating with their discretionary spending in light of the macroeconomic environment. A bright spot was the November transformation of our online outlet from a flash-sale model to an everyday extension of our outlet stores. This brought new customers to the brand and helped offset weakness in the outlet store channel. On the Indirect side, our wholesale partners were cautious with inventory buys in the fourth quarter. Pura Vida year-over-year fourth quarter sales declined 21.6%, primarily due to decreases in ecommerce and wholesale revenues, as external marketing costs continued to rise and marketing effectiveness remained challenging. Our holiday gifts, like our annual Advent Box, and engraving categories performed best for the quarter. While we are actively addressing revenue stabilization and marketing effectiveness at Pura Vida, our key focus is managing the business for profitability. As a result, we drove meaningful year-over-year operating margin improvement for the fourth quarter and full year. We continued to strengthen our already-strong balance sheet, adding to our year-over-year cash position while strategically reducing our inventory levels. This strength is critical as we navigate an uncertain retail climate while supporting Project Restoration initiatives.”