Kroger increases guidance

Victoria Erhart — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:25:00 EST

Filed under: Earnings Reports, Good news, Kroger Co (KR)

Mammoth grocery-store chain The Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) recently posted very solid third quarter (3Q) results. Total sales increased 10% to $16 billion for the quarter. This marks the 10th quarter in a row that Kroger has posted sales increases of at least 3%. Year-to-date (YTD) total sales increased 7.6% to $53 billion. 3Q net earnings were equally impressive, $253.8 million or $0.37 per diluted share. This represents a $39 million improvement over 3Q 2006 net earnings. Grocery stores have notoriously low profit margins, so it speaks well of Kroger management that Kroger earned these good numbers while increasing profit margins slightly, expanding capital investment to $555 million, growing its own line of organic goods, while simultaneously decreasing general administrative expenses.

YTD net earnings stand at $857.6 million or $1.22 per diluted share, a 20% increase over 2006 results. Given the strong comparable stores sales growth, Kroger CEO David Dillon has raised FY 2007 guidance to reflect 5% overall sales growth, which will exceed the previous guidance figure of $1.67 per diluted share. Kroger repurchased 16.5 million shares in 3Q 2007, for a total of $442 million, with $200 million leftover for 4Q buybacks.

Investors were perhaps hoping for even better news from Kroger. The stock lost over 8% of its value in the previous week, and closed at $25.88 on 19 December, down $0.29.

Kroger increases guidance originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kroger (KR) sees 6.6% quarterly sales increase

Brian White — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 11:10:00 EST

Filed under: Earnings Reports, Kroger Co (KR)

Kroger Co. (NYSE: KR) must be doing something right in the area of grocery retailing, as the nation's largest independent grocer reported excellent quarterly results this morning. Kroger witnesses a sales increase of 6.6% to $16.1 billion for the second quarter, aided by a same-store sales growth figure of 5.8% (with fuel sales included).

Kroger has managed nine straight quarters of same-store sales growth in excess of 3%, which is slightly inexplicable for a company of its size. My guess is that Kroger is reclaiming customers from Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE: WMT) Supercenters and Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) SuperTarget stores in addition to what I see as a constant focus on the customer instead of just increasing sales and store counts.

Indeed, Kroger CEO David Dillon's first statement to explain the quarter included this: "Our associates understand the importance of placing our customers first in their daily decisions." Sounds focused, empowering and exciting -- words often not connected with grocery retailers. Kroger continues to impress, and its latest results obviously show that the company is not standing still in the face of larger competitors -- ones that are huge but are apparently not connecting with consumers as much as Kroger has managed.

Kroger (KR) sees 6.6% quarterly sales increase originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Tue, 18 Sep 2007 11:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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