EmailTiffany (TIF $56.58 -5.30) reported first quarter earnings of $0.64 per share, $0.06 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.70, while revenues rose 7.6% year/year to $819 million versus the $819.06 million consensus. The company issued downside guidance for fiscal year 2013 with EPS of $3.70-3.80 versus the $3.99 consensus: approxmately $0.20 of the decrease is tied to a reduction in operating expectations and $0.05 is related to the additional debt incurrence. All of the annual earnings growth over 2011 is expected to occur in Q4, with net earnings in Q2 and Q3 expected to be below last year. Net inventories increasing 10%, versus a previous expectation of 15%.
The company lowered sales growth (USD) to 7-8% from 10% (as reported consensus +9.8%). "In terms of our sales for the first quarter, regions outside the Americas performed generally as expected. However, the Americas region underperformed, continuing a soft trend that began in the last quarter of 2011 and compounded by the difficult comparison to substantial sales growth in last year's first quarter. These sales results led to net earnings modestly trailing our expectations. We are updating our forecast for the full year to reflect these first quarter results and to reflect lower near-term expectations. Although we are very early into the second quarter, worldwide sales are currently increasing by a low-single-digit percentage, reflecting difficult year-over-year comparisons and decelerating rates of economic growth in many countries. In 2011, we achieved extremely strong sales growth in the second and third quarters, especially in the Americas and Asia-Pacific regions."
