Q4 earnings soar at Jones Apparel

US fashion retail group Jones Apparel has seen its fourth-quarter earnings soar, but it full-year earnings take a dip.Earnings for the fourth quarter climbed 63 percent to $55.7 million (£32.1 million) from $34.1 million last year. Revenues for the quarter rose to $1.221 billion, compared with $1.08 billion during the same period last year.

Meanwhile, full-year revenues rose from $4.65 billion last year to $5.07 billion.

"We realised better -than-expected results in our licensed businesses and our Gloria Vanderbilt moderate apparel business, as well as our luxury Barneys retail stores," said president and chief executive Peter Boneparth. "We noted improvement in the selling of our footwear products and were also satisfied with the performance of our apparel product lines. We were pleased with our Barneys luxury stores, which posted an 8.0 percent comparable store sales increase for the fourth quarter, bringing the full year comparable store sales increase to 10.8 percent. Our footwear and ready to wear stores posted a 2.8 percent comparable store sales increase for the fourth quarter, resulting in a 0.2 percent decrease for the full year."

Boneparth revealed that 2005 had been a "challenging" year due to a difficult economic climate and the consolidation of the company's two largest wholesale customers.

The company said that, with the spate of consolidations in the department store sector, it plans to open more of its own stores. It said it will open 15 Anne Klein New York accessories stores this year, and will also be stepping up store openings of its Bandolino brand. The group will also soon open a Barneys New York flagship store in Boston, and a store in Dallas later in the year. Boneparth said the company is also looking at sites for more stores in 2007 and beyond. He also told WWD that acquisitions in retail are also being considered.

Looking forward, Boneparth said that the company is planning cost reductions of $100 million over the next two years. This year will see the company considering ways to grow its existing brands and to redistribute the proceeds of the sale of Polo Jeans.

"Our growth strategy for 2006 and beyond is to continue our strategic partnership with our wholesale customers," said Boneparth. "Further, we continue to explore our own vertical retail opportunities through our Barneys flagship and co-op concept stores, as well as our own footwear and ready to wear stores."

Jones Apparel estimates revenues in 2006 of $4.65 billion to $4.75 billion.