Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:SBH) has fallen 9.3% since its second-quarter fiscal 2018 earnings release. This is primarily due to the company’s earnings miss, after a beat in the preceding quarter. Further, decline in comps and contraction in margins also disappointed.
Apart from these, the trimmed guidance for fiscal 2018 has also hurt investors’ sentiment. Notably, Sally Beauty posted earnings of 54 cents, which missed the Zacks Consensus estimate by a penny.
Consequently, this Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) stock has lost 9.2%, against the industry’s gain of 7.3% in the past three months. Even a top-line beat has failed to instill confidence in the stock. Net sales of $975.3 million inched up 0.9%, and also came ahead of the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $974 million.
Factors Pulling the Stock Down
Declining Comps
Consolidated same-store sales edged down 1.4% in the fiscal second quarter. This decline resulted from the decrease in comps in the Sally Beauty Supply (“SBS”) and the Beauty Systems Group (“BSG”) segments. Same-store sales shrunk 1.6% in the SBS segment and 1.2% in the BSG segment.
Per management, the hurricanes in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2017 negatively impacted its business in Puerto Rico. This, in turn, dampened sales growth and same-store sales performance by approximately 10 basis points (bps). We note that in the preceding quarter, consolidated same-store sales had declined 2.2%, and in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2017, the same dipped 1.4%.
Meanwhile, for fiscal 2018, the company now expects same-store sales to be down almost 1% from the earlier projected flattish guidance.
Falling Margin
Gross margin, an important metric of a company’s financial health, contracted 60 bps to 49.9% in the fiscal second quarter. Per management, consolidated gross margin was impacted by a segment revenue mix shift toward the lower margin BSG segment. This follows the gross margin contraction of 30 bps in the preceding quarter. Furthermore, for fiscal 2018, gross margin is expected to decline slightly compared with the prior flattish guidance.
Meanwhile, the adjusted operating margin also shrunk 120 bps to 12.1% in the reported quarter. In first-quarter fiscal 2018, the adjusted operating margin descended 20 bps. We note that management still expects adjusted operating income to be down slightly for this fiscal.
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