Delta Apparel Q1 impacted by Sports Authority, Hurricane Matthew

By

Obi Anyanwu

Published
Feb 8, 2017

Delta Apparel on Monday released its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2017. Hurricane Matthew and the closure of Sports Authority impacted the sales for the quarter, which decreased 5.4% to $85.3 million, but the sales remained within expectations for the quarter.

 
The basics segment fell 1.1% to $60.8 million and the branded segment decreased to $24.5 million from $28.7 million in the previous year. Overall gross margins fell only slightly to 20.6% from 20.9%, and net loss was $607 thousand, or $0.08 per diluted share, compared to net income of $681 thousand, or $0.09 per diluted share, in the prior year.
 
Art Gun achieved record revenue with a 28% increase in net sales and Salt Life achieved record first quarter profit on 3.8% quarter over quarter sales growth. Soffe’s sales fell by approximately $1.5 million, but the brand achieved strong e-commerce growth, with B2C sales increasing 30% and B2B sales increasing 40%.

“While we see the challenging retail environment continuing, we believe fiscal 2017 will be a year of growth and improved profitability for Delta Apparel,” said Robert W. Humphreys, Delta Apparel, Inc.’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “We entered the year with exciting new products, have lowered our manufacturing and distribution costs, and are adopting innovative ways to serve our customers. We believe that Art Gun’s virtual inventory model and our ecommerce platforms represent the wave of the future, and provide synergies benefitting all of our business units. This is a formula that we believe will drive significant growth for Delta Apparel as we move forward.”