“Famous Footwear delivered its seventh consecutive year of positive back-to-school same-store-sales, while Brand Portfolio showed sales improvement of 8.5%, as our top brands continued to take consumer share in the market”, commented Diane Sullivan, CEO, President and Chairman of Caleres, adding: “In addition, we announced the acquisition of Vionic, a strong consumer demand brand, which has demonstrated solid growth over the past six years and is expected to be accretive to adjusted EPS in 2019.

“We also continued to accelerate the transition to our in-house distribution center for Brand Portfolio. While our in-house facility is up and running efficiently, the third-party facility expense has been far greater than expected”, continued Sullivan. “We now expect to report fiscal 2018 adjusted earnings per share of between 2.25 US dollars and 2.35 US dollars, and this range includes approximately 0.05 US dollars of dilution related to Vionic interest and amortization expense. This acquisition – along with other actions we have taken this year – is part of our strategy to invest for continued success, and our plans remain on-track,” concluded Sullivan.

Consolidated sales totaled 775.8 million US dollars (beating estimates by 10.8 million US dollars). Famous Footwear same-store-sales were up by 2.8%. Total sales of 448.8 million US dollars were down by 5.1% as expected, as one week of back-to-school sales shifted into the second quarter of this year versus the third quarter of last year. Brand Portfolio sales reached 327.1 million US dollars, up by 8.5%, including Vionic. Net earnings were 29.2 million US dollars, while diluted earnings per share were 0.67 US dollars and included 0.14 US dollars for charges related to the acquisitions of Allen Edmonds, Blowfish Malibu and Vionic. Adjusted net earnings of 34.9 million US dollars were up by 1.6%, while adjusted diluted net earnings per share of 0.81 US dollars were up by 1.3%, including approximately 0.02 US dollars of dilution related to Vionic interest and amortization expense.

In this period, consolidated sales reached 2 114.6 million US dollars. Famous Footwear same-store-sales were up by 1.7%, while total sales were 1 241.6 million US dollars. Brand Portfolio sales of 872.9 million US dollars were up by 4.1%. Net earnings totaled 70.0 million US dollars, while diluted earnings per share were 1.62 US dollars and included 0.21 US dollars for charges related to the acquisitions of Allen Edmonds, Blowfish Malibu and Vionic. Adjusted net earnings of 79.1 million US dollars were up by 9.1%, while adjusted diluted net earnings per share reached 1.83 US dollars and were up by 8.9%.