Burlington Stores Slides On Q4 Miss Steered By Low Store Traffic

Burlington Stores Inc BURL reported fourth-quarter FY21 sales growth of 14.3% year-on-year, to $2.61 billion, missing the consensus of $2.78 billion.
Compared to Q4 FY19, total sales increased 18%, comparable store sales increased 6%, and the gross margin contracted by 230 basis points to 39.8%.
The total costs and expenses grew 16% Y/Y to $2.4 billion. Adjusted EBITDA increased 9.5% Y/Y to $306.7 million.
Adjusted EPS of $2.53 missed the consensus of $3.25.
The company held $1.1 billion in cash and equivalents as of January 29, 2022. Cash provided by operating activities for the twelve months totaled $833.2 million.
"Ordinarily we would be happy with 6% comp growth in Q4 but compared to the rest of 2021 this was a slowdown in our trend. This slowdown was partially driven by lower traffic to our stores, due to a number of external factors, and partially driven by the late delivery of some critical receipts in December," said CEO Michael O'Sullivan.
Burlington Stores expects to open 120 new stores in FY22.
The company did not provide sales or earnings guidance for FY22, citing the uncertainty surrounding the pace of the recovery of consumer demand and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
In February 2022, the company's board authorized the repurchase of up to an additional $500 million of common stock to be executed through February 2024. As of Q4-end, it had $150 million remaining authorization.
Price Action: BURL shares are trading lower by 11.2% at $207.22 in premarket on the last check Thursday.

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