Furniture, appliance sales helps Sears Canada, but it still posts $53.2M loss

TORONTO – Sears Canada Inc. (TSX:SCC) says sales of major appliances, furniture and mattresses helped its performance in the third quarter but overall revenue was down and the company still posted a loss of $53.2 million.

The decline amounted to 52 cents per share and represented an improvement over last year’s third quarter, when Sears Canada posted a net loss of $118.7 million or $1.16 per share.

Last year’s loss included a bigger income tax expense, an asset impairment and a loss from the sale of its interests in joint ventures.

For the three months ended Oct. 31, Sears Canada’s total revenue was $792.1 million, down 5.1 per cent, partly because of store closures.

But same-store sales — which measures sales at outlets that have been open for more than a year — at surviving locations were up 0.4 per cent overall and up 2.7 per cent at core locations.

Sears Canada considers its 95 full-line department stores and 43 Sears Home stores to be its core retail network, excluding outlet, 144 hometown stores and its direct-to-consumer channel through online and catalogue sales.

The company has 1,200 catalogue and online merchandise pickup locations.