Elizabeth Arden sees profits and sales jump

The company said that sales for its third quarter jumped 14.6 per cent, to $219.2m, compared to $191.3m for the same period a year earlier, while net income grew from $0.7million last year, to $3.2m. The company added that currency translation had positively impacted the sales results by 2 per cent, giving a net sales increase of 12.6 per cent in real terms. For the last nine months net sales rose 15.7 per cent to $884.8 million, up from $764.6 million in the same period for the last financial year, while net income fell to $27.7 million, up from $34.7 million, which was largely impacted by restructuring charges. Sales growth during the third quarter was driven by increases in sales of prestige fragrances to mass retail customers, sales of new fragrances, including Elizabeth Arden Mediterranean and with Love from Hilary Duff. "The key drivers of our business performed well this quarter, and we expect this trend to continue for the remainder of this fiscal year and into fiscal 2008,"​ said Scott Beattie, CEO for Elizabeth Arden. He drew attention to the fact that US mass retail net sales had been strong, growing 26 per cent during the quarter, while the international business net sales had increased 10 per cent, driven by strong growth in Asia Pacific and the travel retail markets. He added that the strong sales growth of the Elizabeth Arden brand experienced during the quarter would continue to push sales for the rest of the year, particularly in view of the newly launched Elizabeth Arden Mediterranean fragrance. During the quarter the company fully integrated the recently acquired Sovereign Sales business into its operations, which is expected to bring a strong portfolio of fragrance brands for the US mass retail market into the fold and should contribute positively to both sales and earnings during the 2008 financial year. Given the results the company said that it had confirmed its outlook for 2007, expecting net sales to increase by 15 - 18 per cent, compared to the previous year when sales came in at $954.6m.