Elizabeth Arden shares collapse on unexpected loss

The share price of cosmetics manufacturer Elizabeth Arden fell heavily yesterday (May 13th) on the back of the US company announcing a shock loss in its latest financial results.

Shares in the firm plummeted by more than a fifth in the wake of the announcement, with the company stating that the results were "disappointing".

Elizabeth Arden's chief executive E Scott Beattie explained the firm is facing a "challenging" trading environment, which is one of the reasons behind the unexpected loss revealed in the figures.

Net sales for the third fiscal quarter were announced by the company to be $210.8 million (£124 million), which was a decrease of 20.3 per cent. Once the effect of foreign currency rates is stripped out from the results, the decline in net sales was shown to be 19.4 per cent.

Full year

Elizabeth Arden is still on track to make a modest profit for the full fiscal year, but investors appeared to lose confidence in the cosmetics firm on the back of the results and consequently shares in the business dropped by 22.82 per cent.

In a statement, Mr Beattie said: "Clearly these results are not indicative of the strength and potential of our brand portfolio. We fully recognise that we have a lot of work to do."

Elizabeth Arden is one of the best known cosmetics companies in the world and the firm is perhaps best known for its celebrity branded perfumes, with famous names to have signed up to produce scents with the company including Britney Spears and Elizabeth Taylor.

The firm also makes the designer fragrance brands of Juicy Couture, Alfred Sung, Lucky Brand, True Religion and Rocawear, as well as the lifestyle fragrance brands Curve, Giorgio Beverly Hills and PS Fine Cologne.

Mr Beattie added: "Our new chief financial officer recently joined us and is now fully engaged. He, along with our new executive vice-president, International and the rest of our commercial teams are fully committed to making the changes necessary to move us towards more predictable and sustainable profitability."

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