Haverty Furniture Reports Sales for August

Furniture World Magazine

Havertys' August sales decreased 2.3% to $65.7 million compared with $67.3 million in sales for August 2003. On a comparable-store basis, August sales decreased 4.1%. Comparable-store sales do not include locations opened, closed or otherwise non-comparable during the last 12 months. Sales for the first eight months of 2004 increased 6.7% to $506.0 million compared with $474.2 million in 2003. On a comparable-store basis, sales increased 3.1% for the first eight months. Clarence H. Smith, president and chief executive officer, said, "August sales reflect the changes in the calendar that shifted a Saturday delivery day into July and the negative impact from Hurricane Charley. As we reported a month ago, the delivery day change had a roughly 5% positive impact on July 2004 total sales with a corresponding negative effect on August. Our Havertys branded products continue to grow as a percentage of total sales and reached 42% for the month of August. The upholstery, recliner and bedding categories were leaders in sales percent increases for August, as they have been all year. "Sales for the Labor Day weekend (which fell almost a full week later this year) were greatly disrupted by Hurricane Frances. Our Florida markets are very robust sales performers, and during what is historically the strongest weekend of the year, it was necessary to close 23 of our 25 stores in the state. Given the calendar shifts and the '100 year' weather events, we believe an appropriate way to view the trend of our business is to compare our dollars of sales orders for the month of August through Labor Day to the same period last year. Excluding the Florida stores, total sales orders during this period increased approximately 1.0% and comps were approximately 2.5% negative. Including Florida, total sales orders were down approximately 4.5% and comps were down approximately 7.0%. These results are compared to a very strong equivalent period in 2003 which had shown an increase in total sales orders of approximately 15% and comps of approximately 10% over 2002. "We were able to reschedule our television and most newspaper advertising in Florida in advance of Frances. Many of our newspaper inserts were delivered and we will be running a Labor Day 'holdover' sales event in the affected markets this weekend. "We experienced some water leakage, loss of inventory and roof damage in three of our smaller stores but expect to have all but two of our Florida stores open by the end of the day today. As with Hurricane Charley, our insurance will cover losses above our $250,000 deductible per named storm. We expect that the gain on the sale of a local market warehouse in Florida later this month will more than offset our total deductible and other out-of-pocket expenses associated with these two hurricanes. "We are fortunate to have a dedicated group of employees who once again worked diligently to mitigate hurricane damage and restore operations," Smith concluded. Havertys is a full-service home furnishings retailer with 115 showrooms in 15 southern and central states providing its customers with a wide selection of quality merchandise in middle- to upper-middle price ranges. Additional information is available on the Company's website at http://www.havertys.com/ .