Shares of Macy’s (NYSE:M) were fairly static in early trade Tuesday, as investors digested the news of a delay in fiscal third-quarter 2024 earnings release. The delay is related to the discovery of accounting irregularities for delivery expenses.
A probe revealed that a former employee intentionally hid about $132 million to $154 million in delivery costs between the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021 and the third quarter of fiscal 2024. During this period, the company reported approximately $4.36 billion in delivery expenses. To complete an independent investigation, Macy’s postponed its earnings release and now expects to publish full results by Dec. 11.
Macy’s has reported a 2.4% year-over-year decline in net sales, totaling $4.742 billion. Comparable sales dropped 2.4% on an owned basis and 1.3% on an owned-plus-licensed-plus-marketplace basis from the prior-year quarter. While Macy’s First 50 locations, Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury showed sales growth, this was outweighed by underperformance in its other non-First 50 locations, the company’s digital channel and cold-weather categories.
Macy’s ongoing business comps, including both go-forward locations and digital platforms across all nameplates, decreased 2% on an owned basis and 0.9% when including owned, licensed and marketplace channels.
Net credit card revenues were $120 million, down 15.5% from the year-ago period due to net credit losses. Macy’s Media Network revenues climbed 13.9% to $41 million due to higher advertiser and campaign counts.
M opened Tuesday down a penny to $15.93.