Ralph Lauren swings to 1Q profit, beats Wall Street's view

Ralph Lauren swung to a profit in its fiscal first quarter as the prior-year period was weighed down by a hefty charge.

Shares climbed more than 4 percent before the market open on Tuesday.

The results of Ralph Lauren and Michael Kors Holdings Ltd. gave a lift to the luxury retail sector, with shares of companies like Coach Inc. and Tiffany Inc. rising in premarket trading.

For the period ended July 1, Ralph Lauren Corp. earned $59.5 million, or 72 cents per share. A year earlier the New York-based clothing company lost $22.3 million, or 27 cents per share. The year-ago period was hurt by restructuring-related inventory charges of $54 million. Restructuring charges for the current period were $700,000.

Stripping out restructuring costs, earnings for the current period were $1.11 per share. That easily topped the 96 cents per share that analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research expected.

Revenue dropped to $1.35 billion from $1.55 billion, impacted in part by lower consumer demand and the company's decision to reduce shipments and decrease promotions.

Ralph Lauren still anticipates fiscal 2018 revenue will fall 8 percent to 9 percent. For the second quarter, it predicts revenue will decline 9 percent to 10 percent.

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Elements of this story were generated by Automated Insights using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on RL at https://www.zacks.com/ap/RL

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Keywords: Ralph Lauren, Earnings Report