Bed Bath & Beyond slips as 4th-quarter results and annual outlook fall short of expectations

Shares of Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. fell in after-hours trading Wednesday after the home goods retailer's fourth-quarter results and its projections for 2015 came up short of Wall Street estimates.

Bed Beth & Beyond said its net income fell 4 percent to $321.1 million, or $1.80 per share, while its revenue grew 4 percent to $3.34 billion.

Analysts expected a profit of $1.81 per share on $3.37 billion in revenue, according to a Zacks Investment Research survey.

The retailer said its net income slipped 6 percent to $957.5 million, or $5.07 per share, for the fiscal year that ended on Feb. 28. Revenue rose 3 percent to $11.88 billion.

The Union, New Jersey-based company said its per-share profit will be about the same in fiscal 2015 as it was last year, with no more than a mid-single-digit percentage increase. FactSet says analysts were expected net income of $5.44 per share on average, an increase of 7.3 percent.

Bed Bath & Beyond said its results will be hurt by increased taxes, unfavorable changes in foreign currency exchange rates, and greater costs for compensation and benefits. The company also said its 2014 results were boosted by a credit card fee litigation settlement that won't recur this year.

The company is projecting net income of 90 to 95 cents per share in the fiscal first quarter, and FactSet says analysts were expecting $1.02 per share.

Shares of Bed Bath & Beyond fell $2.51, or 3.2 percent, to $75.17 in aftermarket trading.

The stock rose 89 cents to $77.68 Wednesday, and it's up 2 percent in 2015 while the Standard & Poor's 500 index has increased 1 percent. Over the last 12 months the shares have climbed 15 percent, and they reached a 52-week high of $79.64 in January.

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

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