Elizabeth Arden Shares Up on Strong 4Q Earnings

Elizabeth Arden, Inc. (NASDAQ:RDEN) reported Thursday stronger-than-expected fourth- quarter earnings, as its global re-engineering initiative gained traction abroad, causing shares to swing up more than 11%.

The beauty products maker posted income of $2.3 million, or 8 cents a share, compared with a loss of $3.6 million, or 30 cents a share, in the same quarter last year, and landing ahead of average analyst estimates of 1 cent.

Revenue for the New York-based company was $228.2 million, up 7.4% from $212.6 million a year ago, and narrowly missing the Street’s view of $228.5 million.

Full year sales increased 3.1% while earnings increased 85%, to 87 cents, from the prior fiscal year.

"Just over two years ago, we embarked on a global re-engineering of our major business processes and the implementation of a new enterprise software system to improve the efficiencies and scalability of our business,” CEO E. Scott Beattie said. “The progress we have made with these initiatives is evident in our results, as we exceeded our targets for our key metrics this year."

The company expects "consistent improvement" in its key metrics over the next several years, according to the CEO.

It also hopes to use a global marketing strategy to better leverage opportunities of its brand portfolio abroad.

The company expects earnings to land in the range of $1.15 to $1.25 for fiscal year 2011.

"We expect these initiatives to allow us to drive revenue growth and significant double-digit earnings growth for the next few years," Beattie said.