Dress Barn Net Surges

Dress Barn's(DBRN Quote) shares jumped Wednesday after the retail chain reported sharply higher first-quarter earnings and pushed up guidance.

Dress Barn earned $20.4 million, or 64 cents a share, in the quarter compared with $7.1 million, or 24 cents a share, last year. Sales rose 62% from last year to $318.9 million. Analysts had been forecasting earnings of 40 cents a share. One analyst had forecast sales of $318.9 million.

"The quarterly increase was driven by better-than-expected sales results for both the dressbarn and maurices brands," the company said. "The company noted that results from maurices were not included in the year-ago period, as the business was acquired on Jan. 2, 2005. Comparable store sales, which do give effect to maurices in the year-ago period, increased 9% for the first quarter."

For the current fiscal year, Dress Barn expects to earn $1.90 to $1.95 a share, compared with the Thomson First Call consensus estimate of $1.65 a share. It put full-year same-store sales growth at 4%.

The company's first quarter ended Oct. 29. For November, Dress Barn said same-store sales rose 10% from a year ago, while overall sales jumped 60% to $99.3 million.

The stock added $3.80, or 13.3%, to $32.40 Wednesday morning.