AutoZone Profit Slides; Shares Drop

(Updated to correct misreported fourth-quarter earnings per share, and to add detail regarding Autozone's EPS in relation to analysts' expectations.)

MEMPHIS (TheStreet) -- Investors sent shares of AutoZone(AZO Quote) lower Wednesday after the company posted a slide in its quarterly profit.

Still, the company's top-line numbers were fairly strong. For its fiscal fourth quarter, the car-parts retailer reported sales of $2.2 billion, up 1% from a year ago, and in-line with analysts' expectations.

Because of a change to its fiscal calendar, the just-ended period was a week shorter than the same quarter in 2008. Taking that weeklong difference into account, sales rose about 7% from a year ago, while U.S. same-store sales grew by 5.4%, AutoZone said.

Buy AutoZone!: Against the Grain

On the bottom line, AutoZone said it earned $236 million, or $4.43 a share in the quarter, below the year-ago period's $243.7 million. (On a per-share basis last year, when the company had more shares outstanding than it does now, it reported profit of $3.88 a share.)

Analysts, meanwhile, were expecting AutoZone to earn $4.45 a share in the just-ended quarter.

Though that appeared to be a narrow miss of Wall Street expectations, AutoZone's treasurer, Brian Campbell, argued otherwise, noting that the company spent $3.6 million in the quarter to terminate an interest-rate swap, an expense that amounted to 4 cents a share.

Because Wall Street analysts weren't aware that the company would be taking that charge, Campbell said, AutoZone didn't strip the cost out of its EPS figure; the company wanted to err on the side of conservatism.

But in a phone call with TheStreet, Campbell made sure to point out that, excluding the swap-termination costs, AutoZone would have earned $4.47 a share, thus exceeding Wall Street estimates by two pennies.