Dallas, Texas 03/24/2014 (FINANCIALSTRENDS) – The Wet Seal, Inc (NASDAQ:WTSL) a front-running specialty retailer targeting young women, announced its results for the financial Q4 & full year that ended 1 February, 2014. It noted that the fiscal 2013 had 52-weeks against 53-weeks in financial 2012; and results for the Q4 & the fiscal year 2012 are inclusive of that additional week. Net sales for the 13-week Q4 were $124.8M in comparison to the net sales of $161.7M for the 14-week Q4 in the fiscal 2012. The consolidated comparable-store-sales dropped 16.5%, and included a comparable-store sales dip of 15.4 percent at The Wet Seal, Inc (NASDAQ:WTSL) and 25.0 percent at Arden B.
The comparable-store-sales for this current year quarter are against the comparable 13 weeks from the previous year. Against the comparable 13 week period from the previous year, the net sales for the Q4 of the fiscal 2013 dropped by around 14% at The Wet Seal, Inc (NASDAQ:WTSL) 43% at Arden B & 18% on the consolidated basis. The gross-profit was $23.4M, or 18.8 percent of sales, in comparison to $40.1 million, or 24.8 percent of sales, in the Q4 of fiscal 2012. The operating loss was $27.3M in comparison to the operating loss of $25.5M in the previous year quarter.
The current year & the prior year quarters were inclusive of $8.0 million & $8.0 million, respectively, of the non-cash asset-impairment charges. The previous year quarter was also inclusive of a $6.6M charge to accrue loss-contingencies for numerous litigation matters, a $0.2M benefit to adjust amount of professional-fees that were incurred to defend against the shareholder proxy-solicitation to replace some of The Wet Seal, Inc (NASDAQ:WTSL)’s board members, which eventually led to the agreement to replace 4 of the its seven board members, $1.3M in severance-charges for the workforce reduction, and a $0.5M charge for the early-termination of 2 investment-banker retention agreements.
