DIFFERENTIAL BRANDS SEES STRONG SALES INCREASE IN FIRST QUARTER
Differential Brands Group Inc, a portfolio of global premium consumer brands comprised of Hudson Jeans, Robert Graham and Swims, today announced financial results for the three months ended March 31, 2017.
For the first quarter, adjusted EBITDA was $2.5 million; while net loss from continuing operations was $2.4 million, or $0.18 per share, as compared to a net loss from continuing operations of $5.2 million, or $0.46 per share, for the same period last year
Gross profit was $18.6 million, compared to $16.3 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2016. Net sales (including direct-to-consumer) increased 19 percent to $40.1 million, primarily due to increased wholesale sales from the addition of the Hudson Jeans and Swims brands for the full period; and e-commerce sales grew 46 percent, due to strategic investments in digital marketing platforms to improve customer acquisition as well as the March launch of www.hudsonjeans.com.
“We were pleased with the progress we made during the quarter, especially in our e-commerce business,” said Michael Buckley, the company’s CEO. “While our results are encouraging, we remain cautiously optimistic about the wholesale segment as we continue to navigate a difficult macro selling environment. At Robert Graham, we continue to see strong sell through as the assortment has shifted to more fashion basics. On the infrastructure front, we are planning the process of consolidating our warehouses and various operating platforms, and migrating one of our brands on to our consolidated ERP. We believe all of these initiatives will improve our time to market and enhance our cost efficiencies, which should drive gross margins and result in material expense structure savings. We expect that we will complete these initiatives over the next four to six quarters.”
