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Market: TSX
Sector: Retailers
EPIC: SCC
Latest Price: 10.10  (-8.35% Descending)
52-week High: 19.16
52-week Low: 10.09
Market Cap: 1,035.38M
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Sears Canada Inc
www.sears.ca

Sears Canada is a multi-channel retailer with a network of 197 corporate stores, 193 dealer stores, 43 home improvement showrooms, over 1,800 catalogue merchandise pick-up locations, 108 Sears Travel offices and a nationwide home maintenance, repair, and installation network.

Full Sears Canada Inc profile here
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Sears Canada posts 53% Q4 profit drop

22nd Feb 2012, 3:18 pm by Brad Lemaire
Sears Canada posts 53% Q4 profit drop

Department store chain Sears Canada (TSE:SCC) said Wednesday its fourth-quarter sales and profits slipped amid dwindling revenue at established stores.

For the quarter that ended January 28, the company said total sales dipped 6.4 percent to $1.36 billion, down from $1.45 billion last year.

Net income for the 13-week period plunged 53 percent to $38.7 million, or 36 cents a share, compared with a year prior profit of $82.7 million, or 77 cents a share.

"While we are disappointed with our performance for the fourth quarter, we believe we have begun to stabilize the business and create a foundation for returning the business to historical performance levels," chief executive Calvin McDonald said in a statement.

"Because of our actions to reduce unproductive inventory, we had higher cash flow in 2011 than the prior year, and enter 2012 with a much cleaner inventory position."

Same store sales tumbled 7.4 percent during the latest period. This is a key measure to gauge a retailer’s financial health as it excludes sales of stores that recently opened or closed during the year.

Sears Canada has been cutting jobs, de-cluttering stores and making other moves to attract more shoppers in a highly competitive Canadian retail market.

Last week, the company announced it is cutting prices on more than 5,000 items as the big department store chain tries to bolster sales.

Last month, it laid-off 400 workers at stores across Canada and closed nearly all of its in-store cafes. In addition to the cafe jobs, the company also slashed some support and head office staff.

The cuts followed the loss of about 70 head office jobs at Sears Canada late last year.

Sears Canada has approximately 30,000 employees across Canada and over 400 corporate, dealer and home services stores. It is majority owned by Sears Holdings in the U.S.

The department store chain’s share price rose 0.59 percent at $12.02 in trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Wednesday.

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