Rich's parent company loses $447 million in fourth quarter

CINCINNATI - Federated Department Stores Inc., whose stores include Bon Marche, Macy&#39;s and Bloomingdale&#39;s, posted a loss of $447 million in the fourth quarter as the terrorist attacks and the recession hurt sales and the company took a large loss for its impending sale of its Fingerhut e-commerce business. <br> <br> But Federated slightly raised its earnings range forecast for this year, and its shares rose almost 7 percent, or $2.64 a share, to close at $41.66 in trading Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange. <br> <br> The company&#39;s overall loss amounted to $2.23 per share for the three months ended Feb. 2 in contrast to a profit of $332 million, or $1.65 per share, a year earlier. <br> <br> Bon Marche, which plans to open a new store in Yakima in August, had one of the best performances within the holding company, spokeswoman Kimberly Reason told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. <br> <br> &#34;Our inventories are very clean,&#34; she added. &#34;We are looking forward to spring. We will have room to bring in some fresh inventory.&#34; <br> <br> Federated is trying to complete the sale of the Fingerhut business after suffering multimillion-dollar losses since buying it for $1.7 billion in 1999. In the latest quarter, Federated reported a loss of $770 million for the disposal of the Fingerhut catalog and Internet operations. <br> <br> Its results were also depressed by the costs of closing the New Jersey-based Stern&#39;s stores, reorganizing the company&#39;s catalog and electronic commerce businesses and merging the acquired Hawaiian retailer Liberty House into the Macy&#39;s West division. <br> <br> Federated&#39;s earnings from continuing operations before charges and inventory adjustments was $1.90 per share, and that beat the $1.86 forecast of Wall Street analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial/First Call. <br> <br> Sales for the quarter were $5.1 billion, down from $5.6 billion a year earlier. <br> <br> Sales at stores that have been open at least a year were down 6 percent. After adjusting for one fewer week in the latest year, the same-store sales declined 4 percent. <br> <br> For the past year, Federated lost $276 million, or $1.38 per share, compared with losses of $184 million and 89 cents per share a year earlier. <br> <br> Annual sales totaled $15.6 billion, compared with $16.6 billion in the 53-week previous fiscal year. The decline partly reflected the weakening economy and the closing of the Stern&#39;s division, Federated said. <br> <br> The company raised its earnings outlook for this fiscal year and now expects earnings from continuing operations of $3.30 to $3.55 a share, up from a forecast last month of $3.25 to $3.50 <br> <br> The consensus forecast for analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial/First Call is for earnings of $3.38 a share. <br> <br> The Cincinnati-based retailer&#39;s operations include the Macy&#39;s, Bloomingdale&#39;s, Lazarus, Bon Marche, Burdines, Goldsmith&#39;s and Rich&#39;s stores and Bloomingdale&#39;s By Mail Ltd., Macy&#39;s By Mail, Macys.com and Fingerhut. <br> <br> The Alaska Ironworkers Pension Trust sued Tuesday in state court in Minneapolis to try and stop Federated from liquidating Fingerhut. A Fingerhut employee filed a similar lawsuit two weeks ago. <br> <br> Federated said it will defend against the lawsuits and focus on selling Fingerhut. <br> <br>

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