Advance Auto Posts Higher Profit In Q1; Lifts Full-Year Earnings View - Update

(RTTNews) - Advance Auto Parts, Inc. (AAP) Thursday reported a higher first-quarter profit on about 47 percent growth in sales. The auto parts retailer also lifted its comparable cash earnings per share guidance for full year 2014.

For the sixteen-week period ended April 19, 2014, the company posted net income of $147.73 million or $2.01 per share, up from $121.79 million or $1.65 per share in the previous year.

Excluding items, comparable earnings per share for the quarter were $2.25, while the firm posted $1.66 per share a year ago.

On average, 22 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report earnings of $2.16 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Comparable results exclude $0.11 of amortization of acquired intangible assets, integration costs of $0.10 associated with acquisition of General Parts International Inc., and $0.03 of integration costs related to integration of B.W.P. Distributors Inc.

Net sales for the quarter climbed 47.3 percent to $2.97 billion from $2.02 billion in the same quarter last year. Wall Street expected revenues of $2.98 billion for the quarter.

The company attributed the increase in sales to acquisition of General Parts, solid execution delivering a comparable same store sales increase of 2.4 percent and addition of new stores over the past 12 months.

For full year 2014, the firm now expects comparable cash earnings per share to be in the range of $7.30 to $7.50, up from the prior estimate of $7.20 to $7.40 per share. Analysts project annual earnings per share of $7.50.

On May 14, the company's board declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.06 per share, to stockholders of record on June 18, 2014, payable on July 2.

AAP is currently trading at $123.93, up 0.64 percent, on a volume of 1.66 million shares.