Bloomberg News
, the world's largest office-supplies chain, plans to shutter as many as 225 stores in North America and cut costs by as much $500 million by the end of 2015, as it forecast a first-quarter sales decline.
The savings are expected to come from supply chain, retail store closures and measures including 'labor optimization, non-product related costs, IT hardware and services, marketing, sales force and customer service,' the Framingham, Massachusetts-based company said in a statement today.
Staples is facing increased competition from lower-cost retailers including Amazon.com Inc. and membership-supported Costco Wholesale Corp.
'With nearly half of our sales generated online today, we're meeting the changing needs of business customers and taking aggressive action to reduce costs and improve efficiency,' Chief Executive Officer Ron Sargent said in the statement.
The company expects to achieve earnings per share in the range of 17 cents to 22 cents for the first quarter of 2014.
The company reported fourth quarter income from continuing operations of $212 million, or 33 cents per share, compared to $90 million, or 14 cents per share, a year earlier.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Livesey in San Francisco at blivesey@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Cecile Daurat at cdaurat@bloomberg.net
Posted by Unknown on Thursday, March 6, 2014 - Rating: 4.5
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