Bassett Announces Fiscal Fourth Quarter Results and Discusses Sale of Zenith Assets

About this update from Bassett Furniture Industries, Incorporated

[{"type":"text","content":"BASSETT, Va., Jan. 31, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bassett Furniture Industries, Inc. (Nasdaq: BSET) announced today its results of operations for its fourth quarter ended November 27, 2021 and discusses the previously announced sale of the assets of Zenith Freight Lines, LLC for $87 million in cash. Fiscal 2021 Fourth Quarter Highlights (Dollars in millions) Sales Operating Income (Loss) 4th Qtr Dollar% 4th% of 4th Qtr% of 20212020 ChangeChange 2021Sales 2020SalesConsolidated (1)$129.9$118.4 $11.59.7% $7.15.5% $10.08.4% Wholesale$76.0$67.5 $8.512.8% $2.93.8% $5.98.7% Retail$66.4$64.8 $1.62.5% $3.45.1% $2.53.9% Logistical Services$23.5$20.7 $2.813.5% $0.52.1% $1.25.8% (1) Our consolidated results include certain intercompany eliminations. See Table 4, “Segment Information” below for an illustrationof the effects of these intercompany eliminations on our consolidated sales and operating income (loss). Our fourth quarter concluded another turbulent year for the industry with a consolidated sales increase of 9.7%, coming in at $129.9 million. Although incoming wholesale orders did slow from 2020’s torrid pace, fourth quarter written orders were 8.7% ahead of 2019. Despite ongoing supply chain complications, we were able to slightly reduce our backlog at year end measured against the end of our third quarter. Nevertheless, we ended the year with a wholesale backlog of $90.1 million compared to $54.9 million in 2020 and $20.0 million in 2019. Raw material stock outages have improved somewhat since the end of November, making way for further reduction of the wholesale backlog to start 2022. Operating profit of $7.1 million was behind last year due to margin pressure in our wholesale and logistics operations and higher spending levels, primarily related to technology initiatives. I am especially pleased that we generated $26.0 million of operating profit for the full year, the most since 2017, despite the aforementioned margin pressures. For the past five quarters, we have sought to combat ceaseless raw material and ocean freight increases with wholesale price increases of our own; passed along to our customers. Unfortunately, our spiraling costs coupled with late shipments from our suppliers have eroded our wholesale margins as we continue to produce goods today with higher material costs than they had when the finished goods were sold m...

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