Business
Lifetime Brands, Inc. Reports Third Quarter 2019 Financial Results
Declares Regular Quarterly Dividend GARDEN CITY, N.Y., Nov. 07, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lifetime Brands, Inc. (NasdaqGS: LCUT), a leading global designer,
About this update from Lifetime Brands, Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"Declares Regular Quarterly Dividend\nGARDEN CITY, N.Y., Nov. 07, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lifetime Brands, Inc. (NasdaqGS: LCUT), a leading global designer, developer and marketer of a broad range of branded consumer products used in the home, today reported its financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2019.\n Robert Kay, Lifetime’s Chief Executive Officer, commented, “We are pleased with Lifetime’s progress in the third quarter, with our businesses delivering solid growth over last year in a challenging retail end market. The strategy that we’ve implemented over the past year is yielding meaningful results as we focus on our newly rolled-out strategic product development and sales initiative and unlocking the value of the cost efficiency campaign launched in connection with the Filament acquisition. We are also beginning to see the early benefits of our product portfolio optimization and rationalization, and we remain committed to increasing the brand equity and trend and product relevance of our best-in-class products and brands. While we are pleased to have produced growth during the quarter, these results were partially offset by the continued impact of U.S. tariffs and Brexit uncertainty in Europe, as well as some operational challenges as part of the ongoing reorganization of our UK operations. We remain optimistic in our ability to continue on this path and will continue to invest in initiatives to advance our strategy and global positioning.” Third Quarter Financial Highlights: Consolidated net sales for the three months ended September 30, 2019 were $215.5 million, representing an increase of $6.1 million, or 2.9%, as compared to consolidated net sales of $209.4 million for the corresponding period in 2018. In constant currency, which excludes the impact of foreign exchange fluctuations, consolidated net sales increased $7.2 million, or 3.5%, as compared to consolidated net sales in the corresponding period in 2018. Gross margin for the three months ended September 30, 2019 was $72.9 million, or 33.8%, as compared to $73.8 million, or 35.2%, for the corresponding period in 2018. The decrease was primarily due to changes in both product and customer mix for the U.S. segment and International segment. Mr. Kay added, “In connection with the Company’s European restructuring initiative, in the quarter we recogni...