Pacific Sunwear (PacSun)

It was a couple of weeks ago that PacSun finally released its year end financials for January 30, 2016.  Arguably, nobody cares given the time that’s passed, the bankruptcy filing and the fact that they’ve now emerged from bankruptcy. But a brief review of the numbers tells us something about how the company deteriorated to […]

Nobody who’s followed PacSun or my analysis of it was very surprised by yesterday morning’s filing of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy.  We’ve had a number of retail bankruptcies and I expect more. Somebody suggested to me that the filing might occur around this time because their 10-K with audited financials would be due to be

It’s my belief that PacSun CEO Gary Schoenfeld has mostly done the right things since he joined the company. But so far PacSun hasn’t been able to reclaim the competitive position in the market it used to have.   Maybe, if this wasn’t a brutally competitive, over supplied, retail environment, things would be different. But they

For the quarter ended August 1, PacSun’s revenues fell 7.6% to $195.6 million from $211.7 million in the same quarter last year. Comparable store sales, including ecommerce, were down 6%. The gross margin fell from 29.1% to 25.8%. 1.1% of the gross margin decline was due to a decrease in their merchandise margin. 2.1% was

There wasn’t that much to say in either the 10-Q for May 2nd or the conference call. Bottom line is we’re all kind of hanging out waiting to see if PacSun can get further traction with its strategy before the continuing losses take too big a toll on the balance sheet and some more dramatic

It’s always the same conversation around PacSun. They are doing a lot of things right, and you see progress in the income statement (though there’s still a net loss). But you worry about the turnaround advancing far enough and fast enough before liquidity becomes an issue. As usual, we’ll dive into the financials, but I

For the quarter ended November 2nd, PacSun reported its 11th straight quarter of positive comparative store sales growth. They grew sales 4.7% to $212.4 million compared to $202.8 million in the same quarter last year. $7.1 million came from the increase in comparable store sales. The gross profit margin rose from 25.2% to 26.7%. 1.1%

Back in its glory days, PacSun was a destination for its young customers and expanded to around 900 stores. It lost its way for reasons that included too much growth and overexposure, unattractive stores, problems getting the right product to the right stores at the right time, thoughtful, better positioned competitors, and a weak economy.

Though PacSun still reported a loss in the quarter ended May 3, the income statement improved compared to the same quarter last year. Sales were up 2.9% from $166.4 to $171.1 million. The increase was the result of comparable store sales being up 3% compared to last year’s quarter. The average sales transaction was up 6%, though the

PacSun’s 2013 fiscal year ended February 1, 2014, and that’s the year we’re discussing here. You can review the 10K yourself here. I’d like to start with CEO Gary Schoenfeld’s mention in the conference call of the “…four key pillars of our overall strategy.” They are, he says:  “…our commitment to showcasing distinct brand identities derived from the