TJX 1Q net income rises 8 pct, sales increase

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. (AP) -- TJX, parent company of TJ Maxx and Marshalls clothing stores, said Tuesday its fiscal first-quarter net income rose 8 percent to match Wall Street predictions.

For the quarter ended May 4, TJX earned $452.9 million, or 62 cents per share, up from $419.2 million, or 55 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago.

Revenue increased 7 percent to $6.19 billion from $5.8 billion.

Analysts, on average, expected a profit of 62 cents per share, on $6.18 billion in revenue, according to FactSet.

The Framingham, Mass., company said its revenue at stores open at least a year increased 2 percent. The metric is a key measure of a retailer's health, because it excludes sales at stores that opened or closed in the past year and reflects growth at existing locations.

CEO Carol Meyrowitz credited the company's flexible business model with helping it post the growth despite less-than-favorable weather conditions across many of its markets for much of the quarter.

TJX said it expects its profit for the current quarter to total between 61 cents and 63 cents per share, while analysts expect earnings of 63 cents per share.

The company also raised the bottom end of its previous full-year profit guidance by 4 cents, saying that it now expects a fiscal 2014 profit of between $2.70 and $2.78 per share. Analysts expect earnings of $2.82 per share.

TJX has 1,047 T.J. Maxx, 911 Marshalls, 426 HomeGoods and 4 Sierra Trading Post stores in the U.S.; 226 Winners, 89 HomeSense, and 21 Marshalls stores in Canada and 352 T.K. Maxx and 24 HomeSense stores in Europe.

In morning trading, TJX shares slipped 46 cents, to $50.89. The stock has changed hands between $39.46 and $51.84 in the past 52 weeks.