Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc. (SBH) has reported 32.15 percent jump in profit for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2016. The company has earned $55.83 million, or $0.39 a share in the quarter, compared with $42.24 million, or $0.28 a share for the same period last year. On the other hand, adjusted net income for the quarter stood at $55.83 million, or $0.39 a share compared with $65.06 million or $0.43 a share, a year ago.

Revenue during the quarter went up marginally by 0.16 percent to $999.61 million from $998.03 million in the previous year period. Gross margin for the quarter contracted 31 basis points over the previous year period to 49.19 percent. Total expenses were 88.25 percent of quarterly revenues, up from 86.88 percent for the same period last year. That has resulted in a contraction of 137 basis points in operating margin to 11.75 percent.

Operating income for the quarter was $117.46 million, compared with $130.94 million in the previous year period.

However, the adjusted operating income for the quarter stood at $117.46 million compared to $132.29 million in the prior year period. At the same time, adjusted operating margin contracted 150 basis points in the quarter to 11.75 percent from 13.26 percent in the last year period.
 

"We had a disappointing start to fiscal 2017, as sales growth and gross margins fell below expectations," stated Chris Brickman, president and chief executive officer. "In our core Sally business, our financial performance was negatively impacted by the challenging retail environment and promotional activity that failed to drive sufficient traffic to the stores. In response, we are today announcing a comprehensive restructuring plan and other aggressive cost reduction initiatives that we expect will meaningfully lower our cost structure without compromising our ability to serve the customer and execute on our strategic priorities. These actions should enable us to deliver low-to-mid single digit adjusted operating income growth in fiscal 2017 despite lowering our full year same store sales outlook to a range of flat to low-single-digit growth."