I have come across this company on the lists before and have not listed it because of a dumb technicality. We insist that the revenue growth be consistent the past five years and Aeropostale (ARO) had a slip-up in 2002 when revenue actually dropped from $304.8 million to $284.0 million. But the rest of the story is so nice, I have chosen to include this stock finally among our listings!
Aeropostale, according to money.cnn.com, "...is a mall-based specialty retailer of casual apparel and accessories that targets both young women and men aged 11 to 20. As of 2/02 the Company operated 278 stores." I suppose this is the generation AFTER the Abercrombie and American Eagle kids (?).
Anyhow, ARO had a great day today. In fact, there weren't many better stocks...perhaps ALO (?)...that we could have listed. ARO closed at $27.25, up $1.17 or 4.49% on the day.
On August 21, 2003, according to the NYTimes on the Web, ARO posted results for the second quarter that ended August 2, 2003. Net sales for the quarter increased 44.2% to $129.9 million vs. $90.1 million in the comparable period in 2002. Comparable sales (I guess that means same store sales) increased 9.2% for the second quarter of 2003. Net income was $2.7 million of $.07/diluted share vs. a net loss of ($2.0) million or ($.06) per diluted share.
Looking at Morningstar.com, as I reported above, the growth is very nice but not without interruption: $152.5 million in 1999, $213.4 million in 2000, $304.8 million in 2001, $284.0 million in 2002 and $550.9 million in 2003. Free cash flow demonstrated ($4.0) million in 2001, $73 million in 2002 and $23 million in 2003.
Per Morningstar.com, assets and liabilities look healthy: $81.1 million in cash and $60.1 million in other current assets vs. $53.4 million in current liabilities and $39.8 million in long-term liabilities.
Looking at Yahoo.com, we find that the market cap for ARO is $980.92 million. The trailing p/e is a reasonable (to me) 26.08. Price/sales isn't too high at 1.52. There are 36.0 million shares outstanding and 30.60 million of them that float. A good number of shares are out short, 1.32 million, representing 4.32% of the float or 1.495 trading days of volume.
This stock looks nice to me. I confess I haven't figured out why there was a drop in revenue in 2002, but 2003 has rebounded nicely and the latest reports are in line. This might very well be a good retail stock to pick up in your portfolio!
Regards to all of my friends!
Bob