Brentwood Home Page news reports
Brentwood-based Tractor Supply Company expects to announce a net sales increase of 20.1 percent to $1.24 billion over the prior year’s fourth quarter at Thursday’s ICR XChange Conference.

The fourth quarter included an extra sales week as part of the Company's 53-week calendar in 2011, which benefited fourth quarter sales by approximately 6.6%.  Same-store sales increased 7.6% compared to a 13.1% increase in the prior-year period.  The 7.6% increase includes an estimated 110 basis point benefit from one additional comparable sales day in the fourth quarter of 2011 versus last year. 

The Company is scheduled to present at 11:20 a.m. CST on Thursday. A webcast of the presentation will be available on the company's website at TractorSupply.com, and an archive of the webcast will be accessible for 30 days.

The Company now anticipates annual net income to range from $2.97 to $2.99 per diluted share compared to its previous guidance of $2.85 to $2.89 per diluted share.  The Company estimates that the 53rd week in 2011 represented a benefit of approximately $0.09 per diluted share compared to the previously indicated range of $0.05 to $0.06 per diluted share.

"While we are still in the early stages of the year-end financial closing process, we felt it was important to provide an update on expected results given such strong performance in the fourth quarter of 2011,” Jim Wright, chairman and chief executive officer, stated.  “These results are reflective of the structural improvements we have made to our business in recent years, including a focus on C.U.E. merchandise, improved inventory management and merchandise allocation and regionalization, all of which have continued to reduce our dependence on weather trends.”  The Company plans to release its full fourth quarter 2011 results after the market close on Feb. 1.