Abercrombie & Fitch beats estimates but cuts outlook

NEW ALBANY, Ohio - Abercrombie & Fitch's (ANF) fiscal third-quarter adjusted profit topped analysts' estimates, but its sales declined. The teen retailer also slashed its full-year earnings forecast. Its shares slipped in premarket trading Wednesday.

For the period ended Nov. 1, Abercrombie & Fitch earned $18.2 million, or 25 cents per share. That compares with a loss of $15.6 million, or 20 cents per share, a year ago.

Stripping out certain charges, earnings were 42 cents per share. That beat the estimate of analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research by a penny.

Revenue dropped to $911.5 million from $1.03 billion and missed the $916.7 million in revenue that Zacks analysts expected.

Sales at stores open at least a year, a key gauge of a retailer's health, fell 10 percent. In the U.S. the metric declined 7 percent. It dropped 15 percent overseas.

This figure excludes results from stores recently opened or closed.

Abercrombie & Fitch -- whose brands include Abercrombie, Hollister Co., Gilly Hicks and its namesake -- now anticipates full-year earnings in a range of $1.50 to $1.65 per share. Its prior guidance was for $2.15 to $2.35 per share.

Analysts polled by FactSet predict full-year earnings of $1.83 per share.

Shares of Abercrombie & Fitch Co., which is based in New Albany, Ohio, declined 49 cents, or 1.8 percent, to $27.35 about an hour before the market open.