The market finally caught up with department store chain Myer Holdings and gave the shares a passing whack yesterday after Friday’s confusion and obfuscation.
Myer shares dropped as much as 15% in early trading on Monday as investors digested the weak sales figures it was forced to eventually reveal well after trading had finished for the week at 5.40pm on Friday.
The shares fell sharply early on but then clawed back most of the early weakness to be down 8.8% cent at 41 cents. The shares touched a day’s low of 37.5 cents, just above October’s all-time low of 34 cents.
Myer said in May it would stop providing quarterly sales updates, sparking complaints from its biggest shareholder, Solomon Lew’s Premier Investments, which said investors needed the information to decide how to vote at Myer’s annual general meeting later this month.
On Friday, The Australian Financial Review reported what it said was Myer’s internal data a 5.5% year-on-year drop.
Myer brushed off the report but the ASX’s disclosure team forced the department store into a trading halt until it responded more thoroughly, which it did at 5.40pm, making sure there could be no immediate reaction on Friday to the poor news.
In that statement late Friday, Myer said its total sales had fallen 4.8% in the first quarter, and same-store sales had dropped 3.6%.
The company said its first-quarter was generally loss-making, but that its losses this year were lower than in the prior corresponding period.
Premier Investments, which owns 11% of Myer (average cost of around $11.14, so a big loss for Mr. Lew’s company), has been pushing to have the company’s board sacked at its annual general meeting on November 30.
