Thomson Reuters
Sign for clothing retailer Jos. A. Bank is pictured in the Manhattan borough of New York
Shares are down 13% in after-hours trading.
"Through the first week of December, the quarter-to-date comparable sales at Jos. A. Bank were down 35.1%," the company said in a press release.
For the third quarter, the company is reporting a net loss of $27.15 million or $0.56 per share.
For what it's worth, excluding the charge, Men's Wearhouse had adjusted earnings of $0.50 per share.
"When we acquired Joseph Bank, we knew that we needed to correct the promotional model," CEO Doug Ewert said. "However, we underestimated the impact to the near- term performance as we began to execute the difficult, but necessary, corrective steps. We remain confident that these steps will restore a long-term, sustainable, profit model and reshape the business for a healthy and growing Jos. A. Bank."
Jos. A. Bank was popular for its unusual and aggressive promotional model, sometimes offering 7 free items of clothing for every one sold.
The company was able to deliver a healthy profit because it employed higher initial markups. (The markup is the difference between the cost of a good and the price it's sold at. The higher the markup, the more you can discount and still make a profit.)
On the plus side, management reports that comparable store sales at its Men's Wearhouse branded stores were up 5.3% during the quarter, a period when Jos. A. Bank comparable store sales were down 14.6%.
"We are challenging all assumptions and are fully focused on accelerating the Jos. A. Bank recovery," Ewert said.