Vista Outdoor reports 20% drop in Q3 sales compared to previous year

Vista Outdoor has reported sales for Q3 at $468 million, down 20% on the same quarter last year and 13% organically. The company is the parent of Bell Helmets, Giro, CamelBak and Blackburn.

Gross profit has also taken a dip on the prior-year quarter, down 25% at $94 million. Operating expenses were $609 million, which reflects a pre-tax, non-cash goodwill and intangible impairment charge of $433 million and an $84 million impairment related to an expected loss on the sale of the company’s held-for-sale assets. 

Vista Outdoor CEO, Chris Metz, commented on the report: “While we continue to face market pressures, specifically in our ammunition business, we are driving out cost and improving profitability across the portfolio. This has manifested in our delivery of three consecutive quarters of adjusted EPS growth and significant reductions in our adjusted operating expenses.

“We are also continuing with our portfolio reshaping, having made substantial progress on our planned divestiture of Savage Arms. We have also continued to build a more flexible and resilient Vista Outdoor balance sheet, having completed a refinancing of our primary corporate credit facilities during the third quarter, and we expect to use proceeds from the Savage divestiture to continue our deleveraging process. I am pleased with the progress on our turnaround and remain optimistic that we are making the correct decisions to position our company for success.”

Vista’s Outdoor Chief Financial Officer, Mick Lopez, shared Vista’s outlook for 2019: “The company has delivered another solid quarter of results towards our strategic transformation in a very competitive market environment. While lower volumes drove gross profit dollars down, we were successfully able to sequentially improve our gross profit rate by 76 basis points on an organic basis, as well as a 22% year over year reduction in adjusted operating expenses, or down 12% on an organic basis.

“While we are lowering our sales guidance due to continued market challenges, we are pleased to be able to hold our adjusted EPS guidance range through a continued focus on our cost savings initiatives. We remain focused on delivering disciplined progress towards our strategic transformation.”