Saks Trims Losses

Saks Inc. (Birmingham, Ala.) announced that aggressive cost- and inventory-control measures had narrowed its loss in the second quarter, beating Wall Street expectations.

The department store operator, which operates Saks Fifth Avenue and the Saks Department Store Division (Parisian, Younkers, Carson Pirie Scott, McRae's, Proffitt's, Herberger's, Boston Store and Bergner's), recorded a loss of $20.4 million for the three months ended Aug. 3, 2002. That compares with a loss of $58.4 million a year ago.

Sales dropped 1.7 percent overall, and were down 4.7 percent for Saks Fifth Avenue and Saks Off 5th outlet stores. Same-store sales at the company's other department stores rose 0.4 percent.

Saks said it kept fewer items on the shelves, to avoid having leftover merchandise it would have to clear out through price reductions.