A Good Year at the Office

OfficeMax Inc. (Shaker Heights, Ohio) announced that domestic same-store sales for its fourth quarter ending Jan. 25, 2002, improved more than 8 percent.

On a consolidated basis, including its 30 stores in Mexico, the same-store sales increase was better than 7 percent, although the Mexico operations declined approximately 17 percent in the quarter, predominantly relating, the company said, “to the unfavorable currency translation resulting from the weakening of the Mexican Peso against the US dollar.”

“Throughout the fourth quarter, OfficeMax's domestic operations experienced strong same-store sales resulting from positive trends during the holiday selling season followed by January's important, higher margin back-to-business selling season,” said chairman and ceo Michael Feuer. “[We] achieved major gains in the number of comparable-store customer transactions and increases in the average amount per transaction. We believe these trends were the result of significantly improved store execution, an enhanced marketing campaign directed at our core business customer, and improved merchandise in-stock levels.”

Although the year-end closing process and audit have just begun, Feuer said the retailer ended fiscal 2002 in its best financial position in six years. “At year-end, we had over $130 million in cash and virtually no debt,” he said. “This compares to over $220 million in borrowings two years earlier during the time in which OfficeMax was in the process of rebuilding its distribution infrastructure. . . . It's been a difficult several years, but we believe the end results are well worth the investment as reflected by our fiscal 2002 dramatic gains over the previous year.”