Tiffany & Co. Profits Drop 29.6 Percent

Tiffany & Co. (New York) experienced a 29.6 percent drop in their third quarter, bringing their profits down from $89.7 million to $63.2 million. The luxury retailer puts part of the blame on Hurricane Sandy, which prompted them to temporarily close 24 stores.

“Three months ago, we had anticipated that third quarter results would be affected by continued economic weakness in many markets as well as by challenging comparisons to last year when net sales were up 21 percent and net earnings had increased 52 percent excluding nonrecurring items,” said Michael Kowalski, chairman and ceo of Tiffany & Co. “However, gross margin was weaker than we expected and Tiffany's effective tax rate was higher than we expected. As a result, net earnings were below our expectations.”