Empire Q3 shows lower revenue from Sobeys

The parent of Sobeys is reporting lower adjusted earnings and revenue for its third quarter, but managed to recover from a huge loss reported a year earlier as it wrote down the value of its Western business.

Empire Co. had $30.5 million of net income for the 13 weeks ended Feb. 4.

That compared with a loss of $1.37 billion reported a year earlier, mostly due to a writedown of the Safeway chain after years of underperformance since it was acquired by Sobeys.

After adjustments that exclude the writedowns, however, Empire's earnings fell by 58.1% to $34.6 million.

Empire's revenue fell by $137.4 million to $5.89 billion, mostly from the Sobeys grocery business.

Net income was equal to 11 cents per share and adjusted earnings amounted to 13 cents per share.

It's the first quarterly report issued by Empire since it hired former Canadian Tire executive Michael Medline to be its president and chief executive officer in January.