L Brands Reports August 2017 Sales

Fourth quarter net income decreased 16% to $454 million and diluted earnings per share decreased 15% to $1.88 as the Company took a number of lease impairment and restructuring charges aimed at improving future financial performance. Adjusted net income for the fourth quarter increased 5% to $654 million due to revenue growth, productivity improvements, and a lower effective tax rate partially offset by increased investment spending. Adjusted diluted earnings per share increased 7% to $2.71 benefiting from a 2% decrease in the average diluted shares outstanding. Pre-tax adjustments in the fourth quarter of 2020 totaled $247 million primarily due to office lease and equipment impairments, and restructuring charges all intended to improve future financial performance. Additional pre-tax adjustments included IHS Markit merger costs, deal-related amortization, and Kensho retention-related expenses. For the full year, revenue increased 11% to $7.44 billion. 2020 net income increased 10% to $2.34 billion and diluted earnings per share increased 12% to $9.66. 2020 adjusted net income increased 20% to $2.83 billion and adjusted diluted earnings per share increased 23% to $11.69.

Dear Industry Executive: As you know, the ACMA is challenging the legality of the Postal Service’s recently-granted rate authority in the US Court of Appeals. While our case will be heard September 13th, a decision is not expected until later this year or early 2022, well after these new rates have taken effect. The ACMA is considering asking the Court to stay this order until the legality of it can be adjudicated. Part of evaluating the wisdom of such a stay will depend on identifying mailers who are facing irreparable harm from this price increase. We need companies willing to show such harm to the Court. If you are considering making significant circulation cuts, dropping titles, cutting employment, leaving the mail or any other major shifts in your business operations in response to these new postage rates, please let us know by close of business today. We will be happy to share an outline of what would need to be submitted to the Court for you to consider. Click read more below for additional information.

S&P Global announced an agreement to acquire Visible Alpha, the financial technology provider of deep industry and segment consensus data, sell-side analyst models and analytics from high-quality, exclusive sources. The acquisition will create a premium offering of fundamental investment research capabilities on S&P Global Market Intelligence's Capital IQ Pro platform. The combination of Visible Alpha with S&P Capital IQ Pro, the flagship S&P Global platform for research and analysis across institutional and corporate markets, reflects S&P Global's continued commitment to be the foremost provider in this space. Founded in 2015, Visible Alpha is a financial technology firm that provides consensus estimates and analytics from in-depth sell-side analyst models, research reports and corporate access events and distributes the data through a variety of distribution channels including a web-based platform, APIs and Feeds. Visible Alpha enhances the investment research process by extracting meaningful value from key sell-side data and analytics, including full working models from partnerships with approximately two hundred of the world's premier investment research organizations.