By Chibuike Oguh
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Shares of Williams-Sonoma, which owns home furniture retailer Pottery Barn, surged to a record high on Wednesday after it announced better-than-expected fourth-quarter results as well as a new $1 billion stock buy-back program.
Williams-Sonoma’s net revenue during the holiday shopping season fell 7% to $2.27 billion while its net income was flat at $354.4 million, the company announced on Wednesday.
That result was higher than the average Wall Street analyst estimate of $2.23 billion for revenue and about $330 million for net income, according to LSEG data.
Williams-Sonoma’s shares rose as much as 20% to an all-time-high of $289.80 following the result. The stock is on track for its biggest daily percentage gain since April 2020, according to LSEG data.
The new $1 billion stock buy-back plan will supersede its current similarly sized repurchase program, which was announced a year earlier, the company said. About 94% of Williams-Sonoma’s stock, representing 60 million shares, are publicly traded, LSEG data shows.
(Reporting by Chibuike Oguh in New York; Editing by Alden Bentley and Andrea Ricci)
