Macy’s closes out a difficult year with hope for 2021

NEW YORK — Macy’s is looking ahead to a year of rebuilding from the pandemic as the iconic department store chain offered annual forecasts that beat Wall Street forecasts.

Driving that optimism is Macy’s push to accelerate online sales, while focusing on physical stores at top-tier malls and modernizing its supplier network to speed up deliveries.

As a result, Macy’s believes annual sales will reach $20.75 billion this fiscal year, exceeding the roughly $17 billion that Wall Street had been projecting. Macy’s also expects adjusted earnings per share in the range of 40 cents to 90 cents for the year, much better than the $2.92 loss that analysts forecast, according to FactSet.

The forecast came as Macy’s posted a fourth-quarter profit drop of 52%. Sales slid nearly 19%. In the context of a year spent under the weight of a pandemic, that was seen as a pretty good ending to 2020 for the besieged department store.