United Natural Foods Inc.’s stock UNFI tumbled 6.6% in premarket trade Tuesday, after the grocery wholesaler swung to a fiscal fourth-quarter loss and posted sales that lagged estimates. The company had a loss of $68 million, or $1.15 a share, for the quarter to July 29, after income of $39 million, or 63 cents a share, in the year-earlier quarter. It’s adjusted per-share loss came to 25 cents, narrower than the 39 cent loss consensus of FactSet analysts. Sales rose to $7.417 billion from $7.273 billion, but were below the $7.467 billion FactSet consensus. “While we grew sales across all of our customer channels, profitability declined primarily due to a decrease in inflation driven procurement gains and elevated shrink. We expect further headwinds as we continue to cycle elevated inflationary benefits during the first half of fiscal 2024,” CEO Sandy Douglas said in a statement. The company is now expecting fiscal 2024 per-share earnings to range from a loss of 88 cents to EPS of 38 cents, compared with a FactSet consensus for EPS of $1.94. Sales are expected to range from $30.9 billion to $31.5 billion, compared with a consensus of $31.1 billion. Separately, the company said it’s adding three independent directors to its board to work on a transformation plan that aims to improve profitability and better serve its customers. The stock has fallen 51% in the year to date, while the S&P 500 SPX has gained 13%.
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