During the third quarter, the Company opened 20 new stores and closed 3 stores. Accordingly, at November 3, 2007, there were 952 stores in operation, consisting of 366 Reitmans, 160 Smart Set, 53 RW & CO., 73 ThymeMaternity, 14 Cassis, 162 Penningtons and 124 Addition Elle. An additional 14 stores are scheduled to open this year and 6 stores will be closed.
Sales for the month of November (4 weeks ended December 1, 2007) increased 4.2%; same store sales increased 1.3%.
The Company continues to be in a strong financial position with cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities of $212,366,000 reported at fair value (cost of $213,280,000). The Company's short-term cash is conservatively invested in bank bearer deposit notes and bank term deposits with major Canadian chartered banks. The Company does not hold any asset backed commercial paper.
At the Board of Directors meeting held on December 4, 2007, a quarterly cash dividend (designated eligible dividends) of $0.18 per share was declared on all Class A non-voting and Common shares outstanding, payable January 30, 2008 to shareholders of record on January 11, 2008. This is an increase of 12.5% over the previous quarterly rate of $0.16 per share resulting in an annual dividend rate of $0.72 per share.
As reported in the November 22, 2007 press release, the Company received approval from the Toronto Stock Exchange to proceed with a normal course issuer bid. Under the bid, the Corporation may purchase up to 2,870,615 Class A non-voting shares, representing 5% of the issued andoutstanding Class A non-voting shares as at November 9, 2007. The bid commenced on November 28, 2007 and may continue to November 27, 2008.
Reitmans (Canada) Limited
marketing@alchempro.com
