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Shares of Hasbro Inc. got rocked Thursday, making investors suffer through the worst month in four decades, as a weakening toy market led the company to report disappointing third-quarter results.
Heading into 2023, the toy market was expected to be down in the low-single-digit percentage range for the year, but the market’s performance has been “more challenging that planned,” Chief Executive Chris Cocks said on the post-earnings conference call with analysts.
“We saw the category soften during [the third quarter] to negative 10%,” Cocks said, according to an AlphaSense transcript.
The stock
HAS,
fell 11.5% toward a seven-month low in afternoon trading and was headed for the biggest one-day selloff since it sank 18.7% on March 16, 2020.
It has fallen in 14 of the 19 trading days in October, to plunge 26.7% in the month to date. That puts it on track for the worst monthly performance since the record 43.1% selloff in October 1987, the month when “Black Monday” occurred.
Overall, third-quarter revenue fell 10.3% to $1.5 billion, to miss the FactSet consensus of $1.62 billion. The company’s consumer-products business, which includes toys, dropped 17.6% to $956.9 million, missing expectations of $1.1 billion.
Sales for Habro’s entertainment segment fell 41.9% to $122.9 million, below Wall Street projections of $127.8 million, but the company was able to blame that weakness on the effects of the writers and actors strikes on film and TV revenue.
It wasn’t all bad for Hasbro, however. Wizards of the Coast and digital-gaming revenue soared 39.6% to $423.6 million, well above expectations of $390.3 million, amid a more than doubling in digital- and licensed-gaming revenue behind “Baldur’s Gate III” from Larian Studios.
For 2023, the company now expects revenue to be down 13% to 15% from 2022, which is much worse than previous guidance for a decline of 3% to 6%. The current FactSet revenue consensus of $5.5 billion implies a 6.1% decline.
Hasbro also reported a net loss of $171.1 million, or $1.23 a share, after recording net income of $129.2 million, or 93 cents a share, in the same period a year ago. Excluding nonrecurring items, such as losses on assets held for sale, adjusted earnings per share rose to $1.64 from $1.42 but missed the FactSet consensus of $1.72.
CFRA analyst Zachary Warring cut his price target on Hasbro’s stock to $68 from $85 but reiterated his strong buy rating, as the new target implied 40% upside from current levels.
“Even though we were caught offside on this quarter’s results, we believe this is a multi-year opportunity to buy shares and expect digital gaming to continue momentum while consumer products has little downside,” Warring wrote in a note to clients.
Meanwhile, shares of Hasbro rival Mattel Inc.
MAT,
also dropped, down 7.1% toward a four-month low, even though the company’s third-quarter profit and sales beat expectations. That’s because strong sales of Barbie, Disney Princess and Disney Frozen dolls offset weakness in toys.
Mattel said it expects toy-industry sales to decline in the mid-single-digit percentage range for the year.
Mattel’s stock was down 15.2% in October, while the S&P 500
SPX
slipped 3.2%.
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