Q1 Shows Gains for Yankee Candle

Yankee Holding Corp. and The Yankee Candle Company, Inc. posted financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2012.Sales for the first quarter rose 7.6% to $155.1 million. Retail sales jumped 8.3% to $81.0 million, while the wholesale segment showed gains of 5.7% to $50.2 million.

“We saw solid revenue growth in the first quarter in all of our businesses,” said Harlan Kent, CEO of Yankee Candle.”Sales in our Consumer Direct and Fundraising businesses were particularly strong year over year, and our Wholesale and International businesses had solid growth as well.Our Adjusted EBITDA was down slightly to the prior year quarter, but consistent with our internal plans. The year over year variance was driven primarily by shifts in the mix of business within our business segments.”

“We are focused on building on the momentum in our growth businesses such as Consumer Direct, Fundraising and International as we head into the second quarter, which is traditionally our lowest volume quarter of the year,” added Kent.”We will also continue to drive supply chain productivity, tightly manage our cost structure and work to optimize our cash flow and working capital as we prepare for the higher volume second half of the year.”