Jos. A. Bank continues to be a drag on Men's Wearhouse sales, shares plunge

Weak performance at retailer Jos A. Bank continued to hurt results at parent company Men's Wearhouse (MW). Its shares ended 17% lower Thursday after sliding as much as 26% during the day.

Late Wednesday, Men’s Wearhouse reported a loss per share, counting special items of 56 cents, for the three month period ending Oct. 31. Due to tepid sales at  Jos A. Bank, which it acquired last year, it did a valuation of the clothier’s trade name leading to a $90.1 million non cash impairment charge.

The adjusted earnings per share during the recently ended quarter was 50 cents, not counting special items.

While the company had overall sales of $865.4 million, and sales were up 5.3 percent at Men’s Wearhouse, sales at Jos. A. Bank dropped 14.6%, which was “far below our earlier expectations, primarily driven by a decline in traffic,’’ the company said in a statement.

Doug Ewert, Men's Wearhouse CEO added in the statement that "when we acquired Joseph Bank, we knew that we needed to correct the promotional model. However, we underestimated the impact to the near-term performance as we began to execute the difficult, but necessary, corrective steps.’’

In addition to wooing new shoppers, Ewert said the company is trying to revive Jos. A. Bank by appealing to customers who no longer shop there, and by starting a loyalty program.