Yankee Candle Reports Revenue Drop in Q1 2009

Yankee Holding Corp. and The Yankee Candle Company, Inc. announced that total revenue for the first quarter 2009 was $125.7 million, a 10.8% decrease from the prior year first quarter. First quarter revenue for 2009 includes sales of $5.8 million compared to $4.6 million in the prior year related to the company's Illuminations business. As announced on Jan. 20, 2009, the company is discontinuing its Illuminations business. Excluding Illuminations sales in both periods, first quarter revenue decreased by $16.4 million or 12.0%. The company incurred a net loss of $11.5 million for the first quarter of 2009 compared to a net loss of $7.9 million in the first quarter of 2008.

"As we anticipated, unprecedented macroeconomic conditions impacted the company's first quarter performance," said Craig Rydin, chairman and CEO. "The economy continued to pressure customer traffic and consumer spending behavior. Our wholesale customers continued to constrain their open-to-buy, as they reduced inventories. While we do not provide specific guidance for future quarters, we continue to believe that the consumer will remain very cautious for the balance of 2009. Therefore, our strategy is to remain laser focused on brand stewardship, share of market gains, innovation, and serving our customers and consumers. Concurrently, we are focused organization-wide on our efforts to reduce total system cost in both our supply chain and SG&A. Additionally, we remain focused on liquidity by maintaining lower inventory and capital expenditure levels."

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