Shares of Landover-based Hechinger Co. fell 11.3 percent yesterday after the retailer said sales at stores open more than a year fell 2 percent last month.
In all, sales at the company were up 20 percent to $251 million, with the company's Home Quarters Warehouse providing a 46 percent increase in total sales. The Hechinger stores saw a 2 percent decline in overall sales among old and new outlets.
Hechinger said same-store sales, or sales at stores open at least one year, for Hechinger Stores fell 3 percent, while sales at same-store Home Quarters were flat.
The company, which owns 72 Hechinger stores and 59 Home Quarters Warehouse stores in 23 states and Washington, D.C., said the sales figures for September were up against strong increases in September 1993.
But Wall Street had expected at least single-digit same-store gains and were disappointed, Tammira Kuntz, an analyst with Morgan Keegan & Co., told Bloomberg Business News.
The company's Class A shares closed at $13.3125, down $1.6875 a share, in heavy trading of 2.6 million shares.