By Emily Stephenson
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Drug store operator Rite Aid Corp <RAD.N> posted a bigger-than-expected quarterly loss, hurt by weak sales of seasonal items, and cut its full-year forecast, sending shares down 15 percent.
The chain said on Thursday that sales trends for core items such as beauty products and medicines improved in the just-ended second quarter, but that sales of items available during the summer months remained weak.
"Some of the core categories appear to be stabilizing and growing," Chief Executive John Standley said. "Where we're still fighting a little bit is really in our seasonal categories and general merchandise. Those are really the categories that we've got to get going here."
The company, which competes with Walgreen Co <WAG.N> and CVS Caremark Corp <CVS.N>, lowered its forecast for fiscal 2011 to a loss of 46 cents to 67 cents per share from a prior forecast for a loss of 41 cents to 65 cents a share.
Analysts expected a full-year loss of 50 cents per share.
Rite Aid reported a quarterly net loss of $197 million, or 23 cents a share, in its fiscal second quarter ended on August 28, compared with a loss of $116 million, or 14 cents a share, a year earlier.
Excluding items, the loss was 18 cents a share, which was deeper than the 16 cent-per-share loss analysts on average were expecting, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Rite Aid said profit was hurt by costs related to the rollout of a new customer rewards program and new generic drug introductions.
Revenue for the quarter fell 2.5 percent to $6.16 billion, slightly below analysts' average estimate of $6.19 billion.
Rite Aid executives said they expect the rewards program, which has 22 million members, to drive sales in the coming months.
The chain also expects to benefit from vaccinations this year and hopes to dispense about a million flu shots, but executives anticipate difficult comparisons to last year's strong performance, driven by H1N1 activity.
Rite Aid shares were down 16 cents, or 15 percent, at 94 cents on the New York Stock Exchange.
(Reporting by Emily Stephenson, editing by Maureen Bavdek, Dave Zimmerman)
