Foothill Ranch-based mall retailer Wet Seal Inc. plans to hire an investment banking firm to analyze the company’s cash reserves.
The review, which the company said it does on a regular basis, is in response to shareholder inquiries. Wet Seal had cash and cash equivalents of $148.1 million at the end of the April quarter and a recent market value of $295 million.
Wet Seal operates 470 of its namesake stores for teen girls and 83 Arden B stores for young women.
Separately, Wet Seal said its June same-store sales were down 9%. The company said the decline was in line with its expectations, though analysts on average had expected a 7.7% decline for the month.
Same-store sales were off 8.5% from a year earlier in its Wet Seal division last month and 11.9% at Arden B.
The company reiterated its guidance for the July quarter, projecting a loss between $2.7 million to $5.3 million with decreased same-store sales of 7% to 11%.
—Kari Hamanaka
