Argus Upholds Hold For Ethan Allen Despite Aggressive Company Plans

Brokerage Argus reiterated its Hold rating on Ethan Allen Interiors Inc. (NYSE: ETH) in a note published Thursday. Though shares are trading close to its fair value estimate, analysts note that CEO Farooq Kathwari has a detailed plan to increase sales and improve profitability.

Argus outlined a number of Kathwari's strategic initiatives they believe will improve the company:

• Adding and acquiring a small number of new design centers
• Transferring design centers to more productive locations
• Hiring experienced and entrepreneurial designers
• Aggressively introducing new products

The company is also expected to expand internationally, introduce new technology that will help designers to add incremental sales, improve digital marketing and target younger shoppers.

Argus raised its fiscal year 2017 EPS estimate to $2.15 from $2.08 and initiated a fiscal year 2018 EPS estimate of $2.40.

"The change to our estimate is that we are now modeling a higher gross margin because we expect a slightly higher mix of sales through the retail channel, because we expect to see more operating efficiency as sales continue to grow and because we now expect slightly less clearance activity than we had modeled previously." wrote Argus.