Regis surprises with a thin adjusted profit

Hair salon operator Regis Corp., in the middle of a reorganization, surprised Wall Street by showing a razor-thin profit on an adjusted basis for its fiscal first quarter.

The Edina-based firm reported a net loss of $136,000 on revenue of $468.6 million. That compares with a profit of $38.4 million on revenue of $505.4 million a year ago.

The profit amounted to adjusted earnings per share of 1 cent, well above the loss of 5 cents a share forecast by investment analysts. Same-store sales fell 5.4 percent and same-store service fell 3.1 percent.

"Last quarter we made significant investments," CEO Dan Hanrahan said in a statement. "We rolled out a new point-of-sale system throughout North America, we reorganized our field leadership and we standardized our retail plan-o-grams."

A plan-o-gram is a diagram of how products are to be placed on store shelves to maximize sales.

"Although the transformational changes we have implemented have been disruptive, these changes are necessary to turn Regis around," Hanrahan said. "We have taken significant actions to stabilize the business."

Regis shares closed up 55 cents, or about 3.9 percent, at $14.75 Tuesday.