By Roshan Fernandez

Shares of ODP rose Wednesday after the office supplies company reported first-quarter sales and earnings per share that beat Wall Street expectations.

Shares climbed 12% to $15.27 though the stock is down about 71% in the past 52 weeks.

The parent company of Office Depot and OfficeMax swung to a first-quarter loss of $29 million, or 97 cents a share, compared with a profit of $15 million, or 40 cents a share, a year earlier.

The loss was partially due to $48 million in restructuring expenses that were part of the company's plan to optimize for growth.

Excluding one-time items, per-share earnings were $1.06, above the 65 cents per share that analysts were expecting, according to FactSet.

Revenue fell to $1.7 billion from $1.87 billion in the year-ago quarter. Analysts were expecting $1.67 billion.

The decrease in first-quarter sales was largely due to lower sales in the Office Depot division, which had 46 fewer retail locations than the year-ago quarter and saw reduced retail and online consumer traffic.

The Boca Raton, Fla.-based company said the market for business-to-business distribution remains soft, but the pace of customer onboarding is beginning to accelerate.

ODP's "Optimize For Growth" strategy targets higher-growth B2B opportunities, while expanding into new sectors like hospitality and healthcare, the company said.

Write to Roshan Fernandez at roshan.fernandez@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 07, 2025 10:37 ET (14:37 GMT)

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