Dollar Tree looking at options for Family Dollar, including possible sale of the segment

Discount retailer Dollar Tree says it’s looking at strategic options for the Family Dollar stores that it owns, including a possible sale of the segment.

Dollar Tree said Wednesday that alternatives also include a spinoff or other disposition of the business.

Dollar Tree acquired Family Dollar nearly a decade ago for more than $8 billion after a bidding war with rival Dollar General.

But the company has had difficulty incorporating Family Dollar into its business and recently announced that it would close nearly 1,000 stores, with most of them being Family Dollar locations.

Last year Dollar Tree launched a comprehensive review of Family Dollar, which included the planned closure of about 970 underperforming Family Dollar locations.

Dollar Tree said that it doesn’t have a set deadline or timetable for completing its review of strategic alternatives.

The Family Dollar announcement comes about a week after Dollar Tree said that it would re-open nearly 200 shuttered 99 Cents Only stores from Texas to California as Dollar Tree locations after the leases were secured out of bankruptcy proceedings.

The transfer of designation rights for 170 locations in Texas, Arizona, Nevada and California, along with some of the furniture, equipment and fixtures inside, was approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.

Dollar Tree also announced its fiscal first-quarter financial results on Wednesday, reporting an adjusted profit of $1.43 per share on revenue of $7.63 billion. The performance met the expectations of analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.

For the second quarter, Dollar Tree anticipates earnings in a range of $1 to $1.10 per share with revenue of $7.3 billion to $7.6 billion. Analysts polled by FactSet predict earnings of $1.19 per share on revenue of $7.59 billion.

Dollar Tree expects full-year earnings between $6.50 and $7 per share on revenue in a range of $31 billion to $32 billion. Wall Street is looking for earnings of $6.89 per share on revenue of $31.36 billion.

Dollar Tree, which has stores under the brands Family Dollar, and Dollar Tree Canada and its namesake, was operating 16,397 stores across 48 states and five Canadian provinces as of May 4.

Shares of Dollar Tree Inc., based in Chesapeake, Virginia, fell about 5% in afternoon trading.