Kohl’s Corp. Thursday morning reported sales down nearly 7% for the last three months, and down 7.2% for the year.

In the company's quarterly earnings call, Kohl's blamed current economic trends along with the “unexpected CEO transition.”

“Given the recent volatility in business trends, the significant macroeconomic headwinds, along with the unexpected CEO transition, the company will not be providing guidance for the fourth quarter, and therefore is withdrawing its prior full year 2022 guidance,” Kohl's said in a press release.

On Nov. 8, CEO Michelle Gass announced she will step down from her position in December.

The Kohl’s Board of Directors named Tom Kingsbury as interim-CEO, a position he will assume on Dec. 2 and hold until a new CEO is hired.

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“The Kohl’s board is focused on supporting the management team during this CEO transition period, as well as the board’s search committee in its pursuit of finding the next CEO to lead Kohl’s,” Peter Boneparth, Kohl’s independent board chair, said in a statement.

“We look forward to partnering with interim CEO Tom Kingsbury and the entire leadership team to execute at the highest level this holiday season, while also capitalizing on opportunities to strengthen the business. Kohl’s is a great company with extremely bright prospects and I am confident we will find the right candidate to successfully position Kohl’s to drive sales, grow earnings and create shareholder value. On behalf of the Board, I want to thank all of our associates for their dedication and hard work.”

The company also reported profits down 60% for the quarter to $97 million at the end of October. At this time last year, net income was $243 million.

Jill Timm, chief financial officer for Kohl’s, said it has become difficult for the company to predict what will happen in the short term.

“Following fairly stable trends in August and September, sales decelerated in late October with softness continuing in November compared to last year,” Timm told analysts and investors on a conference call. “We believe this is primarily a function of a later start to holiday shopping as compared 2021 when customers were concerned of scarcity of inventory.”

Kohl’s is committed to its current strategy, particularly its growth of Sephora at Kohl’s stores. The company maintains it can grow that part of the business to $2 billion per year.

As the company works toward that goal, it has already invested $825 million in its stores, driven largely by its partnership with Sephora.

Boneparth said the looking toward the final quarter of the year “it’s a difficult as any period I could remember.”

“Last year you had a situation where nobody had inventory, as a result, all customers were inclined to buy early,” Boneparth said. “Now you flip it over and everybody has a lot of inventory, the customers, obviously, we’re anticipating, a highly promotional calendar and then we saw this pronounced slowdown in October going into November... Our current product competitors, I think its consistent with what everybody’s saying out there, I think everybody believes Christmas will come but I don’t think anyboy out there today knows exactly for sure what’s going to happen.”

Addressing the CEO search, Boneparth said the company is not looking for an executive to change the strategy of the company.

“We are looking for a very strong operator, somebody who can drive sales, somebody who can drive earnings per share and somebody understands the basic tenant behind the Kohl’s value proposition and brand strategy,” Boneparth said.

“What we are confident in is this is amongst the top three jobs in retail and the search is going to lead us to somebody who can run this business for a long time.”

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Kohl's Corp. reports bad quarter, withdraws its projections for year