Brown Shoe Inc. (BWS) just topped Wall Street's estimates, sending shares to 52-week highs.

Company Description

Brown Shoe has more than 1,100 shoe stores world wide and another 300 specialty retail locations. Brands include Dr. Scholl's, Famous Footwear and others.

Beat the Street

On Mar 3 Brown Shoe beat expectations when it reported an 8.6% increase in sales, to $566 million. Combined with improved margins, the company beat earnings expectations by 4 cents per share.

Earnings per shares came in at 19 cents, on $8.1 million in net income. This was up from a loss of 28 cents per share, or $11.5 million.

Estimates Jump

Over the past month the full-year consensus for fiscal 2011 is up 15 cents, to 72 cents. Next year's average is up the same amount, to 91 cents.

If Brown Shoe can hit these targets, year-over-year earnings growth will be 81% and 26, respectively.

The Chart

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Brown Shoe Co. Inc. is a company that began with one man’s dream back in 1878. In that year, George Warren Brown invested all his life savings to open a small business that would manufacture and sell his shoes. It did just that, and today Brown Shoes is a multi-billion dollar corporation.

With headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri, where George Brown first opened his business, Brown Shoe Co. Inc. is a global operation. They have 13,000 employees worldwide as part of the Textile: Apparel Footwear and Accessories industry. The company lists on the NYSE with a current market cap of $642.68M.

The company’s revenue mix is 61 percent from their retail operations and 39 percent from their wholesale operations. They operate their Famous Footwear division, which has over 1,100 stores in 50 states. This division sells brand-name shoes for the family. The company also operates a specialty retail division, which has

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