shares of bassett furniture industries inc jumped 25 in morning trading monday after the company reported fourthquarter results and said it has struck a deal to sell its zenith freight lines business to trucker jb hunt transport services inc shares of the company are 4 higher so far this year including mondays gains the stock fell 17 last year the company posted net income of 5 million for the quarter ended nov 27 compared with 65 million in the comparable period a year earlier earnings came in at 52 cents a share down from 65 cents a share a year earlier the company said its sales grew 97 to 1299 million in the latest quarter from 1184 million the furniture manufacturer said it made progress reducing its backlog toward the end of the year but still has a wholesale backlog of 901 million compared with 549 million in 2020 and 20 million in 2019 since the end of the quarter the company has seen stock outages improve bassett said for the past five quarters we have sought to combat ceaseless raw material and ocean freight increases with wholesale price increases of our own passed along to our customers the company said unfortunately our spiraling costs coupled with late shipments from our suppliers have eroded our wholesale margins as we continue to produce goods today with higher material costs than they had when the finished goods were sold months ago separately the company said it is considering using proceeds from its deal with jb hunt to offer a special dividend and increase its regular quarterly dividend the company may also repurchase shares write to will feuer at willfeuerwsjcom