MONROE -- Spurred by a 3.8 percent increase in sales, the benefit of an extra week in its fiscal year, and a 9 percent increase in sales at its company-owned furniture stores, Michigan furniture maker La-Z-Boy Inc. said Tuesday its 2012 fiscal year profit more than tripled to $88 million.

The profit equalled $1.64 a share and was a 266 percent increase over fiscal 2011, when the company had a profit of $24 million, or 45 cents a share.

La-Z-Boy, famed for its line of recliner chairs, had sales of $1.23 billion, compared with $1.18 billion a year ago. The company said the addition of an extra week in the 54-week 2012 fiscal year added approximately 2 percentage points to its sales compared to fiscal 2011. La-Z-Boy's fiscal year ended April 28.

The company's biggest contributor in fiscal 2012 was its upholstery segment, where operating margins increased to 8.4 percent compared with 7.9 percent in fiscal 2011. Its wooden furniture segment, known as casegoods, experienced a decline in operating margin to 4 percent from 4.4 percent in fiscal 2011.

Although it posted an operating loss of $7.8 million, La-Z-Boy's retail segment, which consists mainly of its Furniture Galleries store network, improved from fiscal 2011, when it had a loss of $15.1 million.

For the fourth quarter, La-Z-Boy posted a profit of $19.6 million, or 37 cents a share, up 90 percent from the same period a year earlier, when it had a profit of $10.3 million, or 19 cents a share. For the quarter, the company had sales of $327.4 million, down 3.4 percent from the same quarter a year ago, when its sales were $338.9 million.

Kurt Darrow, La-Z-Boy president and chief executive officer, said the company benefited last year from increased sales, efficiencies in its operating structure, the strength of its well-known La-Z-Boy brand, its strong distribution network, and better execution throughout its business segments.

The moves combined to increase the company's operating income by 92 percent in fiscal 2012.

"We also strengthened our balance sheet, ending the year with more then $150 million in cash and less than $10 million in total debt," Mr. Darrow said in a statement. "As we look to the future, we will continue to execute on our strategic objectives and are well positioned to achieve sales growth, retail profitability, and positive conversion on our additional volume," he said.

The company's stock gained 12 cents Tuesday to close at $13.13 a share on the New York Stock Exchange.

First Published June 20, 2012, 4:00 a.m.