The revision was precipitated, like other such revisions recently in the retail world, by a new interpretation of lease accounting promulgated recent by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Since the company's March 11 announcement, the SEC has provided further guidance regarding the accounting for construction period and pre-opening lease expenses. As a result of that guidance, Gander Mountain adopted an accounting policy to capitalize rent expense during the construction period into the cost of leasehold improvements.

As previously reported, Gander Mountain went through a lackluster 2004, reporting drops in both fourth-quarter fiscal 2004 comp-store sales, as well as comps for the entire year. For Q4 2004, ended Jan. 29, the chain's comps declined 5.4% compared with Q3 2003, and comp sales for the fiscal year 2004 fell 2.5% compared with sales in 2003.

The chain also faces stiff competition in its segment of the retail market, including Dick's Sporting Goods, Bass Pro Shop and Cabela's, all of which have been growing aggressively recently. Gander Mountain's stock edged up slightly Friday on news of the restatement (up 0.15%). The company has, however, been the subject of a number of analysts' downgrades since November, most recently on March 23, when Friedman Billings downgraded it to market perform from outperform.