For years, Macy’s Inc. touted its ability to boost profits by cutting delivery costs and trimming other expenses on calls with Wall Street analysts. Then on Monday, the department store chain surprised investors by revealing that those very costs had become the source of an internal investigation into what the company has described as a multimillion-dollar employee plot to manipulate the metrics.

Macy's delays its quarterly earnings report after discovering that an accounting unit employee concealed delivery expenses.

Macy’s says it’s delaying the release of its fiscal third-quarter earnings results after it discovered an up to $154 million accounting-related issue

Macy's on Monday delayed publication of its third-quarter results after discovering an accounting issue related to delivery expenses and instead reported preliminary results in which its sales missed Wall Street expectations.

A former employee intentionally hid expenses totaling as much as $154 million in the company's small package delivery department over a roughly three-year period, Macy's said in a financial disclosure on Monday.

Macy's announced an employee has "hid" up to $154 million, prompting the U.S. department store chain to delay the release of its third-quarter earnings report.