Loading...
Loading...
General Mills
reported its first quarter earnings on Wednesday. Shares of the company are down 5%.
Below are some key highlights and takeaways from its conference call.
Operations and General Remarks:
• Net sales totaled
$4.3 billion.
• Segment operating profit totaled
$690 million, 15% below prior-year due to results in our U.S. Retail segment.
• Net earnings declined 25% to $345 million and diluted earnings per share were
$0.55 as reported.
International Segments and Growth:
• U.S. Retail net sales for the first quarter were 5% below last year,
reflecting weak industry trends, along with higher trade merchandising
expense for us in this period.
• Our pound volume was down 2%, primarily driven
by declines in meals and baking products.
• We launched 145
new products across U.S. Retail, almost 20% above last year's number.
• It's important to note, however, that the increased trade expense in the
quarter does not reflect greater depth of discount.
• In total, these
six platforms; yogurt, frozen breakfast, snacks, biscuits, cereal and mixes,
posted combined net sales growth of 4%.
• Sales in Canada declined 2%.
• Latin American sales increased 20%, driven by another quarter of strong
double-digit growth in Brazil.
• In the Asia-Pacific region, sales increased 4%
led by Greater China and Korea.
• And sales for our Europe region also
increased 4% with good growth in both the UK and France.
• International profit was 16% above year-ago levels and up 17% on a constant
currency basis. And Convenience Stores and Foodservice profit increased a
robust 18%.
Guidance:
• We expect to incur approximately $15 million of net expense related to these
actions and we booked $14 million of this amount in restructuring charges in
the first quarter.
• All of our 2015 restructuring charges will be excluded from adjusted diluted
EPS.
• The effective tax rate for the quarter was 31.8% as reported.
• We invested $149 million
in fixed assets and we returned more than $700 million to shareholders
through dividends and share repurchases.
• We're also targeting mid single-digit growth in
constant currency segment operating profit.
• We plan to reinvest the benefits
of the 53rd week in growth driving activities.
• On the bottom line, we expect
adjusted diluted EPS to grow at a high single-digit rate in constant currency
from the base of $2.82 per share achieved in fiscal 2014.
Loading...
Loading...
Date | ticker | name | Actual EPS | EPS Surprise | Actual Rev | Rev Surprise |
---|
© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Benzinga simplifies the market for smarter investing
Trade confidently with insights and alerts from analyst ratings, free reports and breaking news that affects the stocks you care about.
Join Now: Free!
Already a member?Sign in