Agrium More Doubles Profit But Misses Estimates (AGU)

Agrium Inc.

on Wednesday morning released financial results that missed Wall Street expectations. Agrium Inc reported that its 3rd quarter net earnings more than doubled to $57 million, or 37 cents per share, up from $26 million, or 16 cents per share, a year earlier. Excluding special items, the company earned 70 cents per share. Revenue rose to $2.01 billion, up from $1.84 billion a year earlier. A poll of analysts conducted by Thomson Reuters showed an average Wall Street estimate of expected earnings of 87 cents per share, on revenue of $2.1 billion. President and CEO Mike Wilson said, "We believe the outlook for Agrium's products and businesses are as good as they have ever been, supported by excellent fundamentals for the agricultural and crop input markets. While EBITDA from our Retail operations this quarter was almost double last year's level and Wholesale's rose by more than 60 percent, we expect the improvements in the crop input markets to become even more evident in the fourth quarter of 2010. Furthermore, we anticipate the strength in crop input demand and prices to continue into the spring of 2011, benefiting all three of our strategic business units" The company forecast 4th quarter adjusted EPS in the range of $1.00 to $1.30. Agrium Inc. (

) ended the previous trading session at $87.22 per share. Analysts covering the company's stock have a consensus price target of $89.30 per share. Read more