Newell Rubbermaid Q1 Profit Beats Views

reported better-than-expected earnings for the first quarter on Friday. The Atlanta, Georgia-based company reported a quarterly profit of $54.1 million, or $0.20 per share, versus a year-ago profit of $52.9 million, or $0.19 per share. Excluding special items, the company earned $0.36 per share. Its sales gained 4.1 percent to $1.26 billion. However, analysts were projecting earnings of $0.34 per share on revenue of $1.27 billion. The average estimate among 10 Estimize users was for earnings of $0.35 per share and revenue of $1.26 billion. Its home-solutions sales climbed 15.2 percent to $364.5 million in the latest quarter, while baby and parenting sales surged 7.1 percent to $192.1 million. Writing sales slipped 1.8 percent to $341.8 million, while tool sales declined 3.9 percent to $180.4 million. Normalized gross margin widened 50 basis points to 38.8 percent. During the quarter, the company repurchased 1.9 million shares at a cost of $73.6 million. "The Growth Game Plan is accelerating," said Michael Polk, President and Chief Executive Officer. "We are creating advantaged brand development and innovation capabilities backed with category leading marketing investment that is transforming Newell Rubbermaid into a growth leader in our industry. These investments have been enabled by our drive to make Newell leaner and more efficient and when coupled with actions to strengthen our portfolio are yielding both growth acceleration and margin expansion. There is more opportunity ahead. Today we announced a new commitment to deliver incremental annualized overhead savings of $150 million by the end of 2017. A significant portion of these incremental savings will be invested back into the business for further growth acceleration with the balance flowing through to earnings. That is the Growth Game Plan into action." Newell Rubbermaid reiterated its outlook for 2015 full year. Newell Rubbermaid shares gained 3.99 percent to $39.65 at 11:30 a.m. ET.