Emerson Electric Q1 Adj. Profit Meets Estimates, But Revenues Top; Backs FY View

(RTTNews) - Emerson Electric Co. (EMR) reported that its first-quarter net earnings common shareholders increased to $462 million or $0.65 per share, from $454 million or $0.62 per share in the same quarter last year.

Excluding $0.02 of acquisition costs, earnings per share were $0.67, up from $0.62 last year. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report earnings of $0.67 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Net sales for the quarter rose 1% to $5.606 billion from $5.553 billion in the prior year quarter. Twenty Two analysts had consensus revenue estimate of $5.55 billion for the quarter.

Underlying sales grew 3 percent, as divestitures deducted 3 percent and acquisitions added 1 percent. Global market conditions reflected slowly improving business investment with mixed demand among industries, as the U.S. grew 3 percent, Asia grew 10 percent, and Europe was flat. Strong emerging market growth was led by a 14 percent increase in China.

Looking ahead for fiscal 2014, Underlying orders growth has been between 3 and 4 percent for several months, reflecting a slowly improving but uncertain macroeconomic environment.

Emerson's outlook for fiscal 2014 is unchanged, with underlying sales growth of 3 to 5 percent and net sales of (1) to 1 percent, reflecting acquisitions, divestitures, and currency translation. Excluding impairments and repatriation charges in the prior year, earnings per share are still expected to increase 4 to 7 percent, or 33 to 38 percent on a reported basis. The company expects both GAAP basis, and adjusted earnings per share to be $ 3.68 -$3.80 for fiscal 2014.

Street currently is looking for fiscal year 2014 earnings of $3.81 per share on annual revenues of $24.82 billion.