Hillshire Brands Posts Flat Q3 Profit From Cont. Opns - Quick Facts

(RTTNews) - Hillshire Brands Co. (HSH) said that its third-quarter income from continuing operations was $42 million or $0.34 per share, unchanged from last year.

Adjusted earnings from continuing operations rose to $0.46 from $0.35 last year.

Net sales from continuing operations of $955 million were up 3.4% versus the prior year's third quarter as positive price/mix in both the Retail and Foodservice/Other segments more than offset volume declines resulting largely from pricing actions. The company estimates the later timing of Easter negatively impacted net sales growth by approximately 130 basis points.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report earnings of $0.36 per share and revenues of $939.03 million. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

In the fourth quarter, the company expects margins to be lower than those achieved year to date given sharply higher input costs and planned investments in merchandising to support the important grilling season.

The company now expects sales growth for fiscal year 2014 in the low single digits and adjusted earnings per share to be at the high end of the previously provided range. Street currently is looking for fiscal year 2014 earnings of $1.72 per share on annual revenues of $4.00 billion.

The company said in January that it expected adjusted earnings to be near the high end of the previous range of flat to down mid-single digits. It expected sales to increase slightly for fiscal 2014.