Scotts Miracle-Gro Q3 Earnings Miss Estimates; Stock Down 6% In Pre-market

(RTTNews) - The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company (SMG), a lawn and gardening products provider, Wednesday reported a profit of $43.7 million or $0.77 per share in the third quarter, compared with a loss of $443.9 million or $8.01 per share in the same quarter a year ago, primarily due to impairment charges in the previous year.

Excluding items, earnings missed the Street view. The company also sees lower sales for the full year.

Impairment, restructuring and other charges were $1.7 million in the latest quarter compared with $658.4 million in the year-ago quarter.

Excluding one-time items, earnings were $66 million or $1.17 per share, that missed the average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson-Reuters of $1.45 per share. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Quarterly sales declined to $1.119 billion from $1.186 billion last year, due to 40% decline in Hawthorne segment. The consensus estimate was for $1.16 billion.

Looking forward, the company now expects full-year net sales to decline about 10%-11% mainly driven by a net sales decline in the U.S. Consumer segment of 2%-4% percent and 30% -35% in the Hawthorne segment. Analysts expect sale to be down 6.3% for the year.

Scotts Miracle-Gro shares are down more than 6% in pre-market. It closed at $71.44, up 2% on Tuesday. The stock has been trading in the range of $39.06 - $88.61 in the last 1 year.