Black & Decker announced that, due to continuing strong sales, especially in its North American Power Tools and Accessories business…
…the Corporation expects to report 15% sales growth for the first quarter of 2005, excluding currency translation and acquisitions. Including currency translation and acquisitions, it expects to report sales growth of 39%.
As a result, the Corporation expects that first-quarter diluted earnings per share from continuing operations will be in the range of $1.33-to-$1.35, excluding the favorable impact of an insurance settlement. This represents an increase from previous guidance of $1.05-to-$1.10 and versus $0.93 in the first quarter of 2004. The Corporation expects that the increase in earnings guidance for the first quarter will increase full-year results by a similar amount, and is comfortable with securities analysts’ mean EPS estimate of $1.67 for the second quarter.
As indicated above, the Corporation received a cash payment of approximately $55 million in March resulting from settlement of environmental and product liability coverage litigation with an insurer. The positive impact of this settlement on first-quarter diluted earnings per share will be approximately $0.43. Including the insurance settlement, the Corporation expects first-quarter diluted earnings per share from continuing operations to be in the range of $1.76-to-$1.78.
The Corporation will discuss the outlook for the remainder of 2005 in further detail during a conference call on Thursday, April 28, 2005, following the release of its first-quarter 2005 results.
murdok | Breaking eBusiness News
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