Replies to post #37529 on Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[Train Guy]

Dude, you must be trying to play it for a bounce. Their earnings sucked and they hit a 52 week low.

Kimberly-Clark Earnings Disappoint
10/22/2002 6:32:00 PM
DALLAS, Oct 22, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Kimberly-Clark Corp. said Tuesday that revenue and profits grew faster in the third quarter than a year ago, but the results from the maker of Kleenex tissues and Huggies disposable diapers still fell short of Wall Street's expectations. The company also said its earnings for the year will be lower than expected.

Kimberly-Clark said profits in the three months ending Sept. 30 rose to $441.2 million, or 85 cents per share, compared to $419.4 million, or 79 cents per share, a year earlier.

Excluding $12 million in charges for closing manufacturing plants in Latin America, Kimberly-Clark said it would have earned 87 cents per share. On that basis, analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call had forecast 89 cents per share.

The company also warned that continued competitive pressure to keep prices down, plus weakness in some Latin American currencies, would cause full-year earnings to miss the company's previous target. It predicted earnings per share for 2002 would be $3.42 to $3.46 per share. The Thomson First Call consensus is for $3.53 per share.

In trading on the New York Stock Exchange, the company's shares tumbled $6.18, or 10.9 percent, to close Tuesday at $50.50.

Third-quarter revenues increased 3 percent to $3.49 billion from $3.37 billion. The company said worldwide sales volumes rose 5 percent but two-fifths of that gain was erased by lower promotional prices.

Thomas J. Falk, president and chief executive, said the company would face higher costs in the fourth quarter for changing the size of some packages and rolling out new diapers that open on the sides and have stretch waistbands.

Falk said the company was being pressured on prices by Procter & Gamble, which he said was giving out $4 and $5 coupons at store checkouts. Kimberly-Clark will sell smaller, cheaper packages of diapers and training pants and cancel a 5 percent price hike it had scheduled for this month.

"Our largest competitor has turned up the heat," Falk told analysts, vowing to fight back. "It's a lot cheaper to defend our (market) share than to go win it back."

In the first nine months of this year, earnings were $1.31 billion, or $2.50 per share, compared with $1.27 billion, or $2.37 per share, a year earlier. Sales during the period rose to $10.23 billion from $9.94 billion.