Tyson Foods Inc. on Monday reported a 32 percent increase in third-quarter net income but revised down its earnings projection for the year over suffering beef sales.
The Springdale-based meat and prepared foods producer said net income attributable to Tyson came to $343 million, or 83 cents per share, up from $260 million, or 73 cents, in the year-ago period. Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring gains, came to 80 cents per share. Sales for the quarter rose 4 percent to $10.1 billion in the quarter, up from $9.68 billion, the company said.
The results missed Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of four analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 95 cents per share, The Associated Press reported. The estimate by FactSet analysts came to 92 cents, according to MarketWatch.
"The Prepared Foods and Chicken segments performed very well in the fiscal third quarter while managing numerous challenges,” Tyson President and CEO Donnie Smith said in a statement. "The strong results in these two segments demonstrate the benefits of our branded, value-added product portfolio and multi-channel, multi-protein business model by partially offsetting soft results in the Beef and Pork segments.”
The company said chicken sales volumes grew and feed costs declined, but beef and pork sales volumes declined.
"Our beef business suffered from export market disruptions that had an $84 million impact on third quarter results, and we continue to see very high cattle costs at a time when product values and export issues are making it difficult to realize expected revenue levels in this spread business,” Smith said. "While we are pleased with the performance of our business overall, unless beef market conditions improve rapidly, we will not achieve our previous guidance of $3.30-$3.40 adjusted earnings per share. As a result, we are modifying fiscal 2015 guidance to $3.10-$3.20 adjusted EPS.”
Company executives plan to hold a conference call to discuss the quarter’s results at 8 a.m. Monday. Those interested may listen live via telephone by calling (888) 455-8283 and using the pass code “Tyson Foods” or by visiting the investor relations section of the company’s website at http://ir.tyson.com.
Read Tuesday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for more.
Information for this article was contributed by The Associated Press.