For the quarter ended June 30, the company earned $521 million, or 18 cents per share.
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Stripping down the charge, core earnings per share topped analysts’ expectations, while quarterly sales missed their estimates. The hair-care brand Pantene modestly increased sales worldwide, and its U.S. sales and market share expanded for the first time in several years, Mr. Lafley said.
Lafley, who ran P&G as CEO from 2000 to 2009 before returning from retirement in 2013, will stay on as executive chairman, leading the board and providing advice to Taylor on “business strategies, portfolio choices, and organisation decisions”. The shares were sold at an average price of $79.50, for a total value of $4,014,750.00. As of June 30, 2014, the Company had five reportable segments: Beauty; Grooming; Health Care; Fabric Care and Home Care, and Baby Care and Family Care. Finally, Vetr cut Procter & Gamble Co from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating and set a $84.43 target price for the company.in a report on Tuesday, July 7th.
The biggest factor in the earnings drop was a $2.1 billion charge to change P&G’s accounting for its Venezuela operations following a series of foreign exchange policy changes in the South American country. Analysts expect Procter & Gamble Co to post earnings of $0.95 per share and revenue of $17.94 billion for the quarter.
The company said core earnings per share results included a $0.09 per share benefit compared to the prior year from non-operating income, primarily minor brand divestiture gains.
The maker of products including Tide, Pampers and Charmin said higher pricing helped offset a decline in shipment volume in the period.
Organic sales, a metric closely followed by investors that strips out currency moves and acquisitions and divestments, were flat in the recent quarter and rose just 1% in the past year, down from 3% growth a year earlier. The move, which resulted in a $2.1 billion hit to P&G’s bottom line, was due to an inability to convert currency and extract dividends from its Venezuelan unit. However, foreign exchange is expected to have a 4% to 5% negative impact on sales growth, so management is projecting all-in revenue to be down “low-to-mid single digits”.
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The company has also been streamlining its business, almost halving the number of its brands from over 100 as it focuses on faster-growing brands. That was below the $18.06 billion Wall Street expected. It expects organic sales growth to be in-line to up low-single digits from fiscal 2015. Lafley said on a call with analysts Thursday. Management continues to pass this strong cash production on to shareholders in the form of share buybacks and rising dividend payouts, with P&G repurchasing $4.6 billion of stock and paying $7.3 billion in dividends in fiscal 2015. The 52-week high of the share price is $93.89 and the 52-week low is $77.1.
