Consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble reports tepid sales

Consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble, which recently declared victory against hedge-fund manager Nelson Peltz’s attempt to muscle his way onto the board, reported tepid sales that missed Wall Street estimates.

The company has been trying to revive stagnant sales, one of the key issues Mr Peltz had with P&G in his contentious and very public fight for a board seat, which he lost by a very tight margin.

The Gillette razor maker’s shares were down about 1.2 per cent in premarket trading on Friday, after being up nearly 9 per cent this year.

On Friday, P&G reported higher sales of beauty and home care products, but another weak performance in its grooming business eroded some of that growth.

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Sales in the grooming business fell more than analysts had anticipated despite P&G cutting prices on tough competition from upstarts such as Dollar Shave Club.

This tapered sales growth, which just rose 1 per cent to $16.65 billion in the first quarter, and missed analysts’ expectations of $16.69 billion.

The company, however, said it was maintaining its full-year organic sales and adjusted profit forecast.

Excluding items, the company earned $1.09 per share, beating analysts’ average estimates by one cent. – (Reuters)