Campbells, the world's largest soup maker, today said quarterly net profit fell 20 per cent as it increased spending on marketing and took a charge related to job cuts.
The company, which also makes V8 vegetable juice and Pepperidge Farm cookies, posted net profit of $59 million, or 14 cents a share, for the fiscal fourth quarter ended August 1st, compared with $74 million, or 18 cents a share, a year earlier. The year-earlier quarter had one more week than the latest quarter.
Excluding one-time items, earnings were 17 cents a share in the latest quarter. On that basis, analysts' average forecast was 18 cents a share, according to Reuters Estimates.
Sales fell 2 percent to $1.43 billion but would have been up 5 percent without the extra week a year earlier, Campbell said. Analysts, on average, had expected $1.46 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.
Price increases added 1 percent to sales, the weaker U.S. dollar added 2 percent, and volume and a shift of the mix of items sold to more expensive items added 4 percent, the company said.
Increased spending on marketing promotions cut 2 percent from sales, the company said. Under accounting rules, promotional spending is subtracted from sales.
Campbell said it expects earnings, excluding restructuring charges, to rise 5 per cent to 7 percent in fiscal 2005, in line with its long-term forecast.
In June, Campbell lowered its long-term annual earnings growth forecast to a range of 5 per cent to 7 percent from a previous estimate of 8 per cent.