Kraft Foods Beats Wall St. Expectations
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Kraft Foods Inc. said first-quarter profit more than doubled, helped by a drop in interest expense and a change in acquisition-related accounting.
Excluding costs of about $169million before taxes for a voluntary early-retirement program that eliminated about 750 jobs and the loss on the sale of a food factory, profit would have been $802 million, or 46 cents a share. On that basis, results beat the 44-cent average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Financial/First Call.
Sales fell 0.7% to $7.15 billion, hurt by the effect of foreign currencies, the company said.
Kraft, North America’s largest food company, said it remains on track to meet full-year projections despite economic weakness in some of its markets. The maker of Oscar Mayer meats, Post cereals and Kraft cheese sells its products in 140 countries.
Shares of the Northfield, Ill.-based company fell 54 cents to $39.91 on the NYSE before the earnings were released.
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