General Mills Expects Annual Adjusted Profit To Increase, But Stock Down In Pre-market - Update

(RTTNews) - General Mills, Inc. (GIS) said for the full-year 2024, it expects adjusted EPS to increase 4% to 6% in constant currency from $4.30 reported in 2023. Analysts on average estimate earnings to be $4.49 per share for the year. The stock was however trading down in pre-market as the company reported lower profit for the fourth quarter, hurt by higher expenses.

For the quarter, earnings declined to $614.9 million or $1.03 per share from $822.8 million or $1.35 per share in the comparable quarter last year, due to higher cost of sales as well as other expenses.

Cost of sales increased 6% to 3.302 billion, while selling, general, and administrative expenses climbed 7% to $867.9 million.

Excluding one-time items, earnings were $1.12 per share, that beat the average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson-Reuters of $1.07 per share. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Quarterly sales, however, grew 3% to $5.03 billion from $4.891 billion a year ago, but missed the consensus estimate of $5.17 billion.

General Mills shares were down more than 5% in pre-market at $76.27. Tuesday it closed at $80.90, down 1.17%. The stock has been trading in the range of $71.50 - $90.89 in the last 52 weeks.