ManpowerGroup Profit Rises On Lower Costs, Shares Up 6%

(RTTNews) - Workforce solutions provider ManpowerGroup (MAN), Friday reported a surge in profit for the second quarter, even as revenue declines were offset by lower expenses. Both earnings and revenue for the quarter came in ahead of Wall Street's expectations, sending Manpower shares up six percent in current trade.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based Manpower's profit for the quarter surged to $68.2 million or $0.87 per share from $41.0 million or $0.51 per share last year.

Profit for the quarter was impacted by restructuring charges, related to office consolidations and severance costs of $14.4 million after tax or $0.18 per share.

Excluding special charges, earnings for the quarter were $1.05 per share. On average, 12 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $0.89 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Manpower's revenues for the June quarter declined to $5.04 billion from $5.21 billion last year. Nevertheless, revenues came in ahead of analysts consensus estimate of $5.00 billion for the quarter.

Selling and administrative expenses decreased 7.7 percent to $708.3 million from last year.

Chief Executive Jeffrey Joerres said, "The second quarter results are solid evidence of our team's strong execution of our recalibration efforts and a stabilizing global economy. We continue to make progress on improving our business mix with our ManpowerGroup Solutions, led by Recruitment Process Outsourcing growing at 19%."

Looking forward to the third quarter, the company expect earnings in the range of $1.02 to $1.10 per share. Analysts currently estimate third-quarter profit of $0.91 per share.

MAN is currently trading at $65.34, up $3.50 or 5.66%, on a volume of 1.1 million shares on the NYSE.