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10 January
San Francisco,
Dow Jones
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Alcoa Inc., the first of the Dow industrials to report this earnings season, posted Wednesday a 76% surge in fourth-quarter profit, benefiting from the aluminum giant’s move to sell off its packaging and consumer businesses in December. The New York-based company (AA) reported a profit of $632 million, or 75 cents a share, up from $359 million or 41 cents a share a year ago. Revenue fell to $7.39 billion from $7.84 billion due to lower aluminum prices and the exclusion of its soft alloy extrusion segment that is now part of a joint venture. Excluding a favorable restructuring adjustment and a tax benefit stemming from the business sales, earnings would have come in at 36 cents a share. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial had expected a profit, on average, of 33 cents a share on revenue of $6.92 billion. "We battled substantially higher material-input and energy costs and currency impacts, while simultaneously continuing to execute on the largest capital-investment program in our history," Chairman and Chief Executive Alain Belda said in a statement. Alcoa’s year-over-year improvement comes at a time when average aluminum prices have fallen 4% from the previous quarter and 8% from a year earlier in the face of declining demand for U.S. construction. | |||