CLEVELAND -
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.'s (
NYSE:GT,
Stock Forum) third-quarter profit rose 51 per cent on strong performances in Latin America and North America, the tire maker said Tuesday.
Akron-based Goodyear said it earned $166 million, or 62 cents per share, for the July-September period. Excluding charges, Goodyear earned 68 cents per share, beating the Wall Street estimate by 1 cent.
Revenue fell to $5 billion from $5.26 billion, hurt by a drop in chemical sales in North America and changes in the value of Asian currencies. Analysts polled by FactSet expected higher sales of $5.27 billion.
Chairman and CEO Richard J. Kramer said the company expects operating income for the year of more than $1.5 billion. It had predicted $1.4 billion to $1.5 billion. “As the industry continues to recover, we see strong volume growth in the segments we are targeting,” Kramer said in a statement.
Pfizer Inc.'s (
NYSE:PFE,
Stock Forum) third-quarter profit dropped 19 per cent as competition from generic drugs continued to cut sales, while lower operating expenses failed to offset higher taxes and charges.
Like many other drugmakers, Pfizer is suffering as cheaper generic versions erode sales of older drugs, no longer protected by patents that once brought in billions annually. Those are led by cholesterol fighter Lipitor, which lost patent protection at the end of 2011 after reigning as the world's top-selling drug for nearly a decade.
The maker of Viagra and fibromyalgia treatment Lyrica said Tuesday that its net income fell to $2.59 billion, or 39 cents per share, from $3.21 billion, or 43 cents per share, a year earlier.
Excluding $1.27 billion in charges for restructuring, asset write-downs and other items, the world's second-largest drugmaker said income would have been $3.86 billion, or 58 cents per share. Analysts surveyed by FactSet expected 56 cents per share.
Revenue totalled $12.64 billion, down 2 per cent from $12.95 billion a year ago. Analysts expected $12.69 billion.
HELSINKI, Finland -
Nokia (
NYSE:NOK,
Stock Forum) reported Tuesday a third-quarter net loss as sales at the handsets unit it is selling to Microsoft continued to plunge. But the company gave a positive outlook on its continuing operations, including networks, causing the share price to rise.
Third-quarter net loss of 91 million euros ($125 million) compared with a net loss of 969 million euros a year earlier, while revenue fell more than 20 per cent to 5.6 billion euros.
The struggling company said it sold 8.8 million Lumia smartphones, a 40 per cent increase from 3 million a year earlier and slightly more than markets had expected.
But that was not enough to keep Nokia Corp. from giving a negative outlook for the devices and services unit it has agreed to sell to Microsoft Corp. for $7.2 billion.
Although smartphone sales were up near 9 million, they lagged well behind chief competitors Apple with quarterly sales of 33.8 million and China's Huawei's at 13 million. Even South Korean LG, with 12.7 million units, and Lenovo of China, which sold 11 million, surged past the former world No. 1 that once commanded a global market share with 50 per cent. Samsung Electronics, the world leader, sold more than 88 million smartphones in the third quarter.
LONDON - U.K. oil company
BP (
NYSE:BP,
Stock Forum) reported a 34 per cent drop in third-quarter net profit, but said Wednesday it will increase its quarterly dividend and divest another $10 billion in assets.
BP blamed a drop in refining margins for the decrease in net profit to $3.5 billion in the quarter ended Sept. 30 from $5.28 billion in the same period a year earlier. But investors were encouraged by the company's plans to increase its quarterly dividend by 5.6 per cent, to 9.5 cents a share, payable in December.
Chief Executive Bob Dudley also said the company plans to sell off $10 billion in assets before the end of 2015, with the proceeds set to go to shareholders, such as in the form of share buybacks.
Total production for the third quarter was 3.17 million barrels of oil equivalents a day, driven mainly by growth in production from new projects.
The company said new major upstream projects - particularly in Norway and Angola - are showing strong production.
Aetna's (
NYSE:AET,
Stock Forum) third-quarter net income rose 4 per cent, fueled in part by enrolment and revenue gains from a multi-billion-dollar acquisition the health insurer completed earlier this year.
But the Hartford, Conn., company's expenses also jumped, and it became the second big health insurer to miss Wall Street expectations for the quarter. Aetna shares slipped Tuesday in premarket trading.
Aetna's health care costs - its largest expense - climbed 57 per cent in the quarter, which partially countered a 46 per cent gain in total revenue. The company said a poor performance from two products and federal budget cuts hurt its Medicare business, which mostly involves privately run versions of the government's coverage program for the elderly and disabled people.
Aetna also booked $51.2 million in expenses before taxes tied to its acquisition of Medicare and Medicaid coverage provider Coventry Health Care. The insurer closed that $6.9 billion deal in May.
Overall, Aetna Inc. said Tuesday that it earned $518.6 million, or $1.38 per share, in the three months that ended Sept. 30. That is up from $499.2 million, or $1.47 per share, a year ago, when Aetna had fewer shares outstanding.
NEW YORK, New York -
Thomson Reuters Inc. (
TSX:T.TRI,
Stock Forum) says it will record US$350 million of accounting items related to cost-cutting at its Financial & Risk business unit, which accounts for more than half of its total revenue.
The company, which provides professional information and news services, said the accounting charge is related to an accelerated cost-saving and simplification program.
Thomson Reuters also announced that it will spend up to US$1 billion on stock buybacks by the end of 2014 and contribute $500 million to its U.S. and U.K. defined benefit pension plans in the fourth quarter.
Thomson Reuters reported its total revenue for the three months ended Sept. 30 fell to US$3.08 billion from US$3.18 billion, under standard accounting and before currency adjustments.
Net income under standard accounting dropped to US$283 million from $453 million. Diluted earnings under standard accounting was 33 cents per share, down from 53 cents per share a year earlier. Adjusted earnings were 48 cents per share, flat with a year earlier and four cents better than analysts expected.
LONDON - Britains' part-nationalized
Lloyds Banking Group (
NYSE:LYG,
Stock Forum) has posted a sharply wider third-quarter loss, hurt by costs incurred from asset sales.
The lender reported a net loss of 1.3 billion pounds ($2.25 billion) in the quarter ended Sept. 30, compared with a loss of 374 million pounds in the same period a year earlier.
Lloyds, which must sell part of its network to comply with the European Commission's terms for receiving a government bailout, said its overall performance was weighed down by losses of 709 million pounds on asset sales.
The bank also said it must put aside a further 750 million pounds to pay for the mis-selling of insurance products - bringing the total it has set aside over the scandal to 8 million pounds.
HONG KONG - State-owned
PetroChina (
NYSE:PTR,
Stock Forum) said Tuesday third quarter profit rose by a fifth as it benefited from fuel price reforms that lifted refining margins at Asia's biggest oil producer.
The Beijing-based company, which operates more than 20,000 gasoline service stations in China, said reforms earlier this year allowed politically sensitive fuel prices to more closely track rises in international prices. That contributed to better results at its refining and natural gas businesses.
PetroChina Co. said profit in the July-September period rose 19 per cent to 29.8 billion yuan ($4.9 billion) over the year before. Revenue rose 5.5 per cent to 581.7 billion yuan ($95.5 billion).
Losses at the refining and chemicals division shrank to 20 billion yuan in the January- September period, nearly half the loss in the same period last year, which was “a result of taking advantage of the newly promulgated pricing mechanism for refined products,” Chairman Zhou Jiping said in a statement. China's price controls are aimed at keeping politically sensitive inflation in check.
GENEVA - Shares in Swiss banking giant
UBS (
NYSE:UBS,
Stock Forum) were sliding Tuesday after it posted a profit for the third quarter but warned that its earnings goals may be delayed due to the potential costs of settling legal cases.
The stock fell 6 per cent to 18.03 Swiss francs in morning trading on the Zurich exchange. Switzerland's biggest bank said it had a third-quarter profit of 577 million Swiss francs ($644 million), a turnaround from the $2.1 billion-francs loss it had in the same period a year ago.
But the Zurich-based bank says it probably would not be able to achieve its profit goals for 2015 because of Swiss regulatory demands that it hold significantly more capital for risks from litigation.
Swiss financial regulator FINMA's demands this quarter were related to “known and unknown litigation,” Chief Executive Sergio P. Ermotti told analysts and reporters. “There is no indication of a single item weighting that decision. It is based upon the portfolio.”
UBS AG said in a statement Tuesday it had third-quarter charges of 586 million francs for litigation, regulatory and other related matters, and sees more regulatory challenges ahead.
FRANKFURT, Germany -
Deutsche Bank (
NYSE:DB,
Stock Forum) said Tuesday net profit dwindled to a bare 51 million euros ($70 million) in the third quarter after it set aside 1.2 billion euros for losses from lawsuits.
The net profit compared to 754 million euros in the same quarter a year ago. Profit for the third quarter fell far short of the average analyst estimate of 320 million euros as compiled by financial information provider FactSet.
The bank also said its investment banking business has slowed. Net revenues fell 10 per cent to 7.7 billion euros.
It said the deduction to earnings for litigation costs were mostly related to legal action over U.S. residential mortgage-backed securities, investments based on mortgage loans to borrowers with shaky credit. The securities helped drive financial turbulence in 2007-2009 as they lost value.
SYDNEY, Australia -
ANZ Banking Group Ltd. (
OTO:ANZBY,
Stock Forum), one of Australia's largest banks, posted an 11 per cent increase in annual profit to 6.5 billion Australian dollars ($6.3 billion) on Tuesday, buoyed by strong demand for home loans and growth from its Asian business.
The bank's chief executive Mike Smith attributed the profit growth for the year through September to the bank's long-term strategy, which includes expansion into Asia.
“This result demonstrates that ANZ is firing on all cylinders,” he told analysts.
The bank's shares jumped more than 2 per cent to AU$33.92 in morning trading after the news.
David Ellis, an analyst with investment researcher Morningstar, said the result had beaten expectations. “The result was hard to fault,” Ellis said.