Adidas AG increases narrow Q4 profit
Posted by on March 8, 2012 at 3:05 am | Last modified: March 8, 2012 3:05 amFRANKFURT, Germany (AP) ? Shoe and sports gear maker Adidas AG says it increased its net profit to euro18 million euros ($23.6 million) in the fourth quarter.
That compares to euro7 million from the same quarter a year ago.
The result comes on sales that rose 11 percent to euro3.26 billion.
The company on Wednesday said a more profitable product mix and regional distribution of sales was balanced off by higher purchasing costs.
Weak spots were Asia outside of China, where sales grew 5 percent, and in Latin America, where they fell 5 percent.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/adidas-ag-increases-narrow-q4-profit-072012565.html
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Tags: kobe bryant wife, percent, profitable product mix | Categories: propone | Comments (0) | PermalinkThomson Reuters posts loss, $3 bln goodwill charge (Reuters)
Posted by on February 11, 2012 at 3:38 am | Last modified: February 11, 2012 3:38 amNEW YORK (Reuters) ? Thomson Reuters Corp (TRI.TO) (TRI.N) reported a fourth-quarter loss on Thursday after taking a $3 billion non-cash goodwill impairment charge to account for the decline in its financial services business.
The one-time charge helped push the company into a loss attributable to common shareholders of $2.57 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with a profit of $224 million in the year-ago period. This was its first earnings report since James Smith took over as chief executive in December.
Thomson Reuters’ business has suffered in the wake of the financial crisis, with customers in banking and finance laying off tens of thousands of employees and slashing costs. The global news and information provider’s next generation flagship desktop product, Eikon, has also posted disappointing sales.
Revenue and earnings excluding the charge improved in the quarter. But the size of the goodwill impairment is an indication of the extent of the problems in the financial services business – formerly known as Markets – in the past year, which is reflected in a 30 percent decline in Thomson Reuters stock price. It also represents quick recognition of the problems by a largely new management team as it begins its repair effort in financial services.
“It reflects the fact that the world is a lot different and external market valuations are a lot different than they were in 2008,” Smith said in an interview. “It also reflected a bit the fact that we haven’t executed off our expectation. It’s more about putting the past in the past and focusing on our future.”
Thomson Reuters underwent a series of structural changes and management shakeups in 2011 to address lackluster performance in Markets and a slumping stock price. This resulted in the exit of then CEO Tom Glocer, who had helped engineer the acquisition of Reuters Group Plc by Canada’s Thomson Corp in 2008.
Growth has been much stronger in Thomson’s legacy businesses that cater to legal, tax and accounting firms, formerly known as the Professional division. Professional revenue grew 9 percent in the fourth quarter before currency changes to $1.5 billion, accounting for 42 percent of total revenue.
Markets, whose products compete with Bloomberg, Factset Research (FDS.N) and News Corp’s (NWSA.O) Dow Jones, posted 2 percent revenue growth before currency changes to $1.85 billion.
As of January, the company merged the two businesses and set up a new organizational structure that includes Legal, Tax & Accounting, Intellectual Property & Science, and Financial & Risk segments.
It reported a $50 million charge in the fourth quarter related to the reorganization of the former Markets business. It said that included severance costs at the corporate level as well as Markets. It did not give the total number of jobs cut.
Adjusted earnings per share, which excludes the goodwill charge, rose to 54 cents from 37 cents a year ago. After also backing out restructuring charges, earnings per share were 59 cents compared with analysts’ average forecast of 56 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S which compiles brokerage estimates.
Thomson Reuters said it expects 2012 revenue to grow in the low single digits. Before the results came out, analysts were forecasting 2012 revenue growth of about 2 percent to $13.09 billion.
“The guidance is prudent, as it should be,” said Claudio Aspesi, senior analyst at Sanford Bernstein. “My concern is that headwinds in financial services will be very hard because employment will continue to be under pressure.”
“Financial markets and legal both will be under continued revenue pressure in 2012 and beyond. At some point the question of whether the cost structure is in line will have to be answered,” he added.
ACTIVE USERS
Revenue from ongoing businesses rose 5 percent before currency changes to $3.4 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with analysts’ average forecast of $3.3 billion.
The company said Eikon desktops now has 15,000 active users, up from 8,000 on September 30, 2011.
For the fourth quarter, underlying profit margin was 19.6 percent compared with 19.1 for the same period last year. The company expects its 2012 underlying profit margin to be in the range of 18 percent to 19 percent, citing higher depreciation and amortization expenses related to new products.
Describing recent progress in the business as “remarkable,” Smith said, “I’m really encouraged by the way we are getting our arms around the issues.”
Thomson Corp acquired control of Reuters Group Plc in 2008 for about $17.2 billion, a 40 percent premium to Reuters share price at the time [ID:nN1E7B01QN]. The $3 billion goodwill write-off represents 17 percent of the purchase price.
Volatility in the media business has resulted in other major write-offs in recent years following the acquisition of signature properties. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp paid $5.6 billion for Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal, in 2007, and the following year took a $2.8 billion non-cash charge on the purchase.
As of the end of 2011, Thomson Reuters valued its goodwill at $15.9 billion, down from $18.9 billion at the end of 2010.
Thomson Reuters also said on Thursday it intended to sell three businesses: Tax & Accounting’s Property Tax Services; Legal’s Law School Publishing business; and Financial & Risk’s eXimius business, which is part of the Retail Wealth Management organization. The three businesses combined had about $155 million of revenue in 2011.
(Reporting by Jennifer Saba, Editing by Tiffany Wu)
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Tags: goodwill impairment charge, percent, reuters group plc | Categories: propone | Comments (0) | PermalinkMr. Five Percent (Unqualified Offerings)
Posted by on January 19, 2012 at 5:17 am | Last modified: January 19, 2012 5:17 am
Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/188057340?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Tags: naomi wolf, percent, source feed | Categories: propone | Comments (0) | PermalinkGlobal shares, euro stabilize, economic data eyed (Reuters)
Posted by on January 18, 2012 at 2:21 pm | Last modified: January 18, 2012 2:21 pmLONDON (Reuters) ? European shares and the euro gradually recovered on Monday from early losses triggered by the mass downgrade of euro zone sovereign ratings last week, but they still looked vulnerable amid rising fears of a disorderly Greek debt default.
Markets had already reacted to the downgrades on Friday, and European assets steadied by Monday afternoon, but activity was limited with U.S. markets closed and the problems in the region’s debt markets continued to weigh on sentiment.
The European Central Bank more than tripled its bond purchases in the week to January 13 to calm market fears and halt the rise in yields, spending 3.77 billion euros compared with 1.1 billion the previous week, data showed on Monday.
However, the glimmer of hope which had emerged after solid bond auctions by Italy and Spain last week, and a view that the S&P move on ratings had been well telegraphed, helped steady market nerves though confidence could quickly ebb.
“If we were to see the start of a downward spiral, and any further loss of confidence in the euro zone started to materialize, that would have a broader negative impact for the euro and riskier currencies in general,” said Lee Hardman, currency economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.
The euro was up 0.3 percent against the dollar at $1.2673 in late European trade in thin trading but was still seen vulnerable to a test of Friday’s 17-month low of $1.2624.
The FTSEurofirst 300 (.FTEU3) index of top European shares ended up about 0.8 percent at 1,025.64 points in low volume while the main euro zone bank stock index (.SX7E) reversed some heavy early losses on fears the sector could be the next target for rating cuts to end up 0.3 percent.
World shares overall (.MIWD00000PUS) recovered from losses seen in Asian trade to be just 0.1 percent higher.
DEBT FEARS REMAIN
Growing nervousness saw Europe’s commercial banks park almost half a trillion euros at the European Central Bank, the highest on record, as the mix of debt crisis worries and a recent giant injection of ECB cash left banks awash with money but too scared to lend it.
Market attention was likely to switch on Tuesday to the state of the euro zone’s economy with the latest ZEW survey on the health of the giant German economy due.
Germany’s economy contracted by about 0.25 percent in the fourth quarter as growth slowed in the second half of last year, according to an estimate by the statistics office.
Berlin will cut its forecast for 2012 economic growth to just 0.75 percent yet expects the jobless rate to decline further to 6.8 percent on an annual basis a German newspaper, Ruhr Nachrichten, reported on Monday.
Investors also await Chinese GDP data to gauge the outlook for growth in the world’s second-largest economy with forecasts calling for a fourth successive quarterly slowdown in growth to around 8.7 percent from 9.1 percent previously.
Debt markets are focused on Greece with senior officials from the government due in Washington for meetings with the International Monetary Fund to try to break a deadlock in debt swap talks that has prompted the fears of an unruly default.
The cost of insuring Italian, Spanish and other euro zone government debt against default rose on the S&P ratings cuts, while shorter-dated UK government bond yields fell. Safe-haven German government bonds retraced gains seen on Friday after reports first emerged of the S&P action.
The ECB was also reported by traders to be active in buying Italian government bonds to keep a lid on rising yields.
Italian five-year bond yields, which had been around 6 percent in early trade, dropped to around 5.77 percent on the reports of ECB buying.
The cost of insuring five-year Italian bonds rose to around 515 basis points from under 500 basis points on Friday, meaning it costs 515,000 euros to protect 10 million euros of exposure to Italian debt.
German Bund futures were slightly lower at 139.91, having hit a record high of 140.23 on Friday. Ten-year cash yields were little changed at 1.772 percent.
Italy takes a break from debt sales this week, but France plans to sell up to 8 billion euros of debt on Thursday and Spain comes to the market with sales of 2016, 2019 and 2022 bonds..
Yields on French treasury bills eased marginally on Monday in the first test of investor appetite for the country’s debt since it was stripped of its coveted triple-A credit rating on Friday.
Concerns that European financial troubles will drag down global growth and sap appetite for commodities weighed on industrial metals such as copper, while spot gold held steady at around $1,645 an ounce.
However, oil futures rose on Monday on growing tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran, after the Islamic state told its Gulf Arab neighbors not to make up any shortfall caused by an embargo on its crude oil exports.
The latest threat comes as leaders of top Asian buyers of Iranian oil – China, Japan and South Korea – tour alternative Middle East suppliers while the United States pressures nations to stop importing oil from the Islamic Republic.
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Euro-zone sovereign ratings: http://r.reuters.com/maf75s
Regional equity risk premium:http://link.reuters.com/mum95s
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(Additional reporting by Jessica Mortimer and Blaise Robinson; Editing by Catherine Evans/Patrick Graham/Susan Fenton)
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