Hewlett-Packard Co. said its fiscal first-quarter profits...
Hewlett-Packard Co. said its fiscal first-quarter profits were sharply lower. The Palo Alto-based company said the 1983 period includes a one-time gain of $118 million steming from a change in tax law. Without the extraordinary gain, earnings for the most recent quarter would have been up 17%. The company said medical products, peripherals and network products achieved good order growth in the latest quarter when compared to the first quarter of 1984. It was also a very strong period for the firm’s HP-3000 business-computer family.
Uniroyal Inc., Middlebury, Conn., cited a large extraordinary gain from the sale of its Malaysian rubber plantation for sharply higher fourth-quarter and full-year profits. The unusual gain from the plantation’s sale came to $79.2 million, Uniroyal said. The company also had a fourth-quarter charge from discontinued operations of $33.9 million. In addition, a charge of $56.7 million reflecting the change in accounting for pensions was applied retroactively to the first quarter of 1984, the company said.
Greenwich, Conn.-based Chesebrough-Pond’s Inc. reported that its full-year profits fell 6.6% despite a 22.8% increase in its fourth-quarter earnings. The firm attributed some of the year’s declining profits on unwanted inventory acquired in the transition of the Bass shoe division to foreign-based manufacturers. The company also cited the strong U.S. dollar’s continuing impact on overseas earnings for hurting the year’s results. Chesebrough-Pond’s cited the strong performance of its health and beauty products, packaged foods and Polymer divisions for the increase in fourth-quarter profits.
Texas Air Corp. reported a net profit for 1984 of $50.3 million, compared to a net loss of $177.9 million in 1983. The profit included an extraordinary credit of $22.5 million, compared to an extraordinary credit of $2.1 million in 1983. Texas Air’s consolidated 1984 results include the $50-million net profit recorded by Continental Airlines, New York Air’s net loss of $6.8 million, as well as net income recorded by both Texas Air (on a separate company basis) and CCS Automation Systems, a majority owned computer-services subsidiary.
