EARNINGS : RJR Nabisco Profit Drops but Operating Results Improve
RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp., the huge food and tobacco concern, said that second-quarter earnings fell due to expenses from early debt retirement, but operating results rose.
The maker of brands such as Winston and Camel cigarettes, Oreo cookies and Ritz crackers said operating earnings were up 11% from tobacco and 20% from continuing operations in food.
“Both the food and tobacco businesses had a very strong second quarter,” said Charles M. Harper, chairman and chief executive.
He said the domestic tobacco business, caught in a fierce price war a year ago, continues to rebound from last year’s weak earnings.
Including extraordinary items and preferred dividend payments, RJR said net income skidded to $14 million, or 1 cent per common share, in the three months ended June 30 compared to $70 million, or 6 cents a share, a year ago.
The results for the latest quarter reflect a $146-million loss on early retirement of debt and preferred stock dividend payments of $32 million.
The results for a year ago were reduced by $65 million for early debt retirement and reflected $7 million in preferred stock dividends.
Revenue rose 2% to $3.78 billion from $3.72 billion a year ago.
Operating income rose 16% overall to $675 million.
Digital Equipment Corp. said it lost an expected $1.7 billion in its fiscal fourth quarter.
Executives aim to make the computer company profitable by the end of this year and earlier this month announced a $1.2-billion charge to accelerate a cut of 20,000 jobs from two years to one.
Without the special charge, Digital’s loss narrowed compared to its third quarter.
Digital’s loss for the quarter ending July 2 amounted to $12.64 per share. The company earned $113.2 million, or 85 cents a share, in the same period a year ago, its only profitable quarter since 1991.
The latest period included the $1.2-billion restructuring charge and $380 million in non-cash reductions. Without those items, Digital lost $160.4 million, or $1.22 per share. It lost $183 million in its third fiscal quarter.
Revenue for the latest period was $3.99 billion, up 2% from $3.91 billion in the fourth quarter a year ago.
The Boeing Co. reported a 48% drop in second-quarter profit on sharply lower sales and said commercial jet deliveries are expected to remain low through 1995.
The aerospace company said net earnings for the three months ended June 30 were $222 million, or 65 cents per share, compared with $426 million, or $1.25 per share, for the comparable 1993 quarter.
Second-quarter sales for 1994 were $5.4 billion, down 32% from the nearly $8 billion reported in the second quarter of 1993.
The lower earnings for the quarter are due mainly to fewer commercial aircraft deliveries, lower corporate investment income and higher interest expenses, the Seattle-based company said.
Led by its domestic materials and office products divisions, Avery Dennison Corp. reported a 22% increase in second-quarter net income on a 9% increase in sales.
Avery posted net income totaling $27.9 million, up from last year’s $22.8 million.
Earnings per share of the Pasadena-based company rose 28% to 50 cents, as sales increased 9% to $718.6 million over the $662.2 million a posted a year earlier.
“This is our best quarter since the merger of Avery and Dennison in late 1990,” said company spokeswoman Diane Dixon.
Avery Dennison, the world’s largest supplier of pressure-sensitive adhesive material, makes home and office products that mark, decorate, identify, organize and fasten under the brand name Avery.
Beset by Japanese rivals, sluggish European markets and an inability to raise prices at home or abroad, Rochester, N.Y.-based Eastman Kodak Co. said earnings dropped 29% in the second quarter.
The world’s leading photographic products company earned $264 million, or 79 cents a share, in the three months ended June 30, compared to profits of $371 million, or $1.13 a share, in the same period a year ago. Sales edged up to $3.47 billion from $3.41 billion.
