Times Mirror Profit From Continuing Operations Rises 85%

Times Mirror Co. said Thursday that its first-quarter earnings from continuing operations rose 85%, thanks in part to cost-cutting and slight advertising gains among its newspapers.

The better-than-expected results led the Los Angeles-based news and information company, parent of The Times, to boost its 1996 profit targets. Several Wall Street analysts raised their full-year 1996 earnings projections to $1.40 a share, from about $1.25 a share. Times Mirror earned 84 cents a share in 1995.

The company’s shares gained 37.5 cents Thursday to $38.125 on the New York Stock Exchange.

“We don’t emphasize quarterly earnings, but we’re happy with the direction,” said Stanley F. Druckenmiller, right-hand man to billionaire financier George Soros, whose investment funds bought a 7.28% stake in Times Mirror last December.

Income from continuing operations--excluding special items--was $26.0 million, or 14 cents a share, in the quarter ended March 31, as compared with $14.1 million, or 7 cents a share, in the first quarter of 1995. Per-share results exceeded the average estimate of 8 cents from 10 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.

Revenue, meanwhile, rose to $806.8 million in the period, from $773.7 million in the year-earlier period.

“While revenue growth was modest, greater-than-expected cost savings from our 1995 restructuring and other cost reduction programs led to a significant increase in earnings per share on continuing operations,” said Mark H. Willes, Times Mirror chairman, president and chief executive.

The restructuring involved eliminating 3,000 jobs companywide for a projected savings of $135 million a year. Times Mirror also closed its prestigious but money-losing New York edition of Newsday last July.

The company’s newspaper group saw a 32% jump in first-quarter operating profit, to $51.0 million from $38.6 million a year earlier. Quarterly advertising revenue rose 3.6% to $369.9 million from $357.0 million a year earlier.

Net income for the quarter just ended was $26.0 million, compared with $1.64 billion in 1995. The year-ago period, however, included a gain of $1.63 billion on the sale of cable television systems and other special items.

Willes noted in his statement that recent declines in newsprint prices--following a period of huge increases--will help the company exceed its earlier full-year 1996 target of a 50% increase over 1995 per-share earnings.

While the company said it does not make specific per-share earnings projections, Tom Unterman, chief financial officer, said of analysts’ new estimates of $1.40 to $1.45 a share for 1996: “I wouldn’t try to talk them down.”