AP News, December 21st, 2006
Greeting-card maker American Greetings Corp. on Thursday said its third-quarter earnings rose sharply, helped by a one-time gain from the consolidation of some its retailers. Its shares jumped on the news.
Earnings for the quarter ended Nov. 24 increased to $49.7 million, or 83 cents per share, from $12.9 million, or 19 cents per share, a year ago. The company had 18.7 million fewer shares outstanding in the latest period following stock repurchases.
The results included a gain of $20 million, or about 33 cents per share, related to the effect the consolidation of some of its retailers had on several long-term supply agreements. Last year in the period, American Greetings took a charge of $43.2 million to write down the value of its operations.
Analysts polled by Thomson Financial forecast a profit of 35 cents per share for the most recent quarter. Thomson estimates usually exclude special items.
The maker of cards under the American Greetings, Gibson Greetings and Carleton Cards labels said revenue fell 7 percent to $512.2 million from $552 million during the same period a year ago.
American Greetings shares rose 83 cents or 3.6 percent to $23.96 in active trading Thursday morning on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares rose as high as $26, above the old 52-week high of $25.07. The shares have been as low $20.32 over the past year.
Looking ahead, the company said it continues to expect fiscal year 2007 earnings to range from 80 cents per share to $1 per share.
Analysts are forecasting a profit of 81 cents per share.
For the year to date, the company has posted earnings of $54.6 million, or 80 cents a share, compared with $42.6 million, 60 cents a share, last year. Sales fell to $1.2 billion from $1.3 billion.
American Greetings is the second largest greeting card maker after Hallmark Cards Inc., but the largest publicly held. It owns and operates about 600 card and gift shops throughout North America and sells cards through retailers such as Wal-Mart and Target.
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On the Net:
American Greetings: http://americangreetings.com
