General Mills' quarterly profit beat Wall Street estimates, and the Cheerios cereal-maker raised its full-year forecast, benefitting from its efforts to cut costs and raise prices, sending its shares up by 6% on Wednesday.
Consumer goods companies like General Mills have been raising product prices to make up for rising commodities and transportation costs.
"Our year-to-date performance and fourth-quarter plans give us confidence that we will meet or exceed all of our key fiscal 2019 targets," CEO Jeff Harmening said in a statement.
Beating Estimates
The company's adjusted gross margin rose by 170 basis points, to 34.2%, in the third quarter and beat the analyst average estimate of 32.89%.
General Mills, which owns dessert pre-mix brand Betty Crocker and Nature Valley granola bars, reported that it expects adjusted profit for fiscal 2019 to be between flat and 1%, from a prior forecast range of flat to down 3%.
The company's net sales rose by 8%, to $4.20 billion (€3.68 billion), in the third quarter, largely in line with expectations of $4.19 billion (€3.67 billion), according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Excluding one-time items, the company earned 83 cents (€0.73) per share for the quarter ended 24 February, to beat expectations of 69 cents (€0.60).
News by Reuters, edited by ESM. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
