3M profit falls 37 percent as sales decline
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3M Co.'s fourth-quarter profit dropped 37 percent as the global economic slowdown lowered sales in most of its wide-ranging businesses, prompting the company to cut its outlook for 2009.
3M, whose operations span office supplies, transportation and health care, expects this year's revenue to fall anywhere between 5 percent and 9 percent - a steeper decline than its previous estimate of a 3- to 7-percent, it said Thursday.
It also scaled back its 2009 earnings forecast to a range of $4.30 to $4.70 per share, from $4.50 to $4.95 per share, previously.
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The Maplewood, Minn.-based company said net income fell to $536 million, or 77 cents per share, for the three months ended Dec. 31. It earned $851 million, or $1.17 per share, in the same period a year earlier.
Quarterly sales fell 11.2 percent to $5.51 billion, led by its largest division, industrial and transportation.
Revenue for that segment, which makes specialty products for autos, aircraft, boats and other vehicles, fell 11.3 percent to $1.7 billion due to many shutdowns of customer plants across the manufacturing sector.
Before special items, the company earned 97 cents per share. On that basis, analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected 93 cents per share. Their estimates typically exclude one-time items.
3M, a component of the Dow Jones industrial average, earned $3.5 billion, or $4.89 per share, for all of 2008, down 16 percent from 2007. Revenues grew 3.3 percent to $25.3 billion during 2008.
Shares of 3M, which makes Scotch tape and Post-it notes, rose 23 cents to $55.65 in pre-market electronic trading.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)