Altria misses by $0.01, reports revs in-line; guides FY17 EPS in-line (70.80)
- Reports Q1 (Mar) earnings of $0.73 per share, $0.01 worse than the Capital IQ Consensus of $0.74; revenues rose 1.3% year/year to $4.59 bln vs the $4.63 bln Capital IQ Consensus.
- Co issues in-line guidance for FY17, sees EPS of $3.26-3.32 vs. $3.29 Capital IQ Consensus Estimate. Altria continues to expect higher adjusted diluted EPS growth in the second half of the year compared to the first half driven by various factors. These include the financial effects of the Recall during the first quarter of 2017 and the benefit of reporting four full quarters of equity income from Altria's beer investment in 2017 versus three quarters in 2016.
- "We grew first-quarter adjusted diluted earnings per share by 1.4% against a difficult comparison in the year-ago quarter when we grew adjusted diluted EPS more than 14%. The smokeable products segment continued to generate strong results, which offset lower equity earnings from our beer investment and the effect of the voluntary product recall in the smokeless products segment.