General Mills Inc. GIS, -0.86% saw sales and earnings drop in its latest quarter as people failed to buy as much food for the home as they did in the early days of the pandemic. The company reported fiscal fourth-quarter net income of $416.8 million, or 68 cents a share, down from $625.7 million, or $1.02 a share, a year earlier. General Mills saw adjusted earnings per share drop to 91 cents from $1.10 a year prior, while analysts tracked by FactSet were calling for 85 cents. The company’s net sales for the period declined to $4.5 billion from $5.0 billion, whereas the FactSet consensus was for $4.4 billion. The company pointed to a 5 point headwind stemming from an extra week in last year’s fiscal fourth quarter and disclosed that organic net sales fell 6% from a year earlier as people weren’t buying as much food for the home as they were in the early days of the pandemic during the comparable year-earlier period. For fiscal 2022, General Mills expects organic net sales to fall 1% to 3%, “reflecting the outlook for lower consumer demand.” The company anticipates that adjusted earnings per share could be flat to down 2% relative to the $3.79 that General Mills posted for fiscal 2021. “General Mills expects the largest factors impacting its performance in fiscal 2022 will be relative balance of at-home versus away-from-home consumer food demand and the inflationary cost environment, both of which remain uncertain,” the company said in its release, with expectations that at-home demand for food will decline but be above prepandemic levels, while away-from-home demand will recover but still be below where it was prior to the pandemic. General Mills shares have declined 2.8% over the past three months as the S&P 500 SPX, +0.03% has risen 8.4%.
View Article Origin Here
