Emerson Electric 2Q Net Profit Rises, Guidance Narrowed

By Cristina Roca

Emerson Electric Co. (EMR) on Tuesday reported a 7.9% rise in second-quarter profit but narrowed its guidance, citing a slowdown in underlying orders.

For the quarter ended March 31, the St. Louis manufacturing company earned a profit of $520 million, or 84 cents a share, compared with $482 million, or 76 cents a share, for the same period last year. The result was in line with analysts' expectations of net profit of 84 cents a share, according to a consensus estimate provided by FactSet.

Sales rose 7.5% to $4.57 million from $4.25 billion. On an underlying basis, sales rose 4%, Emerson said.

For fiscal 2019, Emerson narrowed its earnings-per-share forecast to $3.60-$3.70. It had previously predicted profit at $3.60-$3.75 a share for the fiscal year. It also said it now expects its net sales to grow between 7% and 8.5%, compared with its previous range of 7%-10%. Emerson backed its view of operating cash flow of $3.2 billion for fiscal 2019.

The company's trailing three-month underlying order growth stayed in the 5%-10% range during the first two months of the first quarter but slowed to 4% in March, when it was affected by oil price volatility and a global slowdown in discrete manufacturing end markets, Emerson said. "We expect growth to improve modestly through the second half of the year with underlying orders returning to the 5 to 10 percent range," the company said.

Write to Cristina Roca at cristina.roca@dowjones.com; @_cristinaroca

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 07, 2019 07:29 ET (11:29 GMT)

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