Kellogg Company (NYSE: K) shares sprang to life Thursday, on the release of some serious second-quarter financial news.
The breakfast cereal giant out of Battle Creek, Michigan reported this morning earnings per share increased by 1% from the prior-year quarter to $282 million, as higher operating profit and a lower effective tax rate more than offset a higher level of restructuring charges. Diluted earnings per share registered at 80 cents, compared to 79 cents in the prior-year quarter.
Revenues came in at $3.18 billion, 2.5% lower than the prior-year quarter.
CEO John Bryant said "our second quarter results keep us on track to deliver on our full-year financial targets, with sequential improvement in net sales performance and continued profit-margin expansion."
“More importantly, we continued to make progress toward the transformation of our Company. For instance, during the quarter we made strong progress on our transition out of Direct Store Delivery (DSD) in U.S. Snacks, an enormously complex initiative that the team has executed exceptionally well. We remain committed to returning to top-line growth, as outlined in our 2020 Growth Plan."
The Company continues to forecast a decline in currency-neutral comparable net sales of about (3)% in 2017, with no change to its estimates for the DSD exit's impact or for the rest of the business.
Share prices for Kellogg zoomed $3.22, or 4.8%, to $70.66, less than half an hour before the closing bell.
