Alcoa Profit Tops Street - Update

(RTTNews) - Alcoa Inc. (AA), the largest producer of aluminum in the US, Monday reported a first-quarter profit that trumped Wall Street estimates, as revenues grew largely driven by alumina and aluminum price increases.

New York-based Alcoa's first-quarter profit was $225 million or $1.21 per share, compared with a loss of $210 million or $1.15 per share last year. Results for the quarter include $108 million of special items largely due to gains from the sale of the Yadkin Hydroelectric Project.

Adjusted earnings for the quarter were $0.63 per share. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $0.53 per share.

Sales for the quarter rose to $2.66 billion from $2.13 billion last year. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $2.96 billion. Growth in revenues were driven by higher aluminum and alumina pricing.

Alcoa last year separated into two independent, publicly-traded companies Arconic Inc. and Alcoa Corp., a higher-margin manufacturing operations and a smelting and refining business.

"Alcoa is off to a strong start with our first full quarter as an independent company," said Roy Harvey, Chief Executive Officer of Alcoa. "In our Bauxite segment, our third-party business remained strong and we continued to grow profits, while our Alumina and Aluminum segments captured the benefits of improved market pricing to increase earnings substantially."

Aluminum shipments rose to 801,000 metric tons from 764,000 metric tons last year, while alumina shipments rose to 2.25 million metric tons from 2.17 million metric tons.

Alcoa's earnings report are closely watched by investors as it's one of the first major companies to report quarterly results and unofficially kicks starts the earnings season.

AA closed Monday's trading at $33.31, up $1.61 or 5.08%, on the NYSE. The stock further rose $0.70 or 2.10% in the after-hours trade.