Lamb Weston Shares Climb After Q4 Profit, Sales Beat Estimates

(RTTNews) - Shares of Lamb Weston Holdings, Inc. (LW) were trading up over 2 percent on Tuesday morning after the firm reported a surge in its fourth-quarter earnings and sales, above analysts' estimates. The company's earnings and sales were helped by the gains from recent acquisitions.

LW was trading up by 2.04 percent at $115 per share on the New York Stock Exchange. For the final-quarter, the food processing firm posted a net profit of $498.8 million or $3.40 per share, compared with $32 million or $0.22 per share, reported for the same period of previous year.

Excluding items, earnings were at $178.1 million or $1.22 per share, higher than last year's $93.8 million $0.64 per share.

On average, seven analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected the company to earn $1.05 per share, for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

The company's sales rose to $1.694 billion from $1.153 billion of last year. Analysts, on average, had expected the firm to post sales of $1.66 billion.

Looking ahead, for full year 2024, Lamb Weston expects its earnings and sales in line with analysts' estimates.

For 2024, the company expects its net earnings to be in the range of $725 million - $790 million or $4.95 - $5.40 per share, in line with analysts' estimate of $5.01 per share.

The food company expects sales of $6.7 billion - $6.9 billion, in line with analysts' projection of $6.79 billion.