In remarks prepared for delivery Wednesday at the Piper Jaffray Consumer Conference in New York, Fortune Brands chairman & CEO Norm Wesley said, “Our breadth of leading consumer brands and our effective strategy are a powerful combination for delivering consistently strong results. The broad-based strength that fueled our first quarter results has continued into the second quarter. Consumer demand for our leading consumer brands remains strong. Successful new products, share-gain initiatives and productivity improvements are adding to Fortune Brands' sustained growth. All of our businesses continue to perform at or above our expectations.”
“In April, we announced that we expected EPS before charges/gains to grow strong double digits in the second quarter. Wall Street securities analysts currently estimate that our second quarter EPS before charges/gains will be in a range of $1.17 to $1.26 per share, up from $1.03 a year ago. Given the strength of our second quarter performance to date, we expect that Fortune Brands second quarter EPS before charges/gains will be near the top of that range, comfortably achieving our target of strong double-digit growth. We continue to expect that we will deliver strong double-digit growth in EPS before charges/gains for the full year and improve our returns, as well.”
As previously announced, second quarter 2004 GAAP comparisons will be impacted by a 23-cents-per-share tax-related credit recorded in the second quarter of 2003. Due to the absence of this credit in the second quarter of 2004, as well as restructuring-related charges in the current quarter for previously announced programs, second quarter EPS on a reported basis is likely to be lower than the year-ago quarter. The company continues to expect full-year EPS on a reported basis to be up strongly.
