(RTTNews) - Chlor alkali products company Olin Corp. (OLN: News ) said Monday that first quarter profit increased from last year, helped by strong results from its Winchester business. The company also provided earnings outlook for the second quarter, which failed to meet the analysts' expectations, reflecting the combination of continued weak demand and lower ECU pricing in Chlor Alkali.

Net income for the first quarter was $46.7 million or $0.60 per share, compared to $37.3 million or $0.50 per share in the prior year quarter. On average, 5 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to earn $0.63 per share for the first quarter. Analysts' estimate typically excludes special items.

First quarter sales grew to $400.6 million from $399.1 million in the same quarter of last year. Three analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $458.35 million for the first quarter.

Chlor Alkali product sales decreased to $267.7 million from $288.3 million in the previous year quarter. The company said, "The Chlor Alkali first quarter 2009 earnings were unfavorably impacted by maintenance and logistic costs associated with a planned outage during the quarter at our largest manufacturing site in McIntosh, Alabama and the outage at our Henderson, Nevada site, which ended in February."

Winchester sales increased to $132.9 million from $110.8 million in the first quarter of 2008, due to higher sales volumes. Commercial, law enforcement, and domestic military sales all increased during the quarter, which more than offset a decline in industrial sales, the company noted.
For the second quarter of 2009, the Clayton, Missouri-based company anticipates earnings in the range of $0.30 to $0.40 per share. Street expects the company to report earnings of $0.46 per share for the second quarter.

The company said it expects ECU pricing in the second quarter to decline from the first quarter of 2009, but be higher than the second quarter of 2008. On the other hand, the company expects Chlor Alkali volumes, including bleach, to be higher in the second quarter of 2009 over previous quarter.

Olin closed Monday's regular trading session at $14.37, down 4 cents. In the after-hours, the shares further lost 57 cents or 3.97%.

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by RTT Staff Writer

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