Wednesday, W.W.Grainger, Inc (GWW), a distributor of facilities maintenance and other related products, said it expects fourth quarter earnings in the range of $1.13 - $1.23 per share on sales that are expected in a range of down 2% to up 1%.
On average, fifteen analysts polled by Thomson Reuters estimate earnings of $1.21 per share on revenues of $1.55 billion for the quarter.
For the full year 2009, the company expects earnings in the range of $5.10 - $5.20 on sales that are expected to decline 9% - 10%. Earnings exclude the $0.37 per share gain attributable to becoming the majority shareholder of MonotaRO Co., Ltd in September.
For full-year 2009, analysts expect earnings of $5.19 per share on a revenue of $6.1 billion.
Grainger said that for the full year 2010, it expects earnings of $5.10 - $5.80 per share. The company has forecast revenues to range between 4% - 9%. The 2010 forecast includes an expected 3% sales contribution and $0.05 per share of earnings growth from acquisitions made in 2009.
Most notably, Grainger said that it expects Japan to add 2% to sales growth while only contributing $0.01per share to earnings growth in 2010 due to the change in accounting treatment triggered by increasing ownership from 38% to 53%. For the full-year 2010, the Street estimates earnings of $5.76 per share on revenues of $6.5 billion.
As the majority owner, Grainger will now report 100% of the sales and 53% of the earnings of Japan, as opposed to reporting 0% of the sales and 38% of the earnings as a minority owner.
GWW is currently trading on the New York Stock Exchange at $98.42, down $3.01 or 2.97%.
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