Masco Corp. (MAS) reported that its fourth-quarter net loss attributable to the company narrowed to $573 million or $1.65 per share, from $1.034 billion or $2.96 per share in the same quarter last year.
During the fourth quarters of 2011 and 2010, the company said that it incurred business rationalization costs and charges of $61 million pre-tax and $104 million pre-tax, respectively.
Excluding certain items, Loss from continuing operations was $0.09 per share, compared to a loss of $0.08 per common share in the year ago quarter.
Net sales increased to $1.74 billion from $1.72 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report a loss of $0.05 per share on revenues of $1.78 billion for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.
"While 2011 was a difficult year, we head into 2012 with cautious optimism. The major restructuring activities impacting our Installation segment and our North American cabinet operations are behind us and those businesses experienced improving operational trends in the fourth quarter. While our efforts to reduce costs and increase revenues did not improve performance as quickly as we anticipated in 2011, we firmly believe that these actions will drive significant improvement in 2012, even if we see no improvement in the housing markets," said President and CEO, Tim Wadhams.
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