Shares in Sealed Air fall on 1Q loss
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Shares in Sealed Air Corp. fell after the company reported a first-quarter loss and lower revenue on the heels of the $3.2 billion sale of its food hygiene and cleaning business to Bain Capital in March.
The food packaging company lost $43.2 million in the first quarter, or 22 cents per share. Earnings, adjusted for one-time gains and costs of the sale of its Diversey operations to Bain, were 43 cents per share. For the same period last year, the company had net income of $102.4 million, or 51 cents per share.
The results fell short of Wall Street expectations. The average estimate of seven analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 46 cents per share.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Shares in Sealed Air fell almost 6 percent in midday trading.
The Charlotte, North, Carolina, company posted revenue of $1.03 billion in the period, which also did not meet Street forecasts. Six analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $1.6 billion.
The company said sales — based on continuing operations that don't include the Diversey operations — rose 3 percent overall and 6 percent in North America.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The company also announced a $1.5 billion share repurchase program and plans $1.1 billion in debt reduction after the Diversey sale closes in September.
Sealed Air expects full-year earnings from continuing operations to be $1.70 per share, with revenue expected to be $4.3 billion.
Sealed Air shares have fallen more than 3 percent since the beginning of the year and more than 7 percent in the last 12 months.
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This story was generated in part by Automated Insights (http://automatedinsights.com/ap) using data from Zacks Investment Research. Access a Zacks stock report on SEE at https://www.zacks.com/ap/SEE
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Keywords: Sealed Air, Earnings Report