Overview
- Earnings per share came in at $2.13 versus the $1.94 consensus, and shares rose about 2% in premarket trading to $80.69.
- Revenue fell 19.4% year over year to $769.5 million, missing Wall Street’s $826.4 million estimate.
- Shell egg sales dropped to $649.6 million, down 28.1%, while prepared foods jumped to $71.7 million from $10.4 million.
- Gross profit declined 41.8% to $207.4 million and operating income fell 55.5% to $123.9 million, driven largely by a 26.5% drop in shell-egg pricing with a 2.2% volume decline.
- The company declared an approximately $0.72 per-share variable dividend payable Feb. 12, repurchased $74.8 million in stock with $375.2 million remaining under authorization, and ended the quarter with $1.14 billion in cash and short-term investments.