German postal services giant Deutsche Post AG Thursday reported a 35 percent fall in third-quarter net profit as last year's quarterly figure was boosted by a big one-off gain.
Net income decreased to €350 million ($512 million), or 29 cents a share, from €535 million, or 45 cents, a year earlier, below analyst expectations of €489 million.
The decline was evidenced by the fact that last year's third-quarter figure was buoyed by a €276 million gain from the recovery of Deutsche Postbank AG bond.
Meanwhile, sales at Bonn-based company rose slightly to €15.64 billion in the third quarter, from €14.89 billion and in line with the average analyst forecast of €15.63 billion.
Earnings before interest and taxes, the company's preferred yardstick for its operational strength, fell to €841 million, down 18 percent from €1.03 billion a year ago, slightly passing the €834 million analyst forecast.
Strong growth
Deutsche Post is one of the world's biggest shipping companies and competes with United Parcel Service Inc. and FedEx Corp., both of which are based in the United States.
In the first nine months, the company earned €1.26 billion ($1.85 billion) compared with €1.13 billion a year earlier. Sales, though, slipped to €44.2 billion ($65.07 billion) from €46.5 billion in the first nine months of 2006.
"The first nine months of the year were right on target," Deutsche Post Chief Executive Klaus Zumwinkel said in a press release, adding that the strongest earnings growth came from the Logistics and Express divisions.
The company now expects its pretax profit for 2007 to reach €3.7 billion ($5.45 billion), slightly better than the €43.6 billion ($64.19 billion) the company had forecast.
Pretax profit in 2008 is expected to be €4.2 billion ($6.18 billion), with the company forecasting €4.7 billion ($6.92 billion) in pretax profit for 2009.
November 8 2007