Business Roundup: Sandy Stifles Walgreens Sales

Deerfield based Walgreens reported a decline in same store sales in October from the same period last year due in part to Hurricane Sandy, according to a report on Dividend.Com.

The company reported sales for last month of $6 billion, down from the same period in 2011 of $6.13 billion, according to the Dividend.Com report. Approximately 750 of Walgreens 1,400 stores in Sandy’s path were closed for a period of time because of the storm.

The decline was also due in part to negative impact of generic drug introductions during the last 12 months, according to a report on RTT News.

Walgreens also made it clear earnings were on the rise because of a shift in promotional activity. "Our strategic decision not to pursue unprofitable promotions resulted in solid margins for the month as we continue to focus on gross profit dollar growth," Chief Financial Officer and President Wade Miquelon said in the release on RTT.

Mondelez International Beats Earnings Projections

One of Deerfield’s newest corporate citizens, Mondelez International, Inc., the successor to Kraft Foods, Inc., exceeded analysts’ expectations for its third quarter earnings, according to a report on NASDAQ.

The company reported earnings of $652 million—$.036 per share—for the quarter just ended which was less than profit for the same period last year, according to NASDAQ. Once special items were removed from the report, it topped Wall Street expectations.

“As we expected, our top-line growth this quarter was modest,” Chief Executive Officer Irene Rosenfeld said in a statement quoted on Bloomberg. “This reflected the lapping of our exceptional performance in the third quarter last year and a lower contribution from pricing. We also had some short-term executional missteps in a few key countries, but these issues should be largely resolved by the end of the year.”

The missteps to which Rosenfeld was referring occurred in emerging markets, particularly Brazil and Russia, according to Bloomberg. The company is projecting earnings of $1.50 to $1.55 per share next year while averages of analysts expect $1.58.

United Stationers Exceeds Outlook

Another Deerfield based business, United Stationers, surpassed expectations of market analysts by eight percent when it reported third quarter earnings of $0.91, according to a report on NASDAQ. Market prognosticators anticipated profit of $0.84 per share.

This is the fourth time in the last five quarters the company’s performance has finished ahead of what market analysts projected.

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