Boeing posted stronger-than-expected profit yesterday as its backlog of orders rose, and said its 2013 forecast assumed no significant impact from the grounding of its 787 Dreamliner jet by regulators.

Aviation safety agencies in the US and Japan are investigating what caused lithium-ion batteries to burn on two 787 passenger jets earlier this month, prompting regulators to ground the planes worldwide.

Boeing said it is continuing to build the Dreamliner but has halted deliveries, and analysts have raised concerns about the cost of the grounding and for fixing the battery problem on about 125 jets that Boeing has built so far.

“Our first order of business for 2013 is to resolve the battery issue on the 787 and return the airplanes safely to service with our customers,” said Boeing chief executive Jim McNerney.

Boeing said net income fell to $978mn, or $1.28 per share, in the fourth quarter, from $1.39bn, or $1.84, in the year-ago period, when it posted a special tax gain.

Analysts expected earnings of $1.19 a share.

Ken Herbert, an analyst at Imperial Capital said wider profit margins from its commercial airplanes helped the company to beat estimates.

But he was disappointed by its 2013 profit outlook of $5to $5.20 a share, compared with his target of $5.60. The figures include pension charges.

The consensus Wall Street estimate was $5.13 a share for 2013, according to Thomson Reuters.

Revenue for the quarter rose 14% to $22.3bn.

The company said it booked 394 net aircraft orders in the quarter, and that its total order backlog was nearly 4,400 planes valued at $319bn, a record tally.

 

 

Fiat

Italian auto giant Fiat yesterday reported its net profit in the fourth quarter rose to €388mn ($525mn) from €265mn the year before and said it was aiming for profits of up to €1.5bn this year.

The results were upbeat despite continued decline in the European car market and were helped by a rise in sales in North America but Fiat said it would not be paying any dividends to shareholders.

Market conditions in the Americas and Asia “continue to support the financial projections made for 2013 and while the European market continues to present significant levels of uncertainty, the Group confirms its guidance for 2013,” it said.

The company, which includes the Chrysler, Ferrari and Maserati brands, said it was also aiming for turnover of €88bn to €92bn this year.

Fiat chairman John Elkann earlier yesterday said the company had been forced to make “difficult choices” to continue producing in Italy despite the collapse of the market and CEO Sergio Marchionne said he would not be shutting any Italian plants.

The company’s third-quarter profits were double what they were in the same period in 2011 but that was almost entirely due to results from Chrysler and luxury sales in booming markets like China.

 

 

Lenovo

Lenovo Group is stepping up its overseas expansion in the smartphone business after enjoying solid growth at home in China, as the world’s No 2 maker of personal computers seeks to offset slowing growth in the traditional PC sector.

Lenovo, also the second-biggest smartphone vendor in China, has begun selling smartphones in countries including Russia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam, although analysts said it faced stiff competition from major players like Samsung Electronics and Apple.

The ThinkPad maker reported yesterday a quarterly profit of $204.9mn, up by a third from a year earlier. That beat the average estimate of $178.4mn in a Thomson Reuters poll of 11 analysts, and exceeded its previous record of around $172mn in the three months that ended in December 2007.

In the third quarter, overall revenue grew 12% from a year earlier to $9.4bn, but the bulk of that still came from its PC business.

About a tenth of its third-quarter revenue came from its mobile internet and digital home (MIDH) business — mainly consisting of its smartphone sales in China, which jumped 77% to $998mn.

Shares of Lenovo rose 36% in 2012, outpacing a 23% rise in the Hang Seng Index and beating rivals Hewlett Packard, Dell and Acer, whose stocks fell last year.

 

 

Nordea

Nordic banking group Nordea bucked the general economic slowdown in the region, reporting a 7% rise in fourth quarter net profit, the group said yesterday.

Net profit for the quarter was €842mn ($1.1bn), compared to €786mn in the same period 2011.

The operating income for the period increased 7% year-on-year to €2.63bn.

For full year 2012, the bank reported a 16% rise in operating profit to €4.1bn, “an all-time-high,” chief executive Christian Clausen said.

“We had more customers, more capital and higher profit than ever before,” Clausen said of 2012.

The Stockholm-based group’s loan losses in the fourth quarter were €244mn, down 4% compared to the third quarter. The losses were mainly related to shipping and a weak real estate market in Denmark.

Nordea was created in 2000, emerging from the 1997 merger of the Merita Bank of Finland and Nordbanken of Sweden. It has about 11mn customers and almost 1,000 branch offices.

 

 

Chrysler

Chrysler turned in another solid quarter at the end of 2012, with net income surging 68% mainly on US sales and more strong growth predicted in 2013, the company said yesterday.

Total profits for the fourth quarter were $378mn on revenues of $17.2bn, up from $15.1bn in the year-earlier quarter, the company reported.

The quarter capped a strong year for the number three US auto maker, in which net income was up more than nine-fold to $1.67bn on a 19.6% gain in revenues, to $65.8bn.

It forecast global shipments in 2013 of 2.6-2.7mn vehicles, compared to 2.4mn last year, and revenues in a range of $72bn to $75bn.

Chrysler, majority owned by Italy’s Fiat with the company’s auto union controlling a large minority share through its pension fund, has sustained a strong recovery from its near collapse and rescue by the US government in 2008.

“While we are pleased to have achieved strong financial results in 2012, the enterprise we are crafting is not complete,” said Chrysler Group chairman and chief executive Sergio Marchionne.

“The goals we’ve set for the year ahead reflect a common desire by everyone from leadership to the shop floor to succeed and sustain the power of the house we are building.”

 

 

Scania

Truck maker Scania is cutting production and jobs in Europe after sluggish demand in its biggest market led it to miss quarterly profit forecasts despite a surge in orders from Brazil.

The Swedish group, majority-owned by Germany’s Volkswagen, said yesterday it was reducing daily production in Europe by 15% in the first quarter, with the loss of around 700 jobs.

Scania said its fourth-quarter operating profit fell to 2.17bn Swedish crowns ($340mn) from 2.74bn in the same period the previous year, missing analysts’ mean forecast of 2.48bn in a Reuters poll.

The group, which made about a half of its truck deliveries to Europe last year, said order intake in the region was unchanged in the fourth quarter, but its overall operating margin fell to its lowest for three years.

 “The big disappointment during the quarter was profitability which I would say has to do with them being forced to give discounts on trucks and scale back of inventories,” Handelsbanken Capital Markets analyst Hampus Engellau said.

 

 

H&M

Swedish clothing retailer H&M posted a 6.6% rise in annual net profit yesterday but said results had been hit by costs for its long-term investments as well as by currency factors.

The cheap-and-chic fashion giant said its net profit rose to 16.9bn kronor ($2.7bn, €2.0bn) in 2012 from 15.8bn kronor in the previous year, and that it increased its market share despite a difficult operating environment.

Gross sales by the firm, world’s number two clothing retailer after the Spanish Zara group, rose by 9.4% to 141bn kronor in the financial year that ended November 30, but net sales measured at constant exchange rates gained only 1%, the company said.

“H&M continues to stand strong in a challenging clothing market which in many countries has been even more challenging in 2012 compared to 2011,” chief executive Karl-Johan Persson said in a statement.

In the fourth quarter, net profit fell 1.3% to 5.29bn kronor ($830mn), beating a 5.09bn kronor consensus estimate compiled by Dow Jones Newswires.

H&M said its expansion moved faster than expected in 2012, with 304 new stores opening their doors, mainly in China and the US.

The company said it plans to open 325 stores in this financial year, including in Chile and in Indonesia via a franchise.

 

 

Canon

Japanese electronics giant Canon said yesterday its full-year net profit fell 9.7% last year as it was hit by a slowdown in demand from debt-hit Europe and an export-sapping strong yen.

The camera and office equipment maker said earnings slipped to ¥224.6bn ($2.5bn) in 2012, compared to ¥248.6bn a year earlier.

Unlike many Japanese firms, Canon reports its financial results on a calendar-year basis.

The annual results missed an earlier forecast of a ¥234bn net profit announced in October, a figure that had already been slashed from the previous target of ¥290bn.

Net sales last year were down 2.2% to ¥3.48tn, while operating profit fell 14.3% to ¥323.9bn.

The decline was due to “the economic slowdown mainly in Europe and the high valuation of the yen against the euro, combined with the cooling-off of demand in China during the latter half of the year”, it said. Canon did not make specific reference to Tokyo’s territorial dispute with Beijing over a chain of East China Sea islands.

 

 

Amazon

Amazon.com shares hit a new record yesterday after it reported better-than-expected quarterly profit, fueled by the growth of higher-margin businesses during the fiercely competitive holiday quarter.

The world’s largest Internet retailer said that its cloud computing services, video content sales and its aggressive expansion in e-books helped increase profitability.

In addition, a growing network of warehouses or fulfillment centers closer to customers held down shipping costs as it vied with Wal-Mart Stores and other major retailers for consumer dollars over the holidays.

Chief Executive Jeff Bezos highlighted the Kindle’s e-book business, calling it a multi-billion dollar category that grew about 70% in 2012. Its traditional physical book business rose about 5% in the same period, he noted.

The fourth-quarter profit results suggested that Amazon may be able to generate attractive returns from such spending, analysts said.

The Seattle-based company said operating income jumped 56% to $405mn in the fourth quarter, compared with $260mn in the fourth quarter of 2011.

The company also said fourth-quarter revenue rose 22% to $21.27bn as it grabbed a big share of online spending during the holidays. But it was the profit that initially caught Wall Street’s eye.

The gross profit margins were 24% in the fourth quarter, compared with Wall Street expectations of about 22%.

 

 

Roche

Swiss drug giant Roche said yesterday its net profit rose by 2.0% last year to 9.8bn Swiss francs ($10.6 bn, €7.9 bn) and said it was increasing its dividend.

The company said its overall sales rose by 4.0% measured at constant exchange rates to 45.5bn francs based on strong sales of cancer drugs and diagnostic tests to laboratories.

The results were slightly better than the consensus of analysts forecast by Swiss financial news agency AWP, which expected net profit of 9.65bn francs on sales of 45.4bn.

“2012 was a very good year for Roche,” chief executive Severin Schwan said in a statement.

Roche said it expected similar sales growth in 2013 with core earnings to rise even faster.

The company’s board proposed increasing the dividend for 2012 by 8% to 7.35 francs, and that also foresaw increasing the dividend further in 2013.

 

 

SKF

World number one bearings maker SKF, sensing an end to the slide which helped cut fourth-quarter earnings by 40%, said it planned to restore some cuts in production and end the rundown in its own inventories.

The output increase by the manufacturing bellwether in the first quarter of 2013 was only the second time in two years it has flagged a quarterly rise over the previous three months and appeared to be a nod to stabilising markets.

SKF’s fourth quarter operating profit fell to 1.23bn crowns ($193mn) from a year-ago 2.01bn and below the 1.39bn seen by analysts.

Earlier this month SKF unveiled plans to cut 2,500 jobs as demand faltered, not only in Europe but also in North America and Asia. It has said activity in December was particularly weak, underscoring a bleak outlook.

The company has also been facing headwinds from a strong Swedish currency in recent months and forecast that exchange rates would dent operating earnings by about 250mn crowns this year and by 50mn in the first quarter alone.

SKF proposed a dividend of 5.50 crowns per share for 2012, unchanged from a year ago in line with expectations.