General Mills Sales Fall Short Of Company's Target

General Mills Inc. said Wednesday it had net income of $409 million, or 67 cents a share, in its first fiscal quarter to Aug. 28, down from $435 million, or 69 cents a share, in the year-earlier period. Adjusted per-share earnings came to 78 cents, ahead of the FactSet consensus of 76 cents. Sales fell to $3.9 billion from $4.2 billion, matching the FactSet consensus. However, "our net sales performance did not meet our expectations due to the challenging macro environment, a difficult year-over-year comparison, and a slower start to the year on certain businesses," Chief Executive Ken Powell said in a statement. The company is planning actions to improve its sales performance, but is expecting to achieve its profit goals for fiscal 2017 and its target of 20% adjusted operating profit margin by fiscal 2018. Shares were indicating higher in light premarket trade, and are up 12% in the year so far, while the S&P 500 has gained about 5%.