Mondelez Profit Misses Expectations, But Sales Beat

Mondelez International Inc. reported on Wednesday a fourth-quarter loss of $729 million, or 46 cents a share, compared with a profit of $500 million, or 29 cents a share, in the same period a year ago. Excluding non-recurring items, such as a one-time accounting charge of $778 million to remove its Venezuelan operations from its balance sheet, adjusted earnings per share came to 46 cents, below the FactSet consensus of 48 cents. Revenue fell 17% to $7.36 billion, but beat the FactSet consensus of $7.27 billion. Unfavorable currency movements reduced revenue by 11 percentage points. For 2016, the snacking giant said adjusted EPS is expected to grow at a double-digit percentage rate on a constant currency basis, with currency translation expected to reduce EPS by about 13 cents. The FactSet consensus for 2016 EPS is $1.99. "In 2015, we delivered another year of very strong results despite the highly volatile macroeconomic environment," said Chief Executive Irene Rosenfeld. "Our aggressive cost-savings programs drove significant margin expansion." The stock, which inched up 0.1% in premarket trade, has lost 9.6% over the past three months, while the S&P 500 has declined 9.8%.