TreeHouse Foods (THS, $59.95) beat Q4 earnings, but misses net sales expectations

TreeHouse Foods, Inc. managed to edge past earnings expectations for the fourth quarter 2018, but failed to show the same strength in its top-line numbers.

The food processing company’s adjusted earnings for the quarter came in at $1.03 per share, beating Zacks Consensus Estimate of 96 cents per share. The earnings-per-share was also higher than the year-ago quarter’s figure. It was 5% more compared to the mid-point of the previous guidance of 88 cents and $1.08. The firm's cost saving plans like Structure to Win apparently was a tailwind to the profitability.

Net sales of $ 1,481.1 million, however,  fell short of the consensus estimate of $1,493 million. It was also lower from the year-ago period by -12.9%. Divestiture of McCann's business and foreign currency headwinds were among factors that apparently hurt revenues.

Nevertheless, the company’s gross margin was 17.6%, which is 240 basis points higher from the year-ago quarter’s figure. 

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Sergey Savastiouk|Expert

Sergey Savastiouk, Ph.D. has a degree in Applied Mathematics from Moscow University and has extensive experience as an entrepreneur, investor, manager, and mathematician. His professional expertise is in applied mathematics, mathematical modeling, system and pattern analysis, and software and hardware system integration. He has served as the CEO of several hi-tech start-up companies and nonprofit organizations, which has given him proven capabilities in business strategy for high-tech start-up companies, market assessment, company formation, team building, product development, marketing, and sales. He has published numerous articles in journals and magazines on related fields. As a retail investor, he spent 15 years developing his proprietary trading and quantitative algorithms (now Tickeron’s A.I.), which brought him significant returns in trading the stock market. His current work and goal in founding Tickeron is to bring professional, sophisticated stock market analysis capabilities to retail investors via an easy-to-use interface.