The new ParentDish: helping raise kids of all ages

AOL Money & Finance

ConAgra (CAG) quarterly profit surges 60% on strong sales

Shares of food maker ConAgra Foods Inc. (NYSE: CAG) have been soaring in early trading more than 9% after reporting this morning a surge of 60% in its third quarter profit.

The company said its quarterly profit climbed to $309 million, or 63 cents per share due to higher prices and demand for its products. These numbers are up from $193 million, or 38 cents per share reported in the same period a year ago when the company's earnings numbers were dragged down by recall costs. Analysts, on average, expected quarterly earnings of 39 cents per share.

ConAgra's quarterly revenue grew to $3.53 billion, up from $2.9 billion a year ago. Revenue during the period was helped by strong gains from the company's food and ingredients segment which offset soaring commodity costs. Analysts expected the company show sales of $3.17 billion in the third quarter, according to Thomson Financial.

ConAgra also announced it would sell the trading and merchandising business to the Ospraie Special Opportunities fund for $2.1 billion. This move is designed to help the company to focus on its core consumer foods business and to repurchase ConAgra shares.

Looking ahead, the company showed confidence over its further earnings and lifted its fiscal 2008 earnings outlook. ConAgra now expects 2008 earnings between $1.80 and $1.85 per share, compared with its prior forecast for a profit of $1.55 per share. Analysts predicted 2088 earnings of $1.60 per share.

Eliza Popescu is a financial writer for the online investment advisory service Investor's Observer.

Related Posts

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br> tags.

New Users

Current Users

Symbol Lookup
IndexesChangePrice
DJIA-120.9012,745.88
NASDAQ-5.722,445.52
S&P 500-9.401,388.28

Last updated: May 09, 2008: 04:28 PM

BloggingStocks Exclusives

Hot Stocks

BloggingStocks Featured Video

TheFlyOnTheWall.com Headlines

WalletPop Headlines

AOL Business News

Latest from BloggingBuyouts

Sponsored Links

My Portfolios

Track your stocks here!

Find out why more people track their portfolios on AOL Money & Finance then anywhere else.

Weblogs, Inc. Network