Sonoco Products (SON) managed to just surpass earnings estimates and provided guidance for the company going forward as shares fell nearly 2%.
Income Trends
Net sales rose from the prior year’s quarter but cost kept pace as gross profit stayed flat compared to the year ago quarter. Net income still managed to rise from $83.3 million to $111.6 million driven largely by a reduction in restruction/asset impairment charges and non-operating pension costs.
CEO Howard Coker commented on the firm’s performance overcoming supply chain disruptions and negative price/cost relationship, saying, "Net sales reached a record level, growing almost 8 percent over the prior-year quarter, as volume/mix improved almost 4 percent as solid customer demand in each of our business segments overcame supply chain challenges. Overall, earnings benefited from volume/mix growth and productivity improvements, which more than offset a negative price/cost relationship and the impact from the divestiture of our former display and packaging business. In addition, our base earnings benefited from certain tax items that were slightly above our expectations.”
Higher Prices
Coker later went on to describe the impact of higher prices and in particular higher resin prices, “Operating profit in our Consumer Packaging segment declined 5.4 percent in the quarter as strong productivity improvements were more than offset by a negative price/cost relationship stemming from rising resin, film, metals, packaging, freight, and labor costs… Finally, our All Other group of businesses, which consists of industrial plastics, protective, healthcare and retail security packaging units, experienced a 67.5 percent decline in operating profit due mostly to the divestiture of the display and packaging business but also a negative price/cost relationship stemming primarily from higher resin prices.”
