Avon, Colgate Stick with 3Q Estimates

Avon Products Inc. and Colgate-Palmolive today, both said they were confident with third quarter and full-year sales and earnings projections. Avon reiterated its earnings guidance for the third quarter and full year, citing continued growth in sales and profit in the U.S and strong local currency results in its international operations. The seller of cosmetics and skin care products also said it expects to take a pretax charge between $40 million and $60 million, or 10 cents to 20 cents a share after taxes. The charge is related to Avon’s business transformation initiatives unveiled in 2001, which includes a series of actions to improve efficiency and global integration.

No additional charges are expected for the company to achieve its targeted 2.5 percentage point increase in operating margin by the end of 2004, the company said. For the latest quarter, Avon said it remains comfortable with Wall Street’s earnings estimate of 47 cents a share for the third quarter, excluding items.

Sales in the U.S., Avon’s largest market, are expected to rise 5%, led by mid- single-digit unit growth and an estimated 2% increase in the number of active Avon representatives. In Europe, sales are expected to be up more than 20%, whiles sales in Latin America are expected to be down in the mid-teens range. Asian sales are expected to be up in the high single digits.

Avon said it anticipates local currency sales growth in the double digits for the quarter. Dollar-denominated sales are slated to rise about 2% in the quarter, after the effects of foreign currency translation. Meanwhile, the company said it also remains on track to achieve its full-year target of $2.30 a share for the year.

The company’s cash flow from operations continues to be strong, reflecting ongoing inventory improvements. Avon said it still expects to generate its targeted $500 million to $550 million in cash flow for the year, even after its plan to make a larger-than-anticipated cash contribution of about $75 million to its employee-pension plan in the third quarter. An additional contribution to the pension plan is possible in the fourth quarter, the company said.

Meanwhile, Colgate still supports analysts’ estimates for the third quarter and full year, the company said in a statement Tuesday.

A Thomson First Call survey of 12 analysts yielded mean earnings estimates of 57 cents a share for the third quarter and $2.18 for the year. Last year, the consumer products maker earned 49 cents a share for the third quarter and $1.91 for all of 2001.

Three analysts yielded an average estimate of $2.38 billion in revenue for the third quarter, while seven analysts project a mean of $9.54 billion in revenue for the year. Colgate-Palmolive’s revenue in 2001 was $2.4 billion in the third quarter and $9.4 billion in the full year.