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Caterpillar 1Q surprises
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April 16, 1999: 9:59 a.m. ET
Earnings fall 52% on record sales for quarter but still beat estimates
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Caterpillar Inc. said Friday its first-quarter profit slid 52 percent because of lower prices on its heavy machinery, but the results were far better than the company earlier predicted.
Caterpillar (CAT) earned $205 million, or 57 cents per diluted share, for the quarter ended March 31, handily beating analysts' expectations of 42 cents a share. A year ago, the heavy equipment maker earned $430 million, or $1.15 per share.
Caterpillar, the world's biggest maker of heavy machinery and a Dow 30 component, warned last month that it wouldn't meet quarterly earnings forecasts due to sluggish sales of heavy-machinery and reverberations from the economic turmoil in Latin America.
Sales and revenue rose 2 percent to a first-quarter record of $4.87 billion, the company said. At the end of the quarter, worldwide dealer inventories of new machines were about the same as last year.
First-quarter machinery and engine sales rose slightly to $4.6 billion from $4.57 billion a year ago.
"While first-quarter profit was disappointing compared with a year ago, our outlook for the full year remains unchanged," Chairman and CEO Glen Barton said. "We expect to benefit from a number of cost-reduction efforts, improved price realization, higher sales in Asia and continued strong demand in the United States."
For all 1999, the company said it still sees yearly per-share earnings coming in at only 10 percent to 15 percent below last year. Sales and revenue should be slightly lower for the year, company officials said.
Caterpillar shares were off 5/8 to 61-3/16 on the New York Stock Exchange early Friday. 
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Caterpillar
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