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3M 1Q earnings fall
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April 30, 1999: 8:54 a.m. ET
Company cites continued weakness in overseas markets, especially Brazil
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co., the diverse maker of office products, electronics, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, Friday blamed a drop in first quarter earnings on overseas economic weakness, particularly in Brazil.
The company said first-quarter earnings fell to $384 million, or 95 cents a share, from $400 million, or 98 cents a share, a year earlier..
Still, the results for the company, familiarly known as 3M, beat the 91 cents a share forecast by analysts, according to earnings tracker First Call Corp.
Worldwide sales of St. Paul, Minn.-based 3M (MMM) totaled $3.776 billion, up 2 percent from a year ago.
"Results benefited from an improvement in sales in the Asia Pacific area, healthy productivity gains and solid growth in several of our U.S. businesses," CEO L. D. DeSimone said. "Our overall international growth was tempered by the economic contraction in Brazil and comparison against our strongest quarter in Europe last year."
The maker of Scotch Tape and Post-it Notes has seen this before. Global economic turmoil and wild currency swings hurt the manufacturer in the previous two quarters.
Still, investors' recent move away from technology shares and into old-line manufacturers may be helping the company. 3M shares are up 20.39 percent in the last three months.
3M shares continued the trend Thursday, rising 1-1/8 to 85-5/8. 
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3M
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