Garbage hauler’s earnings drop

Waste Management Inc., the nation’s largest garbage hauler, said Friday costs associated with a labor dispute and rising crude oil prices were mainly to blame for a 7 percent drop in its third-quarter earnings, which fell below Wall Street’s expectations.

The company also cut its full-year earnings forecast. Its shares fell almost 8 percent Friday.

Company officials said falling volume at Waste Management’s collection and landfill businesses is not the reason earnings fell short. In addition to the labor dispute and rising fuel prices, Waste Management earnings for the third quarter were also affected by costs associated with various legal settlements, health care and risk management, he said.

The company earned $278 million, or 54 cents per share, for the three months ended Sept. 30 versus $300 million, or 55 cents per share, in the year-ago quarter. Results included a charge of $16 million, or 3 cents per share, related to a labor dispute in Oakland, Calif.

Revenue fell 1 percent to $3.40 billion from $3.44 billion in the prior-year period.

Baidu.com Inc., China’s leading search engine, said Friday third-quarter profits more than doubled on strong traffic growth, but its U.S. shares fell in a possible sign investors wanted even more impressive results.

Profits were 181.7 million yuan ($24.2 million), up from 85.3 million yuan in the same period a year ago. Earnings per share were 5.23 yuan (70 U.S. cents), up from 2.46 yuan a year earlier. Revenue jumped to 496.5 million yuan ($66.3 million) from 237.6 million yuan.

Analysts, on average, were expecting profit of 63 cents (44 euro cents) per American Depositary Share on revenue of $65.5 million (45.7 million euros).

Automaker Volkswagen AG said Friday that its third-quarter profit soared higher on improved sales in Asia, Europe and South America, along with lower costs for building cars.

The Wolfsburg, Germany-based company, Europe’s biggest car maker, earned 947 million euros ($1.35 million) in the July-September period compared with a profit of just 23 million euros a year earlier, beating the 865 million euros ($1.23 million) that analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires had predicted.

Last year’s earnings report included heavy costs from job cuts and streamlining production.

Kia Motors Corp., South Korea’s second-largest automaker, said Friday that its third-quarter net loss widened from the year before on production losses because of labor unrest and a decline in sales.

Kia Motors lost 55.1 billion won ($60.2 million) in the three months ended Sept. 30, the company said in a statement. Kia posted a net loss of 43.9 billion won a year earlier.

Sales during the quarter fell 6.7 percent to 3.27 trillion won ($3.57 billion) from 3.5 trillion won a year earlier.

The company’s loss at the operating level – sales minus the cost of goods sold – also widened to 116.5 billion won ($126.3 million) from 88.6 billion won the year before.

Nissan reported Friday a 27 percent decline in profit for the July-September quarter on one-time expenses and higher taxes that eroded overall sales growth and improved earnings in core auto operations.

Profit at Nissan Motor Co. for the fiscal second quarter totaled 120.1 billion yen ($1.05 billion), down from 164 billion yen the previous year.

Sales at Japan’s No. 3 automaker surged 13 percent on year to 2.618 trillion yen ($22.9 billion), as sales grew in the U.S., Europe, Russia and China. Nissan sold 941,000 vehicles worldwide, up 6.6 percent compared with a year ago.