Boise Cascade profits hit $50 million

The sale of its interest in a Canadian mill pushed Boise Cascade Corp.’s second quarter profits to $50.4 million, but lower margins in the office products division checked earnings from continuing operations.

The Boise-based corporation Tuesday reported per-share earnings of 52 cents on revenues of $3.4 billion, boosted by higher sales of office products after last December’s acquisition of OfficeMax Inc. That contrasted with a loss of $3.9 million, or 12 cents a share, on sales of $1.9 billion for the same April-June quarter in 2003.

Not counting the gain from May’s sale of the Voyageur Panel plant to Ainsworth Lumber Co. Ltd. in Vancouver, Boise Cascade posted a profit of $22 million, or 21 cents a share, on continuing operations.

That was short of the 30 cents per share expected by Wall Street analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call.

• Ford Motor Co.‘s finance arm drove second-quarter earnings, which nearly tripled from a year ago, but its automotive business struggled despite much-improved results in Europe.

The nation’s second-largest automaker said Tuesday it earned $1.2 billion, or 57 cents a share, in the April-June period versus a profit of $417 million, or 22 cents a share, a year earlier.

Excluding special items, Ford earned $1.3 billion, or 61 cents a share, which surpassed Wall Street’s consensus estimate by 11 cents a share.

Revenue rose to $42.8 billion from $40.6 billion a year ago. Automotive sales rose to $36.7 billion from $34.1 billion last year.

• High fuel costs continued to hamper the financial performance of Continental Airlines Inc., which reported a $17 million second-quarter loss on Tuesday.

The Houston-based airline also blamed competition from low-cost carriers in the quarterly loss of 26 cents a share, including a special $19 million after-tax charge for retiring of leased MD-80 aircraft.

The quarterly results, excluding that charge, showed a profit of $2 million, or 3 cents per share, comparing favorably with a 9 cent per-share loss estimated by Thomson First Call.

Continental chairman and chief executive Gordon Bethune, who testified earlier this month on Capitol Hill that the industry’s financial condition is “perilous,” said in a prepared statement that the latest results were disappointing in a year when the company had hoped to break even.

The company earned $79 million, or $1.20 per share, for the same period a year ago.

“Our efforts to return to profitability were overwhelmed by the continuing soft domestic yields, a record high cost of fuel, and a $265 million burden of taxes and fees paid to the government over the last three months,” said Bethune.

Revenue rose 13 percent to $2.51 billion from $2.22 billion in the same period of 2003.

• U.S. Bancorp reported second-quarter net income that was up from a year earlier and was slightly above expectations.

In the quarter ended June 30, the Minneapolis-based bank earned $1.04 billion, or 54 cents a share, on assets of $190 billion. In the same period last year, it earned $919.9 million, or 48 cents a share on assets of $194.9 billion.

The company said fee-based products and services grew strongly.

The provision for credit losses declined to $204.5 million from $323 million a year earlier.

• Wells Fargo & Co.’s second-quarter earnings rose more than 12 percent due to broad-based growth in revenue and improving credit quality.

The nation’s fifth-largest bank by assets Tuesday reported second-quarter net income of $1.71 billion, or $1 a share, up from $1.53 billion, or 90 cents a share, in the same quarter a year earlier.

The latest quarter included charges of 14 cents a share to reposition the bank’s balance sheet due to rising interest rates. The charges reflect a debt buyback and the sale of $14 billion in securities and adjustable rate mortgages.

Revenue increased 7 percent to $7.4 billion, despite a $222 million reduction for losses taken on the asset-repositioning actions. The First Call average estimate was $7.33 billion.