Earnings Roundup: Coca-Cola beats Street predictions

The Coca-Cola Co., the world’s largest beverage maker, reported Wednesday a 13 percent increase in third-quarter profit on a double-digit increase in sales.

The results beat Wall Street expectations.

For the three months ending Sept. 28, Atlanta-based Coca-Cola said it earned $1.65 billion, or 71 cents a share, compared with a profit of $1.46 billion, or 62 cents a share, for the same period a year ago.

Revenue in the quarter rose 19 percent to $7.69 billion, compared with $6.45 billion a year ago.

Coca-Cola shares rose $1.33, or 2.3 percent, to close at $59.09 Wednesday.

Washington Mutual Inc.‘s third-quarter profit shrank 72 percent as sagging home prices made it harder for borrowers to pay their bills and hurt the value of the bank’s portfolio of mortgage loans.

The third-biggest home lender on Wednesday reported quarterly profit of $210 million, or 23 cents per share, compared with profit of $748 million, or 77 cents per share, a year earlier.

The bank recently warned that the weak housing market could drag down its profits by about 75 percent.

Washington Mutual shares dropped 13 cents, or about 0.4 percent, to $33.07 before the earnings were reported on Wednesday. The stock lost another 7 cents in after-hours trading.

Gannett Co., the largest newspaper publisher in the country and owner of USA Today, said Wednesday that third-quarter earnings fell 10.5 percent, fueled in part by slumping real-estate ads and a tough comparison with year-ago results boosted by heavy political advertising.

Net income dropped to $234 million, or $1.01 per share, in the three months ended Sept. 30 from $261.4 million, or $1.11 per share, in the year-ago period. The latest quarter included a charge of $14.5 million for restructuring costs, mostly from severance costs including a consolidation of its circulation call centers.

Revenue fell 4 percent to $1.81 billion from $1.88 billion last year. Wall Street expected revenue of $1.82 billion.

Newspaper advertising revenue fell 6 percent to $1.19 billion.

The parent company of American Airlines, the nation’s largest carrier, said Wednesday that its third-quarter profit surged from a year ago as planes were more full and passengers paid higher average fares.

AMR Corp. said it earned $175 million, or 61 cents per share in the quarter ended Sept. 30, its sixth straight profitable quarter after losing more than $8 billion from 2001 through 2005. The company took a charge of $40 million, or 13 cents per share, for unused employee vacation expense dating to 2003.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial had expected 73 cents per share. Those forecasts usually exclude one-time costs such as the vacation accrual. Analysts had slashed their forecasts last month, after AMR gave a more cautious outlook for third-quarter revenue.

Allstate Corp., the second-largest U.S. property and casualty insurer, said Wednesday its third-quarter earnings fell 16 percent as losses from big storms more than doubled from a year ago.

The results fell short of Wall Street’s expectations.

Net income for the July-September period fell to $978 million, or $1.70 per share, from $1.16 billion, or $1.83 per share, for the third quarter last year.

Excluding certain items, Allstate said its operating income fell 25 percent to $1.54 per share, 13 cents below the consensus estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial.

Revenue rose 2.9 percent to a better-than-expected $8.99 billion, from $8.74 billion last year.

Losses from catastrophes, or events generating more than $1 million in claims, jumped to $343 million from $169 million as hail and wind storms caused considerable damage despite a calm hurricane season. They were still light compared with the whopping $3.06 billion in catastrophe losses in the third quarter of 2005, when hurricanes Katrina and Rita wreaked havoc.

Spokane-based Northwest Bancorporation Inc. reported third-quarter earnings of $748,000, a drop of 2.7 percent compared with $769,000 for the third quarter of 2006.

The company is the parent of Inland Northwest Bank, which has 10 branches in Eastern Washington and North Idaho.

Earnings per share for the third quarter of 2007 came to 31 cents, compared with 32 cents in the third quarter of 2006.

Year-to-date earnings per share for 2007 totaled 80 cents, compared with 85 cents in the first nine months of 2006.

Randall L. Fewel, bank president and CEO, said third-quarter results and performance year-to-date reflected higher operating expenses to prepare for future growth.

“Employee expense increased significantly, due to the addition of four new commercial lenders and two support (postions),” Fewel said in a release.