Tyson Foods Inc. of Springdale on Monday reported third-quarter net income of $484 million, up 41 percent from the same quarter last year, and raised estimates for the fiscal year amid strong performance across its divisions.
The publicly traded meat processor (NYSE: TSN) reported diluted earnings per share of $1.25 — a record for the company and an increase from 83 cents in the same quarter last year.
“We continue to build momentum,” Tyson CEO Donnie Smith said. “Q3 was an outstanding quarter in what will be an outstanding year.”
Quarterly revenue was $9.4 billion, down about 7 percent from $10.1 billion in the same quarter last year.
Tyson reported $150 million in synergies in the third quarter, of which $116 million mostly realized in the prepared foods divisions. Tyson acquired the branded prepared foods of Hillshire Brands two years ago.
“We again demonstrated our ability to deliver higher, more stable earnings through our differentiated business model that emphasizes growth in prepared foods and value-added chicken,” Smith said in a news release. “We produced record third-quarter earnings per share, operating income and return on sales. All operating segment results were in or above their normalized operating margin ranges, with the Chicken segment delivering a record 13.9 percent return on sales.”
The company raised its full-year earnings per share guidance to $4.47 to $4.57, with sales of about $37 billion. For fiscal 2017, the company expects sales to rise 1 percent as volume increases.
“We expect our high-level performance to continue and are raising full year fiscal 2016 earnings guidance,” Smith said. “Following record earnings this year, we intend to build on our momentum to generate more growth in fiscal 2017.”
Smith said the company will launch Tyson Naturals, a new value-added chicken line later this month. He said the company is scheduled to open an e-commerce division in the fall; on Aug. 1 Tyson named Tim Madigan as its vice president of e-commerce.
“Obviously, we have a lot to be excited about as we finish fiscal ’16 and move into fiscal ’17, which we expect to be another record year and another year of growth,” Smith said.
Tyson reported it repurchased 6.6 million shares for $425 million in the third quarter for a total of 31 million in the past 12 months.
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