Southwest Airlines Co. The low-fare pioneer said Thursday it earned $321 million, or 44 cents per share, in the quarter ended June 30. That's up 15 percent from a year ago, when the airline earned $278 million, or 36 cents per share. Excluding special items, Southwest said it would have earned $121 million, or 16 cents per share. Analysts, who also skip the items, had forecast 12 cents per share, according to a survey by Thomson First Call. Revenue rose 11 percent, to $2.87 billion. Dallas-based Southwest has not had a losing quarter since early 1991, plugging ahead through two major industry downturns in the past seven years mostly by fuel hedging.
Xerox Corp. The office equipment and supplies maker's second-quarter profit skidded 19 percent but matched Wall Street's forecast. The Norwalk, Conn.-based company said Thursday that net income in the second quarter was $215 million, or 24 cents per share, down from $266 million, or 28 cents per share, in the year-ago period. Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call were expecting 24 cents. Xerox's restructuring charges were mostly to account for job cuts in the second quarter. Xerox shed roughly 1,000 employees, most of them in North America, as part of its efforts to reduce expenses. Sales were $4.53 billion, an 8 percent improvement over last year and exactly in line with analysts' average estimate.
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. The drugmaker Thursday reported an 8 percent increase in second-quarter profit, beating Wall Street expectations, as the weak dollar boosted foreign sales and several key drugs had big U.S. sales increases. The New York-based maker of blood thinner Plavix and infant formula Enfamil said it plans to make an additional $1 billion in cost cuts by 2012 -- on top of the $1.5 billion productivity program announced last December. The earlier restructuring is intended to cut about 10 percent of company jobs; details on the newest one are to be announced by year's end. Meanwhile, Bristol-Myers reported net income of $764 million, or 38 cents per share, up from $706 million, or 36 cents per share, in the second quarter of 2007. Revenue totaled $5.2 billion, up 16 percent from $4.47 billion in the year-ago period. Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call, on average, expected earnings per share of 40 cents and revenue of $5.09 billion.
McClatchy Co. The publisher of the Miami Herald and other newspapers reported a 44 percent drop in second-quarter profit on costs to cut jobs and on a slide in advertising sales. The company said it is in compliance with its credit agreements. Net income fell to $19.7 million, or 24 cents a share, from $35.2 million, or 43 cents, a year earlier, it reported Thursday. Sacramento, Calif.-based McClatchy, with $2.1 billion in debt, is eliminating about 10 percent of its workers to combat a deepening advertising slump at its 30 daily newspapers.
Dow Chemical Co. The world's second-largest chemical company said Thursday that despite record sales and two double-digit price increases in the second quarter, its profit for the period fell 27 percent, largely because of sharply higher costs for energy and raw materials. Midland, Mich.-based Dow said its net income for the three-month period ended June 30 was $762 million, or 81 cents per share, compared with $1.04 billion, or $1.07 per share, in the same period last year. Revenue rose 23 percent to a company record of $16.38 billion. Analysts expected Dow to report earnings of 85 cents per share on sales of $14.9 billion, according to a survey by Thomson First Call.
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