Ahead Of Deere's Q4 Results

(RTTNews) - Agricultural machinery maker Deere & Co. (DE) is slated to release its fourth-quarter results before the bell on Wednesday, November 25, with analysts polled by Thomson Reuters are estimating earnings of $0.75 per share on revenue of $6.13 billion.

While supplies are now fully adequate, global grain and oilseed demand remains strong. Meanwhile, unfavorable growing conditions in any key region of the world as well as unknown impacts from any geopolitical tensions could disrupt trade, lower production, reduce stocks-to-use ratio, and result in prices quickly moving higher.

During the third-quarter earnings call, the company said as all of its businesses remained solidly profitable, it continues to be well positioned to meet the needs of customers while funding its growth plans and returning cash to stockholders.

For the fourth quarter, the company expects net sales to be down about 24% compared with 2014. This includes about one point of price realization with unfavorable currency translation of about five points.

Net sales for the fiscal year 2016 is expected to be down about 21%. The company's forecast now calls for net income attributable to Deere & Co. to be about $1.8 billion for the full year.

Longer term, the company believes that its steady investment in new products and geographies will make Deere the provider of choice for a growing global customer base.

Q3 Results

Deere reported lower profit for the third quarter, sales dropped 20% hurt by lower demand for construction equipment.

Net income attributable to the company fell to $511.6 million or $1.53 per share from $850.7 million or $2.33 per share for the same period last year. On average, 20 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $1.44 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Worldwide net sales and revenues decreased 20% to $7.594 billion from $9.50 billion in the previous year. Net sales of the worldwide equipment operations declined 22% from last year to $6.84 billion from $8.72 billion. Analysts expected revenues of $7.17 billion.

Samuel Allen, chairman and CEO, said, "John Deere's third-quarter results reflected the continuing impact of the downturn in the farm economy as well as lower demand for construction equipment. Nevertheless, all of Deere's businesses remained solidly profitable, benefiting from the sound execution of our business plans and the success of our efforts to develop a more agile cost structure."

Most Recently

Earlier this month, Deere and The Climate Corp., a subsidiary of Monsanto Co. (MON), have signed definitive agreements for Deere to acquire the Precision Planting LLC equipment business and to enable exclusive near real-time data connectivity between certain John Deere farm equipment and the Climate FieldView platform.

Deere also signed a definitive agreement to acquire Monosem, the European market leader in precision planters. The purchase includes the company's four facilities in France and two in the United States.

October 8, Deere and DN2K have agreed to form SageInsights - a joint venture to initially serve the agriculture industry with further development of DN2K's existing cloud software platform, MyAgCentral, for agricultural retailers and others who provide consulting services to growers.

Deere also reached a tentative agreement with the UAW to replace the six-year master labor contract that expired September 30th at midnight.