B&G Foods Slips To Loss In Q2

(RTTNews) - Packaged food products company B&G Foods Inc. (BGS) on Thursday reported a loss for the second quarter as higher sales were more than offset by charges related to debt refinancing and acquisition-related transaction costs. Excluding items, adjusted earnings per share missed analysts' estimates. The company's shares declined almost 4 percent in extended trades.

David Wenner, President and Chief Executive Officer of B&G Foods, said, "The quarter left our net sales volumes for our base business slightly positive for the first half of the year. We continue to grow the brands most important to us; Tier I brands were up for both the quarter and the first half. Declines in other areas centered primarily on weak second quarter foodservice sales and continued weakness in certain Northeast retail customers."

B&G Foods' second-quarter net loss was $1.43 million or $0.03 per share, compared to net income of $16.03 million or $0.33 per share in the year-ago period. The latest quarter's results include $18.7 million of after tax charges relating to debt refinancing and acquisition-related transaction costs.

Adjusted net income was $17.31 million or $0.33 per share, while there were no adjustments to net income for the prior-year quarter. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report earnings of $0.35 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Net sales for the quarter grew 8 percent to $160.88 million from $148.61 million in the year-ago period.

Net sales of the New York Style and Old London brands that were acquired by B&G Foods at the end of October 2012 contributed $10.9 million to the overall increase in sales. Net sales of the TrueNorth brand, acquired by the company in May 2013, contributed $3.2 million to the overall increase.

Net sales for B&G Foods' base business decreased $1.8 million, or 1.2 percent, attributable to net price decrease of $0.6 million and a unit volume decrease of $1.2 million.

Gross margin declined 0.2 percentage points to 34.6 percent from 34.8 percent in the year-ago period. The decrease was primarily attributable to the effect of the New York Style and Old London acquisition as well as the TrueNorth acquisition, and a net price decrease of $0.6 million. These were partially offset by a sales mix shift to higher margin products.

Looking ahead to fiscal 2013, B&G Foods increased its adjusted EBITDA guidance to a range of approximately $187 million to $191 million, primarily to take into account the expected impact of the Pirate Brands acquisition.

BGS closed Thursday's trading at $35.45, down $0.50 or 1.39 percent on a volume of 511,630 shares. In after-hours, the stock further declined $1.39 or 3.92 percent to $34.06.