Caterpillar Inc sees 4Q profit jump

Source: Construction Digital

Date :1/25/2008 9:33:06 AM

Caterpillar Inc., the construction equipment giant, said today that its fourth-quarter earnings rose eleven percent on strong international growth.

The company earned $975 million, or $1.50 per share, compared with $882 million, or $1.32 per share in the year-ago quarter.

Revenue rose ten percent to $12.14 billion from $11 billion in the prior-year period.

Analysts were expecting a profit of $1.50 per share on revenue of $11.79 billion, according to a poll by Thomson Financial.

The company said it still expects to grow profit by five percent to 15 percent in 2008, and sees revenue rising five percent to ten percent year-over-year. The prediction implies 2008 profit of $5.64 to $6.18 per share on revenue of $44.06 billion to $46.16 billion.

’Anemic’

"While we expect anemic growth in the U.S. economy, we continue to see positive conditions for our sales in most of the rest of the world,” said the company.

"In 2008, we'll be stepping up Research and Development (R&D) for new products and capital investment to increase capacity around the world. We expect the world's robust investment in infrastructure to continue well into the next decade, and we'll need more capacity to serve our customers. Our internal focus will be on continuing our global deployment of the Caterpillar Production System (CPS) with 6 Sigma. While we'll face challenges in 2008, I'm confident Team Caterpillar will continue to drive us toward our 2010 goals."

January 25, 2008