Caterpillar Reevaluates Yearly Outlook Thanks to First-Quarter Gains

Things might be looking up! Equipment manufacturing giant Caterpillar, based in Peoria, Ill., reported a first-quarter profit of $0.36 per share compared to a loss of $0.19 per share in the first quarter of 2009, reports Rental Pulse. Excluding a tax charge of $90 million related to the recently signed U.S. health care legislation, profit in the first quarter of 2010 was $0.50 per share. The loss of $0.19 per share in the first quarter of 2009 included $558 million of employee redundancy costs. Excluding redundancy costs, profit in the first quarter of 2009 was $0.39 per share. First-quarter sales and revenues of $8.238 billion were down from $9.225 billion in the first quarter of last year.

“Economic conditions are definitely improving, particularly in the world’s developing economies. Industry activity and orders are significantly higher than last year and are at record levels in some areas. As a result, we are hard at work ramping up production to meet increasing demand from customers,” said Jim Owens, Caterpillar’s chairman and CEO. “Despite the recession in 2009, we continued to invest in our facilities throughout the world and those investments will position us for success as global growth continues. We are also seeing strong order activity related to mining and energy, and that should be very positive for our U.S. exports as the year unfolds,” Owens said.

Caterpillar is increasing its outlook for 2010 by raising the sales and revenues range and profit expectations. For sales and revenues, the revised range is $38 to $42 billion. The revised 2010 profit outlook is a range of $2.50 to $3.25 per share.

Be sure to head over to Rental Pulse to read the full article.