CHICAGO, Nov. 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Grainger (NYSE: GWW), the leading broad line supplier of facilities maintenance products serving businesses and institutions, held its annual analyst meeting in Lake Forest, Illinois, today. Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, James T. Ryan, hosted the event. The meeting also included presentations from several other Grainger leaders.
As part of the meeting, Grainger provided the following outlook for sales and earnings in 2009 and 2010:
- For the 2009 fourth quarter, the company is forecasting sales to be in a range of down 2% to up 1%, with earnings per share for the quarter of $1.13 to $1.23.
- For full year 2009, the company is expecting sales to be down 9% to 10%, with earnings per share of $5.10 to $5.20, excluding the 37 cent per share gain attributable to becoming the majority shareholder of MonotaRO Co., Ltd (Japan) in September.
- For the full year 2010, the company is forecasting revenues to range from up 4% to up 9% with earnings per share of $5.30 to $5.80. The 2010 forecast includes an expected 3% sales contribution and 5 cents per share of earnings growth from acquisitions made in 2009. Most notably, Grainger expects Japan to add 2% to sales growth while only contributing 1 cent per share to earnings growth in 2010 due to the change in accounting treatment triggered by increasing ownership from 38% to 53%. As the majority owner, Grainger will now report 100% of the sales and 53% of the earnings of Japan, as opposed to reporting 0% of the sales and 38% of the earnings as a minority owner.
- To explain the earnings power of the underlying businesses, the company also broke out expectations for core performance as well as expected sales and earnings contributions from acquisitions completed in 2009.
A detailed description of the assumptions included in the company's guidance can be found in the archived web cast from the meeting, available on Grainger's Investor Relations Web site at www.grainger.com/investor.
W.W. Grainger, Inc. with 2008 sales of $6.9 billion is the leading broad line supplier of facilities maintenance products serving businesses and institutions in the United States, Canada, Japan, Mexico, India, China and Panama. Through a highly integrated network including more than 600 branches, 18 distribution centers and multiple Web sites, Grainger's employees help customers get the job done.
This document contains forward-looking statements under the federal securities laws. The forward-looking statements relate to the company's expected future financial results and business plans, strategies, and objectives and are not historical facts. They are generally identified by qualifiers such as "assumptions", "EPS guidance", "expectations", "expected", "expecting", "forecasting", "guidance", "outlook", "range of ", or similar expressions. There are risks and uncertainties the outcome of which could cause the company's results to differ materially from what is projected. The forward-looking statements should be read in conjunction with the company's most recent annual report, as well as the company's Form 10-K and other reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, containing a discussion of the company's business and of various factors that may affect it.
SOURCE W.W. Grainger, Inc.
