Power management company Eaton Corporation plc (NYSE:ETN) today announced that earnings per share were $1.07 for the first quarter of 2020. Excluding charges of $0.02 per share related to acquisitions and divestitures, adjusted earnings per share were $1.09. Adjusted earnings per share were reduced by $0.14 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sales in the first quarter of 2020 were $4.8 billion, down 10 percent from the first quarter of 2019. Organic sales were down 7 percent, including a reduction of 4 percent from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Acquisitions added 2 percent to sales, which was offset by 3½ percent from divestitures. Negative currency translation reduced sales by 1½ percent.
Craig Arnold, Eaton chairman and chief executive officer, said, “At our annual investor day on March 2, we indicated that our first quarter would be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. At that time, the pandemic was largely limited to China with little direct impact on other parts of the world. As we all know, things have changed dramatically since that time and the pandemic is now affecting all countries. At the start of the year, we expected organic sales in the first quarter to be down 3 percent. The COVID-19 pandemic reduced our sales by an additional 4 percent, resulting in a 7 percent reduction in organic sales for the quarter.”
“Despite the lower revenues, we are pleased with our first quarter segment margins, which were 15.8 percent. The margin was impacted by a restructuring charge we took at quarter end to deal with some of the anticipated impact of COVID-19,” said Arnold. “As we go forward, we will continue to focus on ensuring the safety of our workforce, implementing cost controls to offset the volume declines, and maximizing our free cash flow. Among the cost actions we have already taken are significant reductions in salaries and incentive compensation, elimination of merit increases for the year, sharp reductions in all categories of discretionary expenses, and elimination of all nonessential capital spending.”
“Operating cash flow in the first quarter was $325 million,” said Arnold. “We returned substantial cash to our shareholders in the quarter, raising our quarterly dividend by 3 percent in February and repurchasing $1.3 billion of our shares. As most of you know, we have paid dividends every year since 1923. We ended the first quarter with only $330 million of commercial paper outstanding, and our undrawn bank facility has $2 billion of capacity. With only a small term debt maturity in 2020, late in the fourth quarter, our liquidity remains quite strong.”
“We continued our work during the quarter on the previously-announced portfolio changes,” said Arnold. “We closed the sale of the Lighting business on March 2. And we expect the Hydraulics sale to close by the end of the year, which will be another source of substantial liquidity.”
“While most of our plants are still operating and our businesses are deemed essential by almost all governments around the world, the reduction in global growth and economic uncertainty will have a significant impact on our outlook for Q2 and the rest of the year,” said Arnold. “As a result, we are withdrawing our full year 2020 adjusted earnings per share guidance. We do, however, have much more visibility into our cash flow for th
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SOURCE: Eaton
