Before the opening bell on Thursday, Colgate-Palmolive (CL ) reported its fourth quarter financial results, posting higher profits than last year.

CL’s Earnings in Brief

• CL reported earnings of $628 million, or 68 cents per share, up from $564 million, or 60 cents per share, in the same quarter last year.
• Excluding special items, earnings were $699 million, or 76 cents per share – above analysts’ view of 74 cents per share.
• Revenue dropped to $4.22 billion from $4.36 billion last year. Analysts expected to see sales of $4.23 billion.

CEO Commentary

CL’s CEO Ian Cook noted: "As we enter 2015, macroeconomic conditions and foreign exchange volatility remain challenging. Despite that, we anticipate another year of solid organic sales growth driven by a full new product pipeline across all categories and geographies. While our long term goal of double-digit annual earnings per share growth remains unchanged, we continue to see significant deterioration in foreign exchange rates. As a result, we are planning for a year of gross margin expansion and low-single-digit earnings per share growth on a dollar basis, based on current spot rates and excluding charges related to the 2012 Restructuring Program. This earnings per share growth would reflect a double-digit increase on a currency neutral basis.”

CL’s Dividend

The company will pay its next 36 cent dividend on February 16. The stock went ex-dividend on January 21. We expect the company to declare its next dividend in March.

Stock Performance

Shares of CL were up $1.91, or 2.93%, during pre-market trading Thursday.

Click here to see the complete history of CL dividends.

The Bottom Line

Colgate-Palmolive (CL ) is not recommended at this time, holding a Dividend.com DARS™ Rating of 3.4 out of 5 stars.

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