WESTCHESTER, ILLINOIS, U.S. — Corn Products International, Inc. reported on May 1 profit for the first-quarter of $94.2 million, or $1.21 per share, a decrease of 39% from the $153.6 million, or $1.97 per share, reported a year earlier.
The first quarter of 2012 included 2¢ of business integration costs and 3¢ of restructuring charges. The first quarter of 201 included a 75¢ per share gain from a North American Free Trade Agreement settlement with the government of Mexico partially offset by 6¢ of integration costs.
Excluding these items, adjusted EPS declined 2% from $1.28 to $1.26 in the quarter.
"We are quite pleased with the first quarter, which was the second highest quarterly adjusted EPS in the company's history. As expected, we saw a slight decline in adjusted earnings per share in the first quarter as we lapped a very strong year-ago period which was driven by favorable input costs," said Ilene Gordon, chairman, president and chief executive officer. "Underlying our good performance is volume improvement as well as appropriate price increases to cover higher raw material costs. Our overall business fundamentals remain favorable.
“We continue to have a positive outlook for 2012 and expect sales and adjusted EPS improvement compared to 2011. We maintain our view that the year will be somewhat back-end loaded, in contrast to 2011 which was front-end loaded. Beyond that, we are excited about the prospect of our intended name change to Ingredion, which better reflects our portfolio and business model.”