Consumer Cyclicals articles

MSC Industrial Direct EPS Miss Widely Expected

MSC Industrial Direct EPS Miss Widely Expected

Based on weather-driven sluggishness throughout January and February, analysts expect fiscal second-quarter EPS below consensus of $0.86. The midpoint of management’s EPS guidance ($0.83-$0.87) assumed a return to October/November sales growth (5%) in January and February after a slowdown in December (3%). Considering peer results and our surveys, we now believe January organic growth was

UniFirst Corporation Fiscal Second-Quarter Misses on Margin Pressure

UniFirst reported fiscal second-quarter adjusted EPS of $1.27, which were flat year-over-year and below both our $1.36 estimate and the $1.39 Street consensus. The miss was mainly driven by margin pressure, as multiple factors, such as increased natural gas prices, elevated bad debt expense, and lost leverage in the Specialty Garments business, all hit at

ICON Acquisition of Aptiv Solutions Consistent With Strategy

Monday, March 31, ICON announced its intention to acquire Aptiv Solutions, a provider of global outsourced development services, for roughly $145 million. The company focuses on technology to enable adaptive clinical trials—a nice complement to ICON’s existing software offering through Firecrest and ICONIK. In addition, Aptiv owns an oncology focused full service CRO in Japan.

McGraw Hill Investor Day Reinforces Positive Long-Term Outlook

McGraw Hill Financial hosted its inaugural investor day in New York on Tuesday, March 18. The headlines were that the company: 1) reaffirmed its 2014 guidance (not really a surprise given that it just issued guidance last month); 2) announced that it is evaluating strategic alternatives for McGraw Hill Construction; 3) announced a three-year target

Cardinal Health, Inc. Expanding Preferred Products Platform With AccessClosure Acquisition

On Wednesday afternoon, April 2, Cardinal Health announced the acquisition of AccessClosure, a leading U.S. manufacturer of extravascular closure devices. Strategically, this deal provides Cardinal with a platform to expand its preferred products business into another physician preference category—cardiovascular  

RealD Fiscal Fourth-Quarter Box Office Receipts Slightly Above Expectations

After the markets closed on Monday, RealD released monthly box office receipts for March. Taken in conjunction with January and February receipts, RealD delivered total quarterly box office receipts of $499 million, roughly in line with our estimate of $491 million. RealD released monthly attributable cinema box office receipts for March after the markets closed

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