DOLE BLAMES PROFIT WOES ON GAS PRICES, EURO.Byline: Chris Sieroty Staff Writer WESTLAKE VILLAGE - Dole Food Co. Inc., the world's biggest seller of fresh fruit, said Wednesday that weakness in the euro and higher gasoline prices were to blame for the company's third-quarter loss of 13 cents per share Cents per share The amount of a mutual fund's dividend or capital gains distributions that a shareholder will receive for each share owned. . The third-quarter loss from operations was $7.4 million, compared to a loss of $8 million, or 14 cents per share, for the same period a year ago. The company's results reflect the after-tax impact of gains offset by a downsizing (1) Converting mainframe and mini-based systems to client/server LANs. (2) To reduce equipment and associated costs by switching to a less-expensive system. (jargon) downsizing charge, while its third-quarter 1999 results include expenses related to Hurricane Mitch Hurricane Mitch was one of the deadliest and most powerful hurricanes on record in the Atlantic basin, with maximum sustained winds of 180 mph (290 km/h). The storm was the thirteenth tropical storm, ninth hurricane, and third major hurricane of the 1998 Atlantic . Excluding the after-tax impact of these items in both years, Dole reported a loss of $1.3 million, or 2 cents per share, for the third-quarter 2000, compared with a loss of $1.9 million, or 3 cents per share for the same period last year. Analysts surveyed by First Call/Thomson Financial had expected the Westlake Village-based company to report a loss of 9 cents per share for the third-quarter of 2000. George Dahlman, an analyst with U.S. Bancorp  This article or section needs copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone and/or spelling.You can assist by [ editing it] now. Piper Jaffray Piper Jaffray & Co. (NYSE: PJC), often shortened to just Piper Jaffray or PiperJaffray, is a U.S. middle-market investment banking firm based in Minneapolis, Minnesota and is a focused on delivering financial advice, investment products and transaction execution in Minneapolis, said there are a number of problems in the world that would continue to have an effect on Dole's bottom line. ``Unless the European quota system is dismantled, Dole's near-term profitability will continue to be plagued by bananas,'' said Dahlman. ``Higher fuel costs will be a drag on earnings, along with a weakened European currency.'' In the most recent quarter, Dole received $43 million from insurance related to Hurricane Mitch and earned $8 million on the previously announced sale of its citrus assets in California and Arizona. ``We believe that the further downsizing of our fresh fruit operations will result in significant cost savings and profit improvement for the company,'' said David A. DeLorenzo, Dole's president and chief operating officer Chief Operating Officer (COO) The officer of a firm responsible for day-to-day management, usually the president or an executive vice-president. , said in a statement. Shares of Dole gained .0625 cents, or 0.52 percent, to close Tuesday at $12.25 on moderate volume of 124,600 shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) World's largest marketplace for securities. The exchange began as an informal meeting of 24 men in 1792 on what is now Wall Street in New York City. . |
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