CL Colgate Palmolive Co

By Imani Moise 

Colgate-Palmolive Co. reported slumping sales for the third quarter as volume slipped and the company said it expects the declines to continue through the end of the year, hurt by foreign exchange rates.

The company, which makes its namesake toothpaste, dish soap and other consumer products, does most of its business abroad and has struggled with the stronger U.S. dollar, making products more expensive to overseas consumers.

Chief Executive Ian Cook said the company expects the foreign exchange volatility to remain challenging, and that the company continues to expect a single-digit net sales decline for the year.

Foreign exchange rates hurt sales by 2.5% in the third quarter, while world-wide unit volume fell 4%.

North American sales increased 1% to $800 million, while Latin American sales, the company's largest segment that makes up about a fourth of its top line, decreased 13% to $924 million. Sales in Europe and Asia slumped 1.5% each, to $609 million and $723 million, respectively, while sales in Africa and Eurasia edged up 1.5% to $250 million.

Over all for the quarter, Colgate-Palmolive reported a profit of $702 million, or 78 cents a share, down from $726 million, or 80 cents, a year earlier. Excluding items such as restructuring charges and land sales, per-share earnings rose to 73 cents, matching analysts' forecasts.

Revenue dropped 3.5% to $3.87 billion. Organic sales, which exclude the impact of currency rates and acquisitions, rose 4.5%. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had forecast $3.94 billion in revenue.

Gross margin expanded to 60.1% from 58.7%, helped by higher pricing.

Shares, inactive premarket, closed at $71.36 and have fallen 2.8% in the past three months.

Write to Imani Moise at imani.moise@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 27, 2016 09:06 ET (13:06 GMT)

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