Hershey Co (NYSE:HSY) Posts Q2 Results In Line With Street Views

Candy maker, Hershey Co (NYSE:HSY) reported Q2 results in line with Street expectations and reaffirmed its guidance for the year while boosting the quarterly dividend on its common stock by 10%.

Net income rose to $168.2 million, or $0.75 per diluted share, from $159.5 million, or $0.70 per diluted share. Excluding one-time items, it earned $0.76 per share in the latest quarter, up from $0.72 per share a year earlier and matching the consensus estimate of analysts polled by Capital IQ. Net sales climbed 4.6% to $1.58 billion, near analysts’ mean estimate of $1.6 billion. Excluding currency impacts, organic net sales rose 5.3%.

“Our Easter sell through was very good and we gained 1.1 market share points in this important season,” said CEO John P. Bilbrey. “We expect our seasonal momentum to continue in the second half of the year as retail customer orders for Halloween and Holiday products are solid.”

The company reaffirmed its outlook for 2014 net sales to increase around the low end of its long-term target of 5% to 7%, and for 2014 adjusted earnings per diluted share to increase around the low end of its long-term target of 9% to 11% to a projected range of $4.05 to $4.13. On average, analysts were recently expecting a 7% gain in net sales to $7.6 billion and a 10% rise in EPS to $4.11.

It also raised its quarterly dividend on HSY common stock to $0.535, up by $0.05 per share. The dividend on its Class B common stock was raised to $0.486, an increase of $0.051 per share. The dividends are payable Sept. 15 to stockholders of record as of Aug. 25.