(Reuters) – Ball Corp, which makes aluminum beverage cans, beat Wall Street estimates for fourth-quarter profit on Tuesday as its cost-cutting measures helped counter weak demand.
A growing number of its clients such as Corona beer maker Constellation Brands flagging weak consumer spending has forced Ball Corp to reduce operating expenses.
It has also slimmed its operations by closing some manufacturing facilities and even sold its aerospace business last year to focus on its core business.
That business, of making aluminum cans, has also gotten some benefit from a few companies moving away from plastic packaging. This has helped volume, particularly in the EMEA region, where sales grew 11% in the quarter.
However, weak U.S. sales pulled down overall sales by 0.8% to $2.88 billion, which missed analysts average estimate of $2.91 billion, according to estimates compiled by LSEG.
But that was countered by a 0.7% drop in cost of sales, Ball Corp’s biggest expense, to $2.29 billion.
That helped the company’s comparable earnings of 84 cents per share beat analysts estimates of 80 cents per share.
The company, which has called itself “the poster child for tariffs” during Donald Trump’s last presidency and subsequently stopped sourcing aluminum from China, also forecast full-year profit growth of over 10%, versus market expectations of 12.5%.
Analysts have said that potential tariffs could lead to a spike in inflation, leading to another stretch of weak spending from customers.
(Reporting by Aamir Sohail in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas and Savio D’Souza)
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