Altria Margins May Ease Blow of Special Charges

Source from:  By William Spain, MarketWatch Oct 15, 2007 10/16/2007

Special items are expected to put a dent in Altria's Group third-quarter numbers that are due out early Wednesday, but the company also is enjoying rising margins and growth at the tobacco titan's Philip Morris International unit. The current average estimate of analyst polled by Thomson Financial is for Altria (MO:altria group inc com News, chart, profile, more Last: 70.37+0.31+0.44% 4:01pm 10/15/2007 Delayed quote dataAdd to portfolio Analyst Create alertInsider Discuss Financials Sponsored by: MO 70.37, +0.31, +0.4%) to earn $1.14 a share on the quarter, down 18% , with revenue of a hair over $10 billion. At the time of its last earnings report in July, the owner of such cigarette brands as Marlboro, Parliament and Virginia Slims, took down its profit forecast for 2007 on a continuing operations basis to a range of $4.05 to $4.10 a share, reflecting 15 cents a share in additional charges for asset impairment and exit costs. The previous target was $4.20 to $4.25 a share. Also in the quarter, Altria announced plans to spin off PMI, with each shareholder getting one share of its common stock for each Altria share owned. That move followed a spring spin-off of Kraft Foods, in which the company had held an 89% stake. William Spain is a MarketWatch staff writer in Chicago. Enditem