Constellation raised its outlook for the full 2016 fiscal year. The company now estimates full-year EPS of $5.00 to $5.20, compared a total of $4.44 in the 2015 fiscal year. Constellation said that its beer business continues to expect net sales growth of approximately 10% but now expects operating income growth in the 15% to 18% range. For the wine and spirits business, the company continues to expect net sales and operating income growth to be in the low-to-mid single-digit range, before any benefit from the Meiomi acquisition.
Constellation’s CEO said:
We posted outstanding results for our second quarter driven by the impressive, sustained momentum of our beer business, which is also driving an increase in our EPS projection for the year. … In addition to strong volume growth across our portfolio, we are experiencing favorable commodity and foreign currency benefits, as well as better than expected results from our glass plant, that are driving improved operational results and enabling an increase in our margin expectation for the beer business in fiscal 2016.
Sales in the company’s wine and spirits segment rose 3% year over year, and operating income in the segment rose 4%. Beer segment sales rose 14% year over year and operating income rose 31%.
Shares were inactive in premarket trading Wednesday, having closed Tuesday at $131.32, in a 52-week range of $80.70 to $132.53. Prior to this latest report, Thomson Reuters had a target price of $132.50 on the company’s shares.
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