Shares of Crown Holdings, Inc. (CCK) hit a new 52-week low of $37.29 on Feb 4, following its sluggish fourth-quarter 2013 results.
Philadelphia-based Crown, a leading supplier of packaging products with a market cap of roughly $5.66 billion, has seen its share price fall roughly 7.85% year to date. Crown’s long-term estimated earnings per share (EPS) growth rate is 5.0%. The average volume of shares traded over the last three months was approximately 1090K.
Factors That Affected Performance
Crown Holdings’ fourth-quarter 2013 adjusted earnings fell 6% year over year to 48 cents per share. The results also missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 50 cents.
Though net sales increased 1.7% year over year to $2.07 billion, it fell short of the Zacks Consensus Estimate. Gross profit declined 2.5% to $274 million from the year-ago quarter mainly due to lower volumes and reduced production activity across food can operations in North America and Europe. Gross margin contracted 50 basis points to 13.2% in the quarter.
Decline in North American volumes was mainly due to the closure of operations in Puerto Rico. Overall food can production activity in the quarter was also down 15% year over year. In addition, the debt-to-capitalization ratio of Crown remained high at 92% as of Dec 31, 2013.
On the bright side, Crown Holdings expects general business conditions in North America and Europe to improve in 2014. Nevertheless, a high debt-to-capitalization ratio and market fluctuations remain concerns.
Crown Holdings currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Other Stocks to Consider
Some better-ranked players in the same industry include Ball Corp. (BLL), Resolute Forest Products Inc. (RFP) and UPM-Kymmene Oyj (UPMKY), all of which sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).
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