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Time Warner Inc. said Wednesday that its first-quarter earnings fell 11 percent, but adjusted income beat Wall Street’s expectations on the strengths of the company’s television and movie studio businesses.
Time Warner had net income of $583 million in the first three months of the year, compared with $653 million a year earlier. Both translated to 59 cents a share because the company now has fewer shares outstanding.
Excluding one-time factors, including charges related to a decision to shut down a TV network in India, Time Warner had adjusted income of 67 cents a share. That’s better than the 64 cents expected by analysts surveyed by FactSet. The New York-based company’s adjusted income a year ago was 58 cents.
Revenue grew 4 percent to $7 billion, ahead of expectations of $6.82 billion.
Time Warner’s cable TV networks, which include CNN, TBS, TNT and HBO, saw revenue grow 3 percent to $3.6 billion. The company benefited from strong ad rates, better timing of the March Madness basketball games and higher fees collected from U cheap credit report.S. cable and satellite TV distributors to carry the channels. That was offset partly by a decrease in content revenue; last year’s quarter got a boost from licensing HBO’s “Sex and the City” to other cable outlets in the U.S.
At the Warner Bros. movie studio, a stronger slate at the box office contributed to a 7 percent revenue increase to $2.8 billion. Big performers included “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” and “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island.” The division also benefited from higher licensing revenue of TV shows and the video-on-demand availability of a television series, but revenue from DVDs and other home entertainment sales fell.
Revenue at the Time Inc. magazine division fell 3 percent to $773 million. Advertising and subscription revenue both declined. Weak sales at newsstands worldwide were offset partly by higher sales of U.S. subscriptions.
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Goldman Sachs more than doubled its first-quarter profits and announced plans to raise its dividend Tuesday.
The strong results masked other problems, including a 16 percent decline in revenue. To make up for that, and to propel earnings higher, Goldman turned to cost-cutting.
The storied investment bank slashed 3,000 workers over the year, or about 8 percent of its work force. It cut back on salaries, trimmed occupancy costs and paid less in brokerage fees, cutting total expenses by 14 percent.
Revenue from financial advising, where the bank advises big companies and investors on mergers and acquisitions, was one of the few areas to record a revenue gain, 37 percent.
Revenue from underwriting stock and bond sales fell 27 percent. Revenue from trading fell 14 percent, hurt by lower fees and revenue from the division that trades bonds, currencies and commodities. Total revenue fell to $9.9 billion from $11.9 billion, though that beat the $9.4 billion that analysts polled by FactSet had been expecting.
Goldman Sachs said its net income available to common shareholders rose to $2.1 billion, or $3.92 per share. That was a jump of about 128 percent from $908 million, or $1.56 per share, a year ago. The per-share earnings also beat expectations of analysts, who had been predicting $3.52.
The bank also announced it would raise its quarterly shareholder dividend to 46 cents per share from 35 cents. Though the bank didn’t say so, that’s a particular sign of strength in the current market, because it’s also a reminder that Goldman, unlike some of its peers, got permission to do so after passing the government’s most recent round of stress tests.
CEO Lloyd Blankfeink called the quarter a “solid performance.” In a prepared statement, he noted that “client activity remains relatively low in certain areas,” but said that “our mix of businesses gives the firm significant room for revenue growth as economic and market conditions continue to improve.”
For decades, Goldman has been known for beating its Wall Street competitors and churning out executives who go on to high leadership positions.
But the past few years have left it bruised. Last fall, it recorded a quarterly loss, only its second since going public in 1999. In 2010 and 2011, its net income fell year-over-year in six of the eight quarters.
Investors are trying to piece together whether the troubles are a short-term annoyance or a sign of deep-rooted problems. They wonder if the bank needs a new game plan.
Like the rest of the banking industry, Goldman has to figure out how to navigate a world of stricter government controls that will dry up some of its key revenue streams. Goldman has made big profits trading for its own account, especially when markets are volatile. But regulations taking effect this year will reduce Goldman’s ability to make those trades.
Unlike much of the banking industry, Goldman doesn’t have a large consumer banking arm to fall back on when trading and investment banking get bumpy. Its clients are largely hedge funds and multinational corporations that need to hedge their bets on foreign currencies, fluctuating interest rates and commodities.
Return on equity was about 12 percent, in line with a year ago. That was a big change from 38 percent five years ago, before the global economic meltdown.
Goldman also has public-relations problems to worry about. In the era of Occupy Wall Street, Goldman has been the target for much of the vitriol of people who blame the financial crisis on reckless practices in the banking industry. Last month, the vitriol came to a head when a mid-level executive resigned via a blistering editorial in the New York Times, where he accused the bank of losing its “moral fiber” and caring only about its own profits rather than its clients’.
The accusations are still swirling. Last week, the bank agreed to pay $22 million to settle regulators’ charges that Goldman analysts shared confidential research with favored clients. In the first quarter, the bank set aside $59 million for litigation and regulatory proceedings.
Goldman Sachs’ stock fell slightly in pre-market trading, down 73 cents to $117.
Stocks pulled back sharply as Wall Street got its first chance to react to a slowdown in hiring in the United States in March.
The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 136 points to 12,923 in the first half-hour of trading. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index was off 17 at 1,381, and the Nasdaq composite lost 40 points to 3,040.
The losses were broad _ only 13 stocks in the S&P 500 rose. Financial stocks fell the most. Bank of America was off 3 percent, Citigroup 2.5 percent.
The U.S. added just 120,000 jobs in March, about half the pace from December through February. The slowdown interrupted the strongest stretch of job growth since the Great Recession. The government released its jobs report on Friday, but the stock market was closed.
The stock market had already started to pull back from its strongest first quarter since 1998. The Dow closed as high as 13,264 earlier last week, then lost more than 200 points in three days.
Even before the job number came out, investors were worried that the Federal Reserve does not appear inclined to take further steps to stimulate the economy.
This week, investors will turn their attention to first-quarter corporate earnings reports. Aluminum maker Alcoa releases its results Tuesday, becoming the first company among the 30 in the Dow to do so. Two major banks, JPMorgan Chase and Well Fargo, report on Friday.
Analysts are expecting quarterly earnings to decline slightly compared with a year earlier. That would break a streak of nine straight quarters of earnings growth since 2009.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.04 percent from 2.06 percent Friday.
In other corporate news:
_ AOL shot up 44 percent after the company agreed to sell hundreds of patents and patent applications to Microsoft for a little more than $1 billion. The company plans to return some of the cash to shareholders.
_ Avon fell 3 percent after the struggling beauty products company named a former executive at Johnson & Johnson, Sherilyn S. McCoy, to be its CEO. She starts April 23.
UPDATED at 3:30 p.m. with federal indictment.
ST. CHARLES • A federal indictment charging the founders of an auto service contract company with various crimes was unsealed just hours after one of the brothers at the head of US Fidelis pleaded guilty to state fraud and stealing charges.
The federal indictment unsealed this afternoon charges Darain Atkinson and his brother Cory Atkinson with two counts of filing false tax returns and one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud.
Just three years ago, the brothers were self-made millionaires with palatial homes, fleets of exotic cars and more than 1,100 employees working at the Wentzville headquarters of the auto service contract company they founded, US Fidelis.
But prosecutors say that the Atkinsons got more than $71 million from US Fidelis and its predecessor from 2006 through 2008, and used most of the money for personal expenses, including luxury boats and vehicles and multi-million dollar homes in St. Charles County, Lake Tahoe and the Cayman islands.
They never reported the millions received in 2006 and 2007 as income, prosecutors said.
Earlier in the afternoon, Darain Atkinson pleaded guilty to insurance fraud, stealing and unlawful merchandising practices in the St. Charles County courtroom of Circuit Judge Jon Cunningham. Eleven other charges against Atkinson were dropped. Prosecutors recommended a sentence of eight years. Sentencing was set for July 16.
Darain Atkinson’s attorney, Scott Rosenblum, said that sentencing in the state case would not happen until the federal matter is resolved, and will likely result in no additional prison time.
“He’s done everything he can not only to accept his responsibility, he’s surrendered everything he’s owned to make things good,” said Rosenblum flexcheck cash advance.
In the 14 state charges originally filed against Darain Atkinson, 47, who was president of US Fidelis, and 13 counts against Cory Atkinson, 42, the company’s vice president, prosecutors allege that their company intentionally cheated consumers by:
• Keeping refunds they owed customers who canceled coverage.
• Charging fees higher than authorized in sales contracts.
• Lying during sales pitches about limitations on coverage and caps on claims paid, and falsely suggesting to consumers that US Fidelis was affiliated with automakers and dealers.
• Selling insurance without a license when it peddled so-called product warranties, a form of vehicle coverage that is conditional on the purchase and use of certain auto additives.
US Fidelis collapsed in late 2009. Last month in a proposed legal settlement filed in bankruptcy court in St. Louis, the company agreed to pay $1.45 million to 556 former company employees.
Cory Atkinson’s state case is pending and a trial is set for September.
Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster attended Darain Atkinson’s hearing. Koster said afterwards that since the Atkinson’s were indicted, his office has received fewer complaints about other vehicle service contract providers.
“I think the indictment of US Fidelis sent a shockwave through this industry,” he said.
World stock markets fell Thursday as signs of weakness in the world’s two biggest economies kept investors at bay.
Benchmark oil lingered near $105 a barrel. The dollar fell against the euro and the yen.
Caution in markets stemmed from U.S. Commerce Department data that showed orders for durable goods rose 2.2 percent in February. While that compared favorably to a steep drop in January, analysts had expected orders to increase 2.7 percent.
“U.S. data shows weakness in the economic recovery. That really confirms what the Fed Chairman, Bernanke, said last week that the Federal Reserve has to continue loose monetary policy in order to aid economic recovery and employment,” said Francis Lun, managing director of Lyncean Holdings in Hong Kong.
Investors are also concerned that China’s slowdown is accelerating. China is a huge importer of raw materials, so a slowing economy there can weigh on prices for raw materials.
European stocks were muted in early trading. Britain’s FTSE 100 was 0.4 percent lower at 5,787.75. Germany’s DAX lost 0.4 percent to 6,971.46 and France’s CAC-40 slipped 0.1 percent to 3,425.29.
Wall Street futures headed lower as traders awaited weekly jobless claims later in the day. Dow Jones industrial futures fell slightly to 13,049 while S&P 500 futures lost less than 0.1 percent to 1,399.50.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 index retreated for a second day after reaching a one-year high, falling 0.7 percent to 10,114.79.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng tumbled 1.3 percent to 20,609.39 and South Korea’s Kospi dropped 0.9 percent to 2,014.41. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 dipped 0.1 percent to 4,337.90.
The prospect of slowing growth from the world’s two biggest economies pummeled industrial, energy and materials stocks payday loans.
Hong Kong-listed Aluminum Corp. of China shed 1.3 percent. CNOOC Ltd., China’s main offshore oil and gas producer, tumbled 3.3 percent despite reporting that its 2011 profit rose 29.1 percent on higher oil and gas sales. Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., South Korea’s leading shipbuilder, fell 3 percent.
Leighton Holdings plummeted 6.7 percent in Sydney after the Australian construction company cut its full year profit forecast because of losses in several major infrastructure projects.
Mainland Chinese shares spiraled downward amid dwindling hopes for a looser monetary policy, analysts said.
The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index lost 1.4 percent to 2,252.16 and the Shenzhen Composite Index lost 1.6 percent to 895.07. Shares in nonferrous metals, engineering and materials weakened.
Analysts said investors are also holding back as they await news later this week on Europe’s progress in resolving its debt crisis.
Benchmark crude oil was up 1 cent to $105.42 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell $1.92 to end at $105.41 per barrel on the Nymex on Wednesday. Oil prices declined after France’s government said it is considering a release of emergency stockpiles as part of a U.S.-led effort to ease the recent climb in prices.
In currencies, the euro rose to $1.3326 from $1.3324 late Wednesday in New York. The dollar fell to 82.41 yen from 82.79 yen.
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British police say a 51-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of intimidating a witness and encouraging or assisting an offense in relation to the phone-hacking scandal.
Scotland Yard says the man was arrested at a central London police station Wednesday afternoon by officers investigating voicemail hacking by tabloid reporters.
The force says the man was previously arrested in April on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications and unlawful interception of voicemails. The police did not name the suspect.
The new arrest follows the arrests Tuesday of six other suspects, including former News International executive Rebekah Brooks.
Euro-area finance ministers will move toward completing the next Greek bailout this week as they meet in Brussels tonight.
Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who heads the group of euro-region finance ministers, said he had
The Philippine central bank may pause after reducing the benchmark interest rate at both of its meetings so far this year as elevated oil prices threaten to spur inflation, Governor Amando Tetangco said.
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