GLENVIEW, Ill. – Illinois Tool Works Inc. (ITW) has reported fourth quarter diluted earnings per share (EPS) from continuing operations of 92 cents, three cents higher than the midpoint of the company’s forecast. The company said this better-than-expected EPS was driven by strong contributions from enterprise initiatives as well as improving organic revenue growth from both international and North American geographies.
Total company revenues were $3.55 billion while operating income totaled $628 million. Organic revenues increased 2.8 percent, with international growing 3.3 percent and North America growing 2.6 percent. Internationally, Europe showed further stabilization as organic revenues grew 1.8 percent and Asia Pacific grew 4.1 percent.
"We were pleased with the company’s performance in the quarter and for the year," said Scott Santi, president and CEO. "In the quarter, we continued to deliver meaningful improvement in our earnings per share, operating margin, and return on invested capital metrics. In addition, we saw modest improvement in the demand environment in a number of our key end-markets, which drove a noticeable sequential improvement in the company’s organic growth rate in the quarter.
"For full-year 2013, we grew earnings per share 13 percent, expanded operating margins by 100 basis points to 17.8 percent, improved after-tax return on invested capital by 180 basis points to 16.3 percent, and returned $2.9 billion to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases," he continued. "As a result of the ongoing execution of our enterprise strategy initiatives, the company is well-positioned to deliver another year of strong progress toward our enterprise strategy performance goals across a range of macro-economic conditions in 2014."
ITW says it continues to expect full-year 2014 EPS to be in a range of $4.30 to $4.50. This EPS range assumes a full-year total revenue growth range of 2 percent to 4 percent and full-year organic growth of 2 percent to 3 percent. For the 2014 first quarter, the company is forecasting EPS to be in a range of 93 cents to $1.01 and expects total revenue growth in a range of 3 percent to 6 percent.
