[ EARNINGS ROUNDUP ]

Higher food costs
boosts Dole’s net

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Star-Bulletin news services

Westlake Village, Calif. >> Dole Food Co., the world's largest fruit and vegetable producer, said first-quarter earnings rose 62 percent, helped by higher vegetable prices and lower costs.

Net income increased to $56.3 million, or 99 cents a share, from $34.7 million, or 62 cents, a year earlier. Sales rose 2.7 percent to $1.06 billion from $1.03 billion, the company said.

Dole cut costs by entering into more-favorable contracts with suppliers for com- modities, and paid less for fuel and paperboard to package its produce, analysts said. The company also benefited from a lettuce shortage, which led to higher prices industrywide, Dole said.

"They are just enjoying an exciting time in the market right now," said George Dahlman, an analyst with U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray who rates Dole shares "outperform."

Dole was forecast to earn 68 cents a share, the average estimate of three analysts.

Higher banana prices also boosted profit. A trade dispute in Europe over bananas had weighed on Dole's sales in the year-ago period. Last year, the European Union and the United States agreed to settle the eight-year battle by giving shares of the market to various producers before scrapping quotas in 2006.

Dole was founded in Hawaii in 1851 and for nearly 150 years was one of the most prominent companies in the islands.

In recent years it has spun off or closed most of its Hawaii operations, but the company still owns 8,000 acres of land on Oahu where it grows fresh pineapple. It stopped growing coffee, bananas and other crops on that land, citing the high costs of doing business in Hawaii.

Boyd Gaming

Casino operator Boyd Gaming Corp., which conducts travel packages from Hawaii to Las Vegas, said today that earnings per share, before a one-time charge, tripled in the first quarter.

Las Vegas-based Boyd, citing good weather at some of its casinos and more efficient operations, had first-quarter net income of $7.8 million or 12 cents per share, vs. $6.1 million, or 10 cents, a year earlier. Before preopening expenses and a one-time charge, the company reported first-quarter earnings of 31 cents per share, compared with 10 cents a year earlier. Analysts had forecast 28 cents per share. Boyd also said its $1 billion Borgata casino, a joint venture with MGM Mirage in Atlantic City, is within budget and on schedule to open in summer 2003.

Cendant

NEW YORK >> Cendant Corp., the real-estate, travel and financial services conglomerate, said its net income grew 43 percent in the first quarter, topping analysts' expectations. Cendant, which bought Honolulu-based travel discounter Cheap Tickets Inc. last October, also raised its forecast for full-year earnings to $1.36 per share, 2 cents above analysts' forecasts.

The New York-based company reported a profit of $342 million, or 34 cents a share, in the first quarter, compared with $239 million, or 26 cents a share a year earlier. Because of an accounting change, Cendant revised its year-ago first-quarter earnings, making the year-to-year growth appear larger. Prior to the adjustment, Cendant's net income in the first quarter of 2001 was $277 million, or 30 cents a share.

Analysts were expecting Cendant's first-quarter earnings to come in at 32 cents a share.

The company attributed much of its revenue growth to the acquisition of car rental giant Avis Group Holdings and better profit margins at a car parking subsidiary.