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What: Shares of specialty chemicals manufacturer W.R. Grace & Co.
So what: This isn’t a perfect growth story. Earnings declined 4% from $0.76 per share in last year’s Q1 to $0.72 in the just-completed first quarter. Revenue improved 13.1% to $695.7 million. Analysts had been expecting Grace to report $0.54 in per-share profit, Yahoo! Finance reports.
Now what: Credit refineries for the outperformance. Demand for petroleum chemical additives produced by the Grace Davison division rose 26.1% during the quarter. Overall, the additives business saw a 16.7% increase in revenue. Construction products sales rose just 5.5%.
Either way, it’s a nice comeback for a company that only now is getting past bankruptcy troubles.
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