3M (MMM 0.55%) stock is up 12.4% in the week to Friday morning, in a week where management released a positive set of third-quarter earnings and upgraded full-year guidance. A company raising full-year guidance is rarely bad news. Still, the real news here is not so much in the headline guidance as in the ongoing operational improvements driven by CEO Bill Brown since he began his tenure in May 2024.
3M's recovery continues
Management upgraded full-year earnings-per-share (EPS) guidance from a previous range of $7.75 to $8 to a new range of $7.95 to $8.05, and tweaked organic revenue growth guidance from about 2% to more than 2%. However, this isn't a story of slightly better end markets bleeding into a somewhat improved earnings outlook.
Key Data Points
Instead, 3M's self-help initiatives are driving underlying improvement at the company, and that bodes well for when its industrial, safety, electronics, consumer, and automotive end markets start improving. Discussing the third-quarter organic revenue growth of 3.2% (management had previously predicted 2.5%), Brown said 50 of the 70-basis-points improvement to expectations (where 100 basis points equals 1%) came down to "self-help" initiatives such as improving commercial operations and new product introductions (NPI), driving sales.
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What's next for 3M?
Returning 3M to its roots as a company, driving revenue growth through NPI while executing well on things like asset utilization and on-time in-full deliveries has been a key focus of Brown's tenure, and it appears to be working. Moreover, given that the company is still in the early innings of Brown's plans, investors can expect much more in the coming years.
