What: Shares of Tupperware Brands (TUP -6.88%) fell as much as 11.9% in the Wednesday trading session, and the stock closed 8.3% lower for the day. The network marketing seller of various consumer goods reported second-quarter results in the early hours, and investors found the report disappointing -- not because the second quarter was terrible, but because the company appears headed into rougher waters.
So what: Tupperware's adjusted second-quarter earnings came in at $1.21 per share. That's a 16% year-over-year drop. Sales decreased 12.6% to land at $589 million, including $111 million of currency exchange headwinds. On a constant-currency basis, revenues would have increased 4%.
Analysts had set their earnings targets at $1.17 per share and revenue estimates at $591 million. Tupperware missed the revenue target by a hair, and beat the earnings view, making for a mixed quarter.
But there was nothing "mixed" about Tupperware's forward guidance. Management set the midpoint of its third-quarter earnings guidance $0.11 below the current Street view, and the full-year target $0.19 below the analyst consensus. On the revenue line, analysts were looking for percentage declines in the high single digits for both of those periods. There, Tupperware pointed to sales consistently running about 10% lower.
Image source: Tupperware.
Now what: The company actually saw strong results on the local level in many cases, with particularly good numbers coming in from Argentina, Brazil, China, and the crucial North American markets. But currency exchange trends erased all of that business strength, and markets like Indonesia, France, and Italy have proven difficult to crack.
Looking ahead, management expects continued success in South America but only modest growth in more established geographic markets. Tupperware's active sales force grew 1% year-over-year and now stands at 789,000 sellers. Only 13% of these network sales workers are found in Tupperware's so-called established markets -- places such as North America, Western Europe, and Japan, where the company has been a consumer staple for years. That count also excludes new and unproven product lines, even in these longtime geographic selling areas. The rest are exploring new growth markets with mixed levels of success.
Overall, the currency headwinds are slowing Tupperware down more than analysts had expected, and the stock is suffering from the backlash. Tupperware set a new multi-year share price low on Wednesday, going back to prices not seen since November, 2012.
