CAT Caterpillar Inc

By Joshua Jamerson 

Caterpillar Inc., suffering from years of declining sales and soft demand for its bright yellow machines, said it is seeing signs of recovery in several of the industries it serves and boosted its revenue and profit forecasts for the year.

The bullish take from Caterpillar comes after the company on Monday reported in a regulatory filing that retail sales world-wide increased 1% during the three months ended in March, the first increase since 2012.

On Tuesday, shares, which have climbed more than 4% so far this year, added another 5.2% premarket.

The Peoria, Ill.-based heavy-equipment giant has been slashing costs amid sliding sales. But on Tuesday the company raised its revenue outlook to a range of $38 billion to $41 billion, up from its range given in January of between $36 billion and $39 billion.

It also now sees profit per-share coming in near $3.75, excluding restructuring costs, much better than its prior guidance of $2.90. However, the company warned that "geopolitical and market uncertainty along with volatility in commodity prices continue to present risks for the rest of the year."

Caterpillar also said it now anticipates restructuring costs of about $1.25 billion in 2017, about $750 million higher than previously expected, primarily due to manufacturing facility consolidations.

Over all for the first quarter, Caterpillar reported a profit of $192 million, or 32 cents a share, compared with $271 million, or 46 cents a share a year ago. Excluding restructuring costs, the company said it earned $1.28 a share. Total sales and revenues rose to $9.82 billion from $9.46 billion a year ago.

Write to Joshua Jamerson at joshua.jamerson@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 25, 2017 08:25 ET (12:25 GMT)

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