Clorox Profits Up Despite Sluggish Sales

Clorox Co., Oakland, CA, said Thursday that profit for its latest quarter more than doubled, helped by cost cuts and a shift to sales of more profitable products. Sales remained essentially flat at $1.01 billion compared to year-ago sales of $1.02 billion. Volume, which measures sales without the effect of currency and price changes, also was flat during the period.

However, after adjusting to reflect the effect of asset sales, volume rose 2%, driven by a 3% increase in the combined volume of its North American household products business and its specialty products division, offset by a 4% decline in volume at its Latin America household products division.

The maker of Clorox bleach had net income of $110 million for the third quarter ended March 31, compared with $46 million a year ago. Clorox’s latest results included $7 million in costs associated with a stock-performance incentive plan.

Cost-saving moves led to an improvement of 3 percentage points in the company’s gross margin to 45.5%, the company said. Clorox has closed plants, cut staff and sold assets. The company also benefited from an improvement in its sales mix.