Scotts Miracle-Gro CEO Jim Hagedorn said the economy is improving. ‘I think the American economy is doing better and better,’ he said. ‘That’s on low expectations. I think we’re doing better than a lot of other consumer companies and 0-2 percent growth is what we’re planning our business on. We’re generally doing better than that.’ The company earned an adjusted profit of $3.15 a share, during its fiscal second quarter, according to a report released on Tuesday. Revenue rose 16 percent year-over-year to $1.25 billion, eclipsing Wall Street’s estimates of $1.24 billion. The company also reaffirmed its full year adjusted earnings outlook of between $3.75 to $3.95 a share. The company said U.S. consumer purchases at big box retailers rose 1 percent between the beginning of the year and May 1. ‘At the end of the first half [of the quarter], sales were up 15 percent,’ Hagedorn said, attributing the slump to a 1 percent increase was attributed to a few weekends of bad weather in April. ‘I would say the consumer is a little bit stressed, but getting better and better every year, so we like the American market better than we like anything else,’ he said. The company’s European sales fell 7 percent year-over-year to $140.7 million. ‘Our European business is doing really well – [the decline in sales] was due to timing issues,’ he added. The U.S. gross domestic product rose 0.5 percent during first quarter. European first quarter GDP added 0.6 percent. Meanwhile, Hagedorn is also looking to bring the Internet into the gardening experience. ‘If we can help tell people when they need to fertilize, when they need to water, help them with any pest issues – anything we can do to help automate gardening and make it intuitive is useful and that’s where we view the Internet as important,’ he said. The company has its own smartphone app, ‘Gro Mobile,’ on the Apple AAPL iTunes store. TheStreet’s Scott Gamm reports from the New York Stock Exchange
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