The Proctor & Gamble Company, 2nd Quarter of 2014

By: Robert F. Abbott, author of Big Macs & Our Pensions: Who Gets McDonald's Profits?

January 24, 2013

According to nasdaq.com, 59.1% of P & G's shares are owned by institutional investors (primarily pension funds and mutual funds).

Here's what the company had to say in releasing the results,

"...second quarter fiscal year 2014 net sales of $22.3 billion, unchanged versus the prior year period, including a negative three percentage point impact from foreign exchange. Organic sales grew three percent. Diluted net earnings per share were $1.18, a decrease of 15 percent versus a base period that included a $0.21 per share holding gain resulting from P&G’s purchase of the balance of its Baby Care and Feminine Care joint venture in Iberia. Core earnings per share were $1.21, a decrease of one percent versus the prior year. On a currency-neutral basis, core earnings per share increased eight percent for the quarter.

“P&G’s second quarter results came in as we expected,” said Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer A.G. Lafley. “We’re on-track to deliver our objectives of 3-4% organic sales growth and 5-7% core EPS growth for the fiscal year. We expect strong earnings growth in the second half of the fiscal year driven by solid top-line growth, moderating headwinds from foreign exchange, and productivity savings that build throughout the year.”

Source: http://www.pginvestor.com/file.aspx?IID=4004124&FID=21757215

The Bigger Picture:

Will Profits from Big Macs Add to Your Retirement Income?

In 1948, the McDonald brothers redesigned and remodelled their drive-in restaurant in San Bernardino, California. Taking inspiration from Henry Ford's assembly-line, they created the fast food revolution, with the quick service and low prices we now take for granted.

In that same year, the U.S. National Labor Relations Board ruled unions could include pension issues in contract negotiations. That ignited a massive expansion of pension plans.

In the 1950s, pension funds started buying stocks, rather than just bonds or their equivalents; in addition mutual funds came of age. With these two developments working, middle class people became owners of big business. At first, their stakes were modest, but steadily growing.

And in just a few decades, they gained controlling interests in many large corporations through their funds. Management guru Peter Drucker has called it, "...one of the most startling power shifts in economic history."

Now, working people reap the benefits of those investments, collecting much of the profit distributed by McDonald's and other big corporations.

Discover how the pieces fit together. In Big Macs & Our Pensions: Who Gets McDonald's Profits? - a new booklet -(about 25-pages), you will:

• learn more about the McDonald's transformation and its implications for the future
  
• find out how McDonald's makes its profits (and it involves more than selling Quarter Pounders)
  
• meet some of the working people who get McDonald's profits through their pension and mutual funds
  
• find out how low wages became embedded in the fast food industry
  
• hear accusations from critics of McDonald's wages, and
  
• learn who has the ultimate say on fast food wages (the answer may surprise you).

You may not be among the owners of McDonald's. But if you belong to any pension plan, or contribute to a mutual fund or whole life insurance policy, you likely own pieces of some big corporations.

More importantly, though, your retirement income will be bigger and grow more dependably than you would otherwise expect.

Big Macs & Our Pensions: Who Gets McDonald's Profits? is now available at Amazon.com