(By Balaseshan) R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. (NASDAQ: RRD) reported a decline in fourth quarter adjusted earnings as smaller gain on pension curtailment, an unfavorable product mix and pricing pressure decreased gross margins.
Adjusted earnings were $78.1 million or $0.43 per share, down from $85.2 million or $0.46 per share last year. Sales fell 2.2 percent to $2.66 billion, due to volume declines, price erosion and an unfavorable impact of lower pass-through paper sales.
Analysts, on average, polled by Thomson Reuters had expected profit of $0.37 per share on revenue of $2.55 billion.
Sales from U.S. print and related services declined 3.7 percent to $1.9 billion, while sales from International increased 1.9 percent to $729.3 million.
Gross margins decreased to 22.0 percent from 22.9 percent. Adjusted operating margin improved to 6.6 percent from 6.1 percent.
Looking ahead into the fiscal 2013, R.R. Donnelley expects to generate strong cash flow of $400 million to $500 million. The company expects to continue to reduce its leverage, and is revising its targeted gross leverage on a long-term sustainable basis to be in the range of 2.25 to 2.75 times, down from the previous range of 2.5 to 3.0 times.
The stock closed Monday's session down 0.66 percent at $9.76. Over the past year, RRD shares have been trading between $8.30 and $14.33.