Earnings at the Stockton-based company jumped 60 percent in its fiscal fourth quarter to $4.2 million, or 25 cents a share, the company reported Wednesday. Revenue rose less than 1 percent, to $113.8 million. For Diamond's fiscal 2009, which ended July 31, the company earned $1.44 a share, up 61 percent. Including special items, the results beat analysts' estimates by 9 cents.
Diamond has been steadily paring its traditional lines of business: nuts i 1/2 mainly walnuts i 1/2 sold to food processors, in the baking aisle of grocery stores and for export. For the quarter, sales of those items fell 32 percent, to $58 million, compared with a year earlier.
But snack-nut and other snack-food sales more than doubled, to $54.7 million, due largely to the acquisition of Pop Secret popcorn in August 2008.
Diamond on Wednesday projected earnings will grow 16 percent to 22 percent in its 2010 fiscal year. Diamond stock closed Thursday up $1.28, or 4 percent, at an all-time high of $33 a share.
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