Corn Products Q1 Net Profit Down $60 Million

Net profit was $94.2 Million, or $1.21 per share, compared with $153.6 million or $1.97 per share, a year ago, a 39% decrease.

2 May 2012 --- Corn Products International Inc posted a first-quarter profit, helped by higher sales in North America and Asia Pacific.

The corn refiner, which makes starches, sweeteners and food ingredients, also said it intends to change its name to Ingredion under the ticker "INGR" on the New York Stock Exchange.

Net profit was $94.2 Million, or $1.21 per share, compared with $153.6 million or $1.97 per share, a year ago, a 39% decrease.

Net sales rose 8 percent to $1.57 billion.

"We are quite pleased with the first quarter, which was the second highest quarterly adjusted EPS in the Company's history. As expected, we saw a slight decline in adjusted earnings per share in the first quarter as we lapped a very strong year-ago period which was driven by favorable input costs," said Ilene Gordon, chairman, president and chief executive officer.  "Underlying our good performance is volume improvement as well as appropriate price increases to cover higher raw material costs.  Our overall business fundamentals remain favorable.

"We continue to have a positive outlook for 2012 and expect sales and adjusted EPS improvement compared to 2011.  We maintain our view that the year will be somewhat back-end loaded, in contrast to 2011 which was front-end loaded.  Beyond that, we are excited about the prospect of our intended name change to Ingredion, which better reflects our portfolio and business model," Gordon added.