P&G profit falls on beauty brands sale, tax charge

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[January 23, 2018]  (Reuters) - Procter & Gamble Co <PG.N> reported a 68 percent drop in quarterly profit on Tuesday, due to the sale of a chunk of its beauty brands to Coty Inc <COTY.N> last fiscal year and a charge related to the recent U.S. tax overhaul.

Procter & Gamble's Oral-B toothbrush heads are seen in a store in Manhattan, New York, U.S., August 1, 2016. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

Shares of the company were down 1.4 percent in premarket trading.

The net income attributable to the company fell to $2.50 billion, or 93 cents per share, in the second quarter ended Dec. 31, compared with $7.88 billion, or $2.88 per share, a year earlier.

The company said it took a net charge of $628 million for the quarter, the result of an estimated repatriation tax charge of $3.8 billion and a net deferred tax benefit of $3.2 billion.

Excluding that charge and other items, the company earned $1.19 per share, beating the average analyst estimate of $1.14 per share.

Net sales for the world's largest consumer products maker by market value rose 3 percent to $17.4 billion, boosted by strong sales in its healthcare and beauty businesses.

Demand for Olay skincare products and its high-end SK-II brand drove sales in its beauty business, while its healthcare business gained from brisk sales of Oral-B toothbrushes and Vicks cough and cold products, which benefited from a colder-than-usual winter season.

Organic sales - which exclude acquisitions, divestitures and foreign exchange fluctuations- rose 2 percent, the company said in a statement.

(This story corrects to "fiscal year" from "last year" in paragraph 1.)

(Reporting by Siddharth Cavale and Vibhuti Sharma in Bengaluru; Editing by Supriya Kurane and Anil D'Silva)

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