Cargill's earnings soar in fourth quarter

MINNETONKA, Minn. - Cargill Inc. said Tuesday that its fourth-quarter earnings soared on strong performance across most of its businesses in the United States and internationally. <br> <br> Cargill earned $144 million in the quarter ended May 31, compared with an $87 million loss in the final quarter of the previous fiscal year. <br> <br> The privately owned company did not release other quarterly performance figures, as per its usual practice. <br> <br> For the full fiscal year, Cargill reported net earnings of $827 million, in increase of 131 percent from $358 million in fiscal 2001. <br> <br> &#34;Cargill&#39;s earnings improvement was broad based, with two-thirds of our 90 business units delivering stronger results than a year ago,&#34; said Warren Staley, chairman and chief executive. <br> <br> Staley said most of Cargill&#39;s food and meat businesses in Europe and North America performed well, including ingredients such as sweeteners, edible oils, malt and cocoa, and egg, pork and poultry products. <br> <br> &#34;Our animal nutrition business, which smoothly integrated last year&#39;s purchase of Agribrands International, expanded significantly,&#34; he said. <br> <br> &#34;Cargill&#39;s global network for processing and distributing oilseeds, grain, sugar, cotton and other commodities also performed well. Additional earnings strength came from our financial businesses,&#34; Staley said. <br> <br> Although Cargill&#39;s beef processing business remained solid, it was not as good as last year because of weaker demand, he said. <br> <br> Cargill, one of the world&#39;s largest privately owned companies, processes, sells and distributes agricultural, food, financial and industrial products. The company has about 97,000 employees in 59 countries. <br> <br> <br> ------ <br> <br>

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