Wal-Mart Stores Inc.(Last Licks)

Ice Cream Reporter, September, 2004

Shares of Dean Foods took their biggest plunge in six years after the company cut its profit forecasts for the year because of bad bets on dairy prices and record-high fuel and commodity costs. Shares fell $6.02, or 16%, to $31.11 a share, the biggest one-day decline since Sept. 15, 1998. The shares had reached a record $38 as recently as July 21.

Dean CEO Gregg Engles told investors that the company was unable to raise retail prices to cover higher costs because of pressure from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and other big customers. Wal-Mart is the company's biggest single customer at 10% of total sales. Wholesale milk prices are up 49% over the past two years after farmers reduced the size of the U.S. dairy herd. "We are in the midst of one of the most difficult...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

Premium Content Partnership | HighBeam Research provides an in-depth online archive library of reference works.