By Katherine Hamilton

H.B. Fuller posted a loss in its fourth quarter as it grappled with slowing market volume while managing higher expenses from an $80 million divestiture.

The St. Paul, Minn., adhesives manufacturer swung to a loss of $7.36 million, or 13 cents a share, in the three months ended Nov. 30, from a profit of $45 million, or 80 cents a share, a year earlier.

Stripping out certain one-time items, adjusted per-share earnings were 92 cents, behind the $1.32 a share it made during the same quarter in 2023.

Quarterly revenue rose 2.3% to $923.3 million. Analysts surveyed by FactSet forecast revenue of $917 million.

H.B. Fuller's annual profit for the full year of 2024 was $130.3 million, up from $144.9 million in 2023. Annual revenue was $3.57 billion, a 1.6% bump from 2023. Earlier this year, H.B. Fuller had been guiding for annual revenue up 2% to 4%. It downgraded its outlook to 2% in September.

In December, the company sold its flooring business to Pacific Avenue Capital Partners for $80 million. The divestiture cost $38 million after tax during the fourth quarter. H.B. Fuller hopes losses from the sale will be offset by purchasing two medical adhesive companies, the company said in December.

Shares sank after the sale and continued dropping in January, when H.B. Fuller downgraded its 2024 revenue guidance for the second time that year.

"In the fourth quarter, we encountered an unexpected deceleration in volume across the majority of our end markets," said Chief Executive Celeste Mastin, adding that delays in customer order patterns shifted price increase realization into 2025 and delayed the offset of higher raw material costs.

Over the past two months, shares have plummeted to their lowest price in more than two years.

Write to Katherine Hamilton at katherine.hamilton@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 15, 2025 16:41 ET (21:41 GMT)

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