Kraft Heinz Co. KHC, +0.53% shares rose 1.6% in Thursday premarket trading after the company announced fourth-quarter earnings that beat expectations and an anticipated deal to sell its Planters nuts business to Hormel Foods Corp. HRL, +0.71%. Kraft Heinz net income totaled $1.03 billion, or 84 cents per share, up from $182.0 billion, or 15 cents per share, last year. Adjusted EPS of 80 cents beat the FactSet consensus of 74 cents per share. Sales of $6.94 billion were up from $6.54 billion last year and also ahead of the FactSet consensus for $6.82 billion. Kraft Heinz expects flat-to-positive organic net sales growth in 2021. The company also declared a quarterly dividend of 40 cents per share, payable on March 26, 2021 to shareholders of record as of March 12, 2021. And the company announced that it has sold its nuts business, including most of the products sold under the Planters brand, to Hormel Foods Corp. HRL, +0.71% in a cash transaction of $3.35 billion, expected to close in the first half of 2021. The deal had been anticipated after an earlier Wall Street Journal report. Kraft Heinz shares have gained 13% over the past year while the S&P 500 index SPX, -0.03% is up 16.4% for the period.
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