Kraft Foods Inc expects earnings to rise at least 9 percent this year even as it prunes its portfolio of North American brands.Kraft, North America's largest packaged food maker, will separate into two companies later this year. One will focus on snacks like Cadbury chocolate and Oreo cookies, and the other will focus on North American grocery brands including Maxwell House coffee and Oscar Mayer lunch meat.Kraft forecast 2012 net revenue growth of about 5 percent, including a hit of up to one percentage point from "product pruning" in North America.The company said it expected operating earnings to rise at least 9 percent on a constant-currency basis, reflecting a higher tax rate and a 4 percentage point hit from higher pension costs.
Kraft Foods Inc. (Kraft Foods) manufactures and markets packaged food products, including biscuits, confectionery, beverages, cheese, convenient meals and various packaged grocery products. Shares of KFT remained unchanged at $38.01. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $30.43 and as high as $39.06. On average, 7497090 shares of KFT exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 6569.
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