3M's Restructuring Punishes 2015 Results to Flatter 2016's

With its Q3 earnings last October, 3M (NYSE:MMM) announced a restructuring plan expected to reduce 2016 costs by $130 million. With its Q4 results it revealed a $114 million charge for this, which reduced full-year earnings per share by 1.8%.

3M enjoys a special place in many investors' thinking, as an industrial company with a long history of comparatively stable growth (thanks to its consumer and healthcare exposure), 57 years of unbroken dividend increases., and an ability to extract profits from some extremely unlikely markets. Yet over the last few years, things have not gone especially well: It has received less of a boost from economic recovery than it has in the past, and it has taken to the somewhat desperate measure of borrowing money to repurchase stock. It took on $3.5 billion in debt and drew down cash to spend $5.2 billion on share repurchases in 2015.

Source: Motley Fool

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