Excluding non-core items, pre-tax earnings increased 13.0 percent to $276.7 million in the first nine months of fiscal year 2006 and net earnings increased 15.6 percent to $184.0 million from $159.1 million in the prior year. Diluted net earnings per share for the first nine months improved to $1.97 from $1.71 last year excluding the non-core items.
Commenting on the quarter, Alberto-Culver President and Chief Executive Officer Howard Bernick said, "We are very pleased with the results of our third quarter and first nine months of fiscal year 2006. We expect this fiscal year, which will end in just over nine weeks, will be our fifteenth consecutive year of record sales and record earnings for the Alberto-Culver Company."
Mr. Bernick continued, "Our consumer products group recorded strong sales growth in the third quarter led by Nexxus and TRESemme. We also continued our efforts in building our brands for today and the future by making heavy advertising investments in the quarter and year. Consolidated advertising expenditures increased 20.2 percent in the third quarter and 19.5 percent for the nine months versus the same periods last year. The Sally store business generated another consistent quarter of sales and earnings growth. Beauty Systems Group (BSG) continued to recover from its difficult fiscal 2005 and in the third quarter recorded reasonable sales growth and more than a 25 percent pre-tax operating earnings increase. The Company ended the quarter with 2,494 Sally stores in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the U.K., Ireland, Germany and Japan and our Beauty Systems Group had 824 stores and 1,212 professional distributor sales consultants at June 30, 2006."
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