Fortune Brands posts first loss in eight years

Fortune Brands Inc., the maker of MasterBrand cabinets and Jim Beam bourbon, fell 11 percent in New York trading after reporting its first quarterly loss in eight years.

The fourth-quarter net loss was $275.3 million, or $1.84 a share, compared with a profit of $201.5 million, or $1.28, a year earlier, the Deerfield-based company said today in a statement. Sales dropped 19 percent to $1.79 billion, missing the $1.85 billion average estimate in a Bloomberg survey of analysts.

The credit crisis has driven U.S. new home sales to their lowest level on record, stifling demand for Fortune's cabinets, windows and faucets. The company wrote down $348.7 million, principally related to its entry-door brand. A liquor tax increase in Australia also hurt earnings last quarter, it said.

Fortune, which also makes Titleist golf products, forecast 2009 earnings excluding some items of as much as $2.50 a share, short of the $3.54 average analyst estimate in the Bloomberg survey.

"We're planning for the global economy to get worse before it gets better," Chief Executive Officer Bruce Carbonari said in the statement. The company is counting on its spirits business to counter declines in the home-products market, he said.

Fortune fell $4.25 to $33.71 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, the largest drop since July 1. The shares plummeted 43 percent last year.