Caterpillar 4Q Profit Up 60%, Raises Sales Growth View For Year

Shares were recently up 2.6% at $111.72 premarket as the results beat expectations and the company offered upbeat targets for its new fiscal year.

For the year, the company predicted earnings of about $9.25 a share and raised the low end of its revenue view, now projecting $68 billion to $72 billion, which marks 13% to 20% growth over 2011. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters currently expect earnings of $9.06 a share, and Caterpillar had previously guided for sales growth of 10% to 20%.

As the world's largest manufacturer of bulldozers, excavators and other construction machinery, Caterpillar is closely watched as a gauge of the strength of the global economy.

The company's roughly $8 billion purchase last year of mining-machinery maker Bucyrus International --its largest takeover ever -- helped extend the Caterpillar's reach into the busy mining sector.

Caterpillar posted a profit of $1.55 billion, or $2.32 a share, compared with $968 million, or $1.47 a share, a year earlier. Revenue increased 35% to $17.24 billion.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were looking for a per-share profit of $ 1.73 on revenue of $16.05 billion.

Machinery and power systems sales surged 36%, while financial products revenue edged up 3%.

-By Mia Lamar and Lauren Pollock, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2356; lauren.pollock@dowjones.com

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