At Least One CEO Isn’t Going to Use Currencies as an Excuse
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Abbott Laboratories Chief Executive Officer Miles White said he was tempted to use currency fluctuations to give himself a lower hurdle for his company’s performance this year. He’s an outlier for deciding against it.
Foreign-exchange swings led Johnson & Johnson to miss sales estimates and contributed to its forecast of lower earnings in 2015. The stronger dollar disrupted Microsoft Corp.’s year-old turnaround and led Procter & Gamble Co. CEO A.G. Lafley to blame “unprecedented” currency fluctuations for slashing sales. DuPont Co., Pfizer Inc. and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. all offered annual forecasts below what analysts had estimated.