UPS EXPECTS STRONG FIRST-QUARTER EARNINGS

UPS EXPECTS STRONG FIRST-QUARTER EARNINGS    UPS said Tuesday it anticipates first-quarter earnings per diluted share to be at the high end of the 40- to 47-cent expectation provided late in January.
   “The quarter is unfolding fairly well,” said Scott Davis, chief financial officer for UPS. “While volume growth is still about 1-to-2 percent below last year’s levels, yields are firm and expense controls are tracking ahead of plan.”
   “Businesses realize there’s still too much fat in their distribution systems,” Mike Eskew, chief executive officer of UPS, told a conference of investors and analysts in Louisville, Ky. “These costs can be reduced and managed with better supply chain planning.”
      To that end, UPS has been migrating to become “a complete supply chain solutions company,” Eskew said.
   At the conference, UPS senior executives spoke of key elements of the company’s strategy and growth plans for the coming year, including several technology initiatives to better connect the company with its customers. Among those issues, the company predicted that UPS’s investment in Asian operations will soon pay dividends, and that UPS’s export business in Europe is growing in excess of 15 percent per year.