Deluxe Corp. said its earnings fell in the fourth quarter, despite stronger sales to banks.
The St. Paul check printer reported Thursday that net income dropped 15.4% from a year earlier, to $40.2 million. Earnings per share dropped 16.3%, to 77 cents, falling 2 cents short of the average estimate by analysts. Revenue fell 3.1%, to $414 million.
For the full year, revenue fell 2%, to $1.61 billion, but net income increased 42.1%, to $143.5 million.
Deluxe has tried to diversify its revenue mix in recent years as the use of paper checks has declined, but its small-business printing unit accounted for much of the quarterly decline.
The unit's fourth-quarter revenue declined 5.7%, to $251.4 million. However, revenue in the financial services unit, which sells paper checks to banks, rose 2.5%, to $112.9 million. Sales in the direct check unit were nearly flat at $49.7 million.
"While we did see some signs of economic softness with some of our small business customers, better than expected check orders" contributed to earnings in the quarter, Lee Schram, Deluxe's chief executive, said in a press release.
For the first quarter, his company expects to report earnings of 50 to 54 cents a share on revenue of $375 million to $385 million. For the full year, it expects to report earnings of $3 to $3.20 a share on revenue of $1.56 billion to $1.61 billion.
