Investing.com -- Shares in the Kraft Heinz Group fell slightly in after-hours trading after the new company posted disappointing quarterly earnings on Monday in its first quarter since completing a mega multi-billion dollar merger in March.
During the company's second quarter, which ended in late-June, Kraft's net revenues decreased by 4.9%, as its organic net revenues fell by more than 3.2% for the 13-week period. While Kraft still managed to post net revenues of $4.5 billion for the quarter, the total still fell below analysts' forecasts of $4.7 billion. The negative impacts from foreign exchange translation were responsible for a 1.4% decline, the company said in a statement.
“The company is focused on the difficult and challenging process of integrating our two businesses,” Kraft Heinz CEO Bernardo Hees said in a statement. “We have a lot of hard work ahead of us as we continue to design our new organization, always putting our consumers first.”
In March, the two prominent businesses completed a merger that created the third largest food and beverage company in North America and the fifth largest in the world. At the time, the newly created company said its brands accounted for $28 billion in revenue, including of eight of which that produced at least $1 billion.
For the quarter, Kraft's net pricing increased by 4.2% driven by higher pricing across all segments, primarily in Latin America. The company's volume increased by 1.7%, driven by higher inventory levels in the U.S. as well as packaging supply constraints in Venezuela. Still, Kraft reported free cash flow of $802 million for the first six months of 2015, up from $454 million for the same period last year.
Kraft reported net profits of $551 million or earnings of 0.92 per share, above analysts' forecasts of 0.83.
Shares in Kraft fell 1.31 or 1.66% in after-hour trading to 77.50.