RTTNews | Aug 4, 2021 08:06AM EDT

08:06 Wednesday, August 4, 2021 (RTTNews.com) - While reporting financial results for the third quarter on Wednesday, Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. (SMG) maintained its adjusted earnings and sales growth guidance for the full-year 2021.

For fiscal 2021, the company continues to project adjusted earnings in a range of $9.00 to $9.30 per share on expected company-wide sales growth of 17 to 19 percent.

On average, analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect the company to report earnings of $9.23 per share on sales growth of 17.1 percent to $4.84 billion for the year. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

"The continued pressure from commodity prices is likely to result in a lower gross margin rate than we expected when we last updated our guidance in June," said Cory Miller, senior vice president and interim chief financial officer.

For the third quarter, the company reported that income from continuing operations increased to $229.8 million or $4.00 per share from $ $204.3 million or $3.57 per share in the prior-year quarter. Excluding items, adjusted earnings for the quarter was $3.98 per share, compared to $3.80 per share in the year-ago quarter.

Company-wide sales for the quarter increased 8 percent to $1.61 billion from in the same quarter last year.

The Street was looking for earnings of $3.39 per share on revenues of $1.46 billion for the quarter.

Separately, the Company announced a further strengthening of the Hawthorne Gardening Company portfolio with the acquisition of HydroLogic Purification Systems, a leading provider of products, accessories and systems for water filtration and purification. HydroLogic will add approximately $20 million in annualized sales.

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