BANGALORE (Reuters) - Whirlpool Corp reported a surprise quarterly profit after cost-cutting efforts helped the world's biggest appliance maker offset a slump in global sales.
Whirlpool, which has been in talks with banks about renewing credit lines, has frozen salaries, reduced its contribution to retirement plans and taken other steps to cut costs.
The company also backed its 2009 profit forecast of $3 a share to $4 a share.
The maker of Maytag and KitchenAid appliances reported first-quarter earnings of $68 million, or 91 cents a share, compared with $94 million, or $1.22 a share, a year earlier.
Adjusted for one-time items, profit came to 59 cents a share, compared with a loss of 18 cents a share expected by analysts, according to Reuters Estimates.
Sales fell 23 percent to $3.6 billion.
Sales for the Benton Harbor, Michigan-based company have crumbled in the global slowdown and had warned earlier in the year that profits would continue to fall in 2009.
(Reporting by Dhanya Skariachan in Bangalore; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Derek Caney)
