Correction: Peet’s Coffee & Tea earnings story

Correction: Peet’s Coffee & Tea earnings story

EMERYVILLE, Calif. — In a Feb. 17 headline and story about Peet’s Coffee & Tea’s fourth-quarter earnings, The Associated Press erroneously reported that the company’s results were helped by a tax benefit. The results were helped by a break-up fee the company received when its bid for Diedrich Coffee failed. It reported no tax benefit.

A corrected version of the story appears below.

EMERYVILLE, Calif. (AP) — Gourmet coffee chain Peet’s Coffee & Tea Inc. said Wednesday fourth-quarter profit more than doubled, helped by better sales and a cash benefit related to its attempt to acquire Diedrich Coffee.

Profit for the quarter ended Jan. 3 more than doubled to $10.3 million, or 76 cents per share, from $4 million, or 29 cents per share last year. Excluding one-time items such as a $8.5 million breakup fee Green Mountain Roasters paid Peet’s when Peet’s lost the bidding for Diedrich Coffee, Peet’s net income totaled 41 cents per share.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, on average, predicted a profit of 38 cents per share on revenue of $89.8 million.

Peet’s revenue rose 15.9 percent to $91.7 million from $79.2 million.

For all of 2009, profit rose 72 percent to $19.3 million, or $1.44 per share, from $11.2 million, or 80 cents per share last year. Full-year revenue rose 9 percent to $311.3 million from $284.8 million in 2008.

For 2010, the company expects to earn $1.24 to $1.30 per share, excluding one-time items, while analysts expect a profit of $1.27 per share. Analysts typically exclude one-time items.

This year’s one-time items include legal and related expenses the company expects as it complies with a subpoena from the Federal Trade Commission, as part of the agency’s anti-trust review of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters’ acquisition of Diedrich Coffee.