ArvinMeritor Issues Profit Warning; Stock Off

TROY, Mich. (TheStreet) -- ArvinMeritor(ARM Quote), the vehicle-parts maker, posted another steep quarterly loss Tuesday and issued a profit warning, news that overshadowed the announced sale of its wheels division to a Brazilian manufacturer for $180 million.

Shares of the company fell as much as 12% in Tuesday's early going, before pulling back from those losses. The stock was trading in morning action at $6.58, down 4.5%.

In a premarket press release, Arvin said it now expects its fourth-quarter earnings and revenue to fall below what it posted in the just-ended period. That's substantially less than what Wall Street had been anticipating, though the company did not provide specific figures.

For its third quarter, excluding restructuring charges, the company posted a loss of $18 million, or 25 cents a share, which topped analysts' expectations of a 31-cent loss, on a per-share basis.

Revenue for the company came in at $993 million, below analysts' targets of $1.2 billion.

Both top and bottom lines represent steep declines from the year-earlier period, when Arvin took in a before-items profit of $54 million, or 74 cents a share, on revenue of $1.9 billion.

The company also sold its chassis business during the quarter, as previously announced. The moves come as Arvin attempts to focus its business away from the slumping car-making industry and toward commercial vehicles.