Eaton (NYSE: ETN) reported Q3 EPS of $0.97, $0.05 worse than the analyst estimate of $1.02. Revenue for the quarter came in at $5.2 billion versus the consensus estimate of $5.39 billion.

Alexander M. Cutler, Eaton chairman and chief executive officer, said, “Our sales in the third quarter were approximately $300 million lower than we had expected at the start of the quarter, with organic sales lower by $240 million and negative currency translation reducing sales by $60 million.

“The majority of our markets experienced weaker conditions in the quarter, which makes us cautious about the sales outlook looking forward,” said Cutler.

“As we had announced when we issued second quarter earnings, we implemented a substantial restructuring program in the third quarter,” said Cutler. “We incurred restructuring costs of $113 million, while our savings in the quarter from the actions were $15 million.

“Our operating cash flow in the third quarter was $973 million, a quarterly record, reflecting strong cost control and tight management of working capital,” said Cutler. “During the quarter, we repurchased $284 million of our shares, making our repurchases so far in 2015 a total of $454 million, approximately 1½ percent of our outstanding shares at the beginning of the year. Given the weak stock price performance for U.S. dollar denominated industrials, we would expect to continue our strong bias toward deploying our excess cash flow over the next year for share repurchases.

“We anticipate operating earnings per share for the fourth quarter of 2015, which exclude an estimated $14 million of charges to integrate our recent acquisitions, to be between $1.05 and $1.15,” said Cutler. “We expect to incur restructuring charges of $10 million in the fourth quarter, while savings in the quarter from our restructuring program are expected to total $35 million.

“For the full year 2015, we now expect our operating earnings per share to be between $4.20 and $4.30, a reduction at the midpoint of 6 percent from our prior guidance,” said Cutler. “Despite the decline in earnings per share, we continue to believe we will achieve our prior forecasts for 2015 operating cash flow.

“As we begin to plan for 2016, it is apparent that markets are likely to remain soft,” said Cutler. “To deal with such weak markets, we will be expanding our 2016 restructuring program. We had been planning on this second restructuring program, in addition to the $145 million program we announced in the second quarter of 2015, to be on the order of $50 million to $60 million, but in light of current market weakness we are expanding the program to between $90 million and $100 million.”

For earnings history and earnings-related data on Eaton (ETN) click here.