Skittish consumers reluctant to fly and buy big-ticket items will continue to buy the soap, toothpaste and shampoo sold by Procter & Gamble Co., company officials told shareholders Tuesday.

        That means P&G will not bear the brunt of a worldwide recession expected in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and the company's sales and earnings should continue to increase on schedule, chief executive A.G. Lafley said.

President and CEO A.G. Lafley at a press conference prior to the annual shareholders meeting. (Glenn Hartong photo) | ZOOM |

        “What I think is going to happen is that consumption in our kind of categories will stay reasonably strong,” he said.

        P&G's 30 top executives, called the Global Leadership Council, fanned out into homes around Greater Cincinnati in late September, and Mr. Lafley left convinced that while consumer confidence is low, Procter's stable of products still is attractive.

        That bodes well for P&G's long-term financial goals, for its employees and for its stock price, he told shareholders in the meeting at Music Hall.

        Mr. Lafley reaffirmed P&G's previous guidance that it should start reaching its goals next year of double-digit profit growth and sales growth of 4 percent to 6 percent.

        P&G has weathered economic trouble in Russia, Latin America and Turkey the past three years. In Turkey, where the currency crashed this year, P&G has even cut enough costs to earn a profit during the last six months.

        With a global restructuring entering its final year, P&G is still hoping to realize $2 billion in annual savings by 2004. It will eliminate more than 25,000 jobs, including more than 3,000 here.

        “We continue to believe that benefits from the company's cost-reduction programs will be the critical driver of earnings growth over the next two-three years,” analysts from Goldman Sachs wrote after talking with Mr. Lafley earlier Tuesday.

        As usual, the two-hour annual meeting was filled with talk of animal testing, child labor on coffee plantations, community programs in Greater Cincinnati and dividend-reinvestment programs.

        Among the highlights of P&G's presentation:

        • Pringles and Sunny Delight will remain with P&G after a proposed alliance with Coca-Cola Co. collapsed.

        “We're going to hold the hand we have,” Mr. Lafley said.

        • Sales to top customers, such as Wal-Mart Stores and Cincinnati-based Kroger Co., have increased 7 percent compared with a year before.

        • A turnaround in Vietnam resulted in P&G's first-ever operating profit there.

        • Corporate gadfly Evelyn Y. Davis did not make the trip from Washington, D.C., for the meeting because of the uncertainty of air travel. Her proposal for cumulative voting for the board of directors — in which shareholders would get more votes if they owned more shares — was defeated by shareholders. Five other shareholder proposals also were defeated.
       

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