Alcoa revenue beats expectations, but earnings come up short

Alcoa reported quarterly revenue that beat analysts' expectations on Thursday, but its earnings came up short.

After the earnings announcement, the company's shares fell more than 3 percent in extended-hours trading. (Click here to get the latest quotes for Alcoa.)

The company posted fourth-quarter earnings excluding items of 4 cents per share, down from 6 cents a share in the year-earlier period.

Revenue dropped to $5.59 billion from $5.90 billion a year earlier.

Analysts had expected the company to report earnings excluding items of 6 cents a share on $5.34 billion in revenue, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters.

Earlier, Alcoa agreed to pay $384 million to settle civil and criminal charges that the aluminum producer's subsidiaries bribed officials in Bahrain, U.S. authorities said on Thursday.

In an interview with CNBC's "Closing Bell," Chairman and CEO Klaus Kleinfeld said Alcoa is moving on.

(Read more: Alcoa to pay $384 million to settle Bahrain bribery charges)

"We welcome that we have been able to reach a settlement on this legacy legal matter and put this thing behind us," he said. "We have been able to negotiate it in such a way that it puts less of a financial stress on the company."

Alcoa is now focused on transforming and expanding its business, Kleinfeld said.

"We're building up our value-add business," he said. "It now makes up 57 percent of our revenues and 80 percent of our segment profits, and that's what we're going after."

He acknowledged that Alcoa has faced headwinds on the metals side, which is down 4 percent. Looking at the whole year, he said, "the profitability is up by 36 percent, excluding special items."

—By CNBC.com