Third Quarter Conference Call – Fiscal 2002

07 / 31 / 2002

1   2   3   4   5  


In terms of sales for all of fiscal ‘02, our Industrial business is performing in line with our previous forecasts with the exception that activity levels have picked up in the combat controls product line. We’re now back to a forecast for ‘02 of $21.3 million in combat controls, more than doubling last year’s level of just over $10 million.

Making this small adjustment we’re now increasing our projection of Industrial sales for the year from $250 million to $252 million.

The not so good news in our Industrial segment is that we had a poor margin quarter. Margins were 3.3%. A number of our product lines continue to suffer from very low unit volume. Furthermore, the cost reduction initiatives intended to offset this reduced volume are not yet coming through in our financial performance. Recognizing this experience in our third quarter, we’re once again moderating our expectation for Industrial margins for the year. We’re now predicting 5.1%, whereas last quarter we were hoping to achieve an annual level of 6.7%.

With respect to ‘03, except for turbine controls, we’re generally forecasting a continuation of the current level of business with very small improvements in some major product lines. Other than those, our forecasted growth is simply a reflection of today’s stronger Euro and Yen. The result in dollar terms would be an increase from $252 million in ’02 to $274 million in ’03.

We anticipate that by the time we begin ’03 a number of our product improvements and cost reduction initiatives will have an effect and we’re projecting a margin improvement from this year’s 5.1% to 7.5%. We’re hopeful that in predicting ’03, we’ve been sufficiently conservative in forecasting both sales and margins that we’ll be able to make these targets in spite of a continuation of today’s very difficult industrial environment.

So, having discussed the important influences in each of our major product lines, let me attempt a brief summary.

In the third quarter just completed, strong Aircraft margin performance and a one-time tax benefit provided solid earnings improvements in spite of sales slightly lower that we had projected and margin erosion in Space and Industrial.

We now expect that stronger sales in the fourth quarter, taken together with only a continuation of current margin performance, will allow us to achieve our targeted results of $37.4 million in net earnings, or $2.49 per share, on sales of $722 million.

For next year we discussed product line sales which total $764 million, up 6% from ’02. We believe that our margin projections will provide $92.6 million of operating income. That’s only slightly higher than fiscal ’02. However, our projections for reduced interest and corporate expenses will result in $59.3 million in pre-tax earnings. Given our 29% tax rate, that will result in net earnings of $42.4 million or $2.75 per share, a 10% increase over anticipated results for fiscal ’02. In short, we believe that the military aircraft business will provide the momentum so that we can continue our double-digit growth in earnings per share, while being completely realistic about our prospects in the commercial aircraft and Industrial businesses. The possibility exists that, sometime between now and the end of ’03, the Industrial business will begin the upturn that many folks are predicting. Were that to happen, we’d expect a rather quick and favorable impact on our results.

Now I’ll turn you over to Bob Banta, who will discuss our cash flow and our projections for debt reduction.

1   2   3   4   5  

© Moog Inc.
Email This Page

Search Results

Looking for documents matching your search criteria ...