To All, hope this is good news.
Good Luck
TomS
Pacific Aerospace Backs FY97 Net View Of 16c/Shr
By JENNIFER FRON MAUER
Dow Jones Newswires
NEW YORK -- Since its inception, Pacific Aerospace & Electronics Inc. (PCTH) has been on a path of rapid growth.
On Wednesday, the Wenatchee, Wash., maker of precision electronic components for the aerospace and defense industry expects to report record profits for the fourth quarter and full year ended in May.
Don Wright, the company's founder, president and chief executive, told Dow Jones Pacific Aerospace will meet or exceed analysts' estimates of 6 cents a share for the fiscal fourth quarter.
Wright also backs earnings estimates of 16 cents a share and sales estimates of $34 million for fiscal 1997. The company will also report record backlog of $52 million, he said.
A year ago, Pacific Aerospace posted a loss of 16 cents a share on revenues of $20.7 million.
In fiscal 1998, Pacific Aerospace will certainly exceed analysts' expectations of $42 million in sales, Wright said. Analysts are expecting the company to earn 25 cents to 35 cents a share in this period. Wright said Pacific Aerospace will likely post earnings right in the middle of that range.
''We have achieved, and hope to continue to achieve, explosive growth over the next few years,'' Wright said.
Growth for the company, which was founded in 1994, has come both internally and through acquisitions. Most recently, the company purchased three Internet service providers that will form the foundation of its information technology unit. Wright said Pacific Aerospace will continue to look for acquisitions to complement this newly formed group as well as its other two groups: aerospace and electronic.
When making purchases, Pacific Aerospace looks for undervalued companies that will be accretive to earnings within a year. Ideally, Pacific Aerospace would like for each of its three operating groups to account for one-third of its sales.
Wright said he expects the company's aerospace group to grow the most rapidly over the next few years, with capacity doubling or tripling in the next 12 to 18 months. The company recently invested $3.5 million in new equipment for the group.
Pacific Aerospace is also hoping to expand overseas. The company already works with such customers as Schlumberger A.G., Alcatel Alsthom CIE and Thompson S.A. and derives about 5% of its annual sales from overseas. Wright said he hopes to increase Pacific Aerospace's international sales to 15% to 20% of the company's total over the next three years and is focusing its efforts in Western Europe and Japan.
Wright said Pacific Aerospace has been relatively unaffected by rapid consolidation among aerospace industry giants. Recent mergers or proposed mergers between its customers, such as Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) and Northrop Grumman Corp. (NOC) and Boeing Co. (BA) and
McDonnell Douglas Corp. (MD), will either have a slightly positive effect on the company's operations or no effect, Wright said. |
