Some background on earnings, from Globes:
Sunday , Feb 23, 1997 Updated Sun-Thu at 18:00 (GMT+2)
Headlines
Gilat: SkyData Merger Increased
Backlog of Orders to $40 Mln
By Ami Ginsburg
The big surprise for those interested in Gilat Satellite
Networks financial report is the way figures are
presented. During the fourth quarter, the company
merged with a privately-owned US company,
SkyData and the acquisition was accounted for as a
"pooling of interest". This enables Gilat to
consolidate its results together with SkyData's.
This, plus the fact that SkyData had heretofore
never prepared quarterly reports, allowed Gilat the
luxury of not preparing a quarterly report for 1996.
The company reported only annual results for 1996.
Annual results show that consolidated annual 1996
revenues grew to $74.1 million, compared with $54
million in 1995. Net profit declined to $5.5 million
from $8.6 million but this was due to $8 million in
one-time merger expenses. Not taking those
expenses into account, Gilat per share profit was
$1.22 compared with a forecast $1.20.
SkyData was acquired by Gilat at the end of
December 1996, through an exchange of all Skydata
outstanding equity for approximately 800,000 of Gilat
ordinary shares, valued at that point as $20 million.
Making up for the damage to net profits was the fact
that since the merger Gilat has doubled its backlog
of orders.
At the end of December, backlogged order were
$18.5 million. Since the beginning of 1997, the
company has received an additional $11.5 million in
orders, plus $10 million in additional contractual
obligations including the remainder of an order to
Peugeot-Citroen. |
