WEST WARWICK – High tech manufacturer Astro-Med, Inc. expects to report a weak first quarter, the company announced in a news release last week. Sales will be down from the prior year’s first quarter sales and the company will report a loss for the first quarter versus a profit of 4 cents for the first quarter of the prior year.
"Despite the lower shipments during the first quarter, we experienced a resurgence in customer demand for our products during the latter weeks of March and all of April," said Albert W. Ondis, Astro-Med chairman and chief executive officer at the company’s annual shareholder’s meeting last week. "The result increased our bookings for the first quarter to $12.7 million, an 8 percent increase over the fourth quarter’s bookings and a 2 percent increase over the prior year’s first quarter bookings."
The company’s actual final results of the first quarter will be released on Tuesday, May 21, and management will discuss the results during a conference call on Wednesday at 11 a.m. It will be broadcast in real time over the Internet, on the company’s Web site at www.astro-med.com.
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ProJo owner expects
profits to rise by at least 26 cents
DALLAS – Belo Corp., owner of The Providence Journal, said last week that it expects to earn 26 to 28 cents a share in the second quarter before a non-cash credit of two cents a share. The earnings could be at the lower end of analysts’ estimates, which ranged from 24 cents to 33 cents a share, according to Thomson Financial/First Call.
The company stated in a press release that the non-cash credit is for favorable resolution of certain contingencies.
Belo also owns The Dallas Morning News and 19 television stations. The company expects television revenues to be up in the low single-digit percentage range and the newspaper revenues to be down in the low-single-digit range.
The company’s total new operating revenues declined by 3.5 percent in the first quarter company to the first quarter of last year.
CVS expected to
see profit fall in second quarter
WOONSOCKET – CVS Corp., the second-largest U.S. drugstore chain, still expects second-quarter profit to fall to 42 cents to 43 cents a share and earnings this year to rise as much as 10 percent, Bloomberg News reported.
The company’s earned $1.56 last year, excluding certain costs, CVS said in a statement. A 10 percent increase works out to $1.72 a share. Analysts’ average estimate was 43 cents in the quarter and $1.69 for the year, according to Thomson First Call.
CVS said in October that per-share profit, excluding certain costs, would increase 8 percent to 10 percent this year after it closed more than 200 stores to cut costs. Chief Executive Tom Ryan has boosted radio and television advertising to bring back shoppers lost last year when the company reduced hours because of a lack of pharmacists.
Ryan last week also told analysts that the company plans to expand in new, like Las Vegas, Chicago, Florida and Phoenix.
"I am very enthusiastic about our long-term growth opportunities in new markets, especially given that the population and prescription demand in these markets is expected to grow several times faster than in the majority of our existing markets," said Ryan.
Raytheon celebrates
destroyer systems contract
PORTSMOUTH – Sen. Jack Reed and Congressman Patrick Kennedy joined Daniel Burnham, chairman and CEO of Raytheon Corp. at that company’s plant here last week to celebrate the award of contract related to development and construction of the Navy’s new destroyer, the so-called DD-X system. Northrop Grumman is the prime contractor and the Naval Underwater Warfare Center in Newport will work with Raytheon in integrating the ship’s weapons system. The Raytheon celebration might be premature since General Dynamics, based in Falls Church, Va., the parent company of Electric Boat, among others, announced that it is appealing the government’s decision.
Infinite Group
reports boost in revenue for quarter
WARWICK – Infinite Group, Inc. last week reported revenues for the quarter ending March 31 of $2,207,123 compared with $2,069,383 for the corresponding quarter in 2001. The company announced that it was restating its revenues for 2001 to reflect the discontinuance of its former Plastics Group operations, most of which had been sold or liquidated by March 31, 2001. The net revenue increase was attributed to increased income from the Photonics Group, $570,000, offset somewhat by decreased revenues from its Laser Group, $432,000.
For the quarter that ended March 31, 2002, Infinite reported a net loss of $400,155, or $0.07 cents a share, compared with a net loss of $379,193, or $0.11 cents a share for the corresponding quarter in 2001. Infinite attributed the net loss to its Laser Fare unit, which was affected by a reduced demand for jet engine and gas turbine engine components, partially attributed to the decline in air travel after Sept. 11.
(Compiled from news reports and releases, print and electronic.)
