Building products distributor Bluelinx Holdings Inc. (BXC) announced Wednesday that its second quarter profit increased from last year, helped by higher margins and lower expenses.
Net income for the second quarter was $6.6 million or $0.21 per share, up from $5.4 million or $0.18 per share in the prior year quarter. On average, four analysts polled by First Call/Thomson Financial expected the company to earn $0.21 per share for the second quarter.
The Atlanta, Georgia-based company's revenues declined 22.9% to $835 million from $1.08 billion in the same quarter of last year, hurt by a 26% fall in structural product sales and a 20% sales decline in specialty product sales. Three analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $830.58 million for the second quarter.
The company said, "The decline in sales is primarily attributable to a decline in unit volume partially offset by increases in underlying structural product prices. The overall second-quarter unit volume decline of 26% was mainly due to lower unit volumes in both structural and specialty products driven predominately by a 32% decline in housing starts relative to year ago levels."
As percentage sales, gross margin improved to 12.9% from 11.0% in the second quarter of 2007.
Total operating expenses for the second quarter were $86.3 million, down 12.5% from $98.7 million in the previous year quarter, due to the company's ongoing focus on managing expenses to the current operating environment.
For the first six months of 2008, the company reported a net loss of $4.0 million or $0.13 per share, compared to net income of $5.2 million or $0.17 per share in the previous year period.
Revenues for the year-to-date period declined to $1.55 billion from $2.04 billion in the preceding year period.
Howard Cohen, Chairman and Interim CEO of Bluelinx, said, "While we are pleased with our results, we expect the current housing market downturn to continue through 2009. We remain focused on managing cash flow by tightly managing inventories, receivables and our operating expenses."
BXC is currently trading at $4.99, up 29 cents or 6.06%.
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