Wabtec Q3 Profit Down; Tightens FY09 Earnings View

10/29/2009 2:57 PM ET

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(RTTNews) - Thursday, Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corp. (WAB: News ), a provider of technology-based products and services for the freight rail and passenger transit industry, reported a decline in net income for third-quarter, impacted by lower rail traffic levels. The company tightened its full year earnings guidance.

Wabtec's third quarter net income declined to $27.35 million or $0.57 per share from $33.17 million or $0.68 per share in the prior year period. On average, seven analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected the company to report earnings of $0.56 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

The Wilmerding, Pennsylvania-based company's net sales declined to $330.46 million from $396.02 million for the same period last year. Five analysts estimated revenues of $349.51 million for the quarter.

Commenting on the third quarter performance, Albert Neupaver, Wabtec's president and chief executive officer said "Market conditions continued to be very difficult in the third quarter for our freight rail business, while the Transit Group remained stable."

Cost of sales dropped to $235.63 million from $288.34 million a year-ago. Total operating expenses dropped to $49.07 million from $55.22 million for the year earlier period, as selling, general and administrative expenses declined to $37.39 million from $43.84 million for the same quarter a year-ago.

For the nine months, net income declined to $90.85 million or $1.89 per share from $99.44 million or $2.03 per share for the year earlier period. Net sales for the period dropped to $1.04 billion from $1.17 billion last year.

Wabtec now expects earnings to be in the range of $2.40 - $2.50 per share, the company had earlier expected earnings in the range of $2.35 - $2.55 per share. Six analysts estimate earnings of $2.47 per share for fiscal 2009.

Revenues for the full year is now expected to be about 12% lower than last year. Previously, the company had anticipated revenues to decline by about 10%.

WAB is currently trading at $37.84, up $0.20 or 0.53%, on a volume of 0.70 million shares on NYSE.