By Susan A. Baird
PBN Web Editor
LINCOLN – Personal and business accessories maker A.T. Cross Co. (AMEX: ATX) posted a second-quarter profit of $1.87 million, an increase of 89.19 percent from the year-ago period’s $990,000, on revenue that rose 18.46 percent to $43.21 million.
Earnings per diluted share increased to 12 cents from the year-ago 6 cents (READ MORE), although they remained short of the 22 cents per share recorded in the 2007 fourth quarter – traditionally, the year’s most lucrative period.
“We are very pleased with the continued and broad-based strength of our business despite a highly challenging market environment,” President and CEO David G. Whalen said in a statement last night. “We believe that our performance speaks to the power of our increasingly diversified group of brands and to the ongoing improvements we are making to our operating model.”
The Cross Optical Group posted a segment profit of $4.49 million, a 39.46-percent increase from the 2007 second quarter’s $3.22 million. The segment’s sales – boosted by the March 25 acquisition of sports sunglasses maker Native Eyewear Inc. (READ MORE) – rose 37.73 percent to $17.31 million. “This increase was driven both by continued strong growth for the Costa Del Mar brand,” which Cross acquired in 2003, “as well as the contribution from Native,” the company said.
The Cross Accessories Division (CAD) posted a second-quarter loss of $1.29 million, a 3.73-percent improvement from the division’s year-ago loss of $1.34 million. Sales of its writing instruments and accessories rose 8.32 percent year-over-year to $25.89 million.
The company’s “ongoing focus on cost control and the achievement of some economies of scale” helped pare operating expenses to $21.2 million, or 49 percent of second-quarter sales, from the year-ago period’s $18.6 million, or 50.9 percent, Cross said. Meanwhile, the shift in its product mix toward optical-segment sales helped improve the company’s gross margin to 56.4 percent from the year-ago 56.1 percent.
“We remain on track to achieve our financial goals for the year,” Whalen said, “and we have made excellent progress in advancing each of our core strategies: We have grown our accessories and writing instrument business, lowered our cost structure, grown our optical businesses and successfully leveraged our recent acquisition.”
For all of 2008, A.T. Cross now projects sales growth of 9 percent to 12 percent – compared with its April estimate of 10 to 12 percent and its February prediction of 6 to 8 percent growth (READ MORE) – and full-year earnings of 49 cents to 51 cents per share.
A.T. Cross Co. (AMEX: ATX), based in Lincoln, is a designer and maker of branded personal and business accessories including writing instruments, leather goods, time pieces and Costa Del Mar sunglasses. Additional information is available at www.cross.com.
