Esterline Profit Rises, But Misses Estimate; Reaffirms Outlook - Update

(RTTNews) - Esterline Technologies Corp (ESL), an engineered products maker for aerospace and defense customers, Thursday reported a marginal increase in second-quarter profit, on a six percent growth in revenues. However, quarterly earnings missed Wall Street estimates, while revenues surpassed expectations.

The company reaffirmed its guidance for the full year.

In the recent quarter, Esterline benefited from strength in commercial markets and revenue contributions from investments in key strategic programs, partly offset by lower sales for certain defense products.

CEO Curtis Reusser said that business prospects appears healthy owing to strength in the company's end markets. Esterline also hopes to benefit from cost saving measures and product development programs, Reusser added.

Bellevue, Washington-based Esterline posted quarterly net earnings of $36.9 million or $1.14 per share, compared with $35.5 million or $1.12 per share last year.

Excluding items, adjusted earnings for the quarter were $41.5 million or $1.28 per share. On average, eight analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected earnings of $1.31 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude special items.

Revenues for the quarter were higher at $529.6 million, compared with $499.6 million in the prior year. Analysts expected revenues of $521.5 million.

New orders in the quarter increased 13.6 percent to $561.2 million and total backlog was $1.3 billion.

For fiscal 2014, Esterline still expects adjusted earnings of $5.40 to $5.70 per share and revenues of $2 billion to $2.1 billion. Analysts expect earnings of $5.69 per share on revenues of $2.11 billion.

"We're executing well, progressing on our restructuring initiatives, and seeing good trends in our order book, making us increasingly confident that we will achieve our full-year expectations," said CEO Curtis Reusser.

Esterline stock closed Wednesday at $110.81, up $0.76 or 0.69%, on a volume of about 173k shares on the NYSE.