Several electrical companies reported increases in second-quarter financial results. Following are financial snapshots of the earnings reports of some industry players.
W.W. Grainger Inc., Chicago, said its second-quarter profit rose 12 percent.
Earnings grew to $104.8 million versus $93.7 million during the same period in the prior year.
Grainger, which operates 430 branches, said total revenue for the quarter rose 8 percent to $1.6 billion, compared with $1.48 billion in the previous year.
The company’s sales in the United States increased 8 percent, and the strongest sales growth came from government customers followed by the commercial and reseller markets. Partially offsetting this growth was slower demand coming from retail and heavy manufacturing markets. Geographically, the Great Plains and Pacific Mountain regions of the country posted strong growth while the West Coast and the Southeast regions grew at the slowest pace.
Thomas & Betts Corp., Memphis, Tenn., said its second-quarter earnings rose nearly 14 percent to $46.6 million from $41 million during the same period last year.
Revenue increased 8 percent to $507.2 million from $467.9 million in the year-ago quarter.
Second-quarter electrical segment sales rose 9.1 percent to $418 million. Higher sales volume reflecting continued solid demand in industrial, utility and commercial construction markets contributed to the sales improvement. Increased selling prices to offset higher material and energy costs also contributed to the sales growth. The company said foreign currency translations benefited sales in the segment by about $7 million in the quarter.
“Demand remained solid in our key markets — industrial MRO, utility transmission and distribution and commercial construction,” said Dominic J. Pileggi, T&B’s chairman and chief executive.
Pileggi said the company expects sales for the full year 2007 to grow in the mid-to-high single-digit range.
Anixter International Inc., Glenview, Ill., said its second-quarter year-to-year profit rose 31 percent increasing to $64.6 million from $49.4 million a year ago. Sales rose 23 percent to $1.51 billion from $1.24 billion in 2006.
The company said the latest second-quarter results included sales of $39.7 million from acquisitions completed over the past year.
Robert Grubbs, Anixter’s president and CEO, said, “In the most recent quarter, we again experienced strong larger project business, particularly as it relates to data center builds in the enterprise cabling market and within the energy/natural resources customers in the electrical wire and cable market, he said. “At the same time, we have continued to experience strong growth in the security and OEM markets.” He said the company saw stronger than expected customer demand across a broad mix of end markets but with particularly strong large project demand in the electrical wire and cable market.
Rockwell Automation, Milwaukee, reported fiscal 2007 third-quarter net income of $164.2 million compared to net income of $149 million in the third quarter of 2006. Total sales rose 9.3 percent to $1.28 billion from $1.17 billion.
Keith D. Nosbusch, the company’s chairman and chief executive officer, said, “This quarter played out very much as we anticipated. Revenue was in line with our expectations across all regions and earnings were better than anticipated.”
Nosbusch said, “Our current outlook anticipates a gradually expanding global industrial economy across most end markets through the remainder of this year and into fiscal 2008.” Nosbusch said he is confident the company will close out a successful 2007 and carry that momentum into 2008.