1Q Sales and Profits Soft at HWC but CEO See Improving Business Conditions
Houston Wire & Cable, Houston, said its first-quarter sales and net income were off 7.1 percent and 17.4 percent, respectively, compared to 1Q 2009, but Chuck Sorrentino said general business conditions are starting to improve.
"Job stabilization, improving plant utilization, increased factory orders, and anecdotal comments from customers, support a gradual improvement in the overall economic outlook,” he said. “I expect improving sales in industrial consumables which could lead to increased capital spending and expanded levels of business.
"We were pleased that we increased market share by adding more than 60 new customers in the quarter. Record operating cash flows for the quarter allowed us to significantly reduce our debt which positions us to fund suitable acquisitions and general business expansion when the economy improves. Our lower cost structure should afford earnings leverage as confidence returns to our customers, which would then be reflected in increased capital spending and increased sales.” Details
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Jim Lucy has been wandering through the electrical market for more than 30 years, most of the time as an editor for Electrical Wholesaling, Electrical Marketing newsletter and CEE News. During that time he and the editorial team for the publications have won numerous national awards for their coverage of the electrical business. He showed an early interest in electricity, when as a youth he had an idea for a hot dog cooker. Unfortunately, the first crude prototype malfunctioned and the arc nearly blew him out of his parents' basement. Before becoming an editor for Electrical Wholesaling magazine and Electrical Marketing, he earned a BA degree in journalism and a MA in communications from Glassboro State College, Glassboro, NJ., which is formerly best known as the site of the 1967 summit meeting between President Lyndon Johnson and Russian Premier Aleksei Nikolayevich Kosygin, and now best known as the New Jersey state college that changed its name in 1992 to Rowan University because of a generous $100 million donation by N.J. zillionaire industrialist Henry Rowan. Jim is a Brooklyn-born Jersey Guy happily transplanted in the fertile plains of Kansas for the past 20 years.