SM&A Profit Falls

SM&A (WINS) matched first-quarter estimates Wednesday.

The Newport Beach, Calif., business strategy outfit made $1.2 million, or 6 cents a share, for the quarter ended March 31, down from the year-ago $2.6 million, or 12 cents a share. Revenue fell to $17.7 million from $20.2 million a year ago.

"Our better-than-expected revenue for the first quarter resulted from the solid performance of our Competition Management business," said operating chief Cathy McCarthy. "First quarter Competition Management revenues were just under our record 2005 first quarter of $12.0 million and demonstrates our clients' continued demand for the high value services we provide. We have recently completed a performance review for one of our strategic clients which determined when they utilized SM&A's full service capabilities in competing for proposals, their win rate more than doubled than when our full service capabilities weren't used.

"We feel confident that our Performance Assurance business will begin to show gains over the remainder of the year as we begin to produce revenues from the solutions we developed in 2005 and early this year. I am pleased with the continued diversification of our revenue base both in terms of clients and markets and believe this diversification strategy will increase enterprise value over the long-term," McCarthy added.

Gross margin during the quarter was 40.3% as compared to 43.1% for the first quarter of 2005 and 38.7% for the fourth quarter of 2005.

The company said it expects to post revenue of $18 million for the second quarter and revenue of $76.7 million or a bit more for the year.

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