FEI Beats 1st Quarter Estimates

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FEI Company(FEIC Quote) reported on May 5, 2009 that its Q1 FY09 earnings rose 25.9% year-over-year to $6.34 million, or $0.17 per share, from $5.03 million, or $0.14 per share, led by a good flow of orders and strong operational performance. The quarterly results beat the consensus estimate of $0.14 per share.

Total net sales fell 6.5% to $141.83 million from $151.73 million in Q1 FY08. Product sales, accounting for 76.5% of total revenue, declined 7.4% to $108.56 million. Within this segment, life sciences recorded revenue growth of 117.7% to $20.90 million. However, sales from the electronics segment and the research and industry segment slipped 37.0% and 4.6% to $29.30 million and $58.30 million, respectively. Service and components sales, comprising 23.5% of overall revenue, decreased 3.4% to $33.27 million. The gross profit margin increased by 184 basis points to 41.38% in the quarter under review. Geographically, revenue from Europe spiked 22.9% to $48.90 million when compared to $39.80 million in Q1 FY08. Revenue from Asia-Pacific and rest of the world dropped 35.1% to $37.40 million, while sales from the U.S. and Canada increased marginally to $55.50 million from $54.20 million. Moreover, total bookings were down 13.2% to $130.60 million and the book-to-bill ratio stood at 0.92 compared to 0.99 a year ago. Back-log, however, increased 3.1% to $319.30 million.

Looking forward to Q2 FY09, assuming an average euro/dollar exchange rate of $1.35, FEIC expects its EPS to be in the range of $0.10 to $0.14 (inclusive of an estimated restructuring charge of $800,000) on sales of $136.00 to $142.00 million. Also, bookings are expected to be above $135.00 million.