Kaydon Shares Soar On Results Aided By Wind Energy

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — Kaydon Corp. shares soared Thursday after the maker of engineered products reported third-quarter earnings that easily beat Wall Street expectations, largely due to a boost from its wind energy business.

Shares jumped $4.45, or 14.3 percent, to $35.48 in morning trading. In the past 12 months shares have ranged from $20.89 to $37.55.

For the three months ended Oct. 3, Kaydon reported profit of $16.1 million, or 48 cents per share, slightly less that $16.3 million, or 50 cents per share, in the year-earlier period.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected, on average, earnings per share of 28 cents.

Sales slipped 2.5 percent to $123.6 million from $126.8 million, but were still well above the $97.7 million analysts expected.

Revenue from the company's wind energy segment rose $19.4 million to $41 million.

"While sequential improvement in the legacy businesses is important, the unusual strength in wind is the key to the story since it runs counter to every other comp that we have seen this quarter," Deutsche Bank-North America analysts Nigel Coe said, calling the overall results "an extremely high quality quarter."

Besides wind, other strong segments were medical and military operations.

Selling, general and administrative costs declined 32 percent to $13.4 million from $19.8 million.

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