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 APRIL 2008 W5 ALERTPlanar Plainly in Pain Company Releases Results and Plans for Improvement <April 29, 2008>Saying, “We are obviously disappointed with our overall second quarter financial results,” Gerry Perkel, Planar’s President and Chief Executive Officer released the company’s second quarter and half year results today. While a couple of the company’s divisions turned in respectable performance…notably the Medical Business Unit and the Industrial Business Unit…all other divisions showed losses.
The most visible poor performer was their Home Theater Business Unit, the division which includes the Runco acquisition - their bid to add a specialty business with better margin performance. Showing a non-GAAP operating loss of $3.589 million for the second quarter in the Home Theater Business Unit, clearly the results were not what the company anticipated when they made the decision to purchase Runco.
Overall, the company announced a net loss of $5.2 million on sales of $69.8 million for the second quarter. The six month results showed a net loss of $8.7 million on sales of $150.4 million.
Blaming “a combination of economic challenges and internal execution issues,” the company was not able to meet its overall revenue goal for the quarter. Saying that the “Company believes it has allowed sufficient time for these initiatives to show their merit and the result is that  some have been successful and some have not,” the release went on to make several proposals for improving their performance.
In the Home Theater division, the company said that it had not achieved expected performance after the Runco acquisition due to “integration challenges” and also as a result of the declining economic situation in the U.S. Key to the Planar plans to turn their business around, staff cutbacks are already under way. Specifically, the release noted that 80 full time and temporary positions have been eliminated in the Home Theater division.
Other divisions will have their “investment strategies adjusted” to create improved profitability, which could be a euphemism for budget cutbacks.
“We are very committed to improving the profitability and liquidity of the Company, and we believe we have opportunities to be successful,” said Perkel.   |
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