Total fiscal fourth quarter net sales declined from $184.8 million, reported in the prior year, to $169.0 million due primarily to reduced demands for the company’s gas and water meters resulting from historic low building starts in the residential and commercial real estate markets in North America coupled with reduced demands for the company’s precision die cast products due to a weak US automotive market. Offsetting these contracting demands was growth in water and heat meters sales outside of North America coupled with AMI system and products in North America. Net loss was $18.7 million, and included $14.4 million of goodwill impairment, compared to a net loss of $0.6 million in the prior period. Adjusted Net Sales improved to $216.2 million from $204.8 million representing a 6% improvement over the same quarter in the prior year. The Company recorded Adjusted EBITDA of $36.0 million compared to $31.4 million in the prior year, representing a 15% improvement in the profitability measure.
Sensus continues to focus on delivering advanced technology and communications systems to its customers. The company’s ongoing effort to build the Smart Grid continues to accelerate, as evidenced by more than 2.8 million SmartPoints the company has deployed, and are operational, demonstrating FlexNet technology and functionality in utility billing and monitoring in systems at consistently high accuracy levels. The company continues to drive customer confidence in its system through added functionality, improved efficiencies and increased scale. The company has also expanded its offerings to leverage its network system’s reach to include demand response and distribution automation, in addition to smart metering technology.
“Our strong fourth quarter and annual financial performance was achieved in a very difficult global environment. Annual records were set for both Adjusted Net Sales(1) of $806.1 million, an 11% improvement over prior year, and Adjusted EBITDA(1) of $112.2 million, an improvement of more than 20%. During the year, we took several actions to improve our focus on scalability, flexibility, and customer satisfaction. While navigating this challenging environment, we continued to invest where necessary to deliver on our commitments, to expand our product offerings and to support our customers’ needs. I am pleased with the results for the year. We will continue to build on our momentum and to extend and leverage our efforts as we enter a new fiscal year. Our primary focus will continue to be on strengthening our position and delivering performance and value to our customers,” said Peter Mainz, chief executive officer and president of Sensus.
Key Highlights for the Fiscal Fourth Quarter:
15% improvement in Adjusted EBITDA to $36.0 million;
6% increase in adjusted net sales and a record level of $216.2 million;
18% improvement in GAAP operating cash flow;
Adjusted Net Sales book-to-bill of over 1 to 1;
$467 million potential future revenue and 5.7 million endpoints from AMI contracts;
In excess of a quarter million new endpoints contracted during the quarter;
$37.9 million of cash-on-hand at March 31, 2009.
Sensus is a US-based provider of high-value advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and metering system solutions.
