Apogee posts revenue increase, says market conditions still difficult

Apogee Enterprises,parent company ofViracon, Harmon Inc., Wausau Windowand Wall Systems, Linetec and Tubelite, announced fiscal 2012 first-quarter results. According to a June 21 release, revenues of $153.3 million were up 7 percent, with an operating lossof $3.4 million. Architectural segment revenues increased 7 percent, with an operating loss of $7.1 million.

"Although losses continued for Apogee with the ongoing difficult commercial construction market conditions, we are encouraged that revenues increased year-on-year and our architectural segment backlog again grew sequentially," said Russell Huffer, Apogee CEO, in the release.

"As expected, our first-quarter architectural segment losses resulted from low pricing on architectural glass projects and lower margins on installation projects bid at the bottom of the commercial construction cycle, as well as low architectural glass capacity utilization," he said. "Our balance sheet remains solid with cash and short-term investments at $43 million."

"Our outlook for fiscal 2012 has improved slightly as we've become more confident that architectural glass price increases should flow through as the year progresses and stronger volume is anticipated for our architectural glass and storefront businesses," Huffer continued.

He added that architectural bidding activity continues to be good and remains driven by institutional work--government, education and healthcare projects--but that the majority of work currently being bid is scheduled for fiscal 2013.