Milwaukee-based Brady Corp. reported fiscal fourth quarter net income of $11.7 million, or 22 cents per share, down from $29.6 million, or 55 cents per share, in the same period a year ago.
Excluding $7.1 million of after-tax restructuring charges in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012 and $1.6 million of after-tax restructuring charges in the same quarter last year, and a $5.6 million non-routine, non-cash tax charge in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012, net income was down 21.7 percent to $24.4 million compared with $31.1 million in the same quarter last year.
Sales for the fourth quarter were down 6.0 percent to $322.5 million from $343.1 million a year ago.
Brady Corp.’s net loss for the fiscal year was $17.9 million, compared with net income of $108.7 million for fiscal 2011.
“In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012 we were pleased with our organic sales growth in the Americas and EMEA regions, despite a continued challenging economy. Our performance in Asia-Pacific was weaker than expected due to increased market competitiveness, particularly in the mobile handset industry. Throughout fiscal 2012, our focus has been on shifting resources to our highest growth opportunities. As a result, we have recently sold our medical die-cut business in the U.S. and our paper-label business, Etimark in Germany. We also continued to invest in developing and launching a number of proprietary new products and we made three acquisitions in EMEA that increased our market share and expanded our geographic presence,” said Brady president and chief executive officer Frank Jaehnert. “Looking forward, we expect continued moderate organic growth in the Americas, a challenging economic environment in Europe, and improving results in Asia-Pacific due to our restructuring activities and some recent customer wins there.”
The company also announced that its board of directors authorized a share buyback program for up to 2 million shares of the company’s Class A common stock.
