Kaman Corp. reported its 2016 third quarter fiscal results on Thursday, led by a 4.5 percent sales increase year-over-year to $453.5 million, while profit ticked up 1.3 percent to $17.5 million.
Sales at Kaman's distribution segment — Kaman Industrial Technologies (KIT) — declined 7.4 percent year-over-year to $274.4 million, while Aerospace segment sales increased 30.3 percent to $179.1 million. Kaman Industrial was No. 20 on Industrial Distribution's 2016 Big 50 List.
KIT's operating profit of $11.9 million was down 17.7 percent year-over-year. Organic sales per day declined 6.3 percent from a year ago, and 2.7 percent from Q2, which the company said reflects weaker-than-expected market conditions. Operating margin of 4.3 percent was down from 4.9 percent a year earlier.
“While disappointed in the overall market environment, we continue to invest in our productivity initiative at Distribution, which includes operational process improvements and data analytics, primarily focused on expanding operating margins," said Kaman chairman, president and CEO Neal Keating. "Although this initiative has been successful in those locations where it has been deployed, the benefits we have seen to date have been largely offset by ongoing implementation costs."
KIT's year-to-date sales of $849.1 million were down 6.9 percent from a year earlier, while aerospace sales were up 28 percent. The company has lowered its full year KIT sales outlook to a range of $1.11 million to $1.12 million, down from $1.125 million to $1.150 million in forecasted in its Q2 report. Kaman chief financial officer Robert Starr said the lowered outlook is due to its expectations for continued weakness in the industrial markets, the negative impact of deleveraging from lower sales, lower vendor incentives and the timing of deliveries for its engineered products.
