Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 8, 1995 TAG: 9502090029
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The results by the Martinsville-based apparel maker were about what the financial community expected and what Tultex had indicated they would be, said Jack Pickler, an analyst with Prudential Securities Research in Richmond.
Tultex said its net income in the fourth quarter was $9.5 million, or 31 cents per share, compared with $2.2 million and 6 cents per share during the same period of 1993. The 1994 fourth-quarter earnings included an after-tax gain of $2.7 million, or 9 cents per share, on the sale of a company yarn plant. The company would not reveal the location of the plant or its buyer.
Fourth-quarter sales totaled $168.3 million, compared with $155.2 million a year earlier. Sales of activewear products increased by 18 percent during the quarter, Tultex President Charles W. Davies reported.
However, he said, ``The labor strife in hockey and baseball impacted [Tultex's] licensed sports apparel business in the fourth quarter.'' Those negative effects are expected to continue through the first half of this year.
The hockey and baseball strikes may have cost Tultex about $15 million in sales of its licensed sports apparel lines, where sales were down 10 percent in the fourth quarter, Pickler said. Still, sales in licensed sports apparel were up marginally for the year, he said.
For all of 1994, Tultex's net income was $8.95 million, or 26 cents per share, compared with $5.9 million, or 16 cents per share, for 1993. Sales during 1994 amounted to $565.4 million, compared with $533.6 million for the previous year.
Davies said the company began this year ``on a more positive note'' than it did 1994. ``Our inventories are leaner, our plants are currently running full schedules to meet increased customer demand, prices are increasing and we have been able to reduce our manufacturing costs and our debt,'' he said.
Pickler, who took part in a Tultex conference telephone call by the company for stock analysts Tuesday, said the company's ``tone'' for 1995 does appear to be much better. Tultex was able to institute some price increases in the 4 percent to 5 percent range at the wholesale level early this year, he said. The demand for fleecewear, which had slowed for the past couple of years, is up 7 percent or 8 percent.
Tultex filed a registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission Jan. 24 for a proposed sale of $115 million worth of senior notes due in 2005 that it will use to repay existing debt.
Tultex is a maker of activewear and licensed sports clothing with plants in Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana, Massachusetts and Jamaica.
by CNB