AZZ Inc. (AZZ) on Tuesday reported fiscal first-quarter earnings of $15.7 million.
On a per-share basis, the Fort Worth-based company said it had profit of 60 cents.
The electrical equipment maker posted revenue of $262.2 million in the period.
“I am pleased to announce that we have started off fiscal year 2019 on a positive note, with 27.7 percent revenue growth year-over-year driven by strength in both our Energy and Metal Coatings segments,” said Tom Ferguson, president and CEO. “Overall, our bookings were up strongly in the quarter, growing to $320.5 million compared to $193.8 million in the first quarter last year. We booked some larger electrical projects in China, executed on meaningful refinery projects both domestically and internationally, and saw renewed demand in our metal coating segment that resulted in record quarterly sales of $115.3 million. The increase in bookings establishes a solid base of backlog to support our plan for the balance of this fiscal year.”
Ferguson noted that the company’s Metal Coatings segment revenue was up compared to the first quarter of last year.
“We believe that our Metal Coatings segment is well positioned for new revenue streams with our new powder coating facility in Crowley, Texas, as well as our two most recent Metal Coatings acquisitions of Enhanced Powder Coating, and Rogers Brothers Galvanizing,” he said. “In addition, our new operation for AZZ’s GalvaBar continuous galvanized rebar business is gaining traction.”
While Ferguson reaffirmed the company’s previously issued fiscal 2019 guidance of earnings per share in the range of $1.75 to $2.25 per diluted share and annual sales in the range of $900 million to $960 million and said the company’s remained “somewhat optimistic at this point,” he said the company remained “cautious due to the uncertainty related to tariffs and the Chinese trade situation, as well as the tighter market for craft labor.”
On June 29, AZZ Inc. announced that it was awarded contracts from SDEE Hitachi High Voltage Switchgear and Pinggao Group Company Limited to produce approximately 7,431 meters of Ultra High Voltage 1100KV Gas Insulated Line for the Cross Yangtze River Sutong Underground Tunnel Project in China. The project has the highest voltage level, and largest transmission capacity in the world, according to an AZZ news release.