NEW YORK — "We have a viable buyer currently in place," and this was the quarter when it all came together, Dover Corp.'s retiring chief executive told analysts Wednesday morning.
The $7.2 billion parent of Long Beach, Miss.-based ATM manufacturer Triton Systems, officially announced this morning that Triton is up for sale.
During an earnings call this morning, company chief Ron Hoffman told analysts that despite Triton's recent financial struggles — which ultimately led to corporate-wide layoffs, the resignation of former Triton president Brian Kett, and the hiring of Bill Johnson as CEO — Triton has returned to profitability.
"Last year Triton had significant losses," Hoffman said, "but as we exited last year, Triton had returned to profitability."
Dover's engineered systems segment, of which Triton is a part, reported second quarter revenue of $289.5 million, a 1.7 percent increase from the same period last year. Net earnings for the segment also are up, increasing 2.8 percent to $80 million.
The Triton business has been "discontinued," according to Dover, since it is now officially up for sale. And though the "viable" buyer of Triton has been not named, industry sources have in past suggested the suitor to be Texas-based Nautilus Hyosung America Inc.
Triton will remain listed under discontinued operations, Dover says, so that its future sales and income will not be reflected in Dover's upcoming financial reports. Year-to-date, Dover reported a $52.4 million dollar loss from discontinued operations, up significantly from the discontinued-operatons loss it reported for the first half of 2007, which came in at $11.4 million.
The movement of Triton to disontinued operations prompted some news organizations to falsely report that Triton had been closed. But Alicia Blanda, a spokeswoman for Triton, confirmed this morning that those news reports were misguided. Blanda said she expects Triton to release a "clarifying" statement later today.
Overall, Dover's net earnings for 2Q 2008 totaled $135.3 million, 71 cents per share, which includes the loss from discontinued operations. Net earnings for the company are down 21 percent from 2Q 2007.
"Despite escalating material costs and an unsettled economic environment, activity levels remain positive across the majority of our businesses and our backlog remains healthy," Hoffman said. "As our business indicators remain strong, we continue to be confident in our ability to deliver 12 percent-plus annual EPS growth for the year."
— Information for this story was compiled by Tracy Kitten and Travis Kircher.
