Supreme Industries, a leading manufacturer of specialized commercial vehicles, including truck bodies, shuttle buses, armored vehicles and luxury motorcoaches, today announced financial results for its third quarter and nine months ended Sept. 27, 2008.
The company posted sales of $61.1 million in the third quarter, down 9.6% from the $67.5 million that Supreme sold during the third quarter of 2007. Gross profit margin as a percentage of net sales was 8.9 percent for the quarter, versus 10.9 percent for the same period last year. The margin decline resulted from lower sales volumes and pricing pressures, which resulted in an increase in cost of sales, the company said.
Supreme reported a net loss of $630,051, or -$0.04 per diluted share, versus net income of $273,865, or $0.02 per diluted share, posted in the 2007 third quarter.
“Supreme continued to feel the impact of the significant nationwide economic downturn during the third quarter, particularly in the Company’s core truck markets,” president Robert Wilson said. “We anticipated a difficult environment very early in the year. However, conditions have worsened due to the further deterioration of the U S economy. We expect the balance of 2008 and well into 2009 to remain challenging with regard to revenue and earnings.”
Wilson said that Supreme has taken significant costs out of it operations and will continue to do so in order to match the company to current market conditions.
“We reduced our expenses during the third quarter by $6.5 million on an annualized basis,” Wilson said. “In addition, the company has identified a minimum of $1.5 million of additional annualized cost reductions that will be implemented by year-end. Fortunately, our healthy bus business is helping to partially offset the major decline in the core dry-freight truck markets.”
Net sales for the first nine months of 2008 totaled $212.3 million, an 11.4% decrease from the $239.6 million reported in the comparable year-ago period. The sales decline in both the three- and nine-month periods was primarily related to reduced sales in the company’s truck segment, which declined 20.6% year-over-year. This was partially offset by a 26.3% year-over-year sales growth in Supreme’s bus division. Gross profit margin declined to 9.6 percent of sales in the first nine months of 2008, compared with 11.4 percent of net sales in the first nine months of 2007. The net loss of $186,958, or ($0.01) per diluted share, compared with net income of $3.3 million, or $0.24 per diluted share, generated last year.
“Supreme has maintained an exceptionally strong balance sheet, which management believes will be a competitive advantage in the long term,” Wilson said.