Encore Wire (WIRE) Tops Q4 EPS by 1c

Encore Wire (NASDAQ: WIRE) reported Q4 EPS of $0.53, $0.01 better than the analyst estimate of $0.52. Revenue for the quarter came in at $250.9 million versus the consensus estimate of $255.15 million.

Commenting on the results, Daniel L. Jones, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, said, "We are pleased to report that 2015 produced the second highest earnings per share in the history of the Company. The fourth quarter was good from both a volume and margin perspective. Although our unit sales were down slightly for the year, it should be noted, that through the first five months of this year our sales were adversely affected by rough winter and spring weather, as we noted in previous quarterly press releases. It is also noteworthy that after the first five months of 2015, copper unit sales were down 9.4% and aluminum units were down 2.7%, compared to the first five months of 2014. However, in the last seven months of 2015 copper units were up 4.4% and aluminum units were up 1.0% versus the last seven months of 2014, as we recaptured sales that were delayed earlier in the year. The overall construction and building wire markets did not show any significant improvement over last year. Anecdotal information confirms our belief that there are still large commercial and industrial projects in the pipeline. One of the key metrics to our earnings is the spread between the price of copper wire sold and the cost of raw copper purchased in any given period. The copper wire spread increased 5.2% in 2015 versus 2014. The total year copper spread expanded 5.2%, as the average price of copper purchased decreased 19.3% in 2015 versus 2014, while the average selling price of wire sold decreased 12.5%. Aluminum spreads rose 4.0% in 2015 versus 2014. We are encouraged by the fact spreads widened during the year while copper and other commodity prices fell in 2015. Spreads did tighten on a sequential quarterly comparison, declining 7.2% and 2.7% for copper and aluminum wire, respectively.

We continue to support industry price increases in an effort to maintain and increase margins. We believe our superior order fill rates continue to enhance our competitive position, as our electrical distributor customers are holding lean inventories in the field. As orders come in from electrical contractors, the distributors can count on our order fill rates to ensure quick deliveries from coast to coast. We have been able to accomplish this despite holding what are historically lean inventories for us.

Our balance sheet is very strong. We have no long term debt, and our revolving line of credit is paid down to zero. In addition, we had $79.2 million in cash at the end of the quarter. We also declared another cash dividend during the quarter. We understand that this is a cyclical industry and therefore we designed and manage our cost structure and balance sheet accordingly. We thank our employees and associates for their outstanding effort and our shareholders for their continued support."

For earnings history and earnings-related data on Encore Wire (WIRE) click here.

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