Leitch Technology announces reduction in losses in Q1 results

Leitch Technology has announced its financial results for the first quarter ended July 31, 2004.
Revenue for the first quarter was $55.2 million, representing a 47% increase from $37.5 million during the same period last year. The increase in revenue from the prior year period of $17.7 million was generated from the Company's Video Processing and Distribution (VP&D) product line, which includes $8.4 million of revenue from recently acquired Videotek.
Earnings (loss) before amortization, equity interests adjusted for income taxes and restructuring charges for the quarter were $2.4 million compared to a loss of $2.2 million during the same period last year. The net loss for the first quarter was $2.6 million or $0.08 per share, compared to $5.1 million or $0.17 per share during the same period last year. The company completed the facility and staff reductions that it outlined last quarter, and recorded a charge of $6.8 million related to lease exit costs, the write-down of leasehold improvements and severance-related costs.
"In December 2003, I told our shareholders that we would turn the company profitable within 12 months. I am very pleased to say that we have achieved that goal ahead of schedule. We are showing an operating profit for the first time in two years, and continue to believe that we can do better," said Tim Thorsteinson, president and CEO of Leitch. "Our growth in revenue and the results from Videotek this quarter was impressive. We booked $56 million in orders, finished the quarter with strong backlog, and importantly we saw strong growth in VP&D. We believe we grew our market share in VP&D, and while Server shipments were flat, we continued to see growth in orders year over year. We continue to execute on the strategy we outlined last year, and have crossed a major hurdle by showing an operating profit. We still have opportunities to improve the results through continued margin improvement and aggressive sales management."
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