California Water Floats On: Fool by Numbers

On May 2, water company California Water (NYSE: CWT) released first-quarter earnings for the period ended March 31.

• Strong customer demand, resulting from an unusually dry season, drove revenue up 9.7%.
• Operating income rose 6.4% year over year.
• The company, which is currently yielding 3.2%, announced its 250th consecutive quarterly dividend on April 25.
• California Water and its peer American States Water (NYSE: AWR) both sport two-star ratings from the Motley Fool CAPS community, while Southwest Water (Nasdaq: SWWC) ranks three stars.

(Figures in thousands, except per-share data)

Income Statement Highlights

	Q1 2007	Q1 2006	Change
Sales	$71,570	$65,216	9.7%
Net Profit	$1,581	$832	90.0%
EPS	$0.07	$0.04	75.0%
Diluted Shares	20,681	18,427	12.2%

Get back to basics with the income statement.

Margin Checkup

	Q1 2007	Q1 2006	Change*
Gross Margin	63.9%	67.1%	(3.2)
Operating Margin	7.3%	7.6%	(0.2)
Net Margin	2.2%	1.3%	0.9

*Expressed in percentage points.

Margins are the earnings engine.

Balance Sheet Highlights

Assets	Q1 2007	Q1 2006	Change
Cash + ST Invest.	$43,095	$5,061	751.5%
Accounts Rec.	$17,375	$13,291	30.7%
Inventory	$4,469	$4,284	4.3%

Liabilities	Q1 2007	Q1 2006	Change
Accounts Payable	$32,151	$28,889	11.3%
Long-Term Debt	$291,379	$273,768	6.4%

The balance sheet reflects the company's health.

Cash Flow Highlights
Apparently, management at California Water is unaware of the Foolish take on free cash flow.

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California Water is a Motley Fool Income Investor pick. To find out what fair value James Early and his team place on CWT, along with dozens of other stocks, check out a 30-day free trial.

Fool by Numbers is designed to give you the raw earnings information in a timely fashion, putting all the numbers you need in one easy-to-read place. But at The Motley Fool, we believe numbers tell only part of the story, so check Fool.com for more of our in-depth discussion of what the numbers mean. This data has been provided by Netscribes. To provide feedback on this article, please click on the "feedback" button below.