Check your calendar. What year does it say we're in?
Ah, but at American Science & Engineering (Nasdaq: ASEI), they've already closed the books on 2008 -- and good riddance. Despite a strong start in fiscal Q1, the company proceeded to post a trio of underwhelming earnings releases, closing out the fiscal year with a real stinker. Now it's time for another go 'round, as the company gives us an X-ray view into its fiscal Q1 2009 business on Monday.
What analysts say:
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Buy, sell, or waffle? The five analysts following this Motley Fool Rule Breakers-recommended stock are sticking to their guns, still giving it three buy ratings and a pair of holds.
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Revenues. On average, they're looking for sales to rise a bare 4.5% rise to $46.5 million.
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Earnings. Profits are predicted to tumble 20% to $0.53 per share.
What management says:
The big news at AS&E came just a little over one month ago. In early July, the company announced a monster $55 million deal to provide "multiple" OmniView Gantry cargo screeners, Z Portal vehicle zappers, and Z Backscatter mobile X-ray van systems to Abu Dhabi Customs in the United Arab Emirates.
As I wrote at the time, this deal is: "Equivalent to one-third of AS&E's annual revenue. ... Eight times the size of the recent subcontract that L-3 (NYSE: LLL) gave Analogic (Nasdaq: ALOG) for the latter's eXaminer XLB screening system. ... [and] Fourteen times as large as the most recent sale reported by OSI (Nasdaq: OSIS)."
What management does:
Of course, sales are only half the equation. Now we need to see how well AS&E does at transforming these sales into profits. Sadly, AS&E hasn't been doing so well on this score in recent quarters -- but you can see that for yourself:
|
Margins
|
12/06
|
3/07
|
6/07
|
9/07
|
12/07
|
3/08
|
|
Gross
|
46.2%
|
43.4%
|
42%
|
40.4%
|
37.6%
|
35.8%
|
|
Operating
|
23.6%
|
21.4%
|
21.1%
|
19.8%
|
16.6%
|
13.7%
|
|
Net
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15.9%
|
16.1%
|
14.8%
|
14%
|
12%
|
10.5%
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All data courtesy of Capital IQ, a division of Standard & Poor's. Data reflects trailing-12-month performance for the quarters ended in the named months.
One Fool says:
TSA remains committed to tightening airport security. GE's (NYSE: GE) InVision division is doing yeoman's work keeping bombs out of the cargo department. And to keep smaller incendiaries off of the passengers, TSA is expanding trials of AS&E's SmartCheck body screener, currently in use at California's LAX and Phoenix's Sky Harbor, to JFK airport. In fact, since news of the $55 million contract broke, hardly a day has passed without news of another contract win at AS&E, from TSA or elsewhere.
Published press releases during the quarter described contract wins totaling less than $20 million. But while we've little assurance that Q1's numbers this year will look as good as last year's did, the future sure looks bright.
What did we expect out of AS&E last quarter, and what did we get? Find out in:
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