What happened
Shares of Maxar Technologies (MAXR) are falling today, down by 9.7% as of of 12:45 p.m. EDT, after the company reported second-quarter results.
So what
For fiscal Q2, Maxar posted revenue of $473 million, which represented a 7.7% year-over-year increase that CEO Dan Jablonsky characterized as "solid." Earnings of $0.60 per share were down significantly from the prior-year period's $4.94 in EPS, but only because last year, Maxar sold off its MDA space business, generating a big one-time profit for the company that was impossible to repeat.
Image source: Getty Images.
Earnings from continuing operations at Maxar, on the other hand, totaled $45 million, versus zero earnings from continuing operations a year ago -- so that was actually an improvement.
Now what
Still, not all the news from this space and defense contractor was good. "Year-to-date free cash flow is exceeding our internal expectations," noted company CFO Biggs Porter, for example -- but even so, free cash flow for the year's first half now stands at negative $55 million. (That's better than H1 2020 FCF of negative $92 million, but still not good.)
Finally, Maxar declined to give earnings guidance for the rest of this year in its report. What it did say, however, was not optimistic: Specifically, the company's order backlog has shrunk from $1.9 billion at the end of last year to just $1.5 billion today. Even absent specific guidance, that seems to suggest investors can expect declines in revenue and earnings going forward.
