For the first fiscal quarter ended February 27, 2016, adjusted diluted earnings per share at H.B. Fuller Company expanded to $0.431, up a steep 43 per cent year over year over the prior fiscal’s first quarter.

Net income for the first fiscal quarter of 2016 was $18.9 million, or $0.37 per diluted share, versus net income of $9.7 million, or $0.19 per diluted share, in last fiscal’s same quarter.

“Net revenue for the reporting quarter reached $474.3 million, up 0.8 per cent from a fiscal ago quarter, while, constant currency revenue grew by 5.3 per cent, a press release from H.B. Fuller informed.

“Higher volume positively impacted net revenue growth by 5.8 percentage points,” H.B. Fuller explained in the press release.

“Lower average selling prices and foreign currency translation negatively impacted net revenue growth by 0.5 and 4.5 percentage points, respectively,” the company added.

According to H.B. Fuller, during the quarter, it continued to improve margins through effective management of raw material costs and end user pricing as well as driving efficiencies in its supply chain.

“These factors, combined with mix improvement, contributed to a 430 basis point increase in gross profit margin,” it observed.

“We recorded unusually high foreign currency losses in the quarter, almost entirely related to the devaluation of the Argentine peso, which has now been substantially eliminated,” H.B. Fuller stated.

The company has announced previously, a change in its operating segment structure to better align the organisation to the most significant growth opportunities.

The primary change is the introduction of a new operating segment which its calls Engineering Adhesives.

This new segment includes its electronic materials; Tonsan engineering adhesives and automotive business, all of which have demonstrated strong growth and profit performance.

“The new segment alignment allows us to better allocate resources and accelerate our profit and growth plans,” H.B. Fuller noted.

CEO Jim Owens said, “Our 2020 strategic plan identified specific areas of profitable growth and differential management of our EBITDA margins as key drivers.”

“This quarter’s performance aligned with our strategy as we delivered solid organic growth and very strong margin improvement in our targeted segments,” he too added.

“Our new engineering adhesives segment delivered growth and margin improvement as expected and our geographical segments all showed solid EBITDA margin performance,” Owens too observed.

“Our efforts resulted in over a 40 per cent increase in adjusted diluted EPS versus last fiscal’s first quarter and a first quarter EBITDA margin well above historical levels,” Owens informed. 

At the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2016, the company had cash totaling $127 million and total debt of $723 million.

This compares to fourth quarter of fiscal 2015 cash and debt levels of $119 million and $723 million, respectively. (AR)