WINCHESTER, Va. - Kitchen cabinetry manufacturing giant American Woodmark (NASDAQ: AMWD) reported a healthy 12 percent rise in sales for its first fiscal quarter ended July 31, 2016.
Net sales rose to $258.2 million compared a year ago, with a rise in sales for all its channels. American Woodmark manufactures and distributes kitchen cabinets and vanities for the remodeling and new home construction markets. Its products are sold on a national basis directly to home centers, major builders and through a network of independent distributors. It operates nine manufacturing facilities and seven service centers across the country.
The strong business is generating hiring at American Woodmark, which lists 53 openings at 19 locations at its website.
Net income jumped 42 percent, to $21.7 million the period, versus $15.2 million in the year-ago period. American Woodmark says benefited $0.06 per diluted share from a lower tax rate in the quarter due to the adoption of a new accounting standard that requires companies to reflect the tax benefit from stock-based compensation transactions in their tax rate and earnings per share.
Gross profit for the first quarter of the current fiscal year was 23 percent of net sales compared with 21.7 percent in the same quarter of the prior year. Gross profit in the current quarter was favorably impacted by higher sales volume, lower labor benefit costs and improved operating efficiency.
Selling, general and administrative costs for the first quarter of the fiscal year 2017 were 10.6% of net sales compared with 11.4% in the same quarter of the prior year. The decrease in the Company's operating expense ratio was driven by favorable leverage from increased sales, lower display costs and on-going expense control.
The company generated net cash from operating activities of $32.9 million during the first quarter of fiscal year 2017 compared with $17.7 million during the same period in the prior year. The improvement in the Company's cash from operating activities was driven primarily by higher operating profitability and lower increases in customer receivables.
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