Quaker Shaken in Third Quarter

By Don Hogsett -- Home Textiles Today, 11/1/2004 12:00:00 AM

Fall River, Mass. —

With sales falling more than 20 percent, margins thinning, and costs climbing, Quaker Fabric Corp. recorded a third quarter loss of $2.1 million, reversing a prior-year profit of $2.2 million.

Doing most of the damage to the bottom line, sales tumbled 21.3 percent during the period, to $63.6 million from $80.8 million last year, a daunting shortfall of $17.2 million.

“This was a difficult and disappointing quarter for us,” said Larry Liebenow, president and CEO. Sales, he said, came in “significantly lower than we would have expected to see based solely on the one week of additional operations built into last year's numbers as a result of the difference in the timing of our annual two-week shutdown period.”

Hobbled by the drop in sales, average gross margin was throttled down 370 basis points, or 3.7 percentage points, to 18.4 percent of sales from 22.1 percent a year ago.

At the same time, costs climbed sharply, 550 basis points, or 5.5 percentage points, to 22.3 percent of sales from 16.8 percent the prior year. Measured in absolute dollars, costs rose 4.4 percent, to $14.2 million from $13.6 million.

The increase, said Liebenow, included about $600,000 in unusual expenses, including costs tied to the termination of its effort to buy a new plant building, and the additional cost of a reduction in staffing.

Addressing the sales issues, Liebenow said fabric sales in the period declined 25.1 percent, and export sales fell 24.1 percent.

On the upside, the company's small and repositioned yarn business grew by 83.1 percent.

Quaker Fabrics