WestPoint back in black

HTT Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 8/8/2012 11:30:02 AM

New York - WestPoint Home has turned a quarterly profit for the first time in a decade.
Parent company Icahn Enterprises today announced WestPoint generated EBIDA of $2 million during the second quarter ended June 30. That compares to an EBIDA loss of $3 million in the year-ago quarter.
Sales fell nearly 22% to $64 million. Executives said the company walked away from unprofitable business to concentrate on building business with core customers.
Norm Savaria - who became ceo in June 2011, a leadership change that also brought aboard retail veteran Taran Chernin as executive vp and chief merchandising officer - told HTT: "It took us three quarters, but we got there."
Icahn Enterprises president Dan Ninivaggi praised the sense of focus Savaria brought to the operation. "When he came in, we were going in 16 different directions."
WestPoint's plants in Pakistan and Bahrain are running at close to capacity and should be running at full capacity later in the year, said Ninivaggi.
Icahn also announced today that it will not renew WestPoint's credit revolver when it expires this month. Ninivaggi noted the company has $63 million in cash on the books and can fund itself.
"We may be the best-capitalized textiles company in the country,' he told HTT.
For the first six months of the fiscal year, WestPoint's EBIDA loss was $2 million - but Savaria said it is possible WestPoint could turn a profit for the year.
"We feel good about the third and fourth quarters," he said.
WestPoint last reported a profit at the end of the second quarter of 2002 of $2 million, but restructuring charges wiped that out - and then some. The previous quarter, it reported a profit of $2.0 million - the final one the company then operating at WestPoint Stevens would see before filing for bankruptcy protection in 2003. Icahn acquired the company in 2005.