Mount Airy, North Carolina-based wire producer Insteel Industries announced Tuesday a net loss of $5.6 million for the first quarter of the current fiscal year, ended December 27, 2008. This figure is in contrast with net earnings of $4.2 million during the same quarter of the previous year.
Net sales for the company decreased by 6.3 percent, from $66.0 million in the first fiscal quarter of 2008 to $61.8 million in the first fiscal quarter of this year. First quarter shipments decreased by 38 percent from the previous year; however, the company's average selling prices rose 51.2 percent from year-ago first quarter levels.
The company said that its financial results for the first quarter were most notably impacted by the reduction in product shipments and the consumption of inventory that was purchased at higher costs earlier in the year.
Commenting on the company's expectations for the second quarter of 2009, president and CEO H. O. Woltz III said, "We expect order levels to rise as the rebalancing of customer inventories is completed and demand for our products becomes more closely aligned with actual end-user demand. We also expect margins to gradually improve over the remainder of the year as the lower replacement costs for raw materials begin to be reflected in cost of sales and through the cost reduction measures that have been implemented."
Insteel Industries manufactures and markets pre-stressed concrete strand and welded wire reinforcement products, including concrete pipe reinforcement, engineered structural mesh and standard welded wire reinforcement. Insteel's products are sold primarily to manufacturers of concrete products that are used in nonresidential construction.