Price Co.’s Net Climbs 65% in First Quarter
Benefiting from the rapid expansion of its cash-and-carry discount warehouses, Price Co. on Tuesday reported a 65% increase in first-quarter net income and a 67% jump in sales.
For the quarter ended Dec. 23, 1984, net income reached $13.7 million, up from $8.3 million in the same period last year. Sales at the San Diego-based company during the period rose to $542.5 million from $324.9 million in the year-ago quarter.
The company’s string of Price Club discount retail warehouses now numbers 20, up from 12 a year ago. Price officials said sales at the 12 stores in operation during last year’s first quarter increased 30% in the first quarter of fiscal 1985.
Four additional Price Club stores are planned this year in Oxnard, Inglewood, Pomona and Baltimore, Md.
Wavetek San Diego-based Wavetek Corp., citing increased orders and a restructured marketing effort, reported a 70% increase in net income and a 20% rise in sales for the first quarter ended last Dec. 29.
Net income reached $241,000, compared to last year’s first-quarter earnings of $142,000. Sales for the quarter totaled $19.9 million, compared to last year’s $16.6 million.
The improvement is on the heels of a $474,000 fourth-quarter loss, which was the electronic test and measurement equipment manufacturer’s first quarterly loss.
Chairman and Chief Executive John M. Thornton attributed the turnaround to a 33% increase in product orders and a restructuring of the firm’s marketing and sales organization. The company was hard hit last year by drops in government orders and a slowdown in the cable-TV industry.
In October, Wavetek’s president, Louis W. Abbott, stepped down and was named a vice president in charge of special projects. Thornton then centralized Wavetek’s sales and marketing efforts.
Wavetek also said it has terminated its purchase option of the Digelec group of companies, which design, make and market microprocessor instrumentation for digital test and measurement applications.
The company gained management control of Digelec--with an option to buy at some future date--in August, 1983, but decided last week that it “could not get sufficient return soon enough” from the purchase, Thornton said in an interview.
