PerfectData Reports Profit for 3rd Quarter

PerfectData said it made a profit of $4,000 in the third quarter ended Dec. 31, after losing $662,000 in the same quarter the year before.

The Chatsworth-based maker of computer maintenance products said the improvement--it lost $4.2 million during the first two quarters of its fiscal year--mainly was the result of its decision last fall to abandon a floppy-disk marketing venture that was losing money. The company sold floppy disks under the Polaroid label.

PerfectData said its sales increased 15% in the quarter, to $1.7 million, partly because of $700,000 in disk sales.

For the first nine months of its fiscal year, PerfectData lost $4.3 million, down from a $648,000 loss in the year-earlier period. Sales fell 2% to $4.4 million.

PerfectData also said the New York-based brokerage firm of Swergold Chefitz & Sinsabaugh has acquired a 5.7% stake in the company for investment purposes. PerfectData President C. Paul Davis said the stock purchase has been friendly, and he noted that Leopold Swergold, president of the brokerage firm, already was on PerfectData’s board.

Davis also noted that Swergold Chefitz arranged the underwriting when PerfectData went public in 1983.