TransTechnology Profit Falls 34% in 3rd Quarter

TransTechnology’s profit fell 34% to $1.3 million, or 28 cents a share, in its third quarter ended Dec. 31. Sales increased by 1% to $26.1 million.

Arch C. Scurlock, chairman of the Sherman Oaks-based aerospace and defense firm, said the decline stemmed mostly from the company’s slower-than-expected product shipments.

Scurlock said he expects a strong performance in the company’s fourth quarter, partly because the period’s results will reflect some of the shipments delayed from the third quarter. He said the firm had an order backlog of $74 million at the end of its third quarter.

The company’s Space Ordnance Systems division in the Santa Clarita Valley should become profitable again in the fourth quarter, Scurlock said. Last year it temporarily stopped making decoy flares because of problems in disposing its explosive waste products.

Scurlock said $170,000 of TransTechnology’s net income in the third quarter came from Lundy Electronics & Systems, an electronics firm based in Glen Head, N.Y., in which TransTechnology has acquired a 25% stake. Accounting rules allow a company to record a portion of the earnings of a company in which it owns a large stake.

Over the first nine months of its fiscal year, TransTechnology’s earnings dropped 23% to $3.3 million. Sales fell 6% to $68.9 million.