Profit Picture Dismal for Enhanced Imaging : Earnings: Company will make less than expected. It also reveals debt restructuring and a change at top of sluggish subsidiary ODI.

Enhanced Imaging Technologies Inc. said Thursday that its fourth-quarter profit will be less than expected. The company also announced a management change at its sluggish Optical Devices Inc. subsidiary.

Enhanced Imaging, which makes special films for hospital laboratories and computer screen filters, also said it will restructure its debt in a move to save $1.1 million in interest costs this year and next.

Meanwhile, the company said that its chief operating officer, Andrew G. Hofmann, will replace Daniel T. Reiner as president of ODI, which makes optical filters to enhance the quality of computer images. The company has also hired Donald L. Keehn, a former product line manager at Optical Coating Laboratory Inc. in Santa Rosa, as vice president of market development at the subsidiary.

A spokesman said that the company is disappointed with the performance of ODI, where sales have been slow in an increasingly competitive market. ODI also lost a “significant customer” that had accounted for more than a fourth of its sales.

“I don’t think all of the opportunities (in the marketplace) were taken advantage of,” spokesman Robert G. Quinn said.

The customer, which the company did not identify, plans to begin production of its own line of optical filter products. In 1992, that customer accounted for about $3.9 million, or about 28%, of ODI’s net revenue; its contract with ODI expires in March, Enhanced Imaging said.

When Enhanced Imaging bought ODI in July, 1991, Reiner was its owner. He will remain with the company as a consultant and director through 1994. The company said that it will pay him about $1.8 million--the bulk of a 10% note it gave him as part of the purchase price of his firm.

Fourth-quarter earnings will also be hurt by the expense of buying two companies that make specialized film for the cardiac film market. Last fall, Vari-X Inc., a subsidiary of Enhanced Imaging, bought Cine-Cath Imaging Inc. in Columbia, S.C., and Cine Film Systems Inc. of Ft. Worth.

Enhanced Imaging would not reveal its estimate of fourth-quarter earnings. Officials said the amount will be greater than for the same period a year earlier but still below expectations. Analysts predicted that the company will post a profit of about 21 cents a share.

Separately, the company said it has signed a a $9-million credit agreement with Bank of America at a fixed rate of 6.75%. It will use that credit to prepay the State of Wisconsin Investment Board about $3.6 million, or about half of the amount owed on an 11% note. Even so, the transaction is likely to mean a onetime charge of 8 cents a share against fourth-quarter earnings.

“It’s like refinancing your house,” Quinn said. “We had the cash, and it just made so much sense. . . . We wanted to start with a clean slate in 1993.”

In Thursday’s trading on the NASDAQ market, Enhanced Imaging’s stock fell 50 cents a share to close at $9.25. It went public in March at $12 a share.