Whittaker Corp. Expects Division to Lose at Least $3.3 Million

Officials at Simi Valley’s Whittaker Corp. won’t release the company’s financial results for the second quarter of fiscal 1995-96 until next week.

But they prepared stockholders earlier this month by announcing an anticipated operating loss of $3.3 million to $3.7 million in Whittaker’s communications division. The loss comes on communications sales of about $14.3 million, they said.

At the same time, Whittaker expects to post a second-quarter profit in its aerospace division. Aerospace figures have not yet been released.

After the May 7 announcement of the financial loss, Whittaker stock dropped 4 3/8, or 19%, to 18 1/2. It currently stands at about 19 1/2.

Rich Levin, vice president and chief financial officer of Whittaker, attributed the communications loss in large part to an unexpected slowdown of orders related to the company’s high-tech networking systems.

“A number of hospitals that currently have our products, or are working with us, weren’t ready,” Levin said. “Either their phone lines had not been installed, they were running late, things like that, where our customers were late in their requirements.”

Levin said anticipated business from industrial clients did not come through as quickly as planned either, and that Whittaker is still bidding on some work orders. Results of that bidding, he said, are expected by the end of this month.

Whittaker networking systems are used in the health care, education, manufacturing and banking and finance fields, with an emphasis on health care.

Hospitals, including Veterans Administration facilities across the country, use the networking systems for purchasing, accounting, maintaining patient records and other administrative functions. The systems also are used for medical functions such as the storage and retrieval of digital X-ray and MRI images. The networks also link hospitals within a given chain.

In addition to a shortfall in work orders, Levin blamed part of the second-quarter loss on a delay in Whittaker’s production schedule.

He said two products expected to be released at the start of this year--an ethernet switch for the communications networking system and software--have been delayed until the third and fourth quarters of fiscal 1995-96.

Though Levin said the impact of this early delay in sales and production probably will have a negative impact on the rest of the fiscal year, but the problem shouldn’t go past that.

“We expect to get things back on track in 1997,” he said.

Over the past few years, Whittaker has been in a transition from aerospace and defense to aerospace and communications.

Last month, Whittaker purchased Xyplex Inc., a communications networking operation previously owned by the Raytheon Co. of Massachusetts. The purchase came on the heels of the 1995 acquisition of Hughes LAN Systems Inc. from Hughes Electronics.

Whittaker reported sales of $159.5 million for the 1995 fiscal year that ended Oct. 31.