DeWITT--Anaren, Inc. (NASDAQ: ANEN) began during its most recent quarter to see the sales benefits of its two acquisitions last year.

Net sales for the company's fiscal second quarter, which ended Dec. 31, rose 28 percent from a year earlier to $41.4 million.

The company acquired M.S. Kennedy Corp. of Clay in July for S28 million and Unicircuit, Inc. of Colorado in August for $21.7 million. Some $10 million in sales during the firm's second quarter came as a result of those two deals, Lawrence Sala, Anaren's president and CEO, said during a Jan. 29 conference call discussing the company's earnings report.

Despite the higher sales total, Anaren's profit in the fiscal second quarter fell. The company, which develops and manufactures components and subsystems for the military and wireless- communications markets, earned $1.6 million in the period, down from $2.6 million a year earlier.

Earnings per share for the latest quarter totaled 11 cents, down from 17 cents in the previous second quarter.

Excluding some items like non-cash equity-based pay and inventory increases related to acquisitions, Anaren said it earned 23 cents a share in the fiscal second quarter, up from 22 cents a share a year earlier.

Sales in the company's wireless group totaled $16.7 million in the second quarter, down 6.6 percent from a year earlier. Sala said the drop resulted mainly from a decline in demand from some wireless customers.

Within its wireless area, Anaren did generate an 88 percent jump to $1.4 million in sales of components used in applications like satellite television, laptop computers, and cell phones.

On the space and defense side, sales grew 71 percent to 524.8 million and included the sales from Unicircuit and M.S. Kennedy.

Sala said Anaren remains on track to begin seeing more growth in its space and defense group going forward.

"We see a good opportunity environment for the rest of the year," he said.

The acquisitions in 2008 will help drive at least some of that growth.

The addition of the two companies will allow Anaren to pursue business it wouldn't have been able to capture alone, Sala has said.

Specifically, the company says it will now be able to chase business in both airborne and ground-based radar systems. Historically, the company has only been a player on the ground- based side.

Also, the firm will be able to pursue business to produce a broader variety of radar systems and components. Anaren's work was previously limited to a specific aspect of radar systems, according to the company.

Overall, the acquisitions will make radar-systems work an even larger portion of the company's overall space and defense business. Previously, that group generated about half its revenue from radar work and half from work on subsystems for other technologies.

The unit's radar work is likely to grow going forward, according to Anaren. The new work is also likely to he worth more money than previous contracts.

Work in the new areas should begin to take shape this year and next, Sala said.

Anaren employs about 900 people companywide and has facilities in DeWitt; Clay; Little, Colo.; Salem, N.H.; and China.

Copyright Central New York Business Journal Feb 6, 2009

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