(Source: Business Wire)Cabot Microelectronics Corporation (Nasdaq: CCMP), the world's leading supplier of chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) polishing slurries and growing CMP pad supplier to the semiconductor industry, announced today that the global economic environment continued to adversely affect the company's financial results in its second fiscal quarter, which ended March 31, 2009. Consistent with the overall industry, the company's revenue declined significantly in its second fiscal quarter, reflecting the impact of the global economic recession on demand for electronics, a correction of excess semiconductor device inventories, and traditional seasonal weakness. The company expects to report revenue for its second fiscal quarter in the range of $45 million to $46 million, or approximately 52 percent lower than in the same quarter last year, and 28 percent lower than in the prior quarter.

The unprecedented low demand for the company's products resulted in significant underutilization of the company's manufacturing capacity, which materially adversely affected quarterly gross profit. Consequently, the company expects to report gross profit of around 28 percent of revenue for the second fiscal quarter, and approximately 38 percent of revenue for the fiscal year to date. Based on the company's performance for the first half of the fiscal year, it no longer expects to achieve gross profit within what had been its full year guidance range of 46 to 48 percent of revenue for fiscal 2009.

In addition, the company also expects to report the following pre-tax, non-recurring expenses; these non-cash items adversely impacted operating expenses for the second fiscal quarter:

$1.5 million write-off of in-process research and development expenses related to its February 2009 acquisition of Epoch Material Co., Ltd (Epoch), as required by purchase accounting rules;

$1.1 million impairment related to certain research and development equipment; and,

$1.0 million increase in reserve for bad debt expense due to of the impact of adverse global economic conditions on customer collections.

Commenting on results for the quarter, William Noglows, Chairman and CEO of Cabot Microelectronics Corporation, stated, "The continued unprecedented economic and industry weakness in January and February resulted in the lowest quarterly financial results in the history of our company. While we acted quickly to reduce expenses, the deceleration of demand for our products outpaced the cost savings we achieved during the quarter.