U.S. focus hurts American Woodmark

Article Excerpt

AMERICAN WOODMARK $19.77 (Nasdaq symbol AMWD; SI Rating: Speculative) (540-665-9100;www.americanwoodmark.com; Shares outstanding: 14.1 million; Market cap: $279.7 million; Dividend yield: 1.8%) is a U.S.-based maker of cabinets for kitchens and bathrooms. It offers more than 380 cabinet lines in a variety of designs, materials and finishes. The company mainly sells these through a network of dealers and distributors. It also sells its cabinets directly to major homebuilders and retailers, such as Home Depot. American Woodmark operates 12 plants and various service centres across the U.S. In the three months ended October 31, 2009, American Woodmark lost $5.3 million, or $0.37 a share. A year earlier, it lost $481,000, or $0.03 a share. If you exclude one-time restructuring charges, the company would have lost $0.36 a share in the latest quarter. That’s much higher than the loss of $0.17 a share that analysts were expecting. Sales fell 22.9%, to $104.1 million from $134.9 million. The bigger loss mainly resulted from continued weak sales…