A strong finish of the financial year has been reported by Johnson Outdoors, attributing much of the progress to the fact that new products generated one-third or more of sales for the tenth consecutive year. Particularly in the second half of the financial year, ended on Oct. 30, the introduction of new products nearly offset declines suffered in the first part of the year due to extreme weather conditions.
Sales rose by 10 percent to $84.9 million in the fourth quarter, allowing the group to reduce its net losses for the period to $786,000 from $3,511,000 in the same quarter a year ago. The revenues were lifted by double-digit growth in Marine Electronics and Outdoor Gear. Diving declined by 3 percent to $21.9 million in the quarter, and Watercraft slipped by one percent to $11.1 million. Instead, Outdoor Gear rose by 14 percent to $12.3 million and Marine Electronics by 21 percent to $39.5 million.
Nevertheless, Johnson had to report a 53 percent drop in net profit for the full year to $9,123,000 on relatively flat revenues of $425.4 million. The Watercraft business returned to profitability, booking operating earnings of $210,000, but segment sales declined by 3 percent to $49.5 million, in spite of a double-digit increase for Old Town, due to last year's exit from unprofitable international markets.
Outdoor Gear turned in an operating loss of $3,726 million against profit of $2,180,000 in the previous year, in spite of a 7 percent increase in sales to $47.4 million, which were due to a full year of contribution from Jetboil and higher-than-anticipated government orders.
Diving generated a lower operating profit of $3,596,000, versus $5,694,000, as sales in the category were off to $79.5 million for' the year from $84.5 million.
The group ended the year with $70.8 million in cash and historically low debt, representing 4 percent of equity. However, the unforeseen weather conditions of this past year have led the management to reset its financial targets for the three-year period ending in 2015 to compound annual sales growth of 2-3 percent and an increase in operating margins of 5-6 percent.
