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Layne Christensen’s Lackluster Q2 – Analyst Blog

Zacks Market Commentaries — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 18:44:44 +0000

Layne Christensen Co. (LAYN) announced fiscal second-quarter results yesterday after the closing bell. The company reported GAAP net loss of $8.6 million or 45 cents per share, compared to GAAP net income of $15.1 million or 78 cents per share in the year-ago quarter.

Excluding a non-cash impairment charge, net income came in at $4.4 million or 23 cents per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate by nearly 92%, or 11 cents.

Layne Christensen is engaged in providing drilling services and related products and services in 4 principal markets: water infrastructure, mineral exploration, geotechnical construction and oil and gas. The company’s customers include municipalities, industrial, mining, oil and gas companies and consulting and engineering firms.

The Mission Woods, Kansas-based company’s revenue slumped 19.4% year over year to $217.2 million, still it came in ahead of the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $214.8 million.

Sales from Water Infrastructure, the company’s flagship segment, slipped 11.2% to $174.1 million primarily due to lackluster performance across all major product lines, partially offset by growth in pipeline construction due to a significant project in Colorado.

Revenues were particularly sluggish in the Western U.S. on account of a slump in housing construction coupled with budget constraints on municipal government spending. The segment’s backlog also fell by 5.1% year over year to $453.4 million.

Revenue from Minerals Exploration plunged 49.2% year over year to $30.3 million as markets were impacted by a tight credit environment and sluggish economic conditions. The Energy division recorded a slight 0.8% year-over-year decline, mainly attributable to management’s decision to slash production on account of depressed natural gas prices.

The company’s gross profit reduced 27.1% year over year to $51.7 million, while gross margin contracted 250 basis points to 23.8%. The decline was primarily caused by a shift in the mix towards low margin heavy construction projects and pricing pressures.

Meanwhile, Layne Christensen posted a pretax loss of $13.0 million, against a pretax profit of $24.8 million in the year-ago period. The loss was the result of sluggish revenues and gross margin coupled with an impairment charge of $21.6 million related to oil and gas reserves determination.

Layne Christensen ended the quarter with cash and equivalents of $64.8 million, compared to $62.7 million at the end of the previous quarter. The company‘s total long term debt was $13.3 million at the end of the quarter, against $26.7 million in the last quarter.

Looking ahead, management expects weak demand for additional water supply to affect performance in the rest of the fiscal year. The company also warned that its Energy division may suffer further impairments if natural gas prices remain depressed or if it is unable to replace current forward sales contracts at favorable prices.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate, derived from 6 covering analysts, on earnings for the fiscal year ending January 2010 is currently pegged at 47 cents per share, which has moved down by 6 cents over the past 3 months.
Read the full analyst report on "LAYN"
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Veolia Environnement SA (NYSE: VE): Stock of the Day

Contrarian Profits — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:56:18 +0000

pWater, water everywhere… and not a drop to drink. Though the earth is 70.8% water, only 2.5% is potable freshwater, the majority of which can be found only in glacial ice./p pThis leaves less than 1% of the world’s water supply for its 6.87 billion human inhabitants, crops, and livestock./p pEven worse, our tiny portion of the world’s water is becoming increasingly polluted and is consumed at unsustainable rates./p pFortunately, Paris based strongVeolia Environnement/strong (NYSE: a href="http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE%3AVE" target="_ blank"VE/a) has everything it takes to help us avoid the looming global water shortage emand/em pad our portfolio./p pWith operations in 66 countries, Veolia provides water and wastewater management, transportation, and energy services to countries in desperate need of fresh water./p pIn fact, Veolia operates in all five countries considered to have the most potential#8230;/p

Veolia Environnement SA (NYSE: VE): Stock of the Day

Investment U — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:53:32 +0000

Veolia Environnement SA (NYSE: VE): Stock of the Day Judith Martin, The Investment U Research Team Water, water everywhere… and not a drop to drink. Though the earth is 70.8% water, only 2.5% is potable freshwater, the majority of which can be found only in glacial ice. This leaves less than 1% of the world’s water supply for [...]

Retire Rich with This Legal Monopoly

Contrarian Profits — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 21:19:29 +0000

pWater is, by far, the most important element we need to survive. You can go a month without eating, but not even a week without water. Lack of adequate drinking water has killed almost 800,000 people this year. Now politicians are throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at water and wastewater systems./p pObama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act sets $126 billion aside for infrastructure projects. The majority of this is for roadwork and water infrastructure./p pOn top of that, $144 billion more is going to state and local governments. A large amount of that cash will be spent on these failing water systems. After all, we’ve already seen pipes burst throughout the country, and no one wants to be next governor on CNN#8230;/p

Fresh Water: California Drought Reveals the “New Oil”

Investment U — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 14:21:50 +0000

Fresh Water: California Drought Reveals the “New Oil” by David Fessler, Advisory Panelist, The Oxford Club A few weeks ago, during a particularly bad cold snap, we had a pipe freeze underneath our 200-year-old farmhouse, causing us to go without water for a few days. I eventually managed to unfreeze the pipe, but there was no question [...]

How Water Will Become A ‘Blue Gold’ For Investors

Contrarian Profits — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 15:25:12 +0000

p style="text-align: left;"America#8217;s dilapidated water infrastructure is in desperate need of upgrading, says stronga href="http://www.contrarianprofits.com/articles/author/chris-mayer/" class="alinks_links"Chris Mayer/a/strong. And the situation is similar in many countries throughout the world. And worse still, supplies of clean, fresh water are dwindling across the globe. Chris says these two trends can make water a #8216;blue gold#8217; for investors./p p style="text-align: left;"This from Penny Sleuth:/p blockquote p style="text-align: left;"Two days before Christmas, a 66-inch water main burst on River Road, not far from where I live, during morning rush hour. Water spewed out at a rate of 150,000 gallons per minute, turning River Road into an actual river for a time. People at the scene described the burst as a bomb going off. The road itself took significant damage./p p style="text-align: left;"The force of the water - going at#8230;/p/blockquote

Canada To Get First Environmentally Themed ETF

IndexUniverse Staff — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 19:58:26 +0000

The Claymore fund has not been assigned a ticker yet, but will trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange.Â

Claymore Investments, the Canadian asset management arm of U.S. exchange-traded fund provider Claymore Securities, is joining the ranks of the green-minded asset managers by launching a global sustainability ETF.

The ETF launch, scheduled for some time in the next two weeks, coincides with the creation by KLD Indexes and Jantzi Research of the Global Environment 60 Index (GE60), to be published by FTSE and used by Claymore for the new ETF.

The Claymore fund has not been assigned a ticker yet, but will trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

While there has been a rash of sustainability and environmentally themed ETFs in the U.S., Claymore believes the new ETF will be the first such portfolio in the Canadian ETF market.

"Canada is a fairly small market and the first-mover advantage is less important than long-term asset gathering," said Som Seif, chief executive of Claymore's Canadian asset manager. "You always want to be first with an idea, but we would still think this investment idea made sense if we were second."

The Global Environment 60 Index components are pure-play global companies that derive 50% or more of their business from products or services related to one of five environmental themes: alternative energy, clean technology, sustainable water, green building and pollution prevention.

The index is equally weighted between each theme, with KLD Indexes and Jantzi selecting the top 12 companies by float-adjusted market capitalization in each area, for a total of 60 companies.

The Global Environment 60 Index is to be the first benchmark in a new Global Environment Index (GEI) series created by KLD and Jantzi and published by FTSE. Indexes will be created covering each of the five major sustainability themes separately, as well as a composite index incorporating all of the constituents across the five themed indexes.

While the additional indexes could serve as the basis for ETFs, Seif said the Canadian market is not big enough to merit additional launches. Claymore Securities, the U.S. parent company, said at this point it is not launching any ETFs based on the KLD Jantzi indexes.

The index providers define the five major themes in this way:

Sustainable Water:Â products and services focused on water and wastewater treatment; water infrastructure; or water resource management and efficiency.
Alternative Energy:Â products and services that promote the generation of power using renewable or cleaner sources (i.e., cleaner than conventional fossil fuels) or the development of clean or cleaner power and energy technology.
Clean Technology: Products and services that deliver equal or superior performance while reducing energy use and natural resource consumption when compared to conventional offerings.
Green Building: Building material suppliers; home builders; or property managers that directly support or have a confirmed commitment to achieving sustainable building standards (i.e., LEED, BREEAM, Energy Star Homes or other recognized standards of sustainable building) for all new construction.
Pollution Prevention: Products and services focused on pollution prevention, waste minimization or recycling, including source reduction, in-process recycling, reuse/reclamation, resource recovery and treatment/abatement.

The prospectus for the new Claymore ETF can be found here.

Tetra Tech Inc. (TTEK) – Reaching the World

QualityStocks — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:05:42 +0000

With over 275 offices worldwide and approximately 8,500 employees, Tetra Tech Inc. is a leading provider of consulting, engineering, and technical services. Founded in 1966, and listed on the NASDAQ, the company operates in three segments: Resource Management, Infrastructure Services, and Communications Services. Their corporate mission is to be the premier global consulting and engineering [...]