Boston, MA 05\/13\/2014 (wallstreetpr) \u2013 \u00a0Lydall, Inc. (NYSE:LDL)<\/b> reported positive growth in the first quarter ended March 31, 2014. Lydall\u2019s net sales grew by 26.5% to $125.2 million compared to $99.0 million a year\u2019s ego.<\/p>\n
The organic growth of 7.3% was due to positive growth in sales across all business segments \u2013 Performance Materials (+5%), Thermal Metals (+5.6%), Thermal Fibers (+16.4%) and other products and services (+9.7%). In addition, the acquisition of Industrial Filtration further increased the overall net sales by $17.7 million (~18% increase in net sales).<\/p>\n
The acquisition related expenses had an impact over the cost of sales, but, the organic increase in net sales improved the gross margin by 170 basis points to 21.9% (1Q2013: 20.2%). Sales growth across segment improved the segment operating income. Adjusted operating margin, as a result improved significantly by 410 basis points to 9% (1Q2013: 4.9%). Consequently, adjusted EPS was up by 135% to $0.40 versus $0.17 same period last year.<\/p>\n
Yet to generate positive cash flow <\/b><\/p>\n
Lydall, Inc. (NYSE:LDL) failed to generate positive operating cash flow due to higher change in working capital. Cash used in operating activities was $2.9 million with capital expenditure of $2.8 million. The acquisition related expenses compressed the net cash flow and ended with $51.1 million of cash as of March 31, 2014.<\/p>\n
Lydall funded the acquisition through external borrowings of $60 million that raised the leverage ratio to 1.4x, significantly below the benchmark of 3.0x.<\/p>\n
Lydall is financially sound with shareholders\u2019 equity of $204.3 million and total debt of $61.6 million. So, the debt to capitalization ratio was 23.2%.<\/p>\n
Final take<\/b><\/p>\n
Lydall, Inc. (NYSE:LDL) continues to develop and deploy next generation product offerings to support organic growth in the Automotive segment. But, the Company keeps on investing in Filtration & Engineered Materials to evaluate the opportunity to expand that will help to drive revenue and improve the margins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Boston, MA 05\/13\/2014 (wallstreetpr) \u2013 \u00a0Lydall, Inc. (NYSE:LDL) reported positive growth in the first quarter ended March 31, 2014. Lydall\u2019s net sales grew by 26.5% […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":17138,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_2902945987_2902945987":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[2236],"tags":[5099,5100],"stock_ticker":[],"class_list":["post-22011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-lydall-inc-nyseldl","tag-nyseldl","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n