Earnings Call Excerpt
Layne Christensen Company (LAYN)
F4Q09 (Qtr End 01/31/2009) Earnings Call
March 30, 2009 11:00 am ET
Executives
Andrew Schmitt – President and CEO
Jerry Fanska – SVP of Finance and Treasurer
Analysts
John Rogers – D A. Davidson & Co
Debra Coy – Janney Montgomery Scott, LLC
Jonathan Ellis – Merrill Lynch
Michael Roomberg – Boenning & Scattergood
Presentation
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen We’d like to thank you for standing by. And welcome to the Fiscal 2009 Fourth Quarter and Year-End Earnings Results Teleconference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session and instructions will be given at that time. (Operator instructions)
As a reminder, today’s call will be recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Andrew Schmitt. Please go ahead sir.
Andrew Schmitt
Thanks Steve. Good morning everyone. My name is Andrew Schmitt, President and Chief Executive Officer of Layne Christensen & Company. I’m here with Jerry Fanska, our Chief Financial Officer. And we would like to welcome you to Layne Christensen’s fourth quarter and fiscal year end conference call. Earlier today, we issued a press release outlining the results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ended January 31, 2009.
Before we discuss those financial results, I would like to remind the participants that the call may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to the Safe Harbor statement found in today’s press release. Jerry will take you through the financial results and I’ll give you an overview of the division operating performance and how we see things going forward. Okay, Jerry?
Jerry Fanska
Thank you, Andy. Good morning everyone. Revenues set another quarterly record in the fourth quarter, up 2.6% to $229.4 million from $223.6 million in the prior year this is the 28 consecutive quarter-over-quarter improvement for the company.
Water Infrastructure revenues increased 16.9% for the quarter to $191.8 million, driven mainly by previously announced acquisitions and increases in treatment plant construction and increases in specialty geo construction products and services. Mineral Exploration revenues decreased 47.3% to $25.1 million, for the quarter primarily due to mining companies extended holiday mine shutdowns and delayed and reduced spending programs in response to tightening credit markets and lower base metal prices.
The Energy division revenues increase for the quarter 7.3% to $11.5 million reflecting increased productions in the company’s unconventional gas properties. In the fourth quarter, the energy division recorded a major year-end adjustment as a result of a lower natural gas price at year-end and its effect on the evaluation of the oil and gas reserves. Under SEC guidelines the value of our oil and gas reserves must be determined based on the present value of future gas sales using other than for the forward sales contracts that we have the price of natural gas at the company’s year-end. In this case, the year-end gas price was $3.29 per MCF compared to $7.53 per MCF last year.
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