By Ed Bierschenk
Posted May 1, 2012 at 4 a.m.
VERO BEACH — Piper Aircraft Inc. saw first-quarter revenue and sales numbers take off, with deliveries increasing more than 40 percent from the same period last year.
"Piper's performance in the first quarter of 2012 gives us a good start on the year. It also gives us an upward trend in first-quarter results for the past three years," said Piper President and Chief Executive Officer Simon Caldecott in a release announcing the results.
The aircraft manufacturer delivered 37 airplanes in the first quarter of this year compared with 26 during the first quarter of 2011. New aircraft sales revenue grew more than 20 percent to $31.578 million compared with just under $26.160 million during the same period last year.
International deliveries continued to outpace domestic sales during the first quarter, which Caldecott said "reinforces the success of our strong globalization strategy.
"Thus far this year in Europe, for example, our delivery and order-taking performance for M-class business airplanes and also our smaller aircraft is far outstripping our sales projections for that part of the world and we are pleased with that," he said. The M-class planes include the higher-priced Mirage, Matrix and Meridian.
During the last quarter, Piper delivered 21 airplanes internationally and 16 in the U.S.
On Monday, Indian River County Commissioner Peter O'Bryan noted the significance of those international sales in bringing outside money into the U.S. and Indian River County economy.
In the first quarter of 2011, Piper sold a few less planes than the year before but its revenue still increased by more than 40 percent from the prior year because of increased sales of its higher-priced models. Those first-quarter numbers were a bit reflective of how Piper did for the year as a whole. While overall deliveries were down from 160 to 136 last year, the company saw revenues increase by more than 9 percent from $120.2 million to $131.2 million. International sales accounted for more than 50 percent of the airplanes sold last year.
The number of aircraft delivered last year was more than 50 percent above 2009 numbers when the company was feeling the brunt of the economic downturn.
The company experienced a dramatic drop in employment following the 2008 downturn, with the number of workers falling below 600 in the summer of 2009. Staffing later grew back to about 850 workers before Piper announced last year it was suspending its light business jet program and laying off more than 100 employees and releasing 55 contract workers.
That reduction in jobs meant the company was not able to reach certain employment benchmarks contained in a financial incentive package signed with the state and county, although it did meet other performance benchmarks. As a result, Piper might have to pay back part of the $10.7 million it received earlier pending the outcome of ongoing renegotiations with the state.
Last week, in response to an inquiry about how long the renegotiations were taking, Department of Economic Opportunity spokesman James Miller said that "each renegotiation is unique, and some take longer to get completed than others due to different factors. As with any contract negotiation, our goal is to ensure Florida receives the biggest positive economic impact possible."
Source: http://www.tcpalm.com
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