The Dixie Group, Inc. said today that income from continuing operations grew in the first quarter to $3.3 million, or 24 cents per share, on higher sales of $85.3 million. The results were 12 cents ahead of analysts expectations and more than quadruple year-ago earnings, although company CEO Dan Frierson said Dixie still had operational and weather problems during the period.
The company had an operating loss of nearly $2.5 million for the period offset by a gain on the acquisition of Atlas Carpet Mills.
"The first quarter was a difficult quarter operationally, both due to external events as well as our internal operations not performing up to expectations," Frierson said. "The January and February period stood in contrast to the months of March and April. Our order entry for carpet products for January and February were up 6.8 percent on a year-over-year basis while for March and April, excluding Atlas, our order entry was up 17 pecent as compared to the prior year."
Sales were up 13.1 percent overall in the first three months of the year, aided by Dixie's puchase of Atlas Carpet. Frierson said Dixie continued to grow sales faster than the overall market.