Key Tronic Posts Strong Earnings For First Quarter

Key Tronic Corp. on Tuesday announced earnings for the first-quarter of fiscal 1996 of $1.6 million, or 16 cents per share, on sales of $60.5 million.

That compares with net income of $328,000, or 4 cents per share, on sales of $45.4 million during the first quarter of fiscal 1995.

Net income for the fourth quarter of fiscal 1995 was $1.85 million, or 18 cents per share, on sales of $60.1 million.

Fred Wenninger, who became the Spokane-based computer-products company’s chief executive officer on Sept. 1, says Key Tronic needs to further diversify its customer base to stabilize the company’s earnings pattern.

“Key Tronic now serves many of the world’s largest computer companies,” Wenninger said in a news release Tuesday. “However, we continue to caution that fluctuations in our financial results correlate to a few major customers’ programs. Based on current projections from these customers, we may experience lower revenues in the near term.

“To progressively reduce such revenue fluctuations, we are building and diversifying our customer base.”

Key Tronic has made important breakthroughs during the past two years with contracts to exclusively manufacture keyboards for individual product lines of industry giants IBM and Microsoft.

Wenninger, formerly an executive of Hewlett-Packard, president of Allied Signal’s Bendix/King avionics subsidiary and CEO of Iomega Corp., succeeded Stanley Hiller as CEO. He also is the company’s president.

Hiller, who converted Key Tronic from a company struggling for survival a little more than three years ago, is now the company’s board chairman.

“A primary reason I joined Key Tronic is that I felt it had excellent growth potential,” Wenninger said. “After being with the company for two months, I am even more enthusiastic about the long-term future.”

Wenninger and Hiller will preside over Key Tronic’s annual meeting Thursday at 1 p.m. at the company’s headquarters in the Spokane Valley.

, DataTimes