Itron shares climb after earnings news

NEW YORK — Shares of Itron Inc. jumped 20 percent Wednesday after the Spokane-based maker of meter-reading systems said a jump in hardware revenue boosted fourth-quarter results above Wall Street’s expectations.

The stock rose $4.39 to close at $25.89 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

Tuesday, after the financial markets closed, Itron posted a net loss of $6.8 million, or 32 cents a share, for the quarter, compared with a narrower loss of $1.6 million, or 8 cents a share, a year ago.

However, the latest results included acquisition and restructuring charges.

Excluding charges, the company said it would have reported profit of 41 cents a share, beating the average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson First Call by a penny a share.

Revenue for the latest quarter rose to $116.2 million from $69.2 million.

In July, the company completed its acquisition of Schlumberger Ltd.’s electricity metering-products business for $248 million.

First Albany analyst Sanjay Shrestha upgraded his rating on Itron to “strong buy” from “buy,” said an improving end-market outlook, strong product integration, and industry positioning should propel solid earnings for the company in 2005.

JPMorgan analyst Paul Coster, who noted the company only had $11.6 million of cash on hand at the end of the quarter, said Itron has paid down $185 million of debt from the Schlumberger acquisition.

The analyst also said he was encouraged by positive cash flow from operations of $24.5 million, compared with a negative cash flow of $6 million a year earlier.