New Britain hand- and power-tools maker Stanley Black & Decker said its second-quarter profits soared about 21.3 percent mainly due to new business and recent acquisitions.
For the three months ended June 30, Stanley posted net income of $356.3 million, or $2.37 a diluted share, up from $293.6 million, or $1.93 a diluted share, in the year-ago period, as it overcame $110 million in tariffs and currency headwinds, said CEO and president James M. Loree.
Net sales totaled $3.76 billion, up approximately 3 percent vs. $3.64 billion in the second quarter of 2018, as both profits and sales beat Wall Street expectations. Stanley’s shares climbed 2.1 percent in premarket trading following the earnings release Tuesday morning.
Stanley affirmed its full-year earnings outlook in the range of $8.50 to $8.70 per share.
Stanley’s tools and storage business reported revenue of $2.62 billion, up 2 percent from $2.56 billion in the year-ago period. Its industrial sales also rose 13 percent to almost $650 million, and its security segment declined 3 percent to $485.4 million in sales.
Despite the decline in security sales, Donald Allan Jr., Stanley’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, said he’s still bullish about the business moving forward.
“We are encouraged by some early signs that point to the value creation potential of our targeted commercial investments in electronic security and we expect they will begin to positively impact organic growth in the second half of 2019 and beyond,” Allan said.
During the quarter, Stanley announced plans to build a Texas factory to house its new manufacturing technologies and processes being designed in Hartford to benefit its Craftsman line of mechanics’ tools.
The 425,000-square-foot plant in Fort Worth, Texas, is expected to employ about 500 full-time workers when it debuts in late 2020.
