L&P Reports Powerful 2Q Sales and Earnings

Leggett & Platt (Carthage, Mo.), diversified manufacturer that includes retail's largest store fixture producer, reported that sales for the second quarter 2002 were the company's second-highest quarterly totals ever and up 7.7 percent from the same quarter in 2001.

Earnings per share rose 40 percent.

In the company's Commercial Fixturing & Components division, total sales decreased 2.7 percent, with increases from acquisitions more than offset by a 7.6 percent reduction in organic sales.

“We are very pleased with our second quarter results,” said chairman and ceo Felix Wright. “The recovery continues to be slow to arrive in the industrial and capital goods sectors, affecting our Commercial Fixturing & Components, Aluminum Products, and Specialized Products segments. We are positioned to benefit further from sustained economic recovery.”

For the third quarter of 2002, the company says it has assumed total sales will be roughly unchanged from those of the second quarter. It said it expects seasonal sales increases in Residential Furnishings and Commercial Fixturing & Components to be offset by seasonal declines in Aluminum Products sales. “Third quarter earnings will be negatively impacted (versus second quarter) by raw material price increases and non-recurrence of the second quarter's benefit from Canadian lumber duty,” it asserted.