Harvard Bioscience Inc. Reports Operating Results (10-Q)

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May 07, 2010
Harvard Bioscience Inc. (HBIO, Financial) filed Quarterly Report for the period ended 2010-03-31.

Harvard Bioscience Inc. has a market cap of $124.1 million; its shares were traded at around $4.19 with a P/E ratio of 17.6 and P/S ratio of 1.4. HBIO is in the portfolios of Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies LLC, Chuck Royce of Royce& Associates.

Highlight of Business Operations:

Revenues increased $7.2 million, or 37.9%, to $26.3 million for the three months ended March 31, 2010 compared to $19.1 million for the same period in 2009. Our Denville Scientific subsidiary, which we acquired on September 2, 2009, contributed approximately $5.7 million to first quarter 2010 revenues. The effect of a weakened U.S. dollar increased the Companys first quarter revenues by $0.7 million, or 3.7%, compared with the same period in 2009. Adjusting for the effect of foreign currency fluctuation and excluding Denville, revenues were up $0.8 million, or 4.3%, year-to-year and reflected organic growth across our Harvard Apparatus, Biochrom and electrophoresis businesses.

Cost of product revenues increased $3.9 million, or 39.9%, to $13.5 million for the three months ended March 31, 2010 compared with $9.7 million for the three months ended March 31, 2009. The increase in cost of product revenues included $3.6 million attributable to our Denville Scientific subsidiary and $0.4 million from the currency effect of a weaker U.S. dollar, which were partially offset by the effects of cost reductions related to our operational improvement initiatives. Gross profit as a percentage of revenues decreased to 48.6% for the three months ended March 31, 2010 compared with 49.3% for the same period in 2009. The decrease in gross profit as a percentage of revenues was primarily due to the impact of Denville Scientific, which has lower gross margins than our overall average margin. First quarter 2010 gross margin as a percentage of revenues, excluding Denville, was 51.7%, which reflected the effects of operational improvement initiatives completed during 2009, ongoing cost improvement efforts and a more favorable sales mix in the first quarter of 2010 compared with the first quarter of 2009.

Sales and marketing expenses increased $1.4 million, or 60.5%, to $3.8 million for the three months ended March 31, 2010 compared with $2.4 million for the three months ended March 31, 2009. This increase was primarily due to expenses from our recently acquired Denville Scientific subsidiary of $1.1 million, increased marketing efforts in all of our businesses and a $0.1 million adverse impact of currency exchange rates.

General and administrative expenses increased $0.9 million, or 28.5%, to $4.3 million for the three months ended March 31, 2010 compared with $3.3 million for the three months ended March 31, 2009. The year-to-year quarterly increase was primarily due to $0.3 million of expenses related to our Denville subsidiary acquisition, a $0.2 million increase in stock compensation expense, $0.1 million from the effect of foreign exchange and a $0.3 million increase in other general and administrative areas combined.

Other income and expense, net, was $0.2 million expense and $0.1 million income for the three months ended March 31, 2010 and 2009, respectively. Net interest expense was $0.1 million for the three months ended March 31, 2010 compared to net interest expense of $38,000 for the three months ended March 31, 2009. The increase in net interest expense was primarily due to higher average debt balances in the first quarter of 2010 compared to the first quarter of 2009. Other income, net, also included foreign exchange losses of $26,000 for the three months ended March 31, 2010 and foreign exchange gains of $0.1 million for the three months ended March 31, 2009. These exchange gains and losses were primarily the result of currency fluctuations on intercompany transactions between our subsidiaries.

The Company ended the first quarter of 2010 with cash and cash equivalents of $17.0 million compared to $16.6 million at December 31, 2009. As of March 31, 2010 and December 31, 2009, the Company had $11.8 million and $13.3 million, respectively, outstanding under its credit facility. The borrowings under the credit facility are related to our acquisition of Denville Scientific. Total cash and equivalents, net of debt, was $5.2 million and $3.3 million at March 31, 2010 and December 31, 2009, respectively.

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